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

News this month

Guilty?

The verdict in a terrorism trial of a 23-year-old man in northern California continues to be controversial. On April 25th a federal jury in Sacramento found Hamid Hayat, a Pakistani-American, guilty of lying to the FBI and providing “material support” to terrorists by attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003. He returns to court on July 14th to be sentenced for between 30 and 39 years in prison. Prosecutors hailed the case as an example of the government’s vigorous efforts to stamp out domestic terror plots. Even America’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, issued a statement celebrating the verdict, saying, “justice has been served”.

Mr Hayat’s lawyer and other legal experts begged to differ, pointing to shaky evidence used in the trial. Prosecutors presented statements from a paid informant, who told the unlikely story of spotting Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy in Lodi, a town south of Sacramento where Mr Hayat lived at the time. Mr Hayat’s defence team also contends that the FBI's videotaped confessions from Mr Hayat and his 48-year-old father, Umer Hayat, were vague and inconsistent, and that the younger Hayat was fed answers by his interrogators. Complicating his conviction are claims by a juror that she was pressured by other jurors to find him guilty. Mr Hayat’s lawyer has filed for a new trial, alleging improper conduct by the jury and court. Meanwhile Umer Hayat will return to court in June to face charges of lying to the FBI. His case has been tried already, but the jury was deadlocked.

Kidney failure

Pending lawsuits and pressure from state and federal regulators forced a northern California kidney-transplant programme to shut down in May. The programme allegedly endangered patients by causing unnecessary delays. It was run by Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente, the largest non-profit health plan in America, with 8.2m members in nine states and the District of Columbia.

Before launching the programme, Kaiser sent its kidney-transplant patients to University of California hospitals in Davis and San Francisco. In 2004 it decided to perform the transplants itself, but its programme was startlingly inept: Kaiser neglected to process some patients’ paperwork or test relatives who were willing to donate their kidneys, so its waiting list for kidneys soon became one of the longest in the country. The Los Angeles Times reported that Kaiser performed only 56 transplants last year, while twice that many people died while on the waiting list; this ratio is often reversed at other transplant centres, where twice as many patients receive new kidneys as die. Kaiser’s nearly 2,100 transplant patients are being referred back to the University of California hospitals, where they will be given credit for the time they spent on Kaiser’s waiting list. Meanwhile state regulators have launched an inquiry into Kaiser’s management of the programme.

A test fails

A judge suspended California’s controversial high-school exit exam in May, making it possible for 47,000 students who failed the test to graduate next month. Five students from the East Bay city of Richmond had filed a lawsuit claiming that the exam penalises students who were poor, foreign and attending substandard schools. Robert Freedman, an Alameda County Superior Court Judge, agreed with the plaintiffs, ruling on May 12th that poor students, who are often in schools with unqualified teachers and paltry supplies, are ill equipped to learn the material on the test. The ruling means that the state cannot withhold diplomas from seniors who failed the exam but fulfilled all other graduation requirements.

State education officials plan to appeal against the ruling. They argue that the test is the best way to assess whether students have the basic skills needed to function in higher education or the workplace. The exam, which tests students on eighth-grade-level maths and tenth-grade-level English, was adopted by the state legislature in 1999, but this was the first year that students would have been penalised for failing. Students have several opportunities to pass the test during high school, and can take it after leaving school to receive a belated diploma.

Culture vultures

These days it seems de rigueur for America’s great museums to be embroiled in controversy over stolen art. In the past year New York’s Metropolitan Museum and Los Angeles’ Getty Centre have each scuffled with officials in Italy over the ownership of certain works. It seems only fitting, then, that San Francisco’s de Young Museum should join the fray. Staff of the de Young are examining its celebrated collection of tribal art from Papua New Guinea to determine whether any of the pieces were illegally removed.

Soon after the de Young Museum’s grand reopening in October, antiquities experts raised questions about some of the 400 items on display, including a wooden mask with mythical imagery dating from 650-780AD. The collection was donated to the museum by John Friede and his wife, Marcia. While no one is suggesting that the Friedes knowingly purchased stolen art, it may be that some items were on Papua New Guinea’s list of “national cultural property”, and therefore were exported illegally. The museum is working with the Friedes and Papua New Guinea’s government to identify the works. If it turns out that some of the items were designated as national cultural property, the de Young could return them or arrange to keep them on loan until the Port Moresby museum, which is being rebuilt, can properly care for them.

Extra extra

The Bay Area’s newspapers made their own headlines in April, when MediaNews Group announced it would add two local papers to its collection this summer, making it the dominant publisher in the region. Hearst, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle and its affiliates, had been the area’s leader, but MediaNews, led by Dean Singleton, had steadily expanded in the region, buying the Oakland Tribune and an array of other local papers. This spring Mr Singleton jumped at the chance to buy the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa newspapers, including the highly profitable Contra Costa Times. The new acquisitions will bring the company’s combined circulation in the region to 700,000, compared with 400,000 for the Chronicle and its affiliates. And while the Chronicle’s circulation is concentrated in the city itself, MediaNews has solidified its hold on the surrounding region, with both conventional and free papers.

Mr Singleton bought the Mercury News and the Contra Costa papers from McClatchy, another newspaper chain, which had put the papers up for sale to help finance its purchase of Knight Ridder, another news company. The ownership shuffle has raised yet more concern about the decline of independent newspapers and the concentration of media ownership. Mr Singleton was also greeted warily by newspaper staff, who worry about his reputation for slashing jobs and salaries to cut costs. Others were more optimistic, calling Mr Singleton a shrewd businessman who has saved dying papers such as the Oakland Tribune and poured money into improving journalism at other publications. MediaNews Group is now the largest newspaper-owner in California, with 53 daily papers across the country.

Catch if you can

May 2006

Black Panther Rank and File

Until July 2nd 2006

Depending on whom you talk to, the Black Panthers were either heroes at the vanguard of the civil-rights movement, gangsters, or something in between. This exhibition at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts explores the party’s fiery legacy.

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed the organisation in Oakland in 1966, and the Panthers soon grew to national prominence for their controversial efforts to improve the lives of black Americans. At the party’s height, it was running medical clinics and food programmes for thousands of school children. But the party was also known for confrontations with police over allegations of racism and brutality. Moreover, political opponents accused the Panthers of using organised crime methods, including murder, to consolidate power. J. Edgar Hoover, then director of the FBI, even called them “the greatest threat to internal security in the country.”

This exhibition brings together artefacts, photography and rarely seen footage. The items on display also include art created in the Panthers’ heyday and contemporary work inspired by the group.

Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, 701 Mission St. Tel: +1 (415) 978-ARTS (2787). See the centre’s website for more information.

More from the San Francisco cultural calendar