Economist.com Cities Guide: San Francisco Briefing - March 2006

News this month

Baseball blues

Revelations about Barry Bonds, a top slugger for the San Francisco Giants, have undermined his reputation as a sports hero. With 708 career home runs, he is just shy of Babe Ruth’s second-place record of 714, but a new book called “Game of Shadows”, written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, both reporters at the San Francisco Chronicle, attributes his performance to steroids. In an excerpt published in early March in Sports Illustrated, a national magazine, they argue that Mr Bonds has used a wide array of performance-enhancing drugs since 1998.

Three years ago Messrs Fainaru-Wada and Williams broke the story about Mr Bonds’s ties to BALCO, a Bay Area sports-nutrition firm that was distributing drugs to top international athletes. The book is a product of countless interviews and sources, including previously confidential documents from the BALCO court case. According to the baseball-player's former mistress, Mr Bonds started using drugs because he did not like being overshadowed by Mark McGwire, a St Louis Cardinals player who broke the record for most home runs in a season in 1998. Besides possibly keeping Mr Bonds out of baseball's Hall of Fame, these allegations could lead to his prosecution for lying to a grand jury in 2003 when he denied using steroids.

Cell out

The future of stem-cell research in California is now up to the courts. State voters approved Proposition 71—the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative—in 2004, to create a research institute from the sale of $3 billion in state bonds over ten years. But anti-abortion groups and taxpayer organisations swiftly filed two lawsuits to block the initiative on procedural grounds. In a cunning move, these groups have tossed aside moral objections to ask instead who will oversee the distribution of taxpayer-funded research grants.

Plaintiffs in a trial that ended recently in Alameda County argued that the committee charged with distributing research grants—valued in billions of dollars—represents the interests of universities and private organisations, not those of the state. A state attorney argued, however, that California's treasurer and legislature have ultimate authority over the institute’s funding and operations. A judge is expected to rule before the end of March, but both sides have said they will appeal to the state Supreme Court if the verdict goes against them.

Ferrymen in short supply

A legal row about lethal injection halted the execution of a 46-year-old inmate at San Quentin jail and has raised questions about the role of doctors in carrying out death sentences. Michael Morales was scheduled to receive the death penalty on February 21st for the rape and murder in 1981 of a 17-year-old girl. He had requested a stay of execution, arguing that California’s methods for administering the lethal mix of drugs carried a risk of error. A federal judge ordered the execution to proceed, on the condition that two anaesthesiologists were present to ensure Mr Morales did not regain consciousness. But the doctors backed out at the last minute on ethical grounds, forcing the judge to halt the execution.

A hearing has been scheduled in May to consider whether lethal injection violates constitutional rights. In April, the US Supreme Court will hear arguments on the matter when it considers the case of a Florida man scheduled to die by lethal injection. Meanwhile the California Medical Association, the state’s largest professional body of doctors, is sponsoring legislation to make it illegal for state doctors to play any role in executions, even to pronounce a prisoner dead.

Disarm and be damned

A San Francisco politician proclaimed on national television that America would be better without military forces, thereby confirming a Republican maxim that San Francisco is a leftist outpost, out of touch with reality. Gerardo Sandoval made his remark in an interview on a Fox News show called “Hannity and Colmes”. Sean Hannity, the show's conservative host, had invited Mr Sandoval to discuss where a retired battleship might best be docked. After explaining that a warship was not a suitable tourist attraction for San Francisco, Mr Sandoval continued to say “America should unilaterally disarm”.

Brushing aside consternation from Mr Hannity's leftist co-host, Alan Colmes, Mr Sandoval said that the money saved on a standing army could then be diverted into children’s education, explaining that the military had done America little good in the last five years. Though Mr Sandoval’s comments were not so out of touch with local sensibilities—some in the city want to impeach President Bush—they did not sit well with all San Franciscans. “The best that could be said for San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval was that he was caught off guard,” lamented a San Francisco Chronicle editorial on February 20th. “He not only lunged into the trap, he bungled every conceivable opportunity to escape.”

Mayhem in Oakland

Oakland, ten miles east of San Francisco, does not have enough police officers to deal with a surge in violent crime, according to the town's city council. This year 27 people have been killed in homicides, nearly double the number murdered by this time last year. The council had considered calling a state of emergency to redeploy officers, in response to complaints from residents who say they have been accosted by robbers, gunmen and drug dealers, often outside their homes. Locals report that violent crime is no longer confined to Oakland’s traditionally tough neighbourhoods, but is spilling into more affluent areas.

This is not good news for Jerry Brown, the outgoing mayor. Now running for state attorney general, he spent the past eight years working in Oakland to attract business development and reduce crime. While overall violent crime has dropped on his watch, the homicide rate has been inching up, from 60 deaths in 1999 to 88 in 2005. Meanwhile, Wayne Tucker, the police chief, plans to put more officers on the street by shuffling schedules and reassigning desk officers to patrol. A state of emergency—which would have let Mr Tucker enact this plan without seeking police-union approval—was averted when the union reluctantly agreed to put more officers on the streets.

Catch if you can

March 2006

Napa Valley Mustard Festival

Until April 1st 2006

Most tourists flock to Napa Valley during summer holidays or the autumn harvest. But it is in the late winter and early spring, when wild mustard cloaks the vineyards with brilliant hues of gold and green, that the area becomes surprisingly magical. California’s best-known wine country hosts a three-month Mustard Festival from late January to April, with weekend activities celebrating the region’s food, art, culture and—of course—wine. Events this year include: a visual arts competition at St Supery Vineyards; a jazz festival on March 11th in Calistoga; and the Taste of Yountville on March 25th, a fair replete with gourmet food, olive oils and fine wines produced in the town that hosts the famous French Laundry restaurant.

The Mustard Festival’s “signature” event is the Marketplace, on the weekend of March 18th. This takes place at COPIA (the American Centre for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa) and features cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs, as well as live performances by jazz, world and classical musicians.

Napa Valley Mustard Festival. Tel: + 1 (707) 938-1133. For more information, visit the festival’s website.

More from the San Francisco cultural calendar