Project Censored 2000: CENSORED BY THE BAY
San Francisco Bay Guardian, April 5, 2000
We asked activists and media observers what local stories
the Bay Area media ignored in 1999. A few themes came up again
and again: poverty issues, real estate riches, and environmental
abuses. Here are eight observers' picks for the stories the
Chron[icle], the Ex[aminer], and the TV newscasts couldn't find
room for.
__Tim Kingston, news editor, San Francisco Frontiers:
"How the real estate industry in San Francisco affects
housing availability, and who actually controls real estate in
San Francisco. Who determines the land values? What families own
what, and how do they exercise that power?
"The impact of reform in tax codes. These tax codes have
little loopholes that benefit the rich while the rest of us get
screwed."
__Dennis Bernstein, producer, Flashpoints, KPFA-FM:
"Around the Bay Area and around the country, the police are
working with schools cracking down on kids who are late for
school. Truancy police department vans have picked up the kids,
arrested and fingerprinted them. That's just part of the
criminalization of children at every level.
"The beautiful green East Bay is considered a blighted zone
and irretrievable. That's one step short of disaster, according
to Greenpeace. And it's worth noting that the East Bay is heavily
a community of color."
__Norman Solomon, syndicated media critic:
"Poverty in the Bay Area. There's such an infatuation with
dot-coms and Silicon Valley, but there's relatively little focus
on those who are left out of the economic boom.
"By reading the dailies and watching every local newscast,
you learn very little about who owns property in the city and
therefore has clout with the Mayor's Office. It's no coincidence
that the people with the big real estate interests are usually
palsy-walsy with the top editors and publishers of the local
dailies."
__Dan Noyes, editorial director, Center for Investigative
Reporting:
"How term limits and the initiative process has eviscerated
the state legislature. The California state government is more
and more unwilling to take on any tough issues."
__Andrea Buffa, executive director, Media Alliance:
"The independent expenditures loophole in San Francisco
politics -- a new soft-money loophole that allows increased soft
money to go to candidates. How it affected the mayoral race and
how it will affect district elections.
"Prop. 21: Although the campaign was covered, the impact of
the proposition on the juvenile-justice system was not."
__Robert Haaland, activist, Tenants Union:
"The real estate industry and how much they have benefited
from the displacement of thousands of tenants in the last few
years. One of the reasons why the city has so much money in
recent years is because of the real estate transfer tax.
"And the implementation of the Costa Hawkins Act. This law
allows property owners to increase rent to market rate once the
last remaining tenant on the lease leaves the apartment. The
passing of this bill directly impacts a large portion of Bay
Guardian readers. The rent board is having a hearing April 25."
__Prathap Chattergee, print and radio freelance journalist:
"In late September the incineration of the huge tire dump
near Modesto spewing benzene, a known carcinogen, into the
Central Valley. The cloud of black smoke affected weather
patterns not only in the Central Valley but also in the Bay Area.
The fire was a major contributing factor to pollution in and
around San Francisco -- but outside of KPFA and the East Bay
Express there was no coverage."
__Christopher Cook, freelance journalist:
"There's so much attention paid to the dot-com revolution
and the Silicon Valley hype, but there's almost no peep about
living wages. The media could focus more on the workers in the
back of the kitchen making incredibly low wages. You don't hear
about them, but they live in the city, too."
_____________________________________________
Our picks for local censored stories
THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC SERVICES
The San Francisco Zoo is still in deep trouble. And six
years of private management hasn't helped.
In fact, since the private San Francisco Zoo Society took
over, salaries are skyrocketing, admission fees are up, and the
animals are no better off.
That's just one example of how the privatization trend --
the giving away of public assets to the wealthy -- is robbing the
San Francisco Bay Area. And yet it continues apace -- at the
Presidio, at the Edison Charter Academy, perhaps soon at a
private parking garage beneath Golden Gate Park. Unaccountable
"friends of" groups are making spending decisions for city
departments, untouched by public influence or public
accountability. It's a massive shift of resources away from
taxpayers and voters and toward big business and wealthy
foundations -- and you won't read about it in the Chron[icle] or
the Ex[aminer] [San Francisco's only two daily newspapers].
WILLIE BROWN'S REIGN OF SECRECY
The current mayor has made more backroom deals and cost the
city more money than any other mayor since World War II. And
it's almost impossible for the public and the press to get the
details.
Last year frustrated voters passed a ballot measure to
strengthen the city's public-records and open-meetings law.
Brown's response was telling. The initiative requires him and
other top officials to make public their appointment calendars,
so citizens can find out whom they're meeting with. After the
law's passage, Brown began feeding his calendars into the
shredder.
THE INFLUENCE OF FOUNDATION FUNDING ON NEWS MEDIA
For years the San Francisco Chronicle has been running
stories under the name "commuter Chronicles" that describe the
frustrations of Bay Area transportation -- but routinely ignore
the underlying political causes. The San Francisco Examiner runs
a series called "The New City," which in the past has remarked in
passing about gentrification but has never delved into why it's
happening or who benefits and who loses.
What readers don't know is that some of these stories are
funded by grants from the Pew Foundation, a $4.7 billion
Philadelphia foundation created by the heirs to the Sun Oil
fortune. The Pew Center for Civic Journalism, a tax-exempt
nonprofit, gives out grants to newspapers -- for-profit papers --
to do stories that, supposedly, get the public more involved in
the political process.
But few, if any, of these stories take on tough issues or
expose corruption. In fact, we've never found a single
Pew-funded story that challenges (for example) privatization or
energy deregulation --two causes that the Pew Foundation lavishly
supports with big grants.
And none of the big papers that get these grants locally
(including the Ex[aminer], the Chron[icle], and the San Jose
Mercury News) will release copies of the grant applications or
disclose what conditions were attached to the grants.
In fact, the papers don't always disclose to readers that
the stories were funded by an outside source in the first place.
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WHAT'S BROWN, BLACK, AND WITH LOTS OF GREEN?
"Emperor" Willie Brown --last seen poking his face into the
camera at the Academy Award ceremony in Hollywood-- is the City's
African-American "Clintonesque Democrat" Mayor. (He is best
remembered nationally as mentor to once-mayor Senator Dianne
Feinstein, another "Republicrat.") His fiscal excesses, "Boss
Tweed"-style cronyism, and open defiance of any public criticism
is legendary. He and all his long-time personal associates,
accused of promoting "reverse discrimination," are currently
under investigation by the US Department of Justice.
Fellow African-American Amos Brown, one of Willie's biggest
supporters, is a powerful City supervisor as well as minister of
a Southern Baptist church whose congregation (only blocks from
two housing projects where "underclass" black crime is common)
caters to the prosperous and showy "upper crust" of the City's
older African-American population -- frequently visited, for
example, by Jesse Jackson and other black Democratic leaders.
[Living across the street from Brown's church, I have to wonder
why Brink's armored cars make so many stops there weekly ...]
"Christian" Rev. Brown is famous for vocal antagonism toward the
homeless --he once publicly advocated jailing them-- or maybe just
toward WHITE homeless, because for months he permitted one
black derelict to live in a van practically on the steps of the church,
until police rousted him after questioning him on allegations he
was dealing drugs out of his van, due to neighbors' complaints.
E-traders: Brown's IPO run incredible
Mayor had to be very lucky or know someone, experts say
by Lance Williams and Chuck Finnie
San Francisco Examiner, April 05, 2000
Mayor Willie Brown says he made a quick financial killing as
an Internet stock trader, but e-trade experts say they have
trouble believing that he really obtained his stocks in the way
he described.
In interviews Tuesday, financial experts told The Examiner
that only an unbelievable run of good luck - or some major help
from the inside - could explain how Brown obtained the initial
public offerings of eight red-hot stocks during a nine-week
stretch of his 1999 re-election campaign.
Brown's 16-stock portfolio, heavy on tech stock IPOs, has
doubled in value since it was assembled between Oct. 1 and Dec.
9, according to stock data obtained via the Hoover's Online
investor's service.
In one case, according to a financial disclosure statement
he filed with the city Ethics Commission, Brown flipped an
Internet stock called Expedia Inc. two days after it went public,
obtaining a 280 percent return on his investment.
No e-trader in the brief history of Internet stock trading
is known to have scored so many hot IPOs in so short a time, the
experts said.
"I'm not accusing him of anything, but just hypothetically I
would say this is very questionable unless he is a very lucky
guy," said Tom Taulli, a financial expert and author of the 1999
book "Investing in IPOs: New Paths to Profit with Initial Public
Offerings."
Matt Harris, a Santa-Ana based financier and online trading
expert, called Brown's IPO run "extremely rare and odd."
Even the most skilled e-trader is unlikely to get a piece of
even three successful IPOs in a year's time, he said.
To get in on eight in nine weeks, "either he was very lucky,
or he knew someone," Harris said.
But Kandace Bender, Brown's press secretary, said that the
mayor did indeed put together the portfolio by buying stocks on a
home computer before going to work.
"He was doing it at his house at 6 o'clock in the morning,"
she said.
She also said a story in Tuesday's Examiner about the
mayor's e-trading was overblown, saying that it overstated the
value of his portfolio.
In his disclosure report, Brown estimated the worth of his
stocks as between $97,000 and $970,000. The story emphasized the
higher figure, she said, but the real value of Brown's stocks is
closer to the lower number.
"The mayor was highly amused by that," she said. "He went on
record saying that as of today he was $16,000 in the hole"
because of Tuesday's market downturn.
The experts told The Examiner that Brown's description of
how he obtained the IPO stock didn't square with how those issues
are actually distributed via the Internet.
Taulli, the financial author, said that when a company goes
public, its officers and its stock underwriters distribute IPO
stock to valued workers and customers, to wealthy potential
clients - and to anyone else with whom they want to curry favor.
The insiders who are offered IPOs get the chance to buy a
few hundred shares of the stock at its opening price.
In many cases, that turns out to be no big deal, because
IPOs are often clunkers, Taulli said. But on certain hot IPO
issues, stock prices can double, triple or even quintuple within
hours of the market's opening, making a big profit for the
insiders.
Ordinary investors don't get a shot at good IPOs, Taulli
said. But recently, online brokerages have begun distributing a
limited amount of IPO stock to their clients via lotteries.
The lottery makes it impossible for an e-trader to obtain a
piece of more than a handful of good IPOs in a year, he said.
Brown's success rate - his stocks have shown gains of
between 39 percent and 350 percent since he bought them - is more
consistent with obtaining IPOs the old way, through personal
association with underwriters or company executives, the author
said.
Harris, the Santa Ana e-trade expert, called Brown's success
unbelievable for an e-trader.
"I would say that I get one in every 20 IPOs that I try to
get (via the Internet), and that's doing very good," he said.
"Lately, it's been worse. I haven't gotten in on a good IPO since
May, and I apply for all of them," including, he added, some of
the stocks the mayor said he obtained online.
"It would be extremely rare and odd for anybody in a
two-month period to get that many IPOs allocated," Harris said.
"Last year I got three IPOs and they were winners and I was happy
with that."
Harris also said that IPO success stories like Brown's
typically involve people who were cut in on the deal by brokers
and underwriters.
"It's a buddy game - who's your best buddy?" he said.
"That's the way 90 percent of it is still allocated."
According to his disclosure statement, the mayor's
stock-buying binge began Oct. 1 [a month before his well-funded
re-election] with a purchase of more than $1,000 worth of
McAfee.com Corp. shares at a pre-IPO price of $12 a share. On the
first day of public trading, stock in the Santa Clara-based firm
traded up to $44.
After that, Brown got in on a series of other plum IPOs:
Veritas Software of Mountain View, the world's largest maker of
data storage software; Texas-based Metasolv Software Inc.; NDS
Group PLC, a British telecom stock; United Parcel Service Inc.;
Agilent Technologies and Cache Flow Inc., two Silicon Valley
firms; McAfee Communication Corp., which makes software to guard
against computer viruses; and Pittsburgh-based FreeMarkets Inc.,
an Internet auction house.
FreeMarkets in particular went crazy, rising to $280 after
opening at $48.
Wendy Paskin, the wife of former Mayor Frank Jordan and a
manager at Montgomery Securities, said she eschewed stock
investments - and IPOs in particular - during her husband's years
in office to avoid any appearance of favoritism.
"I would never want even the insinuation of us getting in on
an IPO because of Frank's position," Paskin said.
While Jordan served as mayor from 1991 to 1995, when Brown
ousted him, Paskin worked in the securities divisions of Wells
Fargo Bank and then Montgomery Securities.
At Montgomery, she added, access to IPOs of substantive
value that were underwritten by the firm "went to our customers
who were worth seven-figures."
SUPERVISOR'S POLITICAL MOVE EVICTS TENANT
by Rachel Gordon and Katherine Seligman
San Francisco Examiner, April 06, 2000
In a move designed to give him a political edge in
November's district elections, Supervisor Amos Brown has evicted
an elderly tenant from the Oceanview District house he has been
renting to her so he can move in and run for re-election in an
area that may be more politically palatable than his current home
turf.
"It's my house and I can do what I want," Brown said.
Owner move-in evictions, such as the one Brown engaged in,
have been one of the most turbulent political issues in San
Francisco in years. It has pitted tenant activists, who want to
protect renters from losing their homes, against property owners,
who echo Brown's sentiment that they also have rights.
Battles have been waged at City Hall, in the courts and at
the ballot box.
Wednesday, the day that Brown's tenant was moving out, the
supervisor attended a press conference with Mayor Willie Brown
for the signing of legislation mandating a comprehensive study of
The City's tight housing market. The supervisor, who sponsored
the measure, hailed it as "a great statement of (landlords and
tenant activists) coming together, not turning on each other."
Brown's pro-landlord stances over the years have made him a
prime target of tenant groups, who are eager to use Brown's
eviction this week of 64-year-old Edith Love, her 36-year-old
disabled son and 2-year-old grandson against him.
According to state and local law, Brown was in his legal
rights to boot them.
Still, tenant advocates who have been at war with Brown have
jumped on the issue. Thursday, they planned a press conference
with Love in front of the Bright Street house she has lived in
for four years.
"It's really a moral issue here," said Ted Gullicksen, a
leader of the San Francisco Tenants Union. "What we have here is
someone not just moving around at will, but evicting to do it."
Rebecca Graff, program director of the San Francisco Housing
Rights Committee, added: "He's supposed to be moving into the
community to represent the people, but instead he's evicting
their neighbors and then expecting them to vote for him."
Brown, never one to mince words, described the involvement
of tenant activists as a "sleazy situation." He added, "I have my
rights, too."
Sparking the eviction is the upcoming supervisors race.
After more than two decades, The City is scrapping a system of
electing supervisors citywide and in November will hold elections
by districts, with San Francisco broken into 11 geographic
sectors. One supervisor will be elected from each district.
Brown now lives in Ingleside Terrace, which falls in the
relatively conservative District 7 sector under the new system.
Two months ago, he let it be known that he was relocating to the
adjacent District 11.
The change allows Brown, a black Baptist minister, to move
into a more ethnically diverse neighborhood and avoid running
against fellow board member Mabel Teng, the only other incumbent
on the 11-member board who lives in District 7.
Brown currently lives in a house on Lunado Way owned by his
congregation, the Third Baptist Church. Any day now, Brown said,
he plans to move back into the two-bedroom house on Bright
Street. He's owned the home with his wife, Jane, since 1980,
according to city records.
To pave the way, the Browns evicted Love, her son and
grandson. Jane Brown sent Love an undated letter around a month
ago, stating: "We thank you for being a good tenant. By April 1,
2000, we will need to occupy the property, and you will have to
move. We will make every effort to help you find a place. Your
cooperation is appreciated."
Love paid a subsidized rent in Brown's house, which he
rented out through the federal Section 8 voucher program. Love
had to pay $123 out of a total rent of $1,093.
She and her family were able to secure another Section 8
rental in the Bayview District.
"It's not like they're out in the cold," Brown said.
Love did not resist the eviction, although she did contact
the Homeless Prenatal Program staff to assist her in finding a
new residence.
Wednesday, she watched movers load up her belongings in a
rented truck. The Browns, she said, offered no financial
assistance for the move; legally, they were under no obligation
to give her relocation money.
"I feel very, very bad," said Love, who gets by on federal
disability payments. "I can't understand these people. Mr. Brown
has a job down at City Hall. I can't understand why if they
needed to live here, they couldn't get another house."
