A Supe Scoop Special Report

A meeting of the full Board of Supervisors came to an abrupt halt today as demonstrators entered the supervisors' sanctuary in the board legislative chamber and held a sit-in that shut down San Francisco politics for more than an hour, prompted 14 arrests and a lockout by police of two Supervisors, and ended with an attempt by one deputy sheriff to eject Supe Scoop himself from City Hall.

The civil disobedience assault was staged by a group identifying itself as the "People's Budget Collaborative (PBC)." PBC activists in white t-shirts with "I AM NOT AN ADDBACK" hand-scrawled on the back (lettering quality varied widely from shirt to shirt) rushed the fenced-off inner area of the legislative chamber. With a stirring condemnation of the Board's "timid Finance Chair" (unprepossessing supe Mark Leno), a shrill PBC firebrand led the occupation of the Supes' inner sanctum, prompting Board President Tom Ammiano to call a fateful "two-minute recess."

The demonstration was held for the Supes' own good, explained Collaborative member Wendy Phillips. "We want to restructure the budget process by giving more power to the board members themselves," Phillips told Supe Scoop. "Right now the mayor hands down a budget and the supervisors have a month to make changes to it. We want a budget that begins with the supervisors themselves, in consultation with the community." To Supe Scoop's query about whether the move from a budget crafted by one tyrant to a budget crafted by eleven might lead to a never-ending budget process, Phillips replied, "We don't think expediency should come before democracy."

Our own exercise in democracy took place in a cluster of about 50 demonstrators locked out of the Main Chamber, flanked by San Francisco Police phalanxes of 16 cops apiece. As the cops pulled on heavy leather gloves and stretched their knuckles in preparation for some hippy-wrasslin' action, sheriffs in ill-fitting tan shirts pulled on surgical gloves and prepared plastic wristcuffs. Supervisor Matt Gonzalez schmoozed in the lobby. "Are these friends of yours?" one woman asked him. "Not this time!" the tireless supe replied.

As the occupation dragged on, cops and sheriffs sealed off the chamber and stood firm as a cluster of PBCers chanted their lefty and pro-democracy slogans. "But you're interrupting the board meeting," objected Ms. Ernestine Weiss. "They can't get in there and vote!" Weiss, a longtime supe watcher, later confided to Supe Scoop, "This is the worst thing I've ever seen in my entire life."

Among those left high and dry by the demonstration were about 200 representatives of Local 250 Health Care Workers Union, whose less aggressive demonstration was first outshouted by the PBC's, then conflated with it by cops and angry citizens, who blamed the health care folks (a large number of whom were non-English speakers in need of translation equipment) for the interruption in vital city services. Ironically, the Local 250 troops wore purple t-shirts with the slogan "INVISIBLE NO MORE" emblazoned on the back, even as their gathering ended up gaining them bupkes in terms of recognition. Health Care workers are hot about a promised dollar-an-hour pay raise that Governor Gray Davis's new budget has failed to deliver, said lead organizer Leon Chow.

Comedy broke out as the police at last began moving in on the demonstrators. When a phalanx to the right of the chamber door began marching in one row at a time, the last column mis-timed its steps, forcing the lead man to stop and the other three to bump into each other in turn, Keystone Kops-style.

This was not the day's only show of force by the authorities. Sheriffs at last managed to wrestle the demonstrators out of the inner sanctum and eject them from the Chamber. In the midst of a crowd of rubberneckers watching the slow herding of the PBC gang toward the Polk Street exit of City Hall, Supe Scoop was singled out for ejection by one sheriff with a protruding belly. "What are you doing here?" the mustachioed flatfoot demanded. "I'm here to see the Board meeting," I replied.

"Let's go," said the jackbooted thug, grabbing my arm and attempting to hustle me out.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said. "I'm with the press. Here's my card." Although the Automatic Media business card I produced is about as convincing as a handful of Monopoly money, it sufficed to bamboozle the goon, who chided me for not telling him I was with the press right away. That my status as an American citizen and San Francisco resident should have been enough to allow me civil treatment by a public servant is a nuance of democracy that appears not to have crossed the sheriff's mind.