Feisty East Bay man ready to fire up Sierra Club

ALAMEDA – You could say that Michael Brune graduated to the big time in environmental politics when he learned the magical powers of the pound sign (#) and the numerals 8 and 0.

When he punched those numbers into a telephone inside a Home Depot store in Atlanta in 1999, Brune suddenly found himself in full control of the building's intercom system.

From atop this electronic bully pulpit, Brune's voice rolled across the cavernous store, reminding shoppers that Home Depot was, at the time, buying wood products from companies harvesting trees from rare and endangered old-growth rain forests.

The stunt, subsequently repeated at hundreds of other Home Depot stores over the next several months by scores of Rainforest Action Network activists, forced the building supply chain to change its purchasing practices – thus preserving some 5 million acres of rain forest in British Columbia that otherwise would have been logged. Time magazine called the unique protest the year's most important environmental victory.

It also made the then 26-year-old Brune a modern environmental folk hero.

More than a decade later, the Alameda resident who has gained a national reputation for embarrassing, shaming, cajoling and generally annoying some of America's most high-powered corporate chieftains into doing the environmental "right thing," is about to become executive director of the Sierra Club, the nation's oldest and largest environmental organization.

"I'm very excited about this opportunity," Brune said in a recent interview. "It's a big honor for me to help lead an organization that I've always admired and appreciated."

Brune, 38, takes over the reins of the organization that famed conservationist John Muir started in 1892 at a time when the club, according to some observers, has lost some of the sting in the political punches it throws.

When Brune starts on March 15, he will replace veteran Executive Director Carl Pope, who will stay on in the new role of executive chairman.

But it is exactly Brune's civil but edgy activist style – combined with his impressive string of victories against corporate environmental wrongdoing while at the Rainforest Action Network – that Sierra Club leaders said they found most appealing.

"The board was particularly impressed by Michael's (proven) talent for bending the will of powerful adversaries without breaking the bonds of civility that keep them at the table," board President Allison Chin said.

Brune, married with two small children, says his arrival doesn't signal that a sea change is about to occur within the 1.4 million-member organization.

He noted that the club, along with its virtual army of Washington, D.C.-based lawyers and lobbyists, has a proud history of originating or heavily influencing most if not all of the nation's major environmental statutes.

Author of the well-received Sierra Club 1988 book, "Coming Clean – Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal," Brune did say he plans to redouble the Sierra Club's efforts in the fight against global climate change. He said the club will push aggressively to get a clean-energy bill out of Congress before the end of 2010.

At the heart of that struggle, Brune says, lies America's continued dependence on coal-fired electricity plants – plants which currently provide an estimated 45 percent of the nation's energy but which are a major sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

Also at the top of Brune's first-year hit list is bringing an end to the coal industry's "mountaintop removal" mining practices.

Mountaintop removal, which occurs mostly in the Appalachian states, involves using an explosive charge to remove the top 300 or 400 feet of a mountain to expose a seam of coal for mining.

While federal regulations require mining companies to replace the top layer of dirt, the process destroys environmental habitat and releases toxins into the air that threaten the health of workers and local residents.

"We must replace dirty coal in this country," Brune said. "We must continue this fight until we convince our political and industry leaders that there are more economic benefits to be had by transitioning to wind power and other forms of clean energy."

Brune, who will be the club's sixth executive director in its history, says he would also like to see the club inspire a new generation, just as Muir did in the 1890s.

"We'll get to them any way that we can – through Facebook, Twitter – you name it and we'll try it," he said. "But we also have to get our kids and young people physically out there. If they don't ever see the beauty of this country's natural resources with their own eyes, they'll never really get why they need to be protected and defended."

Bay Area is ground zero for California effort to legalize pot

Editor's note: This report was first published by The Sacramento Bee on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010.
SAN FRANCISCO – It's almost a cliché these days that this city and its sister to the east, Oakland, stand as the primary incubators of some of California's infamously wacky but later transformational social and political ideas.

From the Silicon Valley to Oakland and Berkeley to the Napa Valley – if it was at first weird, untested, illegal and/or controversial, it probably got its start right here.

Now a small but determined coalition of Bay Area activists and politicos are on a mission to have California be the first state in the union to fully legalize, regulate and tax the use of marijuana – and they're approaching that goal from several different angles.

The groups began their quest by building on the foundation that the 1996 approval of Proposition 215 provided. The statewide initiative, which made California the first state in the nation to legalize medicinal marijuana, broke down many long-held views on the drug – especially in its compassionate use for cancer patients and other chronic disease sufferers.

San Francisco and Oakland were among the first to see medical pot dispensaries pop up. A whole section of Oakland's downtown has willingly taken on the nickname "Oaksterdam" (a play on the name of the capital city of the Netherlands, where pot use has been legal since the early 1970s) because of its array of dispensaries and marijuana-related products and services.

City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said a political sea change on the issue of marijuana in California began in early 2009, when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that federal drug officers no longer would target the operators or customers of legitimate medical pot dispensaries.

Then an April 2009 Field Poll showed that 56 percent of Californians now support full legalization, regulation and taxation of the drug.

"That decision plus the Field Poll has had a dramatic impact on how we look at pot in California these days," said Kaplan, who believes full legalization and regulation of marijuana is just a matter of time. State and local governments, she notes, can use the new tax revenues that pot legalization would bring. In Oakland's case, the city already collects money from legal medicinal pot businesses located there as a result of the passage of Measure J last summer.

The measure placed a special tax of $18 per $1,000 of sales on medical pot dispensaries in the city. In the process, Oakland became the first city in the nation to assess a tax on marijuana.

Now Kaplan wants to take it to next level. "It's time we take the criminal element out of the pot business," she said.

"By having local government license and regulate these grow houses, the criminal element and the irresponsible operators can be removed from the equation, which will make our cities safer." Richard Lee, president of Oaksterdam University – a vocational school for future marijuana industry entrepreneurs – likens the current environment to the 1920s and early 1930s, when the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ensured that alcohol was available only through illegal and underground "speakeasy" drinking clubs.

It wasn't until December 1933 that ratification of the 21st Amendment made alcohol consumption legal again. "Alcohol prohibition ended slowly," said Lee, who owns several other pot-related businesses in the Oaksterdam district.

Bay Area residents, in particular, are more sympathetic to legalizing pot than Californians in other parts of the state. More than 70 percent of the area's registered voters supported the idea in last year's Field Poll, more than any other region of the state.

"Maybe it harkens back to … the Summer of Love and the hippies" in 1967, Lee said.

Whatever the reason, it wasn't by mistake that Lee chose Oakland and San Francisco to be headquarters cities for his Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 initiative effort. Proponents recently filed an estimated 693,800 petition signatures to qualify the measure for the statewide ballot in the November election.

To qualify, the measure needs 433,971 valid voter signatures, officials said. If approved by the electorate, the cannabis tax measure would make limited private possession and cultivation of pot legal for those 21 and older.

It also would allow local governments to permit, regulate and tax marijuana growing operations within their jurisdictions. Lee says the measure could generate billions in new tax revenue for the state in its first year.

"We think Californians are now ready to legalize marijuana in a controlled, safe manner, which will bring whole new streams to revenue to Sacramento and to our local governments," Lee said.

The more permissive atmosphere helped Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, pass a pot legalization bill out of the Assembly Public Safety Committee recently.

If the Bay Area is ground zero for the effort to fully legalize pot, many other California communities are still struggling with issues surrounding the use of medical marijuana. One recent example occurred Jan. 26, when the Los Angeles City Council voted to shut down an estimated 80 percent of that city's 1,000 medical pot dispensaries.

Corey Cook, a University of San Francisco political science professor, said 2010 indeed may be the year that California legalizes pot and that Bay Area politicos and activists likely will be at the forefront of the effort. But he warned that political trends popular in San Francisco and the East Bay don't always sell well in more rural parts of the state.

"If this gets painted as a Haight-Ashbury vs. the rest of California thing, there's likely to be a backlash," Cook said. "On the other hand if it's promoted as a way to help a severely deficit-plagued state pay for schools and parks, then there's a chance it will succeed. "I'm going to be watching this one with great interest."

Fighting the Byzantine politics of Major League Baseball

This report was first published in The Sacramento Bee on Sunday, Jan. 10.
OAKLAND – In Doug Boxer's eyes, it's two out in the bottom of the ninth. The home team – the city of Oakland – is up to bat, and the crowd is hoping for a spectacular walk-off homer to win the game.

Only in this case, the home run will come if the Oakland Athletics stay in Oakland and abandon efforts to move the major league baseball club south to San Jose.

"This team is beloved and supported by the greater East Bay region and, yes, even by the people from San Francisco," said Boxer, vice chairman of the city's planning commission and co-founder of Let's Go Oakland! – a nonprofit group recently created to fight the team's intended move to the South Bay city.

"The A's belong nowhere else," he said. "They belong in Oakland."

Lew Wolff, co-owner and managing partner of the Athletics, says his team can no longer draw the crowds it needs to survive economically at the Oakland Coliseum, an aging, outmoded public facility that the team shares with the Oakland Raiders.

Wolff, a Los Angeles-area real estate developer, tried unsuccessfully to move the team to Fremont through much of 2008 and early 2009. Now he has set his sights on building a modern, compact, 32,000-seat ballpark on a 14-acre, city-owned parcel that's immediately adjacent to the HP Pavilion, where the San Jose Sharks hockey team plays.

If the city gives part or all of the land to the team as part of a development deal, that would trigger an ordinance requiring a referendum election to allow city voters to weigh in on the matter, officials said.

On Friday, Fremont jumped back into the competition to lure the team south when it announced that it would seek to set aside part of the soon-to-be-vacated New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant site as a new venue for a stadium for the team.

Fremont officials say that after news of the closure of the auto manufacturing plant was announced, Major League Baseball officials requested they put together a "conceptual" report for a stadium on the site. In February 2009, when Wolff walked away from Fremont, he cited the strong push-back by city residents and some business leaders who objected to the increased traffic a new stadium would generate there.

The departure of the Athletics has been a foregone conclusion for many Oakland leaders, including Mayor Ron Dellums himself in 2007.

But Boxer says renewed efforts by the mayor and City Council President Jane Brunner to appeal directly to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig have given Let's Go Oakland! and other boosters a fighting chance to convince the team it should stay in Oakland, where it has played since 1968.

In reaction to the letter, Selig formed a three-person study committee in March to review all possible sites in Oakland where the team could build a new ballpark.

While a location next to the existing Oakland Coliseum has already been examined and roundly rejected, the city is hoping that three sites on its burgeoning waterfront – two of which have yet to be studied – would make excellent places for the team to relocate.

"This city's leadership has a clear, concise and unified message for Major League Baseball: Keep the A's in Oakland," Dellums said during a news conference in early December. "This project is not solely about a baseball stadium. This is about continuing our efforts to bolster Oakland's economic future."

Boxer, the son of Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, said that like Dellums, the Let's Go Oakland effort is about appealing not to Wolff but to Selig and Major League Baseball.

The three Oakland locations are a parcel near Jefferson and Market streets known as Jack London Square North, another parcel near the small Victory Court between Oak Street and the Lake Merritt Channel, and the Howard Marine Terminal on the Oakland-Alameda estuary.

All three are within easy walking distance of Jack London Square proper and its restaurants, hotels and shops. Boxer said no public opposition has surfaced to any of the sites.

Since starting Let's Go Oakland! in early November, the organization has galvanized East Bay civic and corporate leaders, all of whom hope Selig will reject Wolff's efforts to move the team. Boxer also noted that 30,216 people have joined the group's Facebook page and that more than 7,000 fans have signed an online petition asking the league to thwart the move.

While Wolff believes the A's will have a chance to flourish on the field and at the ticket office in the more upscale South Bay market, Selig will also have to settle a simmering territorial dispute with the neighboring San Francisco Giants, who say the San Jose area falls within their marketing area. The Giants claim to have up to 1 million fans in the South Bay.

Fearing the A's could cut into that fan base and reduce the Giants' revenue, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera recently threatened to sue Major League Baseball if Selig approves Wolff's request. Herrera said the lawsuit would protect the city's financial interest in the team, which pays the city about $3.6 million a year in rent.

Team spokesman Bob Rose refused comment on the Let's Go Oakland! campaign or on the three waterfront sites.

But Wolff said in a recent USA Today report that allowing his team to move to San Jose was a matter of basic fairness.

"It's like we're being held hostage," Wolff told the newspaper. "We tried to make it work in Oakland. We exhausted everything we could in our area. It can't work. For us to compete, we've got to have revenue, and for us to get revenue we have to move to San Jose. It's that simple."

To be sure, the A's in recent years have had a tough time drawing fans. In 2009, the team finished last in attendance among the 30 major league clubs.

But Boxer says the city has strongly supported the team for the lion's share of the past four decades, during which it won four World Series, 14 American League West Division titles and six American League pennants.

He also argues that with a new stadium on the Oakland waterfront, the team would once again draw fans, which in turn would increase revenue, which in turn would allow the team to begin acquiring better on-field talent.

"I can't imagine an Oakland without the A's," Boxer said. "It's time to put our rally caps on."

Oakland's police chief hopes to make a difference

Editor's note: While this feature on new Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts isn't inherently political, whether or not Batts is able to achieve the reforms he has outlined will very much be up to Oakland's City Council and Oakland's political ruling class. I wish him the best of luck. The piece was first published by The Sacramento Bee on Jan. 3.

OAKLAND – New Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts likes to talk about a time at the Long Beach Police Department when he visited a local elementary school to make a presentation.

There he noticed an African American woman who was struggling with her young child to get him to put on a jacket.

At one point the exasperated mom pointed to Batts and told the child that Batts would take him to jail if he didn't stop fussing.

Batts, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, where the cops are often viewed as the enemy and not public guardians, says he sensed a teachable moment with the child, who now was sobbing in earnest.

"I kneeled down to that little boy and I gave him a hug," Batts said. "I told him: 'I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to protect you.' "

Now Batts, fresh off a nearly three-decade run with the Long Beach department – including seven years as its chief – is the top cop in Oakland, one of the nation's most gang- and drug-plagued cities.

But whether Batts, who was sworn in Oct. 20, can wrap his arms around the troubled city and slow some of the daily violence and bloodshed is an open question, the 49-year-old chief concedes.

"I know that many see us as coming in as some kind of occupying army," Batts said during a recent interview. "It is so important that we get beyond that. To stop this mayhem we are going to need everyone, every neighborhood, every constituency to step forward and get involved."

One of Batts' first moves was to reach out to the ranks of Oakland's clergy. That call, in turn, was warmly received by a large number of the city's faith leaders, who say they have grown heartsick presiding over the funerals of young people gunned down by gang or narcotics-trade violence.

"Chief Batts is a man of integrity and action. He knows that we need to get the guns off the street and that we need a department that puts more resources into investigating and solving our homicides than it does sideshows," said Bishop Bob Jackson of the 7,000 parishioner Acts Full Gospel Church of God in Christ, referring to the impromptu and sometimes violent car rallies where vehicles are driven in fast, tight circles.

The Rev. J. Alfred Smith Sr. of the Allen Temple Baptist Church said Batts quickly impressed him by talking about not just enforcement but also how the roots of crime in Oakland – poverty, truancy, drug abuse, education and a lack of jobs and economic opportunity – must be addressed by the community.

"He gets it. I think the chief is smart, professional and humane. I don't think the question is whether he'll succeed.

"The question is whether this city will support him," Smith said.

Both men said they worry whether the city's political class will give Batts the time and resources to improve the department and make Oakland a safer city.

"If the politicians don't micromanage him and he's allowed the opportunity to do his job, I think he has a real chance to bring positive change to our Oakland," Jackson said.

Batts, who holds a doctorate in public administration, has said that while he thinks the Oakland department is structurally "broken," the officers under him are some of the best and most dedicated he has encountered.

Since assuming command in September, Batts has been busily trying to evaluate which things work in the 803-officer department and which do not. Batts has also authorized a team from San Jose State University to conduct a community survey to better understand the community's prevailing attitudes toward the department. He's also trying to revamp the agency's antiquated computer systems and find more ways to get more cops out on the streets.

Batts said he is preparing a three-year strategic plan for the department. He says it will be a road map for the city's policymakers – spelling out what can and cannot be accomplished with the number of officers and what could be done with additional officers.

"I have appeared before the mayor, the City Council and the (city administrator), and I've told them they need to double the current 803 officers on the force. That is based on my anecdotal view of looking at the current demand for services on this department. We're not able at high peak times to keep up with the demand coming into this police organization," Batts said.

But realizing that Oakland is already suffering under the weight of a $20 million deficit, Batts says he understands he will be presenting the city's decision-makers with nothing but difficult choices.

"This department has tried to be a full-service police department … but we cannot keep up that pace. We have to slim down and focus on the fundamentals," Batts said.

While Batts continues to enjoy a honeymoon period, he expects an early test of his leadership with the release later this month of a report expected to harshly criticize missteps on March 21, when four officers died at the hands of a parolee.

"We're going to peel off that scab, and it's going to be very painful for this department and for this city. But, hopefully, we will heal in a short amount of time and (the incident) will be part of the rebirth of this agency," said Batts, adding that he hopes the report will eventually be viewed as a learning tool for the department.

Rocked by the March 21 deaths and a series of prior scandals that led to the department being placed under a federal court's consent decree, the force has been a study in chaos and a revolving door for chiefs in recent years, observers say. While Oakland's overall crime rate has dropped, its violent crimes continue to make headlines across the country.

Some of those same observers continue to ask why Batts would willingly subject himself to a job considered to be one of the toughest in American law enforcement.

Former Long Beach City Manager Jerry Miller, the man who hired Batts to be chief in that port city, said the answer may reveal more about Batts' personal makeup than anything else.

"I was a little surprised that Tony took the Oakland job," said Miller, who watched Batts oversee a seven-year reduction in crime as Long Beach chief. "I thought he'd retire and go into the private sector. I think he saw that Oakland needed help and he stepped in."

Recently retired Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, one of Batts' longtime mentors, predicted Batts will succeed in Oakland where many before him have failed.

"Right now, Oakland is considered one of the toughest places to be a chief in the country. It's a city in crisis. Tony knows that from crises come opportunities to blaze some new trails. … The man is still very passionate about being a cop. I say, stay tuned. If anyone can turn it around there, it will be him," Bratton said.

Batts said he didn't seek the Oakland job just because it represented a challenge. He said he sought the job because he was touched by the deaths of the four officers and by the near-constant violence enveloping the city's young people.

"I have to say that I'm not into stabbing myself in the eye with a sharp instrument," he said. "I (do have) some talents, God-given talents that hopefully will allow me to make a difference. I don't know if I can change things here, to be perfectly honest, but I'm going to try my very best."

Big Dog of the SF political consulting world is back on the block after 14 year hiatus

SAN FRANCISCO – To the delight of many and the horror of others, the former big dog of San Francisco politics is back on the block.

After 14 years in self-imposed exile, Clint Reilly has agreed to return to campaign work as chief strategist for Repair California and its efforts to call the first state constitutional convention in 130 years.

The organization is sponsoring two initiatives it hopes will appear on the November 2010 ballot. The first asks voters' permission to bypass the state Legislature and convene a convention in 2011. The second spells out which issues would be tackled and how the session would be conducted.

If the changes are ultimately approved by the voters in yet another ballot measure, the way state government operates in California would be fundamentally altered.

For Reilly, the decision to accept the gig from Repair California means starting a new chapter in what has already been a colorful career.

From 1971, when he steered Richard Hongisto's effort to become sheriff of San Francisco County through the mid-1990s, Reilly helped elect, re-elect or protect from recall some of California's most famous political leaders, Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer among them.

Over time, his firm, the now-defunct Clinton Reilly Campaigns, became a "one-stop shop" offering clients an array of services, from strategy to direct mail literature to TV and radio advertising production.

He earned millions running losing initiative campaigns for the auto insurance industry in 1988 – ultimately leveraging the money and his considerable energies to build a multimillion-dollar commercial real estate business.

He became a leader in several high-profile San Francisco charities and began to build a collection of post World War II-era impressionist art now considered to be one of the best in private hands.

Following a spirited but failed run for San Francisco mayor in 1999, Reilly gained wide notice in 2000 and again in 2006 after filing lawsuits to fight the corporate consolidation of Bay Area newspaper publishing chains.

In the first, Reilly challenged the sale of the morning San Francisco Chronicle to the Hearst Corporation, then the owner of the afternoon San Francisco Examiner.

He lost that legal battle but won a settlement in the second suit, which sought to stop a plan by MediaNews Group (owner of the Oakland Tribune and San Jose Mercury News) and the Hearst Corporation to combine portions of their business operations, thereby creating a regional newspaper monopoly. In the settlement, the two companies agreed not to pursue combining their operations in Northern California.

Reilly said he also has enjoyed mentoring a virtual "salon" of younger California political consultants like local strategists Eric Jaye and Jim Ross.

"I do miss it," Reilly said, adding that lately he has become "bored" with the real estate business. "Winning a campaign that you've sunk your heart and mind into … well, there's nothing like that."

Even 14 years later, stories about Reilly's fiery personality and colorful "take no prisoners" approach continue to echo throughout the state's political world.

Reilly's first high-profile campaign victory came in 1978 when he got Robert Matsui of Sacramento elected to Congress.

He's also credited with directing the winning campaigns of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and those of former U.S. Reps. Tony Coelho and Jim Corman. Likewise, Reilly can also claim credit for the winning campaigns of former San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan and former state Senate President pro tem David Roberti.

Reilly famously fired Feinstein as a client early in her 1990 gubernatorial campaign by faxing a news release questioning her commitment to the race. But seven years earlier, in 1983, he also beat back a nasty attempt to recall her from the San Francisco mayor's office. He performed a similar function for Roberti a decade later.

One of the most infamous - if not painful – incidents in Reilly's storied political career came in 1993, when he got into a fight during a meeting with then-San Francisco Examiner editor Phil Bronstein and emerged with a broken ankle.

A year later, in 1994, Reilly was heavily criticized for reportedly mismanaging client Kathleen Brown's gubernatorial run.

As consultants gathered to assess her decisive loss, Reilly said he looked forward to the political post-mortem "like a cadaver looks forward to its own autopsy."

That defeat was followed a year later by San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan's re-election meltdown – a loss spurred by his still-inexplicable decision to participate in a stunt where he agreed to be photographed naked with two Los Angeles-area disc jockeys in a home shower.

Veteran Democratic strategist Darry Sragow said Reilly – like many San Francisco political figures – views politics as a full-contact sport.

"Clint can be very mean at times," Sragow said. "But he's also a brilliant and impassioned player. If you take him on, you should know that he will take it seriously and personally. In the heat of battle he can be ferocious."

Colorful past aside, it is Reilly's skills that persuaded members of the Bay Area Council – Repair California's prime backer – to recruit the famed politico.

"He has a remarkable strategic sense and a passion for organizing, which is all too often missing in statewide campaigns, and is just what this historic effort needs to succeed," Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman said in a statement.

Jim Ross, one of those younger political consultants who has enjoyed Reilly's mentoring, says it just makes sense for him to run the initiatives.

"He's been out of the game for a long time, and he's not aligned with anyone. That makes him perfect for this job," Ross said.

Bruce Cain, a UC Berkeley political science professor, said Repair California may have scored a coup in getting Reilly on board.

"I'm pretty sure that not a lot of hands shot up when this gig became available," Cain said. "Whoever runs a campaign like this has got to know they will likely be ostracized from the state's political world.'

Reilly said he knows that he will go up against entrenched Sacramento interests that won't hesitate to spend large amounts of money to defeat the initiatives.

"We must form an effective grass-roots, bipartisan citizens coalition to win," Reilly said. "Our success or failure hinges on putting that coalition together."

Reilly added that he believes the ballot measures are coming at just the right time, as recent statewide polls show Californians have little or no confidence in their state government.

"Special interests have a stranglehold on Sacramento right now, and it is going to take a citizen movement to change that," Reilly said.

Corey D. Cook, a University of San Francisco political science professor, said Reilly's decision to lead the Repair California campaign is significant for another reason.

"Unfortunately, a lot of the good government reform ideas of the past couple of decades have not been successful because they have been designed by policy wonks with limited political acumen. Accordingly, these efforts are often defeated," Cook said.

In this case, Cook added, Repair California has opted to have its campaign led by a true campaign gunfighter.

"This is a very serious reform effort that recognizes that changing the state constitution requires a political movement that is informed by smart policy wonks … what better way to signal that than to get Clint Reilly out of retirement?"

IN THE KNOW

Repair California's two initiatives, now under review by the state attorney general's office, would direct a convention of 465 delegates to focus on four main areas:

• Making state government more efficient.

• Overhauling the election and initiative process while reducing the influence of special interests.

• Revamping the state budget system.

• Improving the strained relationship between state and local government.

Delegates to the convention, which could last as long as six months, would be specifically prohibited from taking up issues such as marriage, abortion, gambling, affirmative action, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, immigration or the death penalty.

This report was co-published in The Sacramento Bee on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009.

San Francisco renters get set to join mandatory composting effort

SAN FRANCISCO - With just 17 days to go before the nation's first mandatory composting law goes into effect here, most of the eye-rolling is over.

Now that the "only in San Francisco" reaction has died down, city workers are hustling to get the ubiquitous green and blue bins out to thousands of apartment houses and commercial buildings.

The city that likes to be on the cutting edge of governmental and social policy decided in June to bring mandatory food scrap composting to this already green community. When the program is launched Oct. 21, it will be the first of its kind in the nation.

But perhaps the biggest and most overlooked aspect of the new law will be its impact on the occupants of the 220,000-odd apartment units who have not previously had a chance to participate in the city's aggressive voluntary recycling programs.

The new law says those apartment dwellers - along with occupants of large commercial buildings - will all now be a part of mandatory recycling efforts.

"Right now our big push is to get the (compost) bins out to the apartment resident population," said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the Department of the Environment, which oversees San Francisco recycling.

"Individual apartment dwellers are calling us every day saying they've heard of the new law and really want to participate. They're telling us that they are putting pressure on their landlords and property managers to get signed up for the program," he said.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said he has been buoyed by the response.

"Where previously many apartment buildings did not offer the full range of recycling services, the Universal Recycling and Composting ordinance assures that all residents and businesses have equal access to the program," Newsom said in a statement. "The city already recycles 72 percent of its waste material, and we expect this number to go even higher as more people have access to the blue and green carts."

Many cities already have mandatory recycling laws. But what's getting attention is that a major American city is now moving to collect food waste in order to make compost for local farming operations.

The food scraps will first be hauled by 18-wheelers to composting facilities in Vacaville and Dixon. From there, the material will be turned into compost and sold to Northern California wine-grape and vegetable growers. By using the city's rich - some say four-course - compost, the farmers say they enjoy larger, healthier harvests while using smaller amounts of petroleum-based fertilizers.

Officials add that the composting operation not only will reduce the amount of material going to landfills but also will curb the city's contribution to global warming.

With food scraps turned into compost and then used on crops, the material cannot create methane as it would if sent to a conventional landfill. Methane is one of four principal greenhouse gases that scientists say are contributing to the global warming crisis.

Blumenfeld said phones at his office are ringing off the hook. Department workers and volunteers are delivering as many as 100 new sets of composting bins a day to residents and tenants at locations across the city.

He noted that going to mandatory recycling - and adding in the food scrap/composting element - was the only way for the city to exceed its current 72 percent voluntary recycling rate. The city generates approximately 2.1 million tons of waste each year.

Most criticisms about the plan have been focused on how the city will enforce the new composting law.

Robert Reed, a spokesman for Recology Inc., the company that collects and hauls San Francisco's recyclables and compostables, says the plan is to employ a combination of community outreach, cajoling and hand-holding.

And, yes, the truly recalcitrant will face more counseling by the city, letters and then fines to ensure compliance.

For single-family residences and small businesses, the maximum fine could be $100. For apartment buildings with five or more units and commercial buildings, non-compliance could cost as much as $1,000 a citation.

But Reed says his company and the city don't want to turn into "compost cops."

"That's not what we're about. Sure, our drivers will be the ones who see whether folks are complying or not, but their first goal is to work with people - to get them to understand why this program is worthy of their support and cooperation," Reed said.

According to one 48-year-old San Franciscan who has an apartment in the city's Sunset District, the program should be received with open arms by her fellow tenants.

"We've been separating food scraps on a voluntary basis for quite a while now. But my friends who live in larger buildings haven't had this option," said Arlynne Camire. "By going to a mandatory basis, the landlords of these buildings won't be able to drag their feet anymore. I think you'll find a majority of tenants solidly behind this."

Waste management authorities elsewhere say they will be keeping an eye on the San Francisco program.

"Seeing a city's food waste practically eliminated from its waste stream is a very exciting thing. We applaud San Francisco for taking this on," said Kyle Pogue, a spokesman for the state Integrated Waste Management Board in Sacramento. "We suspect that this program will be a model which other cities in California and other states in the nation will soon be following."

This post was also published in The Sacramento Bee on Sunday, Oct. 4. Read it here.

LGBT anti-bullying effort in Alameda under fire

A small East Bay school district's effort to protect children of nontraditional families from being bullied has sparked a lawsuit from an out-of-town Christian legal group and a campaign to recall three school board members.

On one side are parents who believe the Alameda Unified School District board's decision to authorize a lesson in the so-called Caring Schools Community Curriculum violates their rights to teach their children about sexuality issues on their own terms and will indoctrinate their children into what they call the homosexual lifestyle.

On the other are parents who believe the curriculum's Lesson 9 is vital for preventing children with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered parents from being bullied or harassed while attending school in the 10,000-student district.

The board's decision in May followed several standing-room-only hearings and touched off an effort to recall trustees Tracy Jensen, Ron Mooney and Nielsen Tam, who voted for the lesson. Trustees Trish Spencer and Mike McMahon opposed it.

"Basically, these board members decided that they didn't want to do what the people of Alameda who elected them wanted to be done, and that was to strike down Lesson 9," Alameda parent Adam Wooten, one of the 10 city residents to sign the original recall notice, told a local online news site shortly after the effort was announced. "If they don't want to do what we elected them to do, then why should they remain in office?"

District administrators have said the board's decision stemmed from concern that teachers of kindergarten through fifth grade had no lesson plan ready if they encountered LGBT-oriented intimidation.

Alameda educators have also said repeatedly that because the lesson is not about sex or sexuality, state law prevents them from granting parents the right to remove their children from school whenever the lesson is being taught.

The opt-out issue is what prompted the Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit conservative Christian law firm, to file a lawsuit over the lesson. Because of that suit, district Superintendent Kirstin Vital said late last week she could not comment on the controversy.

But the institute's chief counsel, Kevin Snider, argues that because the district is broaching the issue of helping kids from LGBT and nontraditional families who face campus bullying, the lesson is a de facto endorsement of that lifestyle. Snider says that, just like any sex education class in California, parents should be able to opt out or remove their child from attending that class if it runs counter to their religious or moral beliefs.

Moreover, Snider said, a state Public Records Act request filed by the group shows that most bullying on Alameda school campuses involves racial tensions and opposite-sex sexual harassment, not sexual orientation.

"Parents do not support LGBT indoctrination that fails to address the main causes of bullying and harassment in the district and intentionally omits children belonging to the other five protected classes," Snider said in a statement. He was referring to the protected classes of race and ethnicity, gender, disability, nationality and religion.

"It is their right to remove their children from this highly controversial program, and we intend to vigorously defend that right," Snider's statement added.

Proponents circulating the recall petition are part of a larger local parent group called SERVE, or Seeking Equity and Respect for all Viewpoints in Education. They have until December to collect some 8,600 signatures of local voters to qualify the recall for the ballot, officials said.

SERVE representatives did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment for this report.

Jensen, one of the targets of the recall, has subsequently appeared on the Fox News Channel to speak on the controversy. She says she has no misgivings about her vote supporting the lesson, adding that while no student with an LGBT background has yet to formally complain of being bullied, research indicates it's just a matter of time.

The curriculum was created to assist teachers in reacting to incidents of bullying of all students from all classes, protected or not, she said.

"People at SERVE and PJI are intentionally 'sexualizing' this issue," Jensen said. "To do that is intellectually dishonest, and they know it.

"This isn't about sex or trying to indoctrinate anyone into doing anything. It's about the district giving its teachers a tool to deal with a difficult and very real problem."

John Knox White, a civic activist whose children attend Alameda schools, agrees with Jensen. He's created an anti-recall petition that he says has more than 2,300 signatures both online and on paper. Knox White says he's not surprised by that reaction, given that more than two-thirds of Alameda voters opposed last year's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

"I created the petition," Knox White said, "because I believed that the organizers of the recall do not represent the compassionate and respectful community of Alameda. ... It says, 'No, the recall is not who we are.'"

A version of this report was published in The Sacramento Bee on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009. View it here.