Eric Kauschen’s daughter shared a class with Mikaela Lynch, and also has autism. Photo courtesy Eric Kauschen.

Opinion by Eric Kauschen

These were the kids we made fun of. They were like us, but not like us.

While we made fun of them, it was usually a good-natured sort of thing because they would do things we would think of doing but didn’t, because we knew right from wrong and they didn’t. These were autistic kids.

Growing up I never heard the word autistic. It was a term that just started to pop up more so people in the general public were hearing it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they understood it.

I didn’t really understand it even after meeting an autistic kid. For many people that’s still the case today.

You don’t really start to understand what dealing with autism is like until you have to deal with it 24/7.

Given the recent sad ending of the search for Mikaela Lynch I felt I needed to speak up because there were too many people who didn’t understand what it is like to raise an autistic child.

My daughter was diagnosed with autism when she was just under 2 years of age, and it was very difficult for us to take at first.

There are lots of fun times to be had because my child is really happy (like Mikaela, with whom she shared a class) and wants to have fun all the time. The downside to this is that they don’t always understand that what they want to do or try to do is dangerous. You as a parent try to be on top of things constantly, but it’s the one time you turn your head or sneeze that they decide to do something like run into the street.

My daughter is like Mikaela in several ways, but not as severe. She can sort of talk, using mainly one or two words, but if you ask her what her name is she can’t tell you. She also doesn’t enunciate very well so it takes a while to understand what she’s trying to say.

She’s not a dumb kid, though. She has tried to run into the street, not understanding she could be hit by a car, but she also knows that if she wants something on a top shelf that she can’t reach, she can build a way to get up there to reach it.

Then you have the other times when she imitates something you’ve done that you don’t even think about.

I was cleaning up our living room one day and I happened to turn a chair over and put it on her toy stove. The next day my daughter brought her chair into the kitchen and turned it upside down and put it on the stove. She knows that her play stove is a kid version of a real stove, but doesn’t understand that you shouldn’t put a chair on the real stove like Daddy did with the toy stove when cleaning up.

For a while, if you handed her a piece of food she was interested in she’d put it in her mouth and try it, but if the texture or taste was off she wouldn’t just take it out and throw it down. She’d try and stick it in your mouth as if to say, “Here, you eat it.”

Luckily we’ve gotten her away from that, but she still will run up to me and shove her hand into my pockets when she knows I’ve got candy in them. She doesn’t even have to see me put the candy in there, she just knows when I’ve got it and goes for it.

Autistic kids don’t feel pain like other kids do, so you have to watch them very carefully. I didn’t realize my daughter was right behind me one day, when I turned around and accidentally knocked her over. Her response? She laughed.

Lots of these kids like to play rough because the extra stimulation they get helps them calm down. You have to remember, though, that if they don’t feel pain in the same way you might, they might have something wrong with them and not realize it.

I hope my experience raising an autistic kid will help you understand it a little better if one day you meet someone who’s autistic or if you have a child that’s diagnosed with it. It definitely is more work, but because they see the world differently they’ll give you a lot more to think and smile about.

Eric Kauschen is one of the few born-and-raised natives left in San Francisco. He grew up with a love of the writings of San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, and since Herb has passed on he works to bring the spirit and enthusiasm of San Francisco’s history and culture to people around the world. Read more by Eric Kauschen at http://baghdadbythebaysf.com.

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This opinion article does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Ocean Beach Bulletin. It represents the opinion of its author, who is responsible for the veracity of statements made in it. The Ocean Beach Bulletin accepts submissions of opinion articles, but does not guarantee publication. For more information, please email Tom Prete.

Photo: Tom Prete / Ocean Beach Bulletin

Opinion By Kathleen C. Gray

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is asking for a new ordinance that would make it illegal to park large vehicles (read: RVs) overnight anywhere that a sign is posted. The first proposed areas for such signage are all areas known to be where RVs park on an ongoing basis, including the Lower Great Highway in the Sunset District.

One of the major reasons given for why this legislation is needed is that neighbors in these certain areas are complaining about the near constant presence of RVs, campers, etc. I wonder what those neighbors would think if they realized that those vehicles cleave to certain areas because the SFPD herded them there in the first place. For at least the last 15 years, to my direct knowledge, the police have been instructing those living in their vehicles to park there.

I know a little bit about the game that is played. It is called Musical Chairs for Inhabited Vehicles.

I don’t do drugs. I am fairly well educated. I have been gainfully employed from the age of 15 onward. I have also, sadly, experienced being a homeless person. Surprisingly, it didn’t take all that much to find myself in that bind: job loss, then savings used up, and making a bad choice of a companion, which led to domestic violence. All at once, with nothing available for me in the shelter system, I had no where to live, no money for a new place. So l literally walked down the hill from the house where I had been living in the Richmond District, to sleep in Golden Gate Park.

I lived in Golden Gate Park for the better part of a year (from 1997 to 1998), not by choice but as the absolute last resort.

So all told I worked and lived in San Francisco for 17 years, only two years of which was in conventional housing (the first two). I have stayed in  Golden Gate Park, the back of a friend’s van, in a van of my own, and later in my beloved 1957 travel trailer which had been in storage for the previous seven years, from a time when I actually used to go on vacations in it.

Throughout these experiences I had a lot of contact with the police, so believe me when I tell you they know exactly who is living in what vehicle. I have even had a district captain (new to the Richmond at the time) rolling with the black-and-whites as they ID’d me and threatened to ticket me for “camping” in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon at the park. When I reasonably pointed out to the uniform the illegality of this, the captain stepped out of the car to explain that she “knew I wasn’t breaking the law,” but they just wanted to know “who was in there.” This sort of treatment is common practice, subverting the use of authority for an agenda.

During my time living in a vehicle, the police hounded me relentlessly. I was continually woken up by them at 3 in the morning. The rude awakening entailed spotlights, shouting and pounding on the trailer with their Maglites, thus denting the body of the vehicle (I’d like to see them try that on somebody’s Mercedes). I had to step out in the cold in my pajamas while they ticketed me for the misdemeanor of having been peaceably asleep in my vehicle. The funny thing is, this was always accompanied with the direction to move my vehicle: not just away, but to specific areas. If I was parked in the Sunset somewhere, I was told to park on the Lower Great Highway. In the Richmond, they just told you to go to the Sunset, but “suggested” the Lower Great.

This was cyclical. There were a few years where the instruction was, “Why don’t you go park on Lincoln Way with everyone else?” Then it would return to being directed to the  Lower Great Highway.

Now, the SFMTA wants the Board of Supervisors to pass legislation that will allow them to start herding these people, who are just trying to be self-reliant in the best way they know how or can afford. Saying that the obstacle keeping these people from accepting city housing is fear of losing their vehicles is disingenuous at best; the real fear is for their own quality of life. Would you give up your independence, your pets, the beach, the park, your neighborhood, to be corralled in the Tenderloin, without your pets, in what in many cases amounts to crack hotels filled with all the people who may have dragged you down in the first place? I have visited friends in these places, and I wouldn’t have lived there if you had paid me to.

Problems exist. Some people in vehicles, just like in any segment of society, are irresponsible. They don’t carry their trash to the trash cans. Surely you don’t believe that homeless people are the only ones littering at Ocean Beach?

So, needles are found. You must be aware that drug abuse is not solely the affliction of people who are not conventionally housed? It always amazes me that whenever needles are found in Golden Gate Park, they are always attributed to the homeless people who make the park their home, never to the thousands of other citizens who use the park to recreate in!

For these problems there are already laws in place. This new proposal sounds to me as though the City, despite vigorous resistance to it, is just clearing the way for its new pet project at the beach, the Beach Chalet soccer field renovation with its attendant 60-foot-tall stadium lights. And as usual, they are prepared to do the clearing right over the backs of the poor.

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Publisher’s Note: This opinion article does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Ocean Beach Bulletin. It represents the opinion of its author, who is responsible for the veracity of statements made in it. The Ocean Beach Bulletin accepts submissions of opinion articles. For more information or to submit your own opinion article for consideration, please email Tom Prete.

The west end of Golden Gate Park as seen from Ocean Beach. What will be the impact of 150,000 watts of artificial light on our experience of sunset at Ocean Beach?

Opinion By Katherine Howard

In case you hadn’t heard, Golden Gate Park is about to change — and not for the better. If you care about the park’s future, you need to tell the Planning Department and the Planning Commission now.

Golden Gate Park was designed as a relief from urban stress, a place where San Franciscans can enjoy nature and leave the city behind. While the eastern end of the park was intended to contain various attractions, the western end was planned to be primarily wooded, with groves and meadows. (See the visionary 1998 Golden Gate Park Master Plan. ) When you think of the park, you probably think of the winding paths, the lakes, the meadows and the groves of trees that surround them. This is the iconic Golden Gate Park, the park that San Franciscans know and love.

The proposed Beach Chalet Athletic Fields project will change this forever for the western end of the park. According to the draft environmental-impact report, the proposed soccer complex will turn the grass playing field into a hard-edged, artificial, urban environment.

It will replace more than seven acres of natural grass and topsoil with more than seven acres of gravel, plastic grass and tire waste. This is an area larger than Candlestick Park. It will install 150,000 watts of 60-foot-tall stadium lights. It will cut down 55 trees. It will replace parkland with parking. It will add even more paving and lots more lights and bleachers.

The pastoral feeling will cease to exist, and suburban development will have taken its place.

This project will impact wildlife habitat. On any day, songbirds feed on the fields and raptors circle above. But there are no worms in artificial turf. At the Commonwealth Club panel “Golden Gate Park Under Siege,” Mike Lynes, the conservation director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society, described the artificial turf as the environmental equivalent of paving seven acres of Golden Gate Park with an asphalt parking lot.

Ocean Beach will be negatively affected. The bright sports lights will be lighted from sunset until 10 p.m., 365 days a year. Visiting Ocean Beach to watch the sunset, gaze at the stars or sit by a fire ring will be a very different experience. The view from Sutro Heights will change. Instead of a dark and mysterious swatch of land, the park will look like, well, what it will have become: a sports stadium.

Beach Chalet Athletic Fields today – nature, history, and recreation in a beautiful, naturalistic setting. This is Golden Gate Park as envisioned by its founders and as enjoyed today by residents of all backgrounds – rich and poor, young and old, healthy and infirm. This is what must be preserved for future generations.

The night lighting is primarily for the adult soccer leagues. Adult soccer is fine, but many leagues come from all over the Bay Area. Why are they deciding what happens to Golden Gate Park?

You may hear pseudo-environmental arguments in favor of artificial turf. Artificial turf uses somewhat less water than natural grass, but does that mean that we should pave over Golden Gate Park to save water? Should we also plant plastic trees? In fact, the water used to irrigate Golden Gate Park comes from underneath the park and goes right back into the aquifer. And living grass sequesters enormous amounts of carbon.

Many of our supporters are concerned about the chemical content of the ground-up tires in the artificial turf – this issue is hotly debated all over the United States. Do we really want to introduce this into our park habitat, and so close to Ocean Beach?

We know that the Beach Chalet fields need fixing up — the fields haven’t been renovated for 14 years. Yes, there are gopher hole — Rec and Park has done a poor job of maintaining these fields. But obliterating the western end of Golden Gate Park because of poor maintenance is like blowing up a building because it hasn’t been painted. It just does not make sense.

We support youth soccer. We also support teaching children to value and respect nature.

We therefore suggest a compromise. The budget for the proposed Beach Chalet project is a whopping $10 million to $12 million. The Polo Field was renovated with real grass for $1.4 million. Beach Chalet is smaller. So, let’s fix up the Beach Chalet fields with real grass, and let’s use the rest of the money to fix up other playing fields in San Francisco.

This is a win-win solution that protects parkland and gives kids more places to play and a terrific grass field in a beautiful setting: Golden Gate Park.

Now is the time to speak out. Come to the Dec. 1 Planning Commission hearing. Read the draft environmental-impact report. Support our compromise. Weigh in with your written comments before Dec. 12. Contact SF Ocean Edge for more information.

Without your help, this part of Golden Gate Park will be lost forever.

Katherine Howard, ASLA is a member of the steering committee of SF Ocean Edge.

Images and captions via SF Ocean Edge.

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Publisher’s Note: This opinion article does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Ocean Beach Bulletin. It represents the opinion of its authors, who are responsible for the veracity of statements made in it. The Ocean Beach Bulletin accepts submissions of opinion articles, but does not guarantee publication. For more information, please email Tom Prete.

The existing grass fields in use at the Beach Chalet soccer fields. Photo courtesy SFRPD and City Fields Foundation

Opinion By Phil Ginsburg and Susan Hirsch

Seven hours. That’s how long it took for Little League’s registration to fill up this year because there aren’t enough ball fields in San Francisco for all the kids who want to play.

For city parents, this is unfortunate but not unusual; many know that youth sports in San Francisco are entirely constrained by a lack of sports fields. Up to 4,000 kids use the City’s ball fields for several hours every day after school, and we simply can’t accommodate them all. The grass sports fields we do have are quickly overwhelmed because they can’t handle that amount of play. As a result, the fields are often closed

For example, on Nov. 1, with two weeks left in the youth sports season, one of the city’s main ball-field areas – the Beach Chalet Athletic Fields – was closed for the year. Just as it is forced to do every year to prepare for the spring season, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department locked the facility to give the worn-down grass several months to rest and regrow.

This isn’t right. We can do a better job for our kids and our city. But it’s going to be a balancing act and will require a little flexibility from everyone.

Last month, a draft environmental report was released for a proposal to renovate the Beach Chalet Athletic Fields with synthetic turf, field lights and other improvements to rejuvenate the entire area. This report found the project will have practically no impact on the environment, the park, local wildlife or city residents.

In fact, the only “unavoidable significant impact” is that the soccer fields would no longer be one of the 137 contributors to the Golden Gate Park National Historic District. But given that there are so many other historic features in the park, the overall historic designation of the park won’t change.

The proposed renovation of the Beach Chalet soccer fields would also include a small playground and other changes. Image courtesy SFRPD and City Fields Foundation.

You read that right, the big impact from the Beach Chalet Athletic Field renovation will be that the fields will no longer be on a list. The lights won’t be seen by park neighbors, traffic increases are so minimal that they will be undetectable, birds and bees have plenty of foraging area throughout the park, and the synthetic turf itself is perfectly safe according to dozens of studies.

On the other hand, by renovating these fields with synthetic turf and lights we will add more than 9,000 hours of new annual play — tripling the amount of playtime on these fields. We’ll save more than 6 million gallons of water a year, we’ll eliminate the use of herbicides and pesticides at this location (yes, they are still used), and we’ll add numerous amenities to make this area of the park more family-friendly and welcoming to all.

Among the site’s improvements will be a new plaza, a rehabilitated restroom, bike racks, on-field seating, a small playground, a picnic area, barbecues, and walking trails that will allow people to easily travel between the park and Ocean Beach.

Best of all, this project is jointly funded by Rec-Park and the City Fields Foundation as part of our multiyear, citywide effort to provide after-school sports fields for kids. Our partnership has already fixed up a dozen sports fields in six different parks, adding thousands of hours of new playtime for local kids. In fact, due to these field renovations, 1,800 more kids are playing soccer each year on 148 new teams. Our efforts are working.

We only renovated high-use fields that are in poor condition and are only doing a selectnumber of synthetic-turf-and-light renovations. Nearly all grass ball fields in San Francisco will remain grass. But to keep the grass fields in good shape, Recreation and Parks relies on the synthetic-turf fields to absorb much of the heavy play.

Some have asked why it’s not possible to renovate the field with new drainage and grass. The fact is, over the years, Rec-Park has renovated dozens and dozens of city sports fields with grass, only to see the fields quickly degrade into poor and often unsafe condition. This not only wastes tax dollars, it doesn’t provide safe places for kids and athletes to play.

Given the amount of play on San Francisco’s sports fields, there is simply no way to keep grass fields in safe, playable condition without closing the fields for long periods. As a result, the Beach Chalet fields are available only by reservation and only during certain times of the year. That’s not right – Golden Gate Park deserves quality ball fields and San Franciscans should be able to safely enjoy a ball game in the City’s largest and most popular park.

Think about it. What would happen if you and a couple hundred of your closest friends ran over one spot of your living room rug for several hours each day? It sounds like a silly question, but that’s exactly what happens every day on San Francisco’s sports fields, and why the proposal to renovate Golden Gate Park’s Beach Chalet Athletic Fields is the right thing to do.

For information, visit www.cityfieldsfoundation.org or www.sfrecpark.org.

Phil Ginsburg is the general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department and a father of two youth soccer players. Susan Hirsch is the project director of the City Fields Foundation and raised two children in San Francisco.

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Publisher’s Note: This opinion article does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Ocean Beach Bulletin. It represents the opinion of its authors, who are responsible for the veracity of statements made in it. The Ocean Beach Bulletin accepts submissions of opinion articles, but does not guarantee publication. For more information, please email Tom Prete.

Chunks of broken concrete cover parts of Ocean Beach near Sloat Boulevard. Photo: Tom Prete / Ocean Beach Bulletin

Opinion By Mark Massara

What do we want the southern part of Ocean Beach to be like in the future? Do we want an industrialized beach cluttered with chunks of broken sidewalks and old pavement, or do we want a place where careful management allows for surfing, fishing or simply walking along the shore? It’s time to choose.

The California Coastal Commission recently struck an important blow in the struggle over the future of Ocean Beach by rejecting an unwise and ineffective plan to dump more rubble onto the sandy beach in an ultimately counterproductive attempt to protect nearby wastewater infrastructure.

But as significant as it is, the commission’s decision is just one piece of a complex, long-term process of choosing a path for an area of precious coastline where for more than 15 years San Francisco City bureaucrats have dumped rocks, sidewalk and pavement debris, rebar, poles, and other assorted junk and rubbish onto the beach and into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area with astonishing regularity and commitment.

Coastal Commission rebukes San Francisco

In July the California Coastal Commission unanimously denied a formal request by San Francisco to leave in place the debris it has strewn across Ocean Beach from Sloat Boulevard south to the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant, including hundreds of feet of rock revetments built without permits in 1997, and the commission also refused the City’s request to add even more rubble and two retaining walls.

The Coastal Commission is tasked with upholding the California Coastal Act, the landmark coastal-protection initiative passed in 1972 by voters. The act is designed to protect coastal resources and public access to beaches.

The entire Coastal Commission staff analysis, including vivid photographs, is available online. Photographs over the past 50 years are available at the California Coastal Records Project, and the San Francisco Surfrider Foundation maintains a blog regarding the situation.

To put the matter in context, the entire area, which now resembles a third-world war zone, is actually a national park — part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Imagine if the City of Merced suddenly concluded that the Merced River through Yosemite Valley posed a danger, and tried a stunt like dumping old sidewalks and rebar in Yosemite Park.

The Coastal Commission ruled the situation untenable and the City’s strategy, or lack thereof, unacceptable. As the hearing unfolded, commissioners were astonished that instead of a long-term plan to deal with continuing erosion, the City was instead asking for permission to continue to dump junk onto the beach.

During the hearing the City took the position that “vital infrastructure” is threatened and must be protected. What wasn’t clear, though, is what the City considers “vital” and at what point it is considered “threatened.”

For example, the restroom at the Sloat Boulevard parking lot and the roadway could easily be moved to provide for managed retreat and bluff restoration. Restored bluffs are the best defense for a rising ocean. In fact, the National Park Service, in their letter to the Coastal Commission regarding the Sloat situation, said it believes the rock revetments constructed by the City are actually exacerbating erosion in the area. This would confirm what experts have long known — that sea walls and shoreline armoring don’t stop erosion, they make it worse.

The Department of Public Works installed a new rock revetment south of Sloat Boulevard in 2010 and fenced off some areas. Photo: Tom Prete / Ocean Beach Bulletin

Coastal Commission members took umbrage at San Francisco’s use of trash to stop erosion, a technique long ago discredited in California. Commissioner Brian Brennan from Ventura pointed to a successful program of rock removal and shoreline retreat and restoration at the Ventura Fairgrounds in Southern California.

Commissioner Mark Stone of Santa Cruz County referred to a project in which his county spent many millions of dollars along East Cliff Drive at Pleasure Point to construct a vertical seawall. In contrast to San Francisco’s proposal, that seawall visually matches the existing bluff, and includes formal stairways, emergency-escape goat trails, view benches, parks, restrooms, and hiking and biking trails.

Other commissioners concurred that the type of debris dumping San Francisco has engaged in would never be permitted in any other California coastal community. The fact that the City claims on its website to be the “Greenest City in North America” just adds insult to the abuse done at Ocean Beach.

In legal terms, all the debris is now illegal. The illegality is ironic inasmuch the San Francisco Board of Supervisors basically ordered the Department of Public Works to stop dumping rocks, remove old debris and do long term planning for the Sloat area way back in 1999 [EDITOR'S NOTE: City and County of San Francisco, Board of Supervisors, Resolution 698-99, File 991163, Resolution on Ocean Beach and Great Highway Emergency Authorization. July 30, 1999]. Yet DPW, for reasons not clear, ignored Mayor Willie Brown and the Board of Supervisors, and has continued to run amok and make a mess of the area since.

What happens next is that the City will be given an opportunity to remove the offending debris and rocks. Should San Francisco continue to ignore the Coastal Act they will be subject to fines and penalties of up to $15,000 per day. Based upon DPW’s past actions and continuing reliance on lobbyists urging more dumping of rocks and rubbish, tens of millions of dollars in civil fines and penalties are a distinct possibility.

What does the future hold for Ocean Beach?

Fortunately, in addition to the 1999 Board of Supervisors resolution, there is an ongoing master-plan effort for Ocean Beach that will be concluded around the end of the year. In public meetings thus far, activists and the National Park Service have shown overwhelming support for the protection of natural resources at Ocean Beach. This was the case in 1999, and this sentiment has been present in the work of Friends of Ocean Beach and the Ocean Beach Task Force as well as every other public participation process ever convened regarding management of the beach. As far as the record stands, the only organization to ever support throwing trash and junk onto the beach is DPW.

Further, genuine long-term planning and strategic-retreat analysis are clearly needed and necessary. Yet despite requests from the Board of Supervisors and the Coastal Commission, DPW has steadfastly refused to engage in future planning. Based upon the most reliable scientific analysis available, seas are expected to rise approximately 4.5 feet over the next 80 years, a dramatic increase over the 9-inch rise over the past century. If such forecasts prove to be accurate, much of the beach and oceanside development in San Francisco will be drowned, creating an urgent need for adaptive and resilient planning now.

One view of the situation at Ocean Beach is that if future armoring is needed south of Sloat, it should be limited to the Oceanside water-treatment facility, meaning that DPW should plan now to move beach amenities, sewage connector pipes, and the roadway. None of it needs to happen tomorrow. It could be planned in phases over many decades. And future armoring of the water-treatment facility should coincide with tidal reconnection of the ocean with the northern portion of Lake Merced, to provide a safety relief valve wherein ocean energy can be directed into part of Lake Merced, either by pipeline or an open ocean inlet.

For those who care about the future of Ocean Beach, now is the time to join the Coastal Commission in rebuking DPW and its insistence on continuing to dump debris in a national park. For without your voice, and the continued watchdog efforts and legal fines and penalties, DPW is unlikely to change course in future years.

Mark Massara is a longtime Ocean Beach resident and an environmental lawyer specializing in coastal resource protection.

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Publisher’s Note: This opinion article does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Ocean Beach Bulletin. It represents the opinion of its author, who is responsible for the veracity of statements made in it. The Ocean Beach Bulletin accepts submissions of opinion articles, but does not guarantee publication. For more information, please email Tom Prete.

Prop. G is a voter initiative that got on the Nov. 2 ballot by gaining more than 44,000 signatures.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who represents District 7, including the Lake Merced, West of Twin Peaks and Parkmerced areas, has been the leading advocate of Proposition G. The Transit Workers Union, Local 250-A has been the most visible opponent of it.

The Ocean Beach Bulletin sent both Elsbernd and TWU 250-A a series of questions about Prop. G, and we’re presenting the TWU 250-A questions and answers here. Answers have not been checked for accuracy and have been edited only for grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Read the Proposition G Q-and-A with TWU 250-A.

1. Proposition G doesn’t get any additional money for Muni. Isn’t funding the biggest problem? How can Prop. G improve Muni if it doesn’t address funding?

Prop. G could potentially deliver millions in funds for riders and operations that currently are spent on Muni drivers’ salaries and work rules. Prop. G eliminates the salary guarantee [in the city charter] that ensures Muni drivers are the second-highest paid in the country. Prop. G also resets Muni driver work rules that contribute to millions of dollars lost in systemwide inefficiencies. Prop. G does not generate new money for Muni from the City, state or federal government, but rather it allows Muni to use the money that it has more wisely, and to the greater benefit of Muni riders.

2. In addition to not addressing funding, Prop. G also doesn’t directly change any work rules. Why not?

Prop. G resets all Muni driver work rules and does not single out specific rules for elimination. Prop. G will require that the [San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency] and Muni drivers negotiate salary and work rules at the bargaining table, just like all other City employees do. By removing the salary guarantee from the city charter, Prop. G will provide the MTA leverage it does not currently have in order to eliminate inefficient work rules. Prop. G provides the Muni drivers an incentive to negotiate away bad work rules in exchange for salary considerations.

3. Should voters know which work rules might be changed before they support reform measures at the ballot box? Couldn’t we end up with future work rules that make Muni worse, not better?

There are a number of work rules in place that directly contribute to slow and unreliable Muni service. While changes in work rules will be negotiated at the next bargaining session, the following changes would greatly benefit Muni riders:

• Allow Muni to hire part-time operators in order to better meet peak service demands during morning and afternoon commuting hours.
• Change Muni absence policy to hold drivers with excessive unexcused absences accountable.
• Restrict overtime and premium pay to those drivers that work more than 40 hours in a given week.

4. Why can’t the City fix issues with Muni work rules through the collective bargaining process it uses with other City employees?

If for the last 40 years Muni drivers’ salaries had been negotiated through collective bargaining, work rules would likely not be the issue that they are today. Unfortunately, setting drivers’ salaries in the city charter removed all incentive for the drivers to negotiate work rules at the bargaining table. The result is that work rules are inefficient and service is unreliable. This is precisely the problem that Prop. G will solve — remove the salary guarantee, and require that drivers negotiate salaries and work rules through collective bargaining just like all other City employees.

5. Let’s say I live near the end of Judah Street and commute downtown on the N. As a rider, I can’t tell how much drivers are paid or what rules they have to follow. What benefits would I notice as a rider if Proposition G passes?

If Prop. G passes, the MTA will able to allocate savings from salaries and work rules to operations. Because the N is one of the most heavily used routes in the entire system, the MTA should allocate funds to ensure that service is improved. Better service will also require a number of changes to current work rules, but the real benefit will be that additional funds will be available for operations on the N and systemwide.

6. We’ve all had some bad experiences with late buses or impolite drivers. These may be real issues on any given day, but is there a systemwide problem or is Prop. G merely scapegoating drivers and allowing voters’ personal anecdotes to guide public policy?

Prop. G addresses specific problems with Muni that affect all riders. It is not scapegoating Muni drivers to say that drivers should not receive salary increases when services are being reduced for riders. Yet that is precisely what happened this year when the drivers received a 5.5 percent salary increase while the MTA reduced services 10 percent. Prop. G is a common-sense solution to a citywide problem. It will provide the MTA the budgetary flexibility to make Muni more responsive to riders’ needs.

7. One of the tradeoffs in our existing system is that the City pays drivers better wages in exchange for a guarantee there will be no transit strikes. If Proposition G removes the obligation to give drivers high pay, doesn’t it ensure that Muni workers will strike when they don’t like their pay and working conditions? Wouldn’t that be worse than the problems Prop. G is supposed to fix?

There is no connection between the section of the charter concerning Muni driver salaries and the section prohibiting strikes by City employees. Voting Yes on Prop. G will improve service for Muni riders. It will not allow Muni drivers to strike. Striking by City employees will still be a terminable offense.

Prop. G is a voter initiative that got on the Nov. 2 ballot by gaining more than 44,000 signatures.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who represents District 7, including the Lake Merced, West of Twin Peaks and Parkmerced areas, has been the leading advocate of Proposition G. The Transit Workers Union, Local 250-A has been the most visible opponent of it.

The Ocean Beach Bulletin sent both Elsbernd and TWU 250-A a series of questions about Prop. G, and we’re presenting the TWU 250-A questions and answers here. Answers have not been checked for accuracy and have been edited only for grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Read the Proposition G Q-and-A with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd.

1. Skeptics of Proposition G often say that removing drivers’ existing wage formula penalizes the wrong people in the pursuit of better performance from Muni. If that’s the case, where should we be looking instead? Could we really save Muni more money that way?

Muni’s management has failed riders and drivers alike. The top-heavy bureaucracy at the Municipal Transportation Agency has proved itself willing to slash transit service at the same time as it raises fares, and all the while Muni’s top manager takes home $354,000 per year. As long as management remains unaccountable, service will stay sub-standard.

2. Should we be opening up the possibility of changing drivers’ work rules without knowing what changes might be made? Is it necessary for voters to consider specific changes to rules and procedures?

Prop G doesn’t actually deal with any specific work rules. Proponents argue that Prop. G will give management an opportunity to bargain away certain work rules, but they flat-out misstate the facts about Muni drivers and the rules they work under.  Muni management has a tremendous amount of power to suspend, remove and fire operators for poor performance. In fact, under the existing collective bargaining agreement, management is even required to execute disciplinary proceedings quickly so drivers can either be terminated or get back to doing their jobs. Voters shouldn’t be confused: Prop. G doesn’t require any increased service, altered work rules or increased management accountability. It just punishes drivers.

3. It sometimes seems that Muni operators have a tense relationship with system managers. Would Prop. G make this worse? If so, why does that matter to riders and voters?

The portion of Proposition G that most concerns drivers is the provision that changes the way arbitration between the city and the union works. For the first time in San Francisco history, our city’s charter would contain provisions that bind the hands of an arbitrator in making a decision about a contract dispute. An arbitrator would be forced by law to side with management on everything from hours to wages. We believe this unprecedented change will make things significantly tenser.

4. Doesn’t the system of basing Muni drivers’ pay on the pay given to drivers in other systems remove any motivation for drivers to try harder and get better at their jobs? Why should Muni drivers’ pay be determined by a system so different from the way most people’s pay is decided?

We believe the existing salary formula is fair for a group of workers that – unlike other bargaining units – really do live in San Francisco, a city with one of the highest costs of living in the country. While we are open to discussion about comprehensive changes to the charter that would make management more accountable as well as change procedures around compensation, but the current proposal will only allow management to continue to blame workers for the system’s problems.

5. Since Prop. G doesn’t change any work rules itself, what is the problem? In any case, shouldn’t managers be able to negotiate work rules if they don’t help the system work better?

Managers are currently able to negotiate work rules with TWU 250-A, and we regularly negotiate changes in them with the [San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency]. As described above, proponents have consistently misstated the current state of work rules.  Management has broad discretion to discipline, suspend. and terminate drivers for poor performance.

6. Proposition G requires the Board of Supervisors to approve changes to Muni work rules, and sets out requirements that arbitrators must consider – including possible effects on service. Is that sufficient to ensure that drivers won’t see overly harsh rule changes in the future?

The board already approves all labor agreements. The requirements for arbitrators, discussed above, constitute a landmark restriction to collective bargaining and, we believe, will set back relations between the MTA and its employees.

7. Do any of the rules about sick time, overtime or hiring of extra drivers have anything to do with system performance, or could all the problems affecting Muni be solved simply by providing enough money? If money is the only problem, how much would it take? Where would it come from?

The MTA could hire part time drivers today if it wanted, and any suggestion to the contrary is misleading and does a disservice to the debate about improving Muni. The Yes on G campaign’s allegations about how sick time and overtime provisions work are similarly misleading and detrimental to the policy discussion.

Funding is the key to better service. Over the past five years the City has systematically slashed the MTA’s operating budget, slashed service, all while raising fares. If we want a livable, sustainable city, we need to offer more than lip service to public-transit funding. TWU is currently supportive of a number of revenue-generating measures on the ballot, including a transfer tax on downtown office buildings and a temporary increase in the City’s visitor surcharge paid by tourists. But most importantly, Muni must cut the tremendous amount of waste in its bureaucracy. No chief executive of a public transit agency should be paid $354,000 while riders wait for overcrowded buses and pay more to get on the train.