Jim Queen turns in over 11,000 signatures on Bayview Affordable Housing Initiative petitions – gathered by volunteers in 10 days in the driving rain – to the S.F. Department of Elections on Feb. 4. Photo: Francisco Da Costa

Once they turned in the over 11,000 signatures they gathered in 10 days in the driving rain to the San Francisco Department of Elections, Bayview Hunters Point activists - all unpaid volunteers - really did not expect the process to be fair. Signatures turned in a couple of days earlier on the competing Lennar-driven initiative reportedly passed the validity test quickly, though "our side" was never notified nor given an opportunity to observe.

The Elections Department announced to the press Friday that it had taken the first two steps in the validations process for our Bayview Affordable Housing Initiative: the raw count and the random sampling. According to the department's raw count of signatures, our initiative had 11,811 - seven short of the 11,818 originally announced. Verifying that 7,168 of the people who signed the initiative are registered San Francisco voters will place it on the June ballot.

However, according to a department memo, "the review of the random sample did demonstrate the petition as having a sufficient number of valid signatures to require the Department to review the remaining ... signatures." That means our initiative will have to pass another test, the more rigorous 100 percent signature count. Over the next week or two, Elections Department staff will be checking every single signature against the voter registration rolls. Time will tell.

The two official proponents of our initiative, Jim Queen and Francisco Da Costa, invite supporters to monitor the process. To volunteer as an observer and get involved in the movement, attend the town hall meetings that are held every Thursday, 6 p.m., at "ground zero," Grace Tabernacle Community Church, 1121 Oakdale Ave. at Ingalls, next door to the Hunters Point Shipyard, and call toll-free (866) 475-6907 for updates.

Petitions for the initiative backed by Lennar, the Bayview Jobs, Parks and Housing Initiative, were submitted on Feb. 1, and we submitted our signatures on Feb. 4. We were not informed about the raw count or the random sampling of the Lennar initiative.

But suddenly, just like that, we saw a report in the Chronicle that the Lennar initiative made it to the ballot. As proponents, we should have been informed and we should have been present to observe the raw count and the random sampling of those signatures.

For our raw count, the Elections Department gave us 15 minutes notice. I happened to be at City Hall and so I agreed to the raw count. I was joined on short notice by Jim Queen. We had to take turns observing, one at a time. Another surprise was that the raw count for our initiative was performed on Super Tuesday, Feb. 11, in the midst of utter confusion at the Elections Department.

It was on extremely short notice again that we learned of the random sampling for our initiative on Wednesday, Feb. 20. We were notified at 8:30 a.m. that we were supposed to report to the Department of Elections at City Hall at 9 a.m.

We arrived, only to be told that the random sampling would take place the next day, Thursday, Feb. 21. When we arrived on Thursday, well before 9 a.m., we were informed that a Lennar observer was already on site inside the counting area.

When has it become fashionable to permit an observer - in this case an attorney working for Lennar, reportedly charging $400 an hour - to be at the counting site before the proponents? I found this very fishy.

At first when we went in after being given our badges, we were told that both Jim Queen and I could witness the verification of the signatures on those petitions that a small army of us had circulated in 10 days of cold wind and rain - even on Super Bowl Sunday. Once in, though, Elections staff person Deborah Brown insisted that that was not possible; only one of us could be present.

I decided to walk away but was told to hold on. I had to be led away by an employee. I left Jim Queen to witness the count.

We were instructed not to talk to anyone, except we could take our concerns to the supervisor, who in this case was Deborah Brown. We had to stay at arms length and refrain from any contact or discussion with the employees inputting the data and verifying the petition information.

However, when it was my turn to observe, I witnessed the Lennar observer standing so close to the screen that he had access to signers' personal information. It is illegal for any observer to be so close as to be able to read detailed information from any voter, yet the Lennar observer was so close that he read it all.

More critical was the intimidating influence of the Lennar observer's presence on the Elections Department employees, standing over them and looking over their shoulders impeding their work. I brought this to the attention of one of the supervisors - not Deborah Brown, but another employee working under her having supervisorial status.

Bishop Ernest Jackson, pastor of Grace Tabernacle Community Church and a leader in our movement for environmental and economic justice in Bayview Hunters Point, also witnessed the random sampling process as an observer from our team and has filed a complaint in writing about what he witnessed, much the same as what Jim Queen and I witnessed.

This matter has also been reported to the state authorities. Anyone who has seen activity that appears questionable is encouraged to report it to California Secretary of State Debra Bowen at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Because some of the faults are very serious, we will be alerting the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well.

At the end of the day, on Thursday, Feb. 21, the San Francisco Department of Elections could easily have given us the result. But instead we were kept in the dark. On Friday, Feb. 22, I made several calls to obtain the results but no precise information was given to me.

At about 11:30 Friday morning, I went to the Department of Elections. At close to 12 noon, an employee, upon my requesting the results of the count, told me that the department would conduct a 100 percent signature verification. At that time we would find out if our initiative will be placed on the ballot.

This conclusion was based on a model where the initiative achieved a score of 97 percent valid signatures, but a score of 110 percent based on a random sampling of the 11,811 signatures is required. I was called at about 3:30 p.m. and told to report on Wednesday, Feb. 27, for the 100 percent count.

Lennar officials have called our initiative a "poison pill" that will kill their plans to make a fortune off developing a huge swath of land from the Hunters Point Shipyard to Candlestick that the mayor wants to give them for a dollar. All we are asking is that, in a city that is quickly becoming the exclusive realm of the ultra-rich, 50 percent of new housing must be truly affordable to our people.

To defeat us, Lennar has now spent over $1 million. Look for yourself at the official campaign expenditure reports posted at http://216.103.100.97/olfsadlrpt.nsf/465SIE?OpenView&Start=2.15.

We are fighting for our right to live on our land in our neighborhood, Bayview Hunters Point, in San Francisco, the city that has driven out a larger proportion of its Black population in the last decades than any other U.S. city. If Lennar can't afford to build affordable housing, our own builders based here in our neighborhood, using local workers, can build homes for our families that we can afford.

San Francisco City Hall was shocked to find out that we collected over 11,000 signatures in 10 days. Anyway you look at the drama, it is a victory for the people.
Let the count begin. It starts on Wednesday, Feb. 27, and will go on for days. We intend to allow no one to mess with the validation process; our elections, our votes, are sacred.

Francisco Da Costa is the director of Environmental Justice Advocacy. www.hunterspointnavalshipyard.com. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or through his website, www.franciscodacosta.com.

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