The redistricting panel consists of not of 7 but 9 members, 3 appointed by the Board of Supervisors, 3 by the Election Commission and 3 by the Mayor.

This is not a community alternative. It is a nonprofit corporate alternative. 80% of the people in the room at the SFBG forum worked for nonprofit corporations which took city funding. That nonprofit corporate influence is as corrupt as downtown corporate influence. And measured by an ongoing pattern of losing election results, they do not speak with any legitimacy for a larger community.

In 2008, the nonprofit corporate candidate, Eric Quezada made a full force run for the D9 seat and came in a distant third. Of all of the participants on the SFBG panel, only one, to my knowledge, had worked on a winning campaign in the last five years, that would be Eileen Hansen on Friends of Ethics which beat Scott Wiener's two ballot measures soundly. The moderator, Calvin Welch, has not won a campaign in more than ten years and is singlehandedly responsible for blowing up the last citywide coalition where progressives were welcome--the Moscone Coalition. He did this by cutting deals with the Mayor's office that broke up the coalition. Neighbors responded in kind by outmaneuvering Welch and cutting their own lower cost deals with downtown.

Progressives have been captive of these nonprofit corporate interests for the past twelve years. Like it or not, we've been forced to try it their way and as a result we're headed for extinction. The problem is not the map, the problem is the narrowness of the nonprofit corporate version of a progressive coalition. The economic and ethnic prejudice in that room--that one can determine one's politics based on income level or ethnicity--belies a fear of the majority of San Francisco voters. Those who fear more than half of the electorate should probably steer clear of electoral politics.

The voters have returned that fear in kind by trouncing the nonprofit corporate sector's candidates and ballot measures. It is time for us to try something different before we face total extinction and for-profit corporations totally rule San Francisco. If the nonprofit corporations are not willing to step back, do some frank self criticism for their role in alienating the voters and recalibrate their message to a broader audience, then San Franciscans who want to see an end to downtown dominance need to push for a district map that cuts the nonprofit corporations off from public resources so that they end up being put out of our misery.

With no disrespect to my Pinoy friends, the major topic of discussion was consolidating Filipino voters in D11. There are many communities with 3.5% of the population, each of which can expect to elect a supervisor every 30 years. For considerations of a politically moderate ethnicity to dominate the line drawing is of concern to me. Should Filipinos be intentionally separated? No, but is equivalent consideration being given to other marginalized communities of interest with similar sized populations?

The continued division of the Mission district is also problematic. In the 2000 census, the highest concentration of Latino voters was in the Northwest Mission north of 16th and west of Mission. This community of interest is to be divided in favor of the SRO community and the interests of the nonprofit corporations that are paid to provide services to our SRO neighbors.

Whenever you hear the terms "the people," or "the neighborhood" or "the community" coming from the nonprofit corporate employees, you know that they don't have you in mind. Rather the goal is to gerrymander SF districts to make sure the cash keeps on flowing.

Downtown can be beat if progressives and neighbors unite on common goals important to San Franciscans not hip deep in the self-referential nonprofit corporate coffee clatch culture.

When was the last time that any nonprofit corporate employee spoke about corporate corruption at Rec and Park? When was the last time that a nonprofit corporate employee spoke about corruption at DPW and filthy streets around schools that predominantly serve kids of color? When was the last time that a nonprofit corporate employe spoke about how unreliable Muni was to low income folks trying to get to work on time or make an appointment? When was the last time that a nonprofit corporate employee spoke about corruption at the Redevelopment Agency or Housing Authority? When was the last time that a nonprofit corporate employee spoke about the failings of the Ethics Commission and the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force? When was the last time that a nonprofit corporate employee stood up to the Planning Department?

Those issues are progressive issues and appeal to a wide range of San Franciscans. But my wager is that downtown threatens the nonprofit corporations with losing City funding if they "go there." My wager was that Newsom threatened Welch with losing MOH money for CCHO if Prop B passed in 2008, so he slow walked it to death. Quezada achieved the activist nightmare on Easter Neighborhoods, organizing the entire neighborhood against him and downtown triumphed and we've got to clean up that mess. The corruption involved in nonprofit corporations who not only don't have democratic legitimacy to speak for others but have been trounced when they seek it at the ballot box on their own turf taking city money to speak for all San Franciscans who oppose downtown dominance cannot be allowed to continue.

Occupy has been instructive for me as a coalition of the 99% means that many people are forced to leave their comfort zones to work with those whom they've been taught to hate. It is time for the nonprofit corporations and organized labor which together dominate progressive politics to step out of their comfort zone, demolish the coalition of the 31% (10% labor, 20% nonprofit corporation that cuts deals with the 1%) and go for as much of a 99% coalition as possible. They cannot do this, as they are programmed to presume that people who are not poor and who are white hate them.

OSF occupiers are organizing to check any effort by the nonprofit corporate employees to try to "Occupy Redistricting," in the way that they tried to graft their failed housing agenda onto OSF with "Occupy Wall Street West" on J20, as OSF occupiers will not tolerate nonprofit corporations speaking for the 99%.

can be put towards organizing the broad coalition that is apparently waiting in the wings. shit, maybe even you know...a different map for this coalition to organize around.

I actually hope the Tenderloing (where I live) gets assigned to District 3. We don't have much in common with the rest of D6, and we could help David Chiu get reelected.

Nice job of gerrymandering for The Haight!