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Author details the story of Cameron House, whose proprietors helped girls and young women escape from lives of prostitution in Chinatown. | 3-5
SEA LEVEL RISE WILL BRING ON DANGERS FROM BELOW Groundwater is expected to be pushed up, causing damage far inland. | 12
SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG • $1.00
SUMMER 2019 • ISSUE 28
Complaints And Citations Rise Sharply Under Veritas
POWER SWITCH City builds case for pushing out embattled PG&E
At buildings named in lawsuit, record number of violation notices By Noah Arroyo // Public Press
O
wning more than 230 rent-controlled properties in San Francisco, Veritas Investments Inc. markets itself as a premier real estate company that buys and renovates aging apartment buildings, increasing their property value while enhancing the quality of life for thousands of tenants. And Veritas says it has a good track record of caring for those living in its 5,000-plus apartments, pointing to data from the city’s Department of Building Inspection as evidence. “The data establish that Veritas is one of the best and most proactive landlords when it comes to maintenance and care for its buildings,” company spokesman Ron Heckmann said. Renters vs. But an analysis of public records Landlords for a subset of the company’s properties shows they experienced a sharp increase in the number of reported problems and citations after Veritas acquired them. And city inspectors, who vetted those tenant complaints, found more to be valid than under the buildings’ previous owners. Those properties experienced a record high in complaints and notices of building-code violations in 2018 — the year by which the company had acquired them all — compared with any other year
HOUSING CRISIS
VIOLATIONS continued on Page 6
Illustration by Reid Brown // Public Press
As utility goes through bankruptcy, analysis finds benefits outweigh costs, risks of taking over electric supply
MORE INSIDE
By Kevin Stark // Public Press
M
any San Francisco officials are savoring what they see as a once-in-a-life opportunity to take over some or all of the electricity distribution from bankrupt Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to achieve progressives’ long-sought goals of power independence and 100 percent green energy. “I will try to suppress my glee,” former Supervisor Sophie Maxwell said during her April confirmation hearing to join the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. “Power should be publicly held. It should be a public utility. It should not be for profit.” In May, that enthusiasm got a double boost that could prove to be the tipping point in the decades-long, acrimonious marriage between the city and PG&E. The utilities commission released a preliminary report that concluded the long-term benefits of municipal power outweighed the costs and other risks, and
U Photo by Thomas Hawk // Flickr
influence doesn’t mean security. | 10
PG&E continued on Page 8
Photo by Sharon Wickham // Public Press
In April, Evan Meagher was one of several Veritas tenants facing a bedbug infestation — a possible violation of San Francisco’s health code.
MORE ON HOUSING | Joining forces: A land
trust and an Oakland church are trying to protect housing for African Americans. | 7
Despite New State Law, Californians’ Data Privacy Remains Vulnerable By Yuri Nagano // Public Press
LATINOS IN S.F.: Book explains how
that relying on PG&E “has grown increasingly untenable and unnecessarily expensive.” Days later, state fire officials blamed PG&E for the November blaze that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people, adding to billions of dollars in liability for previous disasters that drove the utility into court to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Already convicted of six felonies for the deadly 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline blast, the company could face more criminal charges for last fall’s blaze near Chico, in addition to further lawsuits. But as local regulators push for greater or total electricity independence, some daunting realities confront the dream of a San Francisco free of the nation’s largest electrical utility and some of the highest rates in the land. San Francisco already generates most of its own
nder the California Consumer Privacy Act, which takes effect in 2020, consumers will have the right to opt out of the sale of their personal data to third parties, and request that businesses delete their information. The law calls for noncompliant companies to be prosecuted by the California attorney general’s office and fined up to $7,500 for each violation. But after months of strenuous lobbying by technology companies, which are increasingly clashing with privacy advocates in Sacramento, it appears California consumers may end up having to fend for themselves. That’s because the office of Attorney General
Attorney general is ill-equipped to go after all but the worst offenders Xavier Becerra says it is ill equipped to prosecute data privacy, and predicts it may be able to handle only a handful of the most egregious cases per year. Consumers have for years suffered blatant privacy abuses from companies that claim to be responsive to their requests for anonymity. After seeing their names with birthdays, addresses, phone numbers and speeding tickets displayed online for the world to see, thousands of American consumers have been taking their complaints to
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the Better Business Bureau to try to remove their information from people search sites such as Mylife. com, Spokeo and Whitepages. One irate contributor to the bureau’s forum, Mark Perna, 45, said he called Mylife.com, a Los Angeles-based company that has tallied 9,242 complaints, requesting his information be removed. “If someone wanted to, they could stalk someone,” said Perna, who is a D.J. living in San Diego. After getting no satisfaction, he reported the company to the state attorney general. But he might not get much help from California regulators. Stacey Schesser, supervising deputy attorney general on consumer protection, testified in PRIVACY continued on Page 11
Your Data, Their Dollars
The Fight Over Privacy