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Is there no limit to the hypocrisy spouted by our local politicians? Did you read about the recent resolutions introduced by Supervisor Aaron Peskin at both the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), which he chairs, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors calling on state legislators to give government officials the right to review the confidential business data of Uber and Lyft? The reason for this nosiness is because the rideshare companies are allegedly causing traffic congestion in The City. The resolution, which was authored by Peskin and co-sponsored at the Board of Supervisors by Supervisor Sandra Fewer, argues that access to the trip data is necessary so government bureaucrats can study it and figure out what to do about traffic congestion. Peskin is unhappy that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has the data from Uber and Lyft but will not share it with the public or the bureaucrats. According to Mayor Lee, “I think asking for data is good, and that data should inform us how to relieve that (traffic) congestion.”

In the first place, while 100% transparency is necessary for good government, in the voluntary economy, its’s a completely different matter. In order for healthy competition to occur between firms in the same industry, companies’ business data should be kept confidential and regarded as sacred and proprietary—and definitely none of the government’s business. The CPUC granted confidentiality of trip data to Uber and Lyft so each company would not get a competitive edge on the other. “Asking” for data might sound harmless, but where government officials are involved, they “ask” first, then demand, and then quickly move on to threats, fines, and penalties the moment compliance doesn’t occur.

Secondly, if the politicians are that concerned about the gridlock occurring in The City, they need to look at their own programs rather than looking for scapegoats. With the relentless rolling out of Plan Bay Area, it should be rather obvious that the continual removing of traffic lanes and parking spaces increases gridlock. For years now, the streets in one neighborhood after another are being quietly redesigned, and the end results are always less driving lanes for motorists and more bike lanes for bicyclists, along with bulb outs and wider sidewalks for pedestrians. The recent construction began a few months ago on Van Ness Avenue between Mission and Lombard to build bus traffic lanes in the middle of Highway 101 will probably improve mass transit—though no guarantee with the ever- unreliable MUNI—along that corridor. However, this will come at a cost of removing 2 out of 6 lanes of traffic for passenger cars. Where will the cars go? They’re not going to magically disappear, as the bureaucrats hope. Most likely they will end up on other less crowded streets or possibly that other major thoroughfare through The City—19th Avenue, which already handles thousands of cars every day. As anyone who ever attended Plan Bay Area public hearings for “input” can testify, the outcomes were pre-determined and contrary viewpoints are politely listened to—and then ignored. The fact of the matter is that the politicians and their cronies decided years ago that people should give up their cars and walk, ride, or take public transit. If a little nudging won’t do it, then perhaps making driving in The City more miserable might do the trick. As always, this is all by design.

While it should come as no surprise to politicians why traffic is getting worse, something else irks them no end. They not only prefer that folks give up riding in their own cars—they don’t want people riding in any cars. Uber and Lyft have proven to be wildly popular with consumers who need to get around, much to the dismay of the politicians. Hence the endless “requests” for driver data from the ridesharing companies. Peskin has said that transportation officials from the SFMTA and the SFCTA believe the surge of Uber and Lyft drivers may be impacting the congestion but “we need to back up the anecdotal experiences citywide.” The real motivation behind this sudden concern about traffic is contained in Peskin’s resolution as he cites a drop in BART ridership to SFO due to Uber and Lyft and also that having ridesharing companies draws people away from public transportation in general. Imagine that! Folks having access to all this wonderful government transportation but still preferring to use evil private (voluntary) services instead. Peskin and his henchmen need to get hold of more data to stop this outrage!

As we approach Tax Day, when millions of taxpayers deal with our convoluted tax laws, many San Francisco parents have more than taxes on their minds. This is the time of year when the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) mails out the school assignment letters to anxious parents awaiting the results of the government school lottery system. Many a hope realized or dashed rests on that single envelope received in the mail from the school district. This is not just an esoteric issue, but one that strikes at the core of things—the family budget. If the parents are lucky and get assigned to one of their schools of choice, they will save anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 per year per child if they send their children to government schools.

And yet, despite the huge financial benefit of sending their kids to government schools, why do so many San Francisco parents choose private schools? Why is the percentage of families with school-age children choosing private schools over government schools so much higher in San Francisco (36%) than statewide (9%) or even a major city like New York (20%)? What factors are at work here that would turn off folks who would prefer not to have their kids in elitist schools for the rich? Why are new private schools popping up like wildflowers in San Francisco, of all places?

These are the private schools that have opened in San Francisco in the last 8 years: Proof School (7th – 12th grades and $35,000/year), Golden Bridge School (K-8 and $13,000/year), Alt School (K-8 and $19,100/year), LePort School (Pre-K to 8), Presidio Knolls (K-8 and $23,500/year), Brightworks (K-8 and $23,920/year), La Scuola (K-8 and $25,000/year), San Francisco Schoolhouse (K-8 and $10,000/year), Alta Vista (K-8 and $22,000/year), Marin Prep (K-8 and $22,070/year), Stratford School (K-8 and $16,220/year), and Millennium School (6th – 8th grades and $31,000/year). We’ll add in Live Oaks (K-8 and $23,500/year), which has been around for ages but is now doubling enrollment “to meet increasing demand” and dubs itself “The private school for public school parents.” Just why is there so much demand?

No issue has been more contentious in recent years than how the SFUSD has handled the new Common Core mathematics curriculum. Algebra has been taught in middle school for ages, but because so many San Francisco middle schoolers have done so poorly at it, it is not even taught until high school anymore. Parents whose children didn’t do well with Algebra are OK with postponing it until the 9th grade, but for families eyeing college and looking ahead, this is a complete disaster. For one thing, the bright kids who are math proficient are held back from moving on to the next level and are basically “doing time” until high school. Furthermore, they are encouraged to help tutor their struggling contemporaries. While there is merit in picking up teaching experience as a middle school student and most San Francisco parents are not philosophically opposed to the compassionate angle of helping those less able than themselves, the cold hard fact is that it’s a competitive world out there and wasting a year in middle school will do nothing to improve the able students’ chances of getting into the college of their choice. Not to mention that if a student doesn’t take Algebra until the 9th grade, he/she is now a year behind in mathematics and won’t get to Calculus until the senior year, but most colleges making their decisions for admissions look at the junior year and before, so a Calculus course taken so late will put all such students at risk. True, parents who can afford it, can and will send their kids for private tutoring to catch up on their math skills, but what about those parents who can’t afford to pay for supplemental courses to make up for lost time? Summer school is often mentioned as an option, but for a school district that squanders its money on diversity training and environmental gardens, don’t count on the funding to be there for summer school if high school students start failing the “compression” option (take two difficult mathematics courses in either the junior or senior year to make it through the full Calculus sequence) chosen by the school district.

Even with Common Core, there were other options for teaching math, and the school district could have complied with the curriculum without writing off the most able students. It could have easily supported numerous high-level demanding magnet schools devoted to math and science for those who wanted them, but instead it quietly did away with all the honors math programs in the schools that did offer it. Indeed not very smart for a city full of high tech workers whose offspring might have innate math and science abilities in their genes. Furthermore, rather than force all 8th graders to wait until high school to take Algebra, why didn’t they show enough flexibility in their approach to allow those more advanced students to take it in the 8th grade? Just because so many of the students were so behind in their math skills, does that mean that a one-size-fits-all approach is best for everyone? Is it any wonder that several of the new schools listed above are geared toward accelerated learners with more emphasis on math and science?

The real issue here is the attitude and focus of the SFUSD. It’s all about equity and fairness and a matter of social justice. Why should some students do better than others just because they come from richer homes or more nurturing families? The practice of tracking and segregating students based on ability is a no-no because it might make the less able students feel like failures. We all know that government schools, by law, must accommodate all children once they become of school age, so clearly that will include many children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and many children learning English as a second language. That poses many challenges for government schools and explains why their academic scores can never compete with private schools. Nevertheless why ignore the bright ones and deny them the education they deserve? This is a complete slap in the face to the more financially comfortable families that pay the property taxes that fund the government schools and then have the GATE and honors programs discreetly ended for their children? One parent who toured a government school for her 4-year old who could already read was told that she could tutor other students still learning to read; she ended up in a private school because her mother felt there would be very little challenge for her with so few children at her level. Another parent reported that when her daughter applied at Lowell, the application was filled with an unsettling emphasis on hard luck life experiences, as if she were applying for disability. She also noted that when she toured another government school and asked about challenging her daughter with math, the teacher looked down her nose superiorly and informed her that it was wrong to give any child any opportunity all children didn’t receive and she would never let any kid do more advanced work than the others. That would be reason enough to pass up that school and find out why that teacher wasn’t fired right on the spot.

We will leave the last word about the dismal state of government schools to outspoken filmmaker Michael Moore, of all people. If anyone should be for government schools, it ought to be him, but he chose to put his daughter in a private school. When asked why, he said, “Our daughter is not the one to be sacrificed to make things better.”

This past Valentine’s Day, while most people were busy sending valentines, flowers, and chocolates to their loved ones, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors were dreaming about what they love the most—more taxes. Seven of the eleven supervisors (Peskin, Fewer, Ronen, Kim, Yee, Safai, and Cohen) voted for Resolution No. File 170161, which urged the California state legislature to amend the Revenue and Taxation Code to allow local California jurisdictions to collect personal and corporate income taxes as a “sustained source of funding for transportation and public health priorities.” The resolution cites AB1690 introduced by then-State Assemblyman Mark Leno in 2003 (which thankfully died in committee) as a model for this latest effort “to look for progressive revenue sources…in a menu of options.” And we’re not talking about chump change here—they want a full 10% of an individual’s state income tax liability. That’s on top of the federal income tax and the California state income tax, which at 13.3% is the highest rate in the entire country. Triple taxation!

The reasons cited for the necessity of this new tax are the threatened loss of federal funding due to Sanctuary City policies and the intended repeal of Obamacare. Is the loss of federal funding serious enough to The City’s budget to require two new taxes? What will become of President Trump’s executive order to identify funds the federal government can withhold to punish Sanctuary Cities? Will Obamacare be repealed and not replaced? Why don’t the politicians consider cutting costs when confiscations are down?

First let’s take a serious look at the cutting of federal funding to Sanctuary Cities. Regardless of what the President says, cutting off federal funds is not as easy as it sounds. The first problem is that it’s unconstitutional to use federal funds to force local government agencies to cooperate with the federal government. The second problem is that the President’s power to withhold federal funding is limited without the help of Congress. There are three federally funded programs all administered by the Department of Justice that could be blocked without Congress’ approval: The Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program (JAG), the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), and the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAPP). However, since the President’s executive order included language protecting federal grants “deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary,” it might not be so easy to block even these three grant programs. Furthermore, to maintain funding, jurisdictions must be in compliance with U.S. Code 1373, which says that state and local governments can’t forbid employees from sharing information regarding the citizenship or immigration status of any person. The Department of Justice could block the grants without Congressional approval, but it must first refer each jurisdiction’s case to the non-partisan Office of the Inspector General, and because over 300 jurisdictions have Sanctuary City policies, it’s a typical convoluted government process that could take months or even years for approval before actual fund-cutting occurs. In actuality, many of the Sanctuary Cities are already in compliance with U.S. Code 1373, so it might not even make sense for the Trump Administration to waste resources on this effort. The federal government could issue new regulations redefining what “compliance” with 1373 is, but even that would necessitate a 30-day public response period and numerous challenges in court. It seems apparent that even President Trump for all his bluster would take a long time—possibly years—before being able to actually cut any of the federal funding.

As for Obamacare, anyone following the hot air rising in Washington should be able to see that it’s not going away anytime soon. For years the Republicans have railed that it must be repealed, but now that they’re in control of both houses, they’re getting cold feet. Some Republicans are now cautioning against moving too fast to dismantle the current system without something better to replace it. There is absolutely no consensus on the replacement, which became especially obvious recently when Republican lawmakers had to shelve legislation that would have dismantled Obamacare due to a lack of supporting votes. Most certainly the Republicans do not want to get blamed for widespread disruption in health insurance coverage. Furthermore, despite the general unpopularity of Obamacare, some parts of it, like coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing “children” 25 or younger to remain on their parents’ policy, have gone over well with the voting public, so any replacement plan would have to retain those features or offer something similar. The Republicans are petrified that if people start losing coverage, the media will spring into action with gut-wrenching stories about cancer victims or disabled people suddenly losing coverage. Most Republicans lack the backbone to actually get rid of Obamacare and replace it with more market-based approaches like tax credits (not deductions) for individuals for healthcare costs and getting rid of the restriction on selling insurance across state lines, which would greatly increase the types of plans available and lower costs. Getting rid of Obamacare’s thousands of pages of rules would also be a good place to start, but the recent effort by the Republicans did not even attempt that. In short, Obamacare—or something very similar to it—will be with us for the foreseeable future.

So that brings us back to the question of why additional taxes need to be levied in San Francisco when there is no immediate or even short-term chance of major funding cuts from the federal government. There is no impending “crisis”—the leaders of “The Resistance” are just using it as yet another excuse for increased taxes and more bloated government. They have no shame.

City Hall, aka “The Man”, never had the warmest relationship with the hippies who were questioning their authority, violating their rules, etc., and this fact was demonstrated again yesterday. Political appointees on SF’s Recreation and Parks Commission backed the decision of department staff to deny a permit to a promoter seeking to hold a free festival in Golden Gate Park to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the legendary “Summer of Love”, the 1967 apex in San Francisco of the mid-1960s to early 1970s countercultural revolution.

According to the SF Examiner (Friday Feb. 17), the grinch-like commisars were dissatisfied with what department permit director Dana Ketchum said were promoter Boots Hughston’s alleged lack of “security, police and medical plans” for the event planned to be held June 4 in the Polo Field. No word on why “security” and “police” were listed as two separate items. If the police are not there to provide security, what would they be there for? To provide some period atmosphere by making oinking noises at attendees, or posing for photos wearing pig masks?

“Rec and Park turns down request due to concerns about safety”, read the Examiner’s subhead. But that’s taking the bureaucrats’ justification at face value. If it’s an official dignitary visiting, or a high-profile sporting event like football’s Super Bowl or the America’s Cup yacht race, the City government seems to bend over backward to be accommodating, spending taxpayer money freely to make the event happen. But apparently no such luck if you just want to throw a free celebration for the people in commemoration of some history the authorities would probably secretly prefer to forget.

Do you ever wonder what sets legislators’ hearts aflutter? Is it a desire to pander to where the most votes are? Do they really believe that passing more laws and mandates will improve the lot of the masses? Do they ever consider that their constant attempts to “help” will actually backfire and hurt those who are supposed to be helped the most? Do they really believe that force—backed by the heavy hand of government—will make this a more civil society?

The latest attempt by California State Assembly Members to tell California employers how to run their businesses is AB-5, the Opportunity to Work Act, which was introduced in Sacramento on December 5, 2016. This latest in an unending series of laws to micromanage the relations between employees and employers would require all California employers of 10 or more to offer additional hours of work to an existing nonexempt employee (by law must be paid overtime) before hiring an additional employee or subcontractor. Of course there’s more: the employer would be required to post a notice of employee “rights” and also the requirement of additional documentation proving compliance.

Needless to say, this latest intrusion in the hiring process will do little to improve relations between employees and employers, but it will help to increase labor costs in California and be one more reason to set up shop elsewhere. First of all, the law assumes that employers are silly enough to incur unnecessary (and not insignificant) recruitment costs by looking for green pastures outside the company when they have more qualified workers in-house. This doesn’t make much sense, especially since in the “real” world, most employers are looking to keep costs low so they can lower their prices to their customers to be competitive. The only reason they would look to the outside is because they don’t have in-house employees with the necessary skills or expertise to get the job done. In an increasingly specialized workplace, it is unrealistic to assume that all jobs are easily interchangeable. It is also unrealistic to think that government bureaucrats—many of whom have never worked outside of government—would have knowledge enough of the particulars of a business to make a judgement call as to who would be the best person to get the job done.

Secondly the law would add to the already contentious environment that California businesses face by encouraging the not-the-cream-of-the-crop employees in their organizations to run to the government, file complaints against the hands that feed them with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement Police in the Department of Industrial Relations, or bring civil lawsuits against their employers. What business is it of the employees to dictate who, what when, or why their employer hires other employees? They were hired to do a particular job at a voluntarily agreed upon rate of pay dictating the pay, benefits, hours, and working conditions, and if something changes within the organization that rubs the employee the wrong way, they should just move on. Encouraging busybodyism, as this bill does, is not one of the proper functions of government.

Yet another aspect of this outrageous bill is, “An employer shall use a transparent and nondiscriminatory process to distribute the additional hours of work among existing employees.” They make it sound like who’s going to take out the trash this week. In the real world, skills and effort really do count, so of course it would be perfectly logical to “discriminate” and “distribute” additional hours to your best employees, not everyone equally. If some urgent orders come in unexpectedly and someone’s going to need to work extra hours to get them out, of course you’re going to choose your best employees to work extra, not your marginal employees. You would be wasting company money if you did otherwise. By trying to force employers to act as if all workers were created equal—that’s a slap in the face to those employees who produce the most.

Lastly there are the additional posting of signs and paperwork burden that accompany AB-5. OK, the signs won’t cost that much—and nobody will read them anyway—but the real problems are the soft costs of complying with this proposed law. Per Section 559 (e), “An employer shall retain all of the following:

(1) For any new hire of an employee or subcontractor, documentation that the employer offered additional hours of work to existing employees prior to hiring the new employee or subcontractor

(2) Work schedules of all employees

(3) If applicable, the written statement of an employee pursuant to subdivision (k) (welfare-to-work person can opt out)

(4) Any other records or documents that the division requires the employer to maintain to demonstrate compliance with this section.”

So every time an employee or subcontractor is hired, an employer must document that the company offered the additional work to be done to the current employees. This sounds to us like the existing employees must “sign off” that it’s OK to hire from the outside—they grant their employer “permission.” Suppose the employee does not agree to hire a new employee and requests the additional work him/herself. This would create disruption in the workplace as the employee’s skills may not be a good fit for the job functions required. Indeed the employee may be getting in over his/her head and may be doomed for failure—a situation that makes everyone worse off.

Again we marvel at how those in Sacramento feel they know better how to micromanage all businesses in the state (with 10 or more employees) simply by passing a law. This particular bit of top-down legislation is yet another feel-good attempt to pander to employees (and not always the best ones) to “help” them. The better way to “help” would be to loosen up regulations so employees unhappy with their employers can start a business of their own, rather than setting them up for failure with their current employers. Also since busybody politicians are always interested in “creating” more jobs, we find this bill to be particularly hypocritical since it would make it harder to hire new employees. But then again it’s apparent that the politicians have no consistent agenda to increase individual liberty, but rather just pass laws with nice-sounding names that make it worse for everyone. We hope Busybody Bill AB-5 dies a deserving death in committee in Sacramento.

Like the blob, beware the rollout of CleanPowerSF (CPSF)! It’s coming to your neighborhood soon. Recently service was rolled out to 7,400 commercial customers in the Bayview, Haight, and Castro neighborhoods, and they just added in residents in districts 5 and 8. There is another major rollout planned for this spring.

The history of this not insignificant change in service providers actually goes back to 2002 when state legislators passed Assembly Bill 117, which was ironically heralded by its proponents as the Community Choice Law. Otherwise known as a CCA (Community Choice Aggregation program), the law allowed any city or county to supply its own power to its residents, businesses, and municipal facilities in a “community wide electricity buyers’ program.” In 2007 San Francisco formed CPSF’s 2007 Implementation Plan with the ambitious goals of building 210 megawatts of in-city energy efficiency and new renewable generation capacity and a 150 megawatt regional wind facility, as well as reaching a 51% renewable energy portfolio within 10 years. Two factions of government bureaucrats have been battling each other for a decade on how to accomplish these goals. CPSF is administered by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) and monitored by the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Committee (LAFCo), which was most recently chaired by former Supervisor John Avalos. The SFPUC—hardly an ensemble of liberty-leaning officials—at least seems to have been more cautious about what is basically a government takeover of PG&E’s electricity grid, while San Francisco LAFCo officials are 100% gung-ho for the rollout—no matter what the cost is. While of course climate change, the carbon footprint, and “clean” energy are all part of the implicit motivation for getting CPSF off the ground, there’s more at work here: the evil “P” word must be removed from the mix. Paul Fern, the Grand Poobah of the clean power movement in California who was instrumental in getting AB117 passed, has advised the San Francisco LAFCo, “It’s about moving away from a 19th century model—the Rockefeller model to maximize profits. It’s about managing demands, not profits, because the program is owned by customers. It’s about democratization, not just clean power.”

What really irks us about CPSF more than anything is the way the bureaucrats are implementing it with their opting-in shenanigan. Otherwise known as “slamming” when companies in the voluntary sector do it, but somehow when government officials do it, it becomes part of a Community “Choice” Aggregation program and it is now government-blessed. When a community signs on to a CCA, all of the customers are automatically enrolled in the new program. No one asks you if you prefer CPSF or PG&E—the default is the government-owned and run utility. On the Sonoma Clean Power website (similar arrangement CCA with everyone opted in) in FAQ, to the question why have I been opted in without my consent, the smug answer is that the state mandated that everyone be opted in, plus PG&E is a monopoly anyway and they never asked you if you wanted to be their customer. Of course AB117 was specifically designed by those who are foisting government electricity on us, and they knew that slamming everyone in would give the CCA’s an expected advantage over staying with PG&E. The “Choice” part of a CCA is complete hypocrisy. Yes, all customers do have the option of opting out of CPSF, and CPSF claims that it will mail you four paper notices—knowing very well that most folks toss most, if not all, of their junk mail out without opening it. You can bet that most customers will have no idea that they’ve been slammed and scammed since their bills will still be from PG&E, even after the changeover. Since most consumers don’t review their bills that closely these days—if they even look at them at all—and with online bill paying and automatic debit payments, it’s likely the switch will be the opposite of transparent. Again we say this is all by design.

As to the reliability of whether the “new and improved” energy will actually be that much cleaner than PG&E energy, that remains to be seen. Originally The City contracted with Shell Energy North America in 2010 to create a program that achieved The City’s goals, and the SFPUC staff reported that the power purchased from Shell would be 100% greenhouse gas-free. However, it turned out that the Renewable Energy Certificates (REC’s) included a mix of “unbundled” credits (dirty energy from fossil fuels or other non-certified green sources). In the end, the contract with Shell was dissolved, and CPSF is now providing a base “green” package of energy that’s anywhere from 33%-50% renewable sources. At least that’s what CPSF claims. Mind you, let’s not forget that PG&E currently gets 22% of their power from nuclear sources, which is considered pretty “clean” energy, but that doesn’t count towards their 29.5% renewable score because the state doesn’t allow nuclear power to count as renewable.

Finally, what will all this cost? CPSF claims that the basic “green” package will not cost more than PG&E’s energy. But that’s only using PG&E’s transmission and distribution system. CPSF has a much more ambitious plan in store for us, which is to “build local.” It wants to start funding the construction of local renewable energy projects to “create jobs” and also boost the renewable energy supply. Even SFPUC commissioners are concerned that starting to build out could easily make CPSF’s costs—and rates—a lot higher. The City has a pretty poor track record, to say the least, of cost containment of anything it has delved into, and we see nothing but trouble ahead once CPSF has pushed out PG&E completely. That will leave San Francisco energy users with only the most expensive “choice” of all. While we’re no fan of PG&E—a government-protected monopoly—in this case, the lesser of two evils might be the better choice.