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At various times, DPH, the California Department of Health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the air district, a UCSF environmental health expert, and Arc Ecology have reported that the asbestos exposure from Parcel A does not present a significant long-term health risk.
Saul Bloom, the director of Arc Ecology, says that the Nation and its allies' insistence that the dust from Parcel A can be blamed for the Bayview's health problems distracts from addressing the more likely suspects in the environment, such as car and diesel exhaust, and mold and mildew in substandard housing. Since 2006, Arc Ecology has held the city contract to monitor the shipyard asbestos rates — which is billed to Lennar — but his organization has been working at the shipyard since 1983. Bloom's insistence on looking at the facts and not being swayed by political interests has led to him bump heads with the city, Lennar supporters, and Minister Muhammad. In the Bayview, that's about as independent as it gets.
"With Christopher Muhammad, he sees things within his own background — African-American community, not getting his fair share of development — and here's his opportunity to speak to those issues," Bloom said. "The detail issues, those aren't so important" to him.
But Muhammad has refused to accept official declarations from anyone that Lennar, despite its screw-ups, hasn't harmed anyone while working on Parcel A. As proof of his students' health problems, he has relied on the evaluation of the school's physician, Dr. Alim Muhammad.
At a redevelopment commission meeting in December 2006, Christopher Muhammad read a letter from the doctor, stating he had detected particles of serpentine rock in several students' lungs. The DPH committed to evaluate any children at the school who had health concerns related to dust exposure, and sent Dr. Muhammad a protocol for doing so in January 2007. Amy Brownell, the DPH environmental engineer assigned to the shipyard, says she has never heard back, and the school has presented no students for evaluation. DPH offered to meet with parents, students, and staff of the school for an information session. The answer was the same: none.
The Nation of Islam seemed interested only in disseminating its own message about the dust. In October 2006, Christopher Muhammad said during an interview last year, people connected with the school started knocking on doors to "educate" Bayview residents about the health risks. Robert Van Houten said he challenged a man accompanying school dean Leon Muhammad, who handed him a flyer talking about the cancer risks of the dust: "I said, 'You're scaring everybody,' and he got really defensive and said, 'Well, you're either with us or against us.'"
Next, the Nation of Islam sabotaged the Department of Public Health's own door-to-door campaign, which had been requested by Supervisor Sophie Maxwell in June 2007. According to a DPH memo, Leon Muhammad crashed an outreach training session at a nonprofit on Third Street, "contradicting the training content and asserting the DPH position [was] untruthful." Two days later, a group of about 10 adults and children from the school followed public health workers through the neighborhood and told residents that the workers had been paid by DPH to say those things and "Don't listen to them." The workers gave up after three hours.
There's no doubt the Nation's style leaves many feeling bullied. In the past, the Hunters Point Citizen Advisory Committee, a mayor-appointed body that advises the redevelopment agency on shipyard development, has requested police officers at the meetings when Muhammad and his allies were expected to show. At the Board of Supervisors meeting in July 2007, where Bayview residents complained of the ill- health effects of the construction, a Nation of Islam member stood on each level of the rotunda and at the elevators. "It's a form of intimidation, from our perspective," says Reverend Aurelius Walker, one of the pastors who will develop affordable housing on the Lennar construction site, who Muhammad insinuates are "paid operatives."
Christopher Muhammad told SF Weekly that his followers simply couldn't get into the boardroom. "I guess when it comes to African-American males, it's intimidating for us to be standing in City Hall," he said. "That's offensive." Lennar's spokesman, Sam Singer, says one of the suited men accompanying Muhammad told him: "'I looked you up on the Web page. I know where you're at, I don't like you, and I don't like the way you look.'... They're tough guys; they're to be taken seriously."
While some would say the attempts to get a permanent school location make Muhammad a hero, Singer and his client suggest something more nefarious at work (former Lennar vice president Paul Menaker reportedly described Muhammad as a "shakedown artist").
"Mr. Muhammad has been very clear from the beginning that the only thing he's interested in is money," Singer says. "He wanted money from Lennar to 'make the problem go away,' and the company just doesn't play that game."
While Muhammad's request still has many questioning his motives, neither Lennar nor the city has offered a permanent site for his school. In fact, for a while it looked as if he was in danger of losing the current site after getting into a very public feud with Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Judging from the scene at a campaign stop in Oakland this spring, the slick Gavin Newsom for Governor show had hit prime time. An illuminated "Gavin Newsom for a Better California" tarp hung behind rows of spectators gathered for a town hall meeting. Newsom used audience members' questions as a springboard to hit his talking points: universal health care, green jobs, medical marijuana, and a sanctuary city. The crowd ate it up. At least, most of them did.
