I got a mailer this weekend from the Close It Coalition, “with the proud sponsorship of PG&E”. The Close It Coalition is PG&E’s front group arguing against putting new peaker plants in San Francisco.

The mailer’s pretty disingenuous: it implies that the peakers would be built in place of the Hunters Point plant, which has been shut down for more that a year, and is being dismantled as I write this. Its image still graces the Left in SF masthead, though.

The San Francisco Board of Education will be meeting on Tuesday, April 8. The meeting is scheduled at 6 p.m. at 555 Franklin Street.

You can hear the meeting live on KALW at 91.5 FM or listen via livestream at KALW Livestream. You can also see the meeting online via Channel 26 at Click Here. Click on SFGTV and not SFGTV2.

1. Adoption of K-8 Mathematics Curriculum, Beginning in 2008-09 School Year

2. Hearing of the Initial Proposal from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 1021 to the San Francisco Unified School District. SEIU 1021 represents the janitors, school secretaries, clerks, nutrition workers and other important members of SFUSD’s team.

It’s almost certainly baseless speculation, but rumors are starting to percolate that Lawrence Lessig, who’s made a name for himself fighting for free access to information, may run for Tom Lantos’s old seat in the June special election.

Lawrence Lessig has apparently bought ‘change-congress.com.’ A ‘Draft Lessig’ group is forming on Facebook, featuring some of Lessig’s old co-workers at Harvard and Jimmy Wales, among others. No word from Lessig himself yet, but he’s been increasingly vocal about politics of late. If it happens, it would be a huge step forward for the representation of technology in Washington.

I’m skeptical, but it would be a very interesting race, possibly bringing to the surface a lot of the public access and freedom of information issues that have been swirling around under the surface of technology politics. Representation of technological concerns has been pretty limited to corporate lobbyists advocating for things like more H1B visas and fewer shareholder lawsuits. Only recently have issues like net neutrality had significant public advocacy. A Lessig run could raise some of these issues.

How well does San Francisco’s city government monitor the former government services that it allows to be privatized? Does its monitoring practices imitate that of Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, or Maine…that is, none at all?

That alarmed question, among others, came up while reading the recent Progressive States Network (PSN) report on privatization. Privatizing In The Dark: The Pitfalls of Privatization & Why Budget Disclosure Is Needed, with a 50-State Comparison Of Privatization Trends made me feel as if privatization was to government health what deliberate bleeding of “bad blood” was to curing bodily illness.

The meeting began 20 minutes late with Commissioner Yee absent.

1. The Board of Education approved the tentative agreement with SEIU 1021 who represent the majority of the classified workers. Maria Eilench noted that it was a hard fight with a 14 hour debate at the end. Mary Sanders thanked the Board and District, and reminded them that the first school worker that a child sees is SEIU member (the school secretary) and the last person that a child sees in a school as they leave for the day is a SEIU member (the school janitor).

1. Verizon Foundation - Building More Literate Communities, (800) 360-7955, Fax: (908) 630-2660, Verizon.Foundation@Verizon.com, http://foundation.verizon.com/02008.shtml

Application Deadline: November 30, 2007

Award Amount: $5000 to $10,000 each

Eligible Applicants: Nonprofit organizations; public and private elementary and secondary schools; and governmental units.

Focus of Interest: Grants support programs in literacy; domestic violence; and technology for healthcare and healthcare accessibility. Funding for literacy is designed to empower teachers, volunteers, parents, caregivers and students of all ages with the tools to advance literacy development. Domestic violence grants fund programs that move women from domestic violence shelters to the workplace. Grants for programs that focus on technology for healthcare and healthcare accessibility aim to support innovative technologies that enhance the efficiency and delivery of healthcare services, and improve access to information and services through technologies that address the needs of persons with disabilities.

The Board of Education’s Buildings, Grounds and Services Committee recommended at the meeting on 8/23/07 that children in schools near the Hunters Point be tested with their parents’ permission for toxics connected with the Lennar construction project at Hunters Point.

The recommendation was not voted on by the committee. But President Sanchez noted that the item will be introduce as an informational item during the BOE’s first meeting in September. At that time, Trisha Bascom, director of health programs will provide the BOE the budget numbers for testing students at Malcolm X, Bret Harte and George Washington Carver elementary schools. These schools are closest to the Hunters Point shipyard.

This is from the 07-08 SFUSD Budget’s Appendix C. Enrollment data are from SFUSD’s Proposed 2007-08 budget. This does not take account of the 2% cut that each school will be receiving.

School/06-07 Budget/07-08 Budget/Gain-Loss of Budget/Gain-Loss of Students

From the Housing Rights Committee’s Sara Shortt comes this list of ways youy can support public housing residents this week (starting in about 20 minutes):

For the Josh Wolf obsessives in our readership, I bring you news that a bill’s been introduced that would protect bloggers as members of the media, more or less.

Bloggers engaged in journalistic pursuits would be granted immunity from divulging confidential sources under a new bill pending in both chambers of Congress.

An updated version of the Free Flow of Information Act (PDF), introduced earlier this week, gives a more expansive definition to the concept of a “covered person” under the law than any of Congress’ previous attempts at so-called “reporter’s shield” legislation.