SF Vote to Save Rent Control 10/31-11/3/15

THIS IS GOTV Weekend, Get Out the Vote, and PLEASE VOTE. For tenants who depend on rent control, it is barricades time to save our homes because if Prop F fails, all rented apartments will become hotels and we will all be homeless. You can vote the last 4 days of this election, October 31-Nov 3, at City Hall, Basement Room 48, on a vote-by-mail (absentee) ballot Oct 31-Nov 2 and a regular ballot on election day, Nov 3. On Oct 31-Nov 1, you can vote 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., entering on the Grove St side, near Polk.

In Supervisorial District 3 (Nob Hill, Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill), the San Francisco Police Officers Association is walking precincts, distributing door hangers for anti-rent control supervisorial candidate Julie Christensen.

The entire ballot is dominated by the housing crisis more fully described below.
Vote Yes on A,B,F, H, I,K.
Vote No on C,D,E,G,J

As a protest, vote Green for mayor, Francisco Herrera. See http://www.peoplescampaign.net/platform
http://www.peoplescampaign.net/

You can also vote-by-mail on an absentee ballot at City Hall, outside Room 48:
1. Monday through Friday, Oct 5-Nov 2 (closed for Columbus Genocide Day Oct 12), 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
2. Saturday & Sunday Oct 24-25 and Oct 31-Nov 1, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (enter on Grove St near Polk).

On election day, you can either vote at your polling place or at City Hall, by Room 48, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. You can deliver your vote-by-mail ballot on election day to any polling place or to the County Registrar before 8 p.m. IT MUST BE RECEIVED by the County Registrar on election day; mailing is not sufficient on election day AND IT IS TOO LATE TO MAIL THE BALLOT AFTER OCT 28, 2015. To be safe, walk it to City Hall when the Registrar is open or to a polling place on election day.

The San Francisco Elections Department provides a lot of information online, including your polling place at http://www.sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=599

Some comments on the propositions. The housing crisis epitomizes the bankruptcy of capitalism that puts profits before people. It should be illegal to maximize profits with housing; all housing should be non-profit and no speculation should be allowed. This is only possible in a socialist society, which we can only obtain when labor has the strength to carry out a general strike to put an end to capitalism. Some 75% of San Francisco residents now cannot afford to buy or rent housing at current market rates. Since all rich people have at least 1 home, and often more, there is NO NEED FOR ANY LUXURY HOUSING WHATSOEVER.

Proposition A: Yes. A bond that the sponsors state will not cost more in taxes so the landlords cannot ask the tenants to pay for it and will not pay for luxury housing. The best thing about this bond is that it makes possible federal funding in addition to bond funding for workingclass housing, for those of us who cannot afford to pay more than $1,000 a month and for those who cannot afford to pay more than $500 a month. All of the ballot arguments for all of the housing propositions ignore one of the largest, if not the largest sector of the labor force in San Francisco: OFFICE WORKERS. There are literally tens of thousands of offices in San Francisco where secretaries, word processors, bookkeepers, receptionists, mail clerks, janitors, stationary engineers and computer technicians work who cannot afford so-called “market rate” rental housing and certainly cannot afford to buy a home. The same is true for all restaurant and hotel workers, teachers, nurses and all other medical staff who earn less than medical doctors. This is the overwhelming majority of the labor force in San Francisco. If you make less than $120,000 a year, you do not need and cannot afford to buy a tax shelter called a home in San Francisco.

Proposition B: Yes. Paid parental leave for all City employees. This basic labor benefit is common in most of the industrialized world, but not in the backward USA.

Proposition C: No. This is phony ethics reform that stifles organizing against the Democratic Party machine.

Proposition D: No. This Mission Rock racket is luxury housing near the baseball stadium swindle with funding from the multi-millionaire dollar fixed gambling racket business called the SF Giants baseball team and proposes promoting a brewery as industry. Alcohol is poison; ask your doctor.

Proposition E: No. This phony change to the open government law is a means of packing public comment by anti-labor corporations.

Proposition F: Yes. This urgently need reform to the current law to stop the hotelization of San Francisco must pass. The most notorious destroyer of our homes is Airbnb, but it is not alone. If you are registered to vote at your current address, you have received at least 6 Yes on F mailers and 7 No on F mailers. You can see the real estate profiteers are funding the No on F mailers and the Yes on F campaign is clearly a grassroots campaign. See http://www.sharebettersf.com/

Proposition G: No. This clean energy proposition by PG&E, a private profit company illegally allowed to provide gas and electricity to San Francisco residents and businesses while City offices have public power, has been superseded by a better one, Proposition H.

Proposition H: Yes. This mandates CleanPowerSF to use electricity generated in California and San Francisco when possible.

Proposition I: Yes. This is a temporary moratorium on luxury housing construction in the Mission District. It is a good start. THERE IS NO NEED FOR ANY LUXURY HOUSING WHATSOEVER.

Proposition J. No. This is an outrageous, unconscionable gift by the taxpayers to private profit businesses in the name of so-called legacy. The older you are, the more businesses you have seen come and go. That is the risk of private profit businesses. There is no reason for the taxpayers to pay the rent of any private profit business. All non-profits that are providing public services should be taken over by the City which should be providing all public services. It is our labor that is the legacy that we pass from generation to generation and provides for the character of our City.

Proposition K. Expands the use of the City’s surplus property for affordable housing from the homeless who have no income to those with a workingclass income, less than $80,000 a year. IN SAN FRANCISCO, WE NOW HAVE 2,352 HOMELESS CHILDREN, AND IT IS INCREASING GEOMETRICALLY, ANNUALLY. We have had a homeless crisis since 1980 when Democrat Carter was president. THE TOP PRIORITY OF OUR CITY GOVERNMENT MUST BE TO HOUSE THE HOMELESS TODAY.