Activism

Protesters to Ring In the New Year by Linking Cops to Evictions

Despite its faults, I think we all agree that tech bus shutdowns are a pretty effective way to protest gentrification.  No matter.  Some off-message neighborhood activists are gathering at 24th and Mission at 3pm New Year's Day to “Evict The Cops,” as posters plastered up-and-down Mission Street say.

Here's the spice:

Mission residents and agitators want to ring in the New Year with a big “fuck you!” to the San Francisco Police Department. The elevated pig presence in the neighborhood is unavoidable and many have already felt its effects. In November, four Valencia Gardens residents were attacked and then arrested by SFPD officers. And the expansion of police surveillance at the 16th street BART plaza has lead to increased harassment of young people of color, homeless folks, and sex workers.

These efforts only aid in the gentrification of the Mission District as policing and surveillance are integral to the process of sterilizing a neighborhood for new, well-to-do, bougie assholes. Time and again the police have proven their loyalties to new developers and shitty landlords.

It's the cops who are there to make sure we leave on the day of our evictions, who throw us out of our squats when we have no place to go, and who continually harass us because we're not white yuppies. We're fucking sick of it and so our resolution for 2014 is to make the SFPD's life hell at any opportunity that presents itself.

I like a good pre-Law & Order Ice-T track as much as the next guy, and certainly SFPD has done some objectionable things this year.  But considering teachers and other city employees are already being pushed out of the city, I'm sure police officers will soon too be finding themselves outside city limits.

Whatever.  Happy New Year!

Are the Anti-Tech Protesters Winning?

If you read the criticisms, the protests over tech shuttles and the industry's impact on housing costs are pointless and misdirected, if not worse.

“The protests are xenophobic and illogical,” wrote Rodrigo Guzman, CTO of iDoneThis, in an essay that was passed around Reddit and other like-minded echo chambers. “They do serve a useful purpose in sparking discussion about important issues (e.g. the Ellis Act, housing, cultural change in SF, etc), but the impact of that is very limited when there isn't coherence about the issues and the desired changes. The protests may even be counter-productive to their cause.”

On Twitter, the peanut gallery of peanut galleries, the backlash is even more pointed.

“The tech bus protests are targeting the wrong people,” tweeted urban housing specialist Mark Hogan. “Buses are not the cause of prices going up, local government policies are.”

“Tech workers taking a bus to get to work aren’t The Man,” chided Lisa McIntire, Gavin Newsom's former Deputy Communications Director. “HAVE YOU CONSIDERED CITY HALL, GUYS?”

But if City Hall hears the protesters and reacts, doesn't it mean they are successful?

Scott Lucas of SF Magazine recently opined that the protesters are winning, and his case is damn convincing:

Though we doubt that Google is going to “Fuck Off” any time soon, the protests already have had a pretty substantial impact.  Since the first Google bus blockade on December 9th, there's been a noticeable uptick in both talk and action from city and industry leaders. While there may not be a direct correlation between the demonstrations and the responses below, it's hard to deny that the protestors have been driving the city's conversation.

His proof? Ed Lee coming out in favor of a $15/hour minimum wage, activists “shaming the [tech] billionaires into philanthropy,” new ideas for spurring middle-income housing development, Ron Conway's lobbying group sf.citi going on a public relations campaign, and three new pro-tenant measures getting passed by the Board of Supervisors.

And it doesn't just end there.

Tech companies themselves are scrambling to look good, with companies like Airbnb and Zendesk pledging community classes for children, donating unused office space as free community spaces, and even hosting lectures on the industry's impact on the city.

Even former Mayor Willie Brown, arguably patient zero in the artisocratization of San Francisco, has come out slamming the industry, writing, “What the tech world needs to do is nip this thorny plant in the bud. They need to come off their high cloud efforts to save Africa or wherever they take adventure vacations and start making things better for folks right here.”

One must consider the goals of the protesters before attacking their effectiveness.  No one is naive enough to think that sporadically blocking a few commuter shuttles for 30 minutes a pop is going to create systemic change.  But when it comes to raising awareness—and making sure City Hall gets the message loud and clear—taking on tech has been the most effective strategy yet, despite the divisiveness.

Like Occupy Wall Street targeting the financial sector to highlight America's inequality crisis, San Francisco's housing activists have made the tech industry represent our skyrocketing cost of living.  So it's little surprise that shuttle commuters, many having just come from ramen dinners at Stanford and Berkeley, are now uncomfortable with being the new face of economic ruthlessness—a characterization that is often grossly inaccurate.  And, of course, the targets are pointing fingers elsewhere, and dismissing the movement as scattered and confused.

But protesting greedy landlords didn't work.  Howling at the Mayor did little good.  Complaining about tax breaks and America's Cup never got traction.

It wasn't until activists put up roadblocks in front of the those gleaming white economic engines, squeezing the pockets of City Hall's primary backers, did anyone listen.

Those roadblocks might just make San Francisco a better city for everyone… even the tech community.

Tech Shuttle Shutdowns Spread to Oakland, Promise to Become More Frequent

In a clear sign that the protests over tech shuttles aren't going way—despite their hiccups—housing activists this morning hit the Bay Area with a three-pronged protest; shutting down an Apple Shuttle outside of Muddy Waters at 24th and Valencia, holding court at the 24th and Mission BART Plaza, and blockading a Google Bus outside the MacArthur BART Station in Oakland:

As the Oakland contingent wrote on Indybay:

At 7:45am, over 50 protesters swarmed a Google bus picking up highly-paid tech workers at MacArthur BART station in Oakland. They successfully blocked it for over half an hour before OPD arrived and cleared the street, allowing the bus to continue on to the Google HQ in Mountain View as it does every day. An Apple bus was also temporarily blocked during the action and hundreds of flyers were passed out to those on the street who were overwhelmingly supportive. The action was planned to coincide with other Google Bus blockades across the Bay this morning as an escalation in the fight against gentrification and the rapid transformation of our cities into playgrounds for the super rich.

Onlookers seemed supportive—even another passing shuttle bus driver at 24th and Mission honked his horn in an apparent sign of solidarity.

However, one Dogpatch-based activist told us that SFPD responded more aggressively to this morning's protests, demanding that everyone move onto the sidewalk and let the captured bus go free.  And eventually they did leave the street, just as the news helicopters began swarming above.

But it's all but guaranteed that we're just now seeing the beginnings of the backlash.  “This is gonna be a pretty regular thing,” a protester told freelance reporter Chris Roberts.  And as the blockaders left the Mission scene, they chanted their warnings: “we'll be back.”

It seems 2014 will be the year the trains buses will not run on time.

Update from Oakland:

[First photo by Chris Roberts, Oakland Photo via Indybay]

G̶o̶o̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶E̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶e̶ Actor: "This is a City For the Right People Who Can Afford It"

At this morning's anti-Google Bus protest at 24th and Valencia, the SF Bay Guardian captured this exchange between a protester and Google Employee actor wishing to be this season's Peter Shih. Oy.

UPDATE: In a completely self-defeating move, this “Google employee” was apparently a staged union organizer.

Protesters Block Google Bus at 24th and Valencia

Here we go again: protesters have setup at 24th and Valencia this morning, blocking Google buses from leaving the city.  Much like May's protest that saw a Google Bus piñata smashed to bits, organizers are protesting the evictions happening in the city:

Heart of the City, the group organizing the protest (which we're told consists of several lawyers from the Eviction Defense Collaborative), writes:

Today we are the San Francisco Displacement and Neighborhood Impact Agency, and we're stopping the injustice in the city's two-tier system where the public pays and the private corporations gain.

Rents and evictions are on the rise. Tech-fueled real estate speculation is the culprit. We say: Enough is Enough! The local government, especially Mayor Lee, has given tech the keys to shape the city to their fancy without the public having any say in it. We say, lets take them back!

Tech Industry private shuttles use over 200 SF MUNI stops approximately 7,100 times in total each day (M-F) without permission or contributing funds to support this public infrastructure. No vehicles other than MUNI are allowed to use these stops. If the tech industry was fined for each illegal use for the past 2 years, they would owe an estimated $1 billion to the city. […]

With $1 billion and counting we can fund: Affordable Housing Initiatives, Eviction Defense, Public transit service improvements, Legislation initiatives to prevent speculators from using the Ellis Act & Costa Hawkins to evict residents … and so much more! […]

The city needs to declare a state of emergency, stop all no-fault evictions, and prevent tech companies from running  buses in residential neighborhoods, which is driving up rents (up to 20% along their route).

UPDATE: A view from inside one of the buses “under siege”:

UPDATE 12:00pm: Now there's video of a Google employee union organizer pretending to be a Google employee chewing out protesters, telling one to move somewhere where they can afford rent.

[Photos by Steve Rhodes]

Jack Spade to the Mission: "We're Done" [UPDATED]

I know we're only two days into my temporary blogging hiatus, but…

After last night's Board of Appeals hearing regarding Jack Spade's formula retail status, which ruled new evidence suggested Jack Spade a chain store and the Board would rehear the case, Jack Spade decided to jack off and find another gentrifying neighborhood to fall in love with.  SFBG reports:

As representatives of the corporation left the hearing, they told a few activists and business owners that they “were done.” And when the Guardian reached 5th and Pacific CEO Bill McComb by email today, he confirmed that the company is giving up on this controversial location, where activists were concerned its deep-pocketed presence would accelerate gentrification of the neighborhood.

“[We're] not going to war with the neighbors. We like those people and their neighborhood and we are not fighting the issue. There are many a fine location for Jack Spade. Peace to the city!” McComb wrote to us.

Peace!

UPDATE: Jack Spade's PR team just sent us their official statement:

We at JACK SPADE are disappointed with Wednesday's Board of Appeals ruling. In our minds and in accordance with the district's code, JACK SPADE is not ‘formula retail’ and we have been completely transparent regarding our relationship to our parent company. While we disagree with the decision, we respect the Board and the community's passion and will not pursue plans to open in the Mission District. We have nothing but admiration for the Mission District and remain fans of the neighborhood and its unique character.

Claims of Sexism and Sexual Assault Plague Noisebridge Hackerspace

Since Noisebridge opened its doors in 2008, it quickly became not just a place to build robots or meddle with security systems, but a DIY community center in its own right.  Today it plays host to everything from LitQuake events to vegan cooking lessons, thanks in large part to its anarchist structure and open access policy.

But Noisebridge's one rule—“Be excellent to one another”—is the kind of toothless techno-libertarian feel-good sloganeering that does little to protect the community.  As Noisebridge member Hannah Grimm details, harassment is common and never criticized:

I've been spending time at Noisebridge for the last year, and in that time, I've been harassed by multiple people on many different occasions, almost always with members present.  Never once has a member intervened or spoken up on my behalf: not when Weev called me a cunt or made anti-semitic, anti-mormon, anti-woman, anti-gay jokes loudly in the space, not when someone loudly (and descriptively) told me about the “sluts” they double-penetrated the night before, not when an individual (upon seeing me about to leave the space on my Powerisers) declared “I love your stilts.  I'm going to make you my bride and then those will be mine” before slapping my ass as I was leaving just a few weeks ago.  The closest thing I have felt to supported in the space was when one individual decided to doocratically paint over the bathroom wall, which at the time was covered in images of maimed and broken crying women with enormous tits and waists so thin they would make Barbie jealous.  It has become abundantly clear to most women in the space that “Be Excellent” has failed us.

And it's not just Hannah.  Another member reports being “pinned down on a table” while another member “began unzipping [their] pants without any permission at all, refusing to stop even after [they] froze in fear asking what the fuck [he was] doing.”

It would seem that these black hat brogrammers are not Being Excellent, but largely in part of Noisebridge's consensus-based decision making process (which allows any one member to block a decision), women have not been empowered to remove misogynists from the community:

…attempts to remove sexual predators from the space have been stymied by the presence of lone, oblivious members of the community who simply refuse to believe that someone they consider a friend might not be a friend to women in the space.  The situation at Noisebridge has gotten so bad (alongside other issues such as dirtiness and homeless people living in the space) that long-time members went so far as to put in a proposal that Noisebridge seek to terminate its lease, presumably to then rebirth itself at a new location with tighter access control.

Instead of shutting down, Noisebridge instituted a sexual harassment policy—albeit provisionally, to protect against member's fears of censorship and (the long discredited notion) that women level false accusations of rape.

It seems at the intersection of Occupy and technology, women's safety just isn't that important.

Noisebridge refused to comment, with a member saying it's not “possible to get a response from a leaderless organization.

[Hannah Grimm | Photo by Jamillah Knowles]

Outraged Masses Synergize with Telephone Poles to Shame Peter Shih

According to a tipster, “these are up all over SOMA right now.”  We're sure NYC is breathlessly awaiting his return.

(For an alternative and delightfully positive reaction to Peter's blogtrum, do read Anisse Gross's “10 ways to open your heart to San Francisco” and BeckyBayside's comment.)

[Third Photo by Ed Park]

Liz Claiborne Halts Construction of New Jack Spade Store in the Mission

It was just two weeks ago that Liz Claiborne Holdings began gutting Adobe Books' former home at 3166 16th Street, creating a sense of inevitability around Jack Spade's moving into the neighborhood.  The odds seemed stacked against the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association, who found themselves petitioning to sway them against opening the store.  However, VCMA's luck has seemed to shift, and now Liz Claiborne has suspended the build out of their latest Jack Spade location.

VCMA's Jefferson McCarley sent us this update on their campaign (highlights in bold):

For months the VCMA has been trying to reach out to Jack Spade. Our invitations to talk have been met with radio silence.

The only exception is that a PR rep wrote to me saying, “The in-house team at Jack Spade is aware that you are interested in speaking with them, and will be in touch soon.”  That was May 15th.

This is interesting considering what they wrote in their application for non-formula retail status: “When Jack Spade opens a new store it is important to us that we become a part of the neighborhood's fabric… Jack Spade stores operate with a focus on … community.”

So because they refused to come to the table, we began the process of blocking their arrival through a more formal process.

5th and Pacific (formerly known as Liz Claiborne), did $1.5 billion in sales last year. And while in their application they distance the sub-brand from the parent company, in the 5&P annual report, the company doesn't even break Jack Spade down into its own category—they are lumped in with the Kate Spade “segment.”

There are three “Spade” brands: Kate, Jack and Kate Spade Saturday, with a total of 91 stores in the US.

Total number of 5&P stores? 479.

The VCMA has filed an appeal, which stopped construction yesterday. We are working on a Jurisdiction Request to the Board of Appeals requesting that they be classified as formula retail.

There will be a public hearing.

None of us want to be doing this. We are usually working 50 hours a week on our own businesses.  Now we have this battle to fight on top of trying to run a small business in San Francisco. We're meeting regularly, after our shops close, because we care about our neighborhood.

In a letter dated September 6, 2012, the Planning Department sent a letter to neighborhood organizations which included instructions on how to appeal the Department's decision [on their ruling on Spade's formula retail status]. If we had received letter then, we would have appealed last year.

Why didn't we get this letter? The VCMA is relatively new (compared to the Mission Merchants Association, which was founded in 1909). None of us knew about this list of neighborhood organizations. It's the neighborhood group's responsibility to submit their details to the city to be added to the list. Of course, the neighborhood group has to first find out about the list.

Who did get the letter? The Mission Merchants Association. It was addressed “attn: Phil Lessor,” who is a paid consultant of Jack Spade.

We don't have the resources of 5&P. In fact, we're paying for everything out of our own pockets. We don't have the lawyers and professionals that they have, but we have community support. That's what keeps us going.

For the people that ask, “What's so wrong with Jack Spade? How different will that store be than other stores already in the Mission?” Maybe not a lot. It might have the same look and feel as some other (independent) high-end clothing stores that are here in the corridor.

What we're fighting is not Jack Spade, specifically. It's a fight against formula retail. When you shop at Jack Spade, most of your money you spend goes to 5&P in New York. When you shop at a locally owned small business, it stays here in the community.

If we thought that Jack Spade would be the one and only formula retail store to open up in the corridor, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be working so hard on this. But we think it's the first—not the last. Once JS opens up in this wildlife preserve of small independent local businesses, it sends a powerful message to the rest of Corporate America.

We think residents and visitors alike will prefer West of Pecos, Ritual, Deema's and Glam-a-Rama to Chili's, Starbucks, Banana Republic, and Super Cuts.

Representatives for Jack Spade still refuses to comment on their plans to Uptown Almanac, however, they have pulled all their employment ads for the location, suggesting they preparing to scrap their planned expansion.

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