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Scene & Herd In San Francisco, Ver. 2.0

Last September I began Scene & Herd In San Francisco by noting that

my wife, Helene, and I are house-sitting in San Francisco, a wonderful, quirky city but also home pond to Nancy Pelosi and other odd ducks. Following are a few random sightings and quotes that provide a small whiff of the atmosphere here....

Well, having watched our daughter Jessie get her PhD at Caltech, Helene and I are back in San Francisco, house-sitting again for our friend who very considerately left town at just the right time for us. Since Pelosiland remains just as weird as ever, I thought I would again pass along another gem or two that ?provide a small whiff of the atmosphere here.?

?Streets are for the people?

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted, 8-3, a few days ago to defeat a proposed ordinance ?that would make it illegal to sit or lie on public sidewalks during certain hours.?

The idea sprang from frustrated residents and merchants in the Haight-Ashbury who are fed up with people congregating in front of their homes and businesses, menacing passersby.

Critics, including homeless advocates and civil rights organizations, said the proposal would unfairly criminalize day laborers and homeless people.

Supervisor Bevan Duffy, a ?moderate? by San Francisco standards and a candidate for mayor in 2011,

parted from the board's moderate voting bloc on this proposal, saying he could not support something ''that on its face is going to have to be selectively enforced. ... I've got to believe that we can do better than this law and do something that's more meaningful for the public.''

He is calling for the creation of a court that focuses on inebriants.

Since a panel of the Ninth Circuit has held that a state law preventing felons from voting has a disparate impact on blacks and is thus unconstitutional (as discussed by Roger Clegg and Sharon Browne in an excellent Los Angeles Times OpEd) a few days ago), wouldn?t such a special court for ?inebriants? be found unconstitutional (at least by the Ninth Circuit) if it turns out that blacks, Hispanics, and the homeless are disproportionately drunk?

?$800,000 to define ?major service change??

?Believe it or not,?

Believe it or not, BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] is spending $800,000 to come up with a definition of just what constitutes a "major service change."

My advice? Believe it.

It turns out, however, that San Francisco is not always responsible for all of its wackiness.

It all started a few months back when the Federal Transit Administration nixed $70 million in stimulus money that would have helped BART build a people-mover line from the Coliseum Station to Oakland International Airport.

The feds said BART hadn?t considered what impact possible higher fares and a ?major service change? would have on low-income, minority and limited-English-speaking riders.

The oversight amounted to a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and could jeopardize more than $100 million in future funding for the airport line, plus other projects.

So, BART set about to define ?major service change.?

First: 17 public meetings all over the Bay Area to identify the low-income, minority and limited-English-speaking riders they needed to hear from.

That meant hiring a consultant at a cost of about $100,000 to organize the meetings and issue a 28-page ?public participation plan.?

To make sure everyone was heard, BART had to provide foreign language translators ? with a minimum of two for every language spoken.

At one meeting in Richmond, a dozen translators speaking six languages were on hand, at a cost of about $7,200.

Once BART officials decided whom they should talk with, they had to actually talk with them. That meant another 18 community meetings ? now under way ? at which riders are being asked their opinion of what constitutes a major service change. That means more consultants and yet another report ? and another $200,000 in costs.

Toss in room rentals, day care for riders? kids at the meetings, food and other extras, and the final bill is expected to run about $800,000.

So, what sort of definition of ?major service change? do you get for $800,000? ?[T]entatively, it?s any change in routes that affects 25 percent of its service.?

I think we need a ?major service change? in both Washington and Sacramento, and that advice won?t cost anybody a dime.

Full post as published by Discriminations on June 16, 2010 (boomark / email).