Bulldog 2007-Article 92

(6-13-07)

I’m used to wading through shit to get through my life.       It’s just the way things have broken for me and I thrive on it.       Better that assholes like Aaron Peskin and Sean Elsbernd run into h. brown then some defenseless and shackled Chron maiden.        So, I’ll tell you what really happened at Monday’s Audit and Oversight committee hearing.     It was disgusting.

Until the SFPD has a mandatory, totally inclusive drug testing program that includes testing every single officer on the force and in the academy for steroids, the department’s approval of their de-facto traditional:  ‘Whack a mole  …  whack a hippie  …  whack a nun  …  win a prize!’ will remain standard operating procedure.      It is truly a sick situtation.      Assault a nun or a secretary and you’ll get a departmental commendation to help cover your drug-crazed ass.      It is a situation that can be cleaned up by simply requiring sworn officers to be required to submit to the same baseline testing including a steroid screen and then, a requirement for random drug testing, just like every other City department  that operates moving equipment.       As far as I can determine, the SFPD is the only police department in the country that has no drug testing for its officers.       Please find another if you can and forward the info.       It is an invitation for abuse which our hostile cop force regularly exercises.

I’ve been pushing for steroid testing for cops for years.      Just Google:  cops on steroids, cops on drugs  …  any combination thereof and read away.       You’ll be reading for hours about average officers turned into murderous beasts under the influence of roids.      Steroid use amongst cops worldwide is a huge problem that results in innocent people being assaulted by officers pumped-up like beef cattle and embued with a chemical aggression completely inappropriate to their line of work.      Estimates are that a minimum of 5% of cops on U.S. forces are heavily dependent upon some form of steroids.      That’s at least a hundred cops on the streets of San Francisco and from the looks of the ones I see, there are lots more.       International organizations have suggested that regular testing on officers should start in the cops’ own weight rooms.

So, I study this for years and when my time to speak to having steroid testing put into the cops new contract finally comes, Elsbernd and Peskin fucked me every way possible to silence me.      I was, for example, given 2 minutes to speak to the work of a dozen cop and City lawyers and the staffs of 3 supervisors, including the Board prez himself.       They worked for months (some of them years) and I was given 2 minutes to refute their work.      Here’s how it went down.

First, Peskin released the contract at 4:50pm last Friday in an attempt to avoid scrutiny.      That worked fine.       I didn’t notice the item on the committee agenda til late Sunday evening and by then it was too late to organize interested parties like the ACLU and Critics and victims of police brutality.

Then, the conniving Board prez, arranged for the contract to be heard, not by the Public Safety Committee where it obviously belonged, but before Audits and Oversight, chaired by the cop apologist, Elsbernd w/equally reactionary Michaela Pier as Vice Chair (Chris Daly dropped off last week after endless 2-1 votes rendered him useless – Peskin quickly assigned himself to Daly’s slot to make certain not just the POA’s MOU, but a raft of other potentially controversial CBD and labor MOU’s could slip in under the radar without real public input).      Which is why Peskin shot the contract to this committee where no one would ask questions like:

1.    Did you study best practices regarding drug testing for police officers?

2.    What  information did you gather regarding police steroid use?

That’s overloading you.      Suffice to say that I’ve begun lobbying
Progressive supes to send this monstrosity back for at least one more committee hearing.      As it now stands, Peskin and the cops don’t have to face the ACLU or Mesha Monge or Ace Washington at the Full Board.      Hey, Peskin can argue, I gave them enough legal notice and if I was able to sneak it past them, that’s tough shit.

I gotta close with a curse for Elsbernd for restricting public comment on the MOU to 2 minutes.       Then, the prick, Peskin interrupts me!!       And, once Salomon and I have spoken our 2 minutes in which we are supposed to represent all of the people beaten and murdered by cops on steroids for years.

Then, Elsbernd offers to give Jerry Jarvis another minute when he complains that other items on the agenda all got 3 minutes public comment.      But, he refused Salomon and I the same courtesy.       That is flat out illegal and should be enough reason to send the thing back to committee.

Also rushed on to this agenda, designed to minimize public input by the Peskin/Newsom backdoor tactics were measures approving further powers for 7 CBD’s (Community Benefits Didstricts) and 1 BID (Business Improvement District).

Now, these outfits are nothing but a smokescreen for private police and dpw surrogates to clean and protect narrowly identified business areas.      They are, in fact dispensing vigilante security units (OK, since Peskin got em approved they’re legal)  …  and, sanitation units.

Which, I support.     I understand that the cops and dpw do not do their jobs and that it is necessary to protect your interests, if you are able, by hiring private security and cleaning firms.     While it is terrible that businesses would have to unite to fill this gap, they should nevertheless be required to listen to residents of the various affected areas who oppose these organizations.      Peskin and Elsbernd made certain this didn’t happen.

Pier slid in some weird-ass item about:  “Relationship between parking, neighborhood businesses and families� which, for the life of me, seemed as though it was designed to provide cover for the ‘must be vetted by a Board committee’ requirement  Elsbernd earlier fronted for Downtown interests trying to stop 4 Progressive Board members from putting an item on the ballot without a  Board vetting.      I stood to note to anyone who listened that what Pier was saying would realize that what she was advocating was adding thousands upon thousands of polluting vehicles to San Francisco under the guise of taking care of ‘families’.       Kids, we don’t need more cars.     We need less cars.       The ratio of parking spots to residential units is around 13-1 at Polk and Sutter.       The legislation (favoring moguls like Walter Shorenstein, who twised Newsom’s arm in a nasty bitch-slapping 2 years back on the C-3 parking fiasco)  …  the Pier legislation allows 1-1 parking construction.      A disaster.

Elsbernd also took advantage of the low-flying rushed hearing to push through a rubber-stamp of a 23 million dollar Rec and Parks Capital expenditure to beautify Stern Grove for concerts that happen 10 days a year while making it tougher for the poor to bring their broods  in cars.       No parking for the public and the Swells get total control of the park 355 days a year?       Plus, why the hell would anyone spend 23 million dollars on sodding a parking lot when virtually every public restroom in every park in the City is closed?

Lazarus said that when he realized he wasn’t going to be reappointed outright to the Park and Rec  Commission.        Although, I believe he can stay indefinitely because Peskin tabled the action instead of sending it to the Full Board.

What Lazarus said was revealing.       I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was that bad.      I’d seen the spread in Downtown’s ‘Benefit’ magazine (where Newsom’s floozies go to suckle) about Donald Fisher’s boys opening their first artificial sod soccer field to great applause (surprise, they control scheduling on the surfaces they install and, if they follow standard privatization practices of such facilities around the Bay, can begin charging up to $150 an hour for soccer teams to even practice on their fields.       And, due to Peskin, they have carte blanche to take control of every single soccer field under the Rec and Park umbrella at their own pace without returning to the Board for permission.

Soccer fields.       Marinas.     Zoo.     Stables.     Golf courses soon.    Boat House.       Nothing public when the dust settles.      Non profits like the art museums (DeYoung and Asian) cutting costs by tossing out City security in favor of temps.      Sad state.

If nothing else, any person who understands anything about City government who watches this (6-11-07) meeting of the Board’s Audits and Oversight Committee will have to admit that Peskin can certainly no longer be called a Progressive.       He looks out for the interests of the wealthy and corporations and the cops cause he wants to be a major ‘Playah’ and to hell with the interests of the citizens of San Francisco or their property.       May he be dive-bombed by red-masked parrots.

“Remember, he he laughs last  …
thinks slowest.�

(KFRC)

“It’s all up to you, whatever you do  …
time will let you know.�

(Cheap Trick)

“Don’t bust my balls.     I just wanted to say.
My grandma saw you on Bruzzone and thinks you’re great.�

(Sean Elsbernd)

h. brown for Mayor?

(your last chance to go back)

gotta run

soup kitchen opening