I understand that SCAN, as usual, picked up the ballots before discussion of the candidates. One SCAN member told me that most ballots had been cast and people left the room before the discussion began.

I was witnessed to this corrupt process in the 2000 SCAN steering committee election, where ballots were cast before all the nominations were in. This was around the time of the Fitzmaurice-Hochman-Belton Dolphin-Lee (Nueva Vista) scandal where the SCAN general membership had supported by 2-1 vote in a mass meeting the rights of tenants to clear written individual guarantees of relocation and return to housing before being bounced out of their low-income Dolphin and Lee Apartments. City Council (including SCAN endorsee Fitzmaurice) denied the tenants those written guarantees. And the pro-Council pro-Mercy Charities Housing SCAN steering committee sabotaged the SCAN resolution.

Only a tiny faction of those Latino families is now left, thanks to the Fitzmaurice-Rotkin Council majority which rammed through the Dolphin-Lee demolition deal, spending all the City's affordable housing money for the next 5+ years. The rest were bought out or scared out. For those who want confirmation, contact Western Service Workers Union for information.

Hochman and Belton, key matriarchs on the SCAN steering committee, successfully crushed any debate on this issue at SCAN by an extralegal process of abolishing the SCAN housing committee (which supported the tenants). Then Sandy Brown, their ally, removed the issue from the agenda when we tried to bring it up at the 2000 SCAN Steering Committee election.

When several of us tried to oppose the recycled-returnees in that election, (similar to what's happening at City Council where insiders Rotkin, Matthews, and Fitzmaurice are returning in the November elections), Brown's agenda allowed for the casting of ballots even before all the candidates were nominated.

In 2002, it looks like the same process of allowing endlessly-recycled insiders to control what goes on, muzzle real debate, and orchestrate prearranged outcomes is still the order of the day. These kind of abusive practices make the "progressive" label a bad joke. And give us some insight into why SCAN has lost its paid co-ordinator position. Even after Fitzmaurice showed four long years of anti-homeless votes, Hochman and her insiders (which unfortunately included Celia Scott) apparently anointed the man who sent the police in to Camp Paradise.

We need new community organizations not beholden to political bosses (such as Fitzmaurice) and willing to hold their endorsees accountable--as neither SCAN nor the Greens seem willing to do.