Bryan’s weblog

A transition to media advocacy and activism

Bryan — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:50:42 +0100

Dear friends and colleagues:

I'm very happy and honored to announce I have been named the editor for Streetsblog San Francisco. I will now transition from mainstream media to media advocacy and establish my roots as a transportation policy activist.

Streetsblog.org is New York City's leading source for news and analysis of transportation, urban planning and environmental policy issues. They are working to reduce motor vehicle congestion while reclaiming the streets for bicyclists, pedestrians and transit users. Streetsblog works under the media advocacy arm of the the Open Planning Project founded by Mark Gorton of Limewire fame and Tower Research Capital.

Our goal is to drive the narrative on transportation, urban planning and environmental policy in the Bay Area and establish Streetsblog San Francisco as the major source of news on these issues. The site will have a distinct advocacy bent but will also focus on producing quality journalism.

To my colleagues at KCBS, thank you. When I initially knocked on the door almost eight years ago I hadn't intended on staying that long. KCBS is one of the nicest newsrooms I've worked in and there are some real dedicated and talented people there.

I am a journalist at heart, but I also have to be an activist. I'm angry! I'm on my bike every day. I walk around the city. I ride Muni and BART and I don't see the kind of real progress we deserve.

I'll have more to say about this and Streetsblog San Francisco very soon!

In the meantime, wish me well as I embark on this exciting adventure!

SF Planners Betray Spirit of Market/Octavia Plan

Bryan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:31:59 +0100

299 Valencia Street

By Bryan Goebel

The San Francisco Planning Commission has unanimously approved a developer’s conditional use request to build new underground parking above the ratio set in the Market & Octavia Neighborhood Plan, betraying the spirit of a sustainable blueprint that took nearly a decade to craft, and inviting more vehicle congestion to the transit-rich Mission District, where a majority of residents do not own cars.

“For the planning commission to just give away something that should be earned…is quite offensive, actually, after eight years of a democratic planning process,” said Jason Henderson, a Hayes Valley neighborhood activist and assistant professor of geography at San Francisco State University.

The parking lot would sit below a proposed five-story building at 299 Valencia Street -- now a car share lot -- that would house 32 condos likely to be priced around a million dollars each. It would include four affordable housing units and nearly 5,000 square feet of ground level retail space. The developer wants to construct the underground lot for 30 residential and commercial parking spaces, or .75 per unit, under the guise of marketability and over the limits of the Octavia/Market Plan.

“The requested parking will be necessary to market the units, particularly in a difficult economic climate,” attorney David Silverman, representing the developer, testified at last Thursday’s meeting.
Valencia and 14th Streets, a major walking, cycling and public transit neighborhood
The building, which would be close to the polluting Central Freeway, would face two major cycling routes: the heavily traveled Valencia Street bicycle route, the vibrant 14th Street bicycle route and the 26-bus line. It would be located a block from the Mission Street transit corridor, blocks from the city’s main drag, Market Street, and a few blocks from the 16th Street BART station.

“We think that until the project sponsor can really demonstrate that they’re not going to harm these very, very important transportation routes (the conditional use request) shouldn’t be granted,” urged Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City, who sits on the BART board of directors.
14th Street Bicycle Route
But a majority of commissioners, in their first major test of the Market/Octavia Plan adopted in April by the Board of Supervisors, seemed sympathetic to the developer, with the exception of Chair Christine Olague, who blasted Silverman’s assertion that more parking is needed to market the units.

“There’s no justification for additional parking in this area,” she said. “If less parking would mean a unit would be more affordable it would increase the marketability of certain units and it would widen the market for those who could afford to purchase one of those units.”

The Market/Octavia Plan, one of the first in the U.S. to allow developers to build new housing with no parking, set strict limits on new parking to one space for every two units. A compromise was reached that would allow more parking only in extreme cases, “like if a disabled person needed it for their van,” said Henderson.

“Conditional uses are common in plans and in zoning when a developer has an exceptional need or a very unique situation. So the zoning code is made flexible to allow for unique situations, compelling situations. This particular development and the arguments made by the developers offered no compelling reason to grant an increase in parking. There is none, really.”

Commissioners ultimately voted for a “compromise” offered by the developer that would create two car share spaces, replacing two residential parking spaces, but there are accessibility issues since the lot would be on private property.

There was also some confusion about the motion leading the progressive members, including Olague, to vote in favor. Still, Henderson says: “It was their first vote on this project and I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and I think they heard us and I think they’re going to proceed with a little more caution.”

Henderson and other opponents plan to appeal to force the issue before the Board of Supervisors. A majority must then be persuaded to hold a public hearing.

A spokesperson for the planning commission said no appeals had been filed yet.

If San Francisco is going to be a truly progressive and sustainable city it needs to stand up to developers who claim “marketability” as the only justification for clogging our streets with vehicle traffic and creating more greenhouse gas emissions.

But with a seven-member planning commission in which four are appointed by our supposedly green mayor, Gavin Newsom, we will continue to face these kind of challenges throughout the city.

(Photos by Bryan Goebel)

"This is Your Nation on White Privilege"

Bryan — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:42:51 +0100

Anti-racist activist and writer Tim Wisehas written 175 essays on racism and white privilege but most have not become as viral on the Internet as his recent essay, “This Is Your Nation on White Privilege.”

“The stuff that I talk about in that piece is stuff that I talk about all the time,” says Wise. “But sort of relating white privilege to the election is something that, for the most part, hadn’t really been put in print by anyone.”

Wise’s new book, “Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-racist Reflections from An Angry White Male,” is a collection of his best work. I'd strongly recommend it.

In this interview originally recorded September 20, 2008, he talks about how Barack Obama’s success has reinforced racism, how race is playing out between the candidates and why he thinks the “Bradley effect” won’t play a big role in this election.

“Regardless of where you stand in this campaign… we have a lot of work to do in this country to deal with the ongoing racial divide that exists not only on a personal level but on an institutional level."

A shorter version aired on KCBS October 19, 2008.

Awakening Southern Democrats

Bryan — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:25:07 +0200

For any supporter of Barack Obama worried about his chances in the South the Nation's Bob Moser has written a book that offers some hope.

In "Blue Dixie: Awakening the South's Democratic Majority," one of the best books of the political season, Moser writes "the South's heady half century of rising education levels and unprecedented in-migration, as well as manufacturing job losses since the early 1990s, have made the region fertile territory for a reborn Democratic populism."

Moser says the Democrats' Northern leadership ignored the South in the last two presidential elections, with the exception of Florida, based on the perception that Southerners are dumber, more violent, more racist and more fundamentalist in their religion.

He debunks a lot of those myths and says "the white backlash generation that came out of the 60s that viewed African Americans as fearful and threatening is dying."

In this interview, he talks about how Obama is embracing the South, what the Democrats must do to win the South, the Democrats non-Southern strategy, Howard Dean's fifty state strategy, the racial politics of the South, what's happening on the ground and how the South's population is changing with the rise of more Latino and African American voters.

Recorded September 21, 2008.
A shorter version aired on KCBS October 6, 2008.

The Big Squeeze

Bryan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:57:35 +0200

The Big SqueezeNo doubt, these are hard times for the American worker, but you might be shocked to find out what's happening to people like Drew Pooters, who was fired several times for refusing to shave hours off time cards.

"Managers are under increasing pressure to minimize costs and increase profits," says New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse.

Stagnate wages, worsening health benefits, the erosion of unions and pension benefits and the fact that American workers are being forced to work harder and harder have created what Greenhouse calls,"The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker."

His book is an exposé about how companies are squeezing the American worker, in some cases illegally, and being allowed to get away with it.

In this interview, Greenhouse also sizes up where Barack Obama and John McCain stand on labor issues.

Originally aired September 14, 2008 on KCBS.

Remembering David Foster Wallace

Bryan — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:15:26 +0200

David Foster WallaceI discovered David Foster Wallace in the pages of the Atlantic and the New Yorker. His essayon John Ziegler is, for me, the best piece ever written on talk radio.

But the work that established Wallace as a major American literary figure was his giant novel, "Infinite Jest".

Wallace died Friday at his home in Claremont. Police say he committed suicide.

Marshall Boswellis a novelist and associate professor of English at Rhodes College in Memphis. He wrote a book about Wallace titled "Understanding David Foster Wallace".

This interview aired September 15, 2008 on KCBS.

Crisis in Bolivia

Bryan — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:29:41 +0200

A student supporter of Evo Morales: Photo by ReutersBolivia's president and the governors of two opposition states, Santa Cruz and Tarija, have agreed to sit down for talks aimed at diffusing a political crisis that has lead to a wave of violence resulting in the deaths of at least a dozen people.

Last week, President Evo Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador, accusing of him of supporting the opposition. Venezuela soon followed suit, expelling its U.S. ambassador.

Jim Schultz of the Democracy Center, a global justice organization based in San Francisco and Cochabamba, believes the expulsion was a mistake.

If anything, Schultz says, the U.S. should have pulled the ambassador out for his own incompetence.

He says "conspiracy theories" the U.S. is stirring up violence have been overblown.

"This violent opposition to Morales did not need any support from the United States to exist," he says.

In this interview recorded for KCBS September 13, 2008, Schultz talks about the divisions of class, ethnicity and region in Bolivia and says the U.S. should stay out of the conflict.

The Shaker Chair: An Interview with Adam Bock

Bryan — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:18:41 +0100

Adam BockPlaywright Adam Bock grew up with a family of environmental activists in Canada.

"My mom, I think, believes a little stronger that you can work in the system. My aunt didn't. So my aunt would take us and we'd do sort of these terrible things, which were for a good cause."

They sound a lot like the leading characters in Bock's new play, "The Shaker Chair," running through January 27th at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley.

Bock is a talented playwright who brilliantly fuses activism, politics and LGBT issues into his numerous plays while inviting audiences to think for themselves. He's been described as a "neo-realist" and his style of dialogue is reflective of the way people really speak.

"I try to listen to the dance of language and where feeling corrupts it," he says.

In this interview, he talks about "The Shaker Chair," his process as a writer, language, his identity as a gay playwright, growing up in Canada and many other issues in a wide-ranging conversation recorded on December 14th in San Francisco.

(Airing in two parts on This Way Out beginning the week of January 14th. Airs in San Francisco at 8 p.m. on KALW 91.7 Thursday, Jan. 17th and Part II Thursday Jan. 24th).

Tony Kushner in America

Bryan — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:46:26 +0100

Tony KushnerTony Kushner is one of the greatest contemporary playwrights but calling him just a playwright wouldn’t describe him.

He is also a screenwriter, activist, public intellectual, Jew, gay man, socialist, progressive and on. His politics are firmly tied to his art, writes theater scholar James Fisher in his fascinating study of Kushner’s work, "The Theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope.”

“He believes that good politics can produce good aesthetics and, as always, he remains alert on the raw edges of contemporary life and those pressure points of history that relate to our current dilemmas.”

Kushner’s masterpiece, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” won the playwright a Pulitzer Prize. He has since produced a number of important works for the theater, and most recently for film.

In this wide-ranging interview, Kushner touches on the current struggle for LGBT rights, gay marriage, divisions in the LGBT community, the state of American theater, the writing process and married life. The interview was conducted in Kushner’s tiny office in Manhattan. Airing the week of November 26th on This Way Out.