Mirkarimi Shows Leadership in School Closure Fight

by Randy Shaw, 2006-01-17

As recently as three weeks ago, the closure of additional District 5 schools was a done deal. But after two weeks of press conferences and organizing around the disparate racial impact of these closures, the entire closure plan on is hold. Chief credit for this turnaround goes to Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who has taken the lead in building a citywide coalition around the closure issue. Mirkarimi’s efforts on school closures and other issues have put him in the forefront of addressing two critical priorities that Mayor Newsom has claimed as his own: how to stop the exodus of families with children from San Francisco, and how to specifically reduce African-American displacement. But it is Mirkarimi, not Newsom, who has assembled the multi-racial, class diverse coalition necessary for progress.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi did something unusual last week: he put Mayor Newsom on the defensive over his policies toward two of his priority constituencies: children and African-American families. The Mayor opposes Mirkarimi’s plan for San Francisco to loan the school district $5,000,000 to keep schools open, but parents with kids in schools, particularly African-Americans, appear to overwhelmingly favor the Supervisor’s approach.

The school closure issue, like so many others affecting District 5 since Mirkarmi took office, arose suddenly and demanded quick action. Despite the lack of time for much strategic planning, during his first year Mirkarimi prevented the demolition of the Harding Theater, stopped the Redevelopment Agency from putting a Starbucks in Japantown, and ensured the ongoing operation of medicinal marijuana dispensaries through new city regulations.

The Supervisor has also had to deal with saving the Garvey-King Coop, two blocks of affordable housing with 211 rental units, most of which are occupied by African-American families and seniors. HUD has sought to foreclose on this historic ownership opportunity for the Western Addition’s low-income residents, and Mirkarimi has fought vigorously out of the public limelight to preserve this critical housing resource.

Mirkarimi is also trying to protect affordable housing at the city-owned Midtown Apartments, another large complex that has prevented the further displacement of African-Americans from the Western Addition. Matt Franklin of the Mayor’s Office of Housing has been quoted stating that he doesn’t believe that San Francisco should be in the business of owning rental housing in the city, even though city ownership has protected the Midtown tenants from displacement.

Having seen Mirkarimi’s success at organizing multi-racial community coalitions, the Mayor’s Office is unlikely to get in a battle with the Supervisor over Midtown.

Despite Mirkarimi’s success around District 5 issues, some believe that his district’s demands during his first year were preventing him from working on more systemic, citywide issues (the medical marijuana issue was citywide, but was largely of interest in District 5). Mirkarimi did end 2005 with a push for voter-owned elections, a citywide strategy for partial public financing of mayoral elections that now has the support of eight members of the Board.

Mirkarimi’s work on the school closure issue not only addresses critical citywide issues, but the Supervisor has defined the debate around two issues the Mayor has claimed as his own: how to stop the exodus of families with children from San Francisco, and how to specifically reduce African-American displacement. And Mirkarimi has not been subtle about his message, making it emphatic that he sees the disparate racial impact of the closures as part of a continuum that began with the Redevelopment Agency’s demolition of the once-thriving Fillmore.

This is the subtext to the school closure issue, one Mirkarimi clearly understands. The passion exhibited by African-American parents at last week’s School Board meeting is not drawn solely from a racially-unbalanced school closure plan, but rather from a pattern of local, state and national policies that are driving San Francisco’s black residents out of the city.

Mirkarimi recognizes that while the media and many elected officials may see Redevelopment’s displacement of African-Americans as a relic of the past, it has not been forgotten by the black families of the Western Addition and Fillmore. One gets the sense from Mirkarimi’s strong words that he feels that, while he was not around to stop Redevelopment’s displacement of African-Americans in the 1960’s and 70’s, he sure as heck is not going to let the city drive away more blacks out by closing neighborhood schools.

Mirkarimi’s framing of this debate puts Mayor Newsom in a quandary.

The Mayor has already stated that he opposes the loan of $5 million in general fund money to the schools. His position is understandable from a policy perspective, as that would simply require him to make $5 million in cuts from existing city programs, some of which are already at risk due to the city’s estimated $80 million budget deficit.

But good policy is not always good politics. The Mayor does not want to be seen as responsible for closing African-American schools, as this would undermine his support among the children and school advocates that have long backed him.

Nor is closing schools primarily attended by African-Americans consistent with the Mayor’s plan to halt the exodus of low-income families from San Francisco. To the contrary, many parents have argued that closing the schools will force them to leave.

Approving a loan, or outright gift, is a tough choice for the Mayor as well as the Board of Supervisors. But there is an available strategy that could keep the schools open without hurting health and other programs financed by the general fund: take the $5 million from the Redevelopment Agency.

If any entity should lose $5 million, it is the Agency that demolished the Fillmore and spawned the anger that the closure plan has unleashed. In fact, the entire fight over school closures shows that San Francisco can no longer afford to divert tens of millions of dollars to the Agency each year, as our health care and education systems are at a breaking point.

The Mayor, Board of Supervisors, and a majority of School Board members may oppose Mirkarimi’s plan, but it is hard to believe that Martin Luther King Jr. would have done anything but condemn San Francisco’s closing of primarily African-American schools.

Send feedback to rshaw@beyondchron.org