SFMTA - useful links, articles, etc.

This page is where I note links I think might be useful for or interesting to #HearingOfficers at #SFMTA or other similar agencies. Note that I often save links here PRIOR to reading them, so I am not saying they are accurate, balanced, etc.

CA Chief Justice Agrees: Traffic Courts Can’t Charge Fees in Advance of Trial

Here is an article by the #ACLU praising the decision that traffic courts cannot make people pay their tickets in order to have a hearing on whether they owe money or not. This could lead to major changes in how #SFMTA and other parking enforcement hearing offices conduct appeals.
"Across California, traffic courts are withholding the right to contest a traffic citation until the fines and fees for the citation are paid in full. This unfair practice violates constitutional guarantees of due process and unfairly impacts low-income people."

It was the #Lawyers’CommitteeforCivilRightsoftheSanFranciscoBayArea that brought this to the ACLU's attention in a report called 
"Not Just a Ferguson Problem – How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California"
"Over four million Californians do not have valid driver’s licenses because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees. These suspensions make it harder for people to get and keep jobs, further impeding their ability to pay their debt. They harm credit ratings. They raise public safety concerns. Ultimately they keep people in long cycles of poverty that are difficult, if not impossible to overcome."


SFMTA hearings are informal, but HOs can use more formal procedures as a guide. I've been looking for appropriate benchbooks, but so far here's all I've found.

Here is the manual for Traffic Court Proceedings in CA courts.
It's judicial rather than administrative, but I think it's still a good model, since it's [1] the right state; it's the law to which appellants will need to go if their cases move up the appeal ladder.

The California State Office of Administrative Hearings is one of the more logical sources.

Electronic filing is now required. How far along is SFMTA on electronic filings?

Laws Governing Formal Hearings under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)

Both Statutes and Regulations determine the procedure for formal APA hearings. 

The California Administrative Procedure Act is found in the California Government Code starting at section 11370 and continuing through section 11529
Ttitle 1 of the California Code of Regulations starting at section 1000 through section 1050. 

• California Codes can be found on the California Legislative Information webpage
• California Regulations can be found on the Office of Administrative Law’s webpage

At the other side of things, there are articles by lawyers and others who advocate for people in administrative hearings. Their general advice can be helpful to individuals protesting parking tickets, and also to hearing officers who want to conduct hearings as fairly as possible. 

Here, for example, is an article summarizing how an individual should go about organizing their case and the evidence for it. 

License Denial or Discipline?

No. 3 of the Top Five Essential Tasks to Do Now:

List, Identify, Collect and Preserve All Potential Evidence

Where did that billboard at Galeria de la Raza get its inspiration? I recognize it from somewhere...

It's not any of these...

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ellenwils.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/liste_logos_luxe.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.collectionpicture.stockmd.net/1018315-luxury-fashion-style&h=650&w=765&tbnid=KoiQ91UIm1N1JM:&zoom=1&docid=V0c26-X8xDhBaM&ei=iz1WVauGMsikgwTqyIG4DA&tbm=isch&ved=0CEkQMygiMCI


http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.dmarge.com/2014/09/luxury-brand-logos.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dmarge.com/2014/09/pronounce-luxury-brand-names-properly.html&h=902&w=1600&tbnid=En9LFRe_dIM7VM:&zoom=1&docid=lFrIQDdomc7zvM&ei=iz1WVauGMsikgwTqyIG4DA&tbm=isch&ved=0CGkQMyhCMEI

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thumb7.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/194326/246473161/stock-vector-logo-mega-collection-abstract-geometric-business-icon-set-246473161.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.shutterstock.com/s/rhombus%2Blogo/search.html&h=456&w=450&tbnid=1JO8M_s1cpTgAM:&zoom=1&docid=3Mdht6bXN44tKM&ei=Fj5WVdizBsKVNq7CgPAB&tbm=isch&ved=0CGYQMyheMF449AM

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://previews.123rf.com/images/butenkow/butenkow1307/butenkow130700006/20863742-Collection-of-logos-for-cosmetics-and-body-care-Stock-Vector-logo-beauty-salon.jpg&imgrefurl=http://fashions-cloud.com/pages/b/beauty-and-care-brand-logos/&h=1300&w=1300&tbnid=K8NZL8ZzETakqM:&zoom=1&docid=GI3P7uzBXNlmeM&ei=iz1WVauGMsikgwTqyIG4DA&tbm=isch&ved=0CFAQMygpMCk

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thumb9.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/194326/244188802/stock-vector-logo-mega-collection-abstract-geometric-business-icon-set-244188802.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.shutterstock.com/s/rhombus%2Blogo/search.html&h=442&w=450&tbnid=nCU4lgE33Zx5GM:&zoom=1&docid=3Mdht6bXN44tKM&ei=_j1WVYDJGoGENtesgOgE&tbm=isch&ved=0CCAQMygYMBg4kAM

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://inspirationfeeed.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/100crests-o1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://inspirationfeed.com/shop-2/13-vintage-logo-bundles-for-your-designs/&h=772&w=1160&tbnid=Jpcus4Q6jrsDpM:&zoom=1&docid=bwtjM75Ze8LIoM&ei=4j1WVfKYBcWrNv61gLgF&tbm=isch&ved=0CDQQMygsMCw4yAE

What Makes Americans So Optimistic?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/the-american-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-optimism/388538/  POLITICS JARED KELLER  MAR 25, 2015

What Makes Americans So Optimistic?

Why the U.S. tends to look on the bright side

For centuries, visitors to the United States have been struck by the boundless optimism of its people. Recent research bears out the stereotype, confirming that Americans really are more hopeful about the future than their peers in other wealthy nations. But it also suggests that American optimism may now be waning in the face of contemporary political and economic challenges.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a French observer of American life at the beginning of the 19th century, observed that the Americans of his day “have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man ... They all consider society as a body in a state of improvement.” Political and social observers have echoed this sentiment for centuries, enshrining optimism as an essential feature of not just the abstract ‘American Dream,’ but also of the social and economic institutions of American civil society.

“Anyone visiting America from Europe cannot fail to be struck by the energy, enthusiasm, and confidence in their country’s future that he or she will meet among ordinary Americans—a pleasing contrast to the world-weary cynicism of much of Europe,” observed Irish philosopher Charles Handy, who retraced de Tocqueville's trek across the country in 2001. “Most Americans seem to believe that the future can be better and that they are responsible for doing their best to make it that way.”

That Tocquevillian optimism has certainly dimmed with the Great Recession: People in advanced nations including the U.S. are far less optimistic than those in poorer ones about the financial future of the next generation of citizens, in part because emerging and developing nations weathered the global financial crisis better than anyone expected. But Americans continue to see life on the up and up despite the burdens of economic downturn, social and racial unrest and the specter of terrorism. On Wall Street, the Dow climbed to a record high in November amid optimism about economic growth. CEOs predicted a 2015 with better jobs and better pay, despite the country’s sluggish recovery from the Great Recession. On Main Street, the average American thinks the country will improve in 2015, despite years spent caught in a cycle of frustration about the political and economic state of the union.

“The challenges that this generation of Americans has faced, they're less dire than those that the Greatest Generation endured,” declared President Obama at the City Club of Cleveland on Wednesday. “But we've got the same will. We’ve got the same drive. We’ve got the same innate optimism required to shape another American Century.” But where does this sunny confidence spring from? What is it about their culture that makes Americans so psychologically predisposed to optimism?

It’s not just a stereotype. Recent data on national attitudes bears out the conventional views of American optimism. According to analysis by George Gao of the Pew Research Center, Americans are far more upbeat when asked if they’re having “a particularly good day” than their peers in other advanced nations like Germany, the UK, Spain, France, and Japan. Where Pew’s analysis shows a general inverse relationship between GDP per capita and daily optimism, the U.S. stands out as an obvious exception among advanced economies.

Outside of the U.S., Fewer People in Rich Countries Describe Their Day as a Good DayPew Research Center

This relative gap has held fast, despite the economic and political anxieties of the Great Recession and America’s campaigns against terrorism over the past decade. Data on “feelings of happiness” collected by the World Values Survey (WVS) between 2005 and 2014 reveal citizens in other advanced nations are less happy and optimistic than those in the United States. An average of 36 percent of Americans said they were “very happy” over the last ten years, beating out citizens in Japan, Chile, Poland and Germany.

Feelings of Happiness in Advanced Countries, 2005-2014World Values Survey

So why are Americans so optimistic? A growing number of psychologists and sociologists believe it’s the Western world’s distinct tradition of individualism—and Americans’ fervent embrace of it—that helps the U.S. respond to uncertainty and turmoil with an eye towards a brighter future.

“It’s actually not that people are inherently optimistic or pessimistic; we’re wired for both,” says Dr. Edward C. Chang, a clinical psychologist who runs the Perfectionism and Optimism-Pessimism Lab at the University of Michigan. “It’s a dual process mechanism, the sort of daily meditation that helps people regulate their expectations. It’s this psychological process that keeps people from becoming so optimistic they’re like Mr. Magoo, or so pessimistic they fall into a pit of despair. The two compliment each other; whether you’re more or less optimistic or pessimistic is heavily dependent on the culture you live in, the culture that shapes your values.”

It's sacrosanct mantra of living as a red-blooded American: work hard, play fair, and look on the bright side.

Studies suggest broad cross-cultural differences with respect to optimism. Some researchers, including Chang, have suggested that Western cultures may promote independent notions of the self more than Eastern cultures that stress interdependence. Even if that is accurate, though, it would not explain what distinguishes the U.S. in particular from other Western nations. If individualism is all it takes to make an optimistic culture, why aren’t the Germans and French as exuberant as Americans? It may be that Americans take Western individualism to a different level than their European counterparts. While individualism runs deep in European civil society, it’s a patriotic norm in the United States, a matter of national identity and a sacrosanct mantra of living as a red-blooded American: work hard, play fair, and look on the bright side.

“When you think about American culture broadly, it centers entirely on the independent self and the happiness of the self, and not just in a general way,” Chang explains. “It’s ingrained in the culture as an explicit, essential value — we’re hit over the head with American freedom and liberty and rugged individualism so much so that explicit pessimism isn’t actually tolerated that much in our society. It’s treated as a mental illness, a sign of depression.”

Data from both Pew and the World Values Survey suggest that the centrality of  “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in American life actually does translate into positive views of self and perceptions of personal control that are correlates of psychological optimism. When asked if “success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control,” Americans disagreed far more than citizens in other advanced economies surveyed.

As Harvard researcher Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn argues in the Journal of Happiness, Americans maximize their happiness by working and Europeans do so through leisure. "Americans may work more because they believe more than Europeans do that hard work brings success,” writes Okulicz-Kozaryn.

And consider “positive views of self.” According to Pew, more Americans agree that “our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to other” than do citizens of other Western countries, including Spain, Germany and the UK:

Religion may also play an important role. After all, Pew data shows that Americans aren’t just happier than those in other advanced nations, but more religious as well. More than half of Americans surveyed said religion was “very important” in their daily lives, once again beating out the likes of Germany, Canada, Australia and the UK.

Wealthier Nations Tend to be Less Religious, but the U.S. is a Prominent ExceptionPew Research Center

Data from the WVS reinforces Pew’s findings. Fully 40 percent of Americans say religion is “very important” in their daily lives, beating out every nation but Poland. “In general, people in richer nations are less likely than those in poorer nations to say religion plays a very important role in their lives,” observes Pew’s George Gao. “But Americans are more likely than their counterparts in economically advanced nations to deem religion very important.”

Religious values are deeply embedded in every aspect of American life, including the cultural emphasis on hard work as a metric of self-improvement. Puritan values—salvation through hard work, frugality, and economic discipline among them—“infect the great bulk of Americans to this day,” explains Handy. “They implanted the American work ethic, as well as the tenacious primacy of religion in American life, equaled only by the Muslim world.” As de Tocqueville once observed: “The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.”

Scholars have found connections between a person’s religiosity and their psychological predisposition towards optimism.

Scholars have found connections between a person’s religiosity and their psychological predisposition towards optimism. Psychologist Martin Seligman found that individuals who participate in more “fundamentalist” religious activities—prayer, sermons, liturgy—were more optimistic than their moderately religious and agnostic peers. Similar research by a team of psychologists at the University of Kentucky also shows that “intrinsic religiousness and prayer fulfillment were associated with greater life satisfaction.”

So is this a good thing or not? Champions of American individuality and optimism assert that these qualities made the U.S. respected for its scientific and technological innovations, strong geopolitical leadership, and legendary industriousness. To them, the American Dream is the dogma that distinguishes the American promise of freedom from other liberal democracies, as permanent a feature of Americana as apple pie and baseball.

But optimism, as Chang and other cultural psychologists note, is a state of mind, a reaction to the social stimuli of the world—and recent polls suggest that Americans’ optimism is fading. When asked in a WSJ/NBC poll if “life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us,” 76 percent said they do not have such confidence, while only 21 percent did—the worst response ever recorded by the poll. It’s no wonder: The average American faces flattening wages and staggering wealth inequality while economic elites see soaring gains, a government wracked by partisan gridlock and awash in millions in political “dark money,” frustration over racism and race relations, and perpetual anxiety over the specter of terrorism.

Optimism and pessimism are certainly shaped by culture, but they’re tools for managing our expectations when faced by uncertainty. With America’s social, political, and economic institutions in turmoil, cynicism and skepticism may serve the American public well. Few will want to declare the idea of the American Dream dead, nor should they: Skepticism towards dysfunctional institutions is not mutually exclusive with a positive view of the future, as data about Millennials shows. But a sliver of doubt to temper American’s cultural optimism might help bring the American Dream closer to reality.

Things Americans often forget about US history

As a public service to those who find themselves inextricably cornered by aggressively ill-informed Republicans at work, on the train or at family gatherings, presented here are ten indisputably true facts that will seriously challenge a Republican’s worldview and probably blow a brain cell or two. At the very least, any one of these GOP-busters should stun and confuse them long enough for you to slip quietly away from a pointless debate and allow you to get on about your business.

1. The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law.
Don’t take my word for it. Let these Founding Fathers speak for themselves:

John Adams: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797)

Thomas Jefferson: “Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.” (Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814)

James Madison: “The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State.” (Writings, 8:432, 1819)

George Washington: “If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” (Letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789)

You can find a multitude of similar quotes from these men and most others who signed the Declaration of Independence and/or formulated the United States Constitution. These are hardly the words of men who believed that America should be a Christian nation governed by the Bible, as a disturbingly growing number of Republicans like to claim.

2. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist.
The Pledge was written in 1892 for public school celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. Its author was Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, Christian socialist and cousin of socialist utopian novelist Edward Bellamy. Christian socialism maintains, among other ideas, that capitalism is idolatrous and rooted in greed, and the underlying cause of much of the world’s social inequity. Definitely more “Occupy Wall Street” than “Grand Old Party” by anyone’s standard.

3. The first president to propose national health insurance was a Republican.
He was also a trust-busting, pro-labor, Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist. Is there any wonder why Theodore Roosevelt, who first proposed a system of national health insurance during his unsuccessful Progressive Party campaign to retake the White House from William Howard Taft in 1912, gets scarce mention at Republican National Conventions these days?

4. Ronald Reagan once signed a bill legalizing abortion.
The Ronald Reagan Republicans worship today is more myth than reality. Reagan was a conservative for sure, but also a practical politician who understood the necessities of compromise. In the spring of 1967, four months into his first term as governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed a bill that, among its other provisions, legalized abortion for the vaguely-defined “well being” of the mother. Reagan may have been personally pro-life, but in this instance he was willing to compromise in order to achieve other ends he considered more important. That he claimed later to regret signing the bill doesn’t change the fact that he did. As Casey Stengel liked to say, “You could look it up.”

5. Reagan raised federal taxes eleven times.
Okay, Ronald Reagan cut tax rates more than any other president – with a big asterisk. Sure, the top rate was reduced from 70% in 1980 all the way down to 28% in 1988, but while Republicans typically point to Reagan’s tax-cutting as the right approach to improving the economy, Reagan himself realized the resulting national debt from his revenue slashing was untenable, so he quietly raised other taxes on income – primarily Social Security and payroll taxes - no less than eleven times. Most of Reagan’s highly publicized tax cuts went to the usual Republican handout-takers in the top income brackets, while his stealth tax increases had their biggest impact on the middle class. These increases were well hidden inside such innocuous-sounding packages as the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987. Leave it to a seasoned actor to pull off such a masterful charade.

6. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a predominantly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.
Technically, Roe v. Wade did not make abortion legal in the United States; the Supreme Court’s decision held only that individual states could not make abortion illegal. That being said, the landmark 1973 ruling that Republicans love to hate, was decided on a 7-2 vote that broke down like this:

Majority (for Roe): Chief Justice Warren Burger (conservative, appointed by Nixon), William O. Douglas (liberal, appointed by FDR), William J. Brennan (liberal, appointed by Eisenhower), Potter Stewart (moderate, appointed by Eisenhower), Thurgood Marshall (liberal, appointed by LBJ), Harry Blackmun (author of the majority opinion and a conservative who eventually turned liberal, appointed by Nixon), Lewis Powell (moderate, appointed by Nixon). Summary: 2 conservatives, 3 liberals, 2 moderates.

Dissenting (for Wade): Byron White (generally liberal/sometimes conservative, appointed by JFK), William Rehnquist (conservative, appointed by Nixon). Summary: 1 liberal, 1 conservative.

By ideological orientation, the decision was for Roe all the way: conservatives 2-1, liberals 3-1, moderates 2-0; by party of presidential appointment it was Republicans 5-1, Democrats 2-1. No one can rightly say that this was a leftist court forcing its liberal beliefs on America.

7. The Federal Reserve System was a Republican invention.
Republicans, and, truth be told, many Democrats, despise the Federal Reserve as an example of government interference in the free market. But hold everything: The Federal Reserve System was the brainchild of financial expert and Senate Republican leader Nelson Aldrich, grandfather of future Republican governor and vice president Nelson Rockefeller. Aldrich set up two commissions: one to study the American monetary system in depth and the other, headed by Aldrich himself, to study the European central banking systems. Aldrich went to Europe opposed to centralized banking, but after viewing Germany's monetary system he came away believing that a centralized bank was better than the government-issued bond system that he had previously supported. The Federal Reserve Act, developed around Senator Aldrich’s recommendations and - adding insult to injury in the minds of today’s Republicans - based on a European model, was signed into law in 1913.

8. The Environmental Protection Agency was, too.
The United States Environment Protection Agency, arch-enemy of polluters in particular and government regulation haters in general, was created by President Richard Nixon. In his 1970 State of the Union Address, Nixon proclaimed the new decade a period of environmental transformation. Shortly thereafter he presented Congress an unprecedented 37-point message on the environment, requesting billions for the improvement of water treatment facilities, asking for national air quality standards and stringent guidelines to lower motor vehicle emissions, and launching federally-funded research to reduce automobile pollution. Nixon also ordered a clean-up of air- and water-polluting federal facilities, sought legislation to end the dumping of wastes into the Great Lakes, proposed a tax on lead additives in gasoline, and approved a National Contingency Plan for the treatment of petroleum spills. In July 1970 Nixon declared his intention to establish the Environmental Protection Agency, and that December the EPA opened for business. Hard to believe, but if it hadn’t been for Watergate, we might remember Richard Nixon today as the “environmental president”.

Oh, yes - Republicans might enjoy knowing Nixon was an advocate of national health insurance, too.

9. Obama has increased government spending less than any president in at least a generation.
Republican campaign strategists may lie, but the numbers don’t. Government spending, when adjusted for inflation, has increased during his administration (to date) by 1.4%.  Under George W. Bush, the increases were 7.3% (first term) and 8.1% (second term). Bill Clinton, in his two terms, comes in at 3.2% and 3.9%. George H. W. Bush increased government spending by 5.4%, while Ronald Reagan added 8.7% and 4.9% in his two terms.

Not only does Obama turn out to be the most thrifty president in recent memory, but the evidence shows that Republican administrations consistently increased government spending significantly more than any Democratic administration. Go figure.

10. President Obama was not only born in the United States, his roots run deeper in American history than most people know.
The argument that Barack Obama was born anywhere but at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, is not worth addressing; the evidence is indisputable by any rational human being. But not even irrational “birthers” can dispute Obama’s well-documented family tree on his mother’s side. By way of his Dunham lineage, President Obama has at least 11 direct ancestors who took up arms and fought for American independence in the Revolutionary War and two others cited as patriots by the Daughters of the American Revolution for furnishing supplies to the colonial army. This star-spangled heritage makes Obama eligible to join the Sons of the American Revolution, and his daughters the Daughters of the American Revolution. Not bad for someone 56% of Republicans still believe is a foreigner.

Okay, feel free to drop any or all of these ten true facts on your local Republican windbag. Tell him or her to put any of these choice nuggets in his or her teabag and steep it. Then sit back and enjoy the silence.

Note: Although the facts are 100% true, the context is, of course, one of humor; the oxymoronic reference to "Republican Brains" in the title should have been a dead giveaway. Additionally, as everyone knows, there are no facts in the Republican cosmos, only Fox News Alerts.