During the partial government shutdown, screeners at two Silicon Valley airports, San Francisco and San Jose International, moved thousands of people through security checkpoints.

Operations at the airports, 35 miles apart, looked similar — uniformed officers reminding people to take off their shoes and put their laptops in plastic bins — but there was one major difference: Only the officers at the San Francisco airport were getting paid.

That’s because San Francisco International is one of nearly two dozen airports across the country that use private contractors instead of the Transportation Security Administration to conduct its security screening.

As the shutdown stretched from days into weeks, growing numbers of TSA workers stopped showing up. At one point, 10 percent of TSA officers failed to report for duty.

The result: scattered staffing shortages across the country and anxiety for travelers. Airports in Baltimore, Houston and Miami were forced to temporarily close checkpoints. TSA officials conceded that many officers weren’t coming into work because of the financial hardship of working without pay.

TSA: financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

“Operations were normal,” said Doug Yakel, an airport spokesman.

There has long been a debate over whether airport screening should be provided by the federal government or by private companies. And the recent government shutdown — and the potential for a repeat if lawmakers can’t reach a deal with President Trump by Friday — has some wondering whether anxiety over staffing may prompt more airports to consider switching to private contractors.

Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, airport security was handled by private contractors and paid for by the airlines. But after 9/11, those duties were turned over to the newly created TSA, which is responsible for security screening at the vast majority of the nation’s 440-plus airports.

But as part of that agreement, Congress also created a voluntary pilot program that allowed five airports to use private contractors for security screening. The program, launched in 2002, eventually was open to all airports. Today, 22 airports — including the original five: San Francisco, Kansas City International in Missouri, Greater Rochester Inter­national in New York, Jackson Hole in Wyoming and Tupelo Regional in Mississippi — participate.

Proponents of the system say that the TSA hasn’t made it easy for airports to make the switch. The agency has final say on whether an airport can opt to have private screeners, and although requests are rarely turned down, the process could be time-consuming. Others blame inertia, saying some airports are reluctant to tinker with an arrangement that works.

“I don’t know why, but it’s just ingrained in our mind that this is the only way it’s done,” said David Inserra, a policy analyst for homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, who has long advocated for the shift to the use of private companies for screening.

Among the considerations once an airport has applied for the program: The cost of private screeners cannot be greater than what it would be if the TSA remained at the airport. If approved, the TSA — not the airport — selects, pays and manages the contractor.

Private contractors are required to follow the same rules and procedures as their TSA counterparts but are given some leeway to determine how they staff checkpoints. The workers wear different uniforms, but their training, salary and benefits are about the same. The starting salary for a TSA officer is $37,455 but can be higher in some parts of the country depending on staffing needs and the cost of living.

Although the private screeners are contractors, they were paid during the shutdown when other government contractors were not because they were considered essential personnel, and failure to pay them would have violated their contract.

Evaluations of the two programs by outside firms hired by the TSA have found no significant differences between the two systems — either in cost or the ability to move passengers through checkpoints, TSA officials said.

However, studies by the Government Accountability Office note that in some instances private contractors’ costs were 2 percent to 19 percent lower than the TSA’s estimates of its costs for the same work. The GAO also said that the TSA’s calculations failed to include costs such as retirement benefits.

A TSA spokeswoman said the agency has adjusted its estimates based on the GAO’s recommendations.

The shutdown is stressing the nation’s aviation system

The outside evaluations did not examine customer complaints, nor did they analyze absenteeism, retention or attrition of the screeners who work for private companies.

Inserra, of the Heritage Foundation, contends that private companies are better suited to the job of managing airport security. He said they are more adept at managing and retaining employees and can react more quickly to surges in passenger traffic.

“TSA’s focus should be on policy — setting the standards, developing new technology,” added Steve Amitay, executive director of the National Association of Security Companies. “So much of TSA is devoted to managing this screener workforce. It’s doing a job that’s not inherently governmental.”

A 2004 report by the Congressional Research Service, however, found that when private companies ran security services in the years before the 9/11 attacks, their workforce suffered from low morale and high turnover — some of the same problems that plague today’s TSA. Amitay, however, maintained that new standards for training and pay have improved working conditions and morale for contractors.

At TSA Academy, the lessons are hands-on

But Greg Regan, secretary-treasurer of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, a coalition of 32 unions, argued that security screening is best left to the federal government.

“The mission of TSA is to keep people safe,” he said. “The goal is to identify threats and prevent them from having a negative impact on our system. That is the ultimate mission statement. When you privatize, you’re going to introduce another goal into that, and that’s profit.”

Other union officials argue that the answer isn’t privatization, but a functional federal government that can pay its workers and its bills on time.

“I think throwing up our hands and turning to private security operators is not the solution here,” said J. David Cox Sr., national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “The federal government needs to do its job to provide the screening services.”

Union says TSA officers can’t afford to man checkpoint without paychecks

Added Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Transportation Department and an aviation expert: “We must never say our TSA employees are not important enough to be federal employees.”

She noted that the 9/11 attacks happened at a time when checkpoints were run by private companies.

Some of the country’s largest airports have toyed with the idea of shifting to private contractors. In 2016, after an understaffed TSA struggled to keep up with a record number of travelers, airport officials in Chicago, New York and Atlanta threatened to use private contractors.

TSA officials blamed the backups on years of cuts that forced the agency to slash its airport workforce of 45,000 by 12 percent. The furor died down after TSA officials pledged changes and persuaded Congress to beef up its staffing. The TSA has 51,000 screeners, and about 33,000 work on any given day.

Atlantic City International Airport recently shifted to private screeners after growing frustration with TSA staffing that didn’t take into account flight delays.

Stephen F. Dougherty, executive director of the South Jersey Transportation Authority, said the TSA would regularly close the airport’s checkpoint at certain hours regardless of whether flights were delayed. As a result, hundreds of passengers missed their flights because there was no one to clear them through security.

“[Atlantic City International] prides itself on being a much more convenient, passenger- friendly airport than the larger airports in the region, and this change went against core operating principles,” he said.

TSA scrambles to staff checkpoints after complaints of long waits

Some Republican lawmakers have pushed legislation to make it easier for airports to shift to private screeners. A bill introduced by last year by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sought to, among other changes, shorten the amount of time it takes for airports to get TSA approval to make the switch. Lee is updating his bill and plans to reintroduce it this year, his spokesman said. However, a provision in legislation to fund the Federal Aviation Administration, approved last year, requires the TSA to make a decision on any application within 60 days. The agency previously had 120 days to make a decision.

Christopher Bidwell, vice president of security at Airports Council International-North America, a group that advocates for the nation’s airports, said it supports programs that give airports the flexibility they need to best serve travelers.

“Our position on [SPP], is that it should remain a viable program for any airport that wishes to participate.”

Shutdown is stressing the nation’s air safety system

Air traffic controllers get their first shutdown pay stub: $0.00

TSA mulls plan to eliminate security checkpoints at 150 small airports

The post At San Francisco Worldwide Airport, non-public contractors deal with safety screening. Is it the airport of the long run? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

As he stands behind the protective confines of a perspex barrier and snaps photos with dozens of fans, “Escape” – Rupert Holmes’ flirtatious 1970s anthem – plays unabashedly on the overhead sound system. He inexplicably wears leather gloves and sunglasses indoors, and although he appears to be middle-aged, his skin is pearly and smooth, and his hair is still the same drugstore black. Up close he looks like a wax statue from Madame Tussauds, but with the rock ‘n’ roll flair of Slash or a late Michael Jackson.

It’s a sold out screening at San Francisco’s Balboa Theater on a Saturday night and I’m here to see Big Shark, Wiseau’s first feature film since The Room, the 2003 cult masterpiece he wrote, directed, produced and wrote starred as the besieged protagonist. Perhaps best known as one of the worst films ever made, Variety cruelly described it as a film “whose main goal seems to be to convince us that wacky Wiseau is actually a normal, everyday guy.”

His new horror film Big Shark is exactly what its title suggests. It’s about a bloodthirsty 35-foot shark wreaking havoc on the streets of Louisiana, the southeastern state where Wiseau claims to have once lived. The idea hit him like a beacon in the night. After Hurricane Katrina devastated the region, “the question came up,” he said. “What if you know what I mean?”

An international man full of secrets

For decades, Wiseau has eluded audiences, in large part because he reveals so little about his past. However, he was thrust back into the spotlight in 2017 after A24 released The Disaster Artist. In it, James Franco portrays Wiseau during the filming of The Room in San Francisco and its subsequent cult success.

To date, the facts about Wiseau’s country of origin, source of wealth and true age are still unclear. His shadowy background notwithstanding, it seems like he might leave a bigger footprint in San Francisco than most people realize. “I make money from real estate,” he says. “You know I built some buildings in the Bay Area? That’s fact.”

According to Curbed San Francisco’s Adam Brinklow, Wiseau filmed several scenes from The Room in the city — and one of those locations happened to be the Pizza Zone at 555 Beach St. near Fisherman’s Wharf. Those who’ve walked past it know it’s impossible to miss — that might be because it has a giant billboard promoting “The Room” with Wiseau’s face on it, as well as a massive disembodied pair of blue jeans that like some kind of denim ghost looms over it. A quick search of the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder’s Office database shows that Wiseau is listed on the 1992 charter.

Tommy Wiseau claims he helped build 555 Beach St., a confusing commercial park near San Francisco’s Fishmerman’s Wharf that houses a pizza joint and a “spy shop.”

Google Street View

Frustratingly, despite the badass nature of Big Shark, its famous director is still as cryptic as ever. After he called me twice unannounced, we finally arranged to meet up and talk about his past in San Francisco and his very human motivations behind the film. “Time flies very quickly,” he tells me one afternoon. “I want to shape the world”

On the phone, Wiseau is friendly but opaque: He says he still has a soft spot for Oakland and San Francisco, but doesn’t say where he likes to hang out when he comes to live screenings. He also says he helped fund “The Room” and “Big Shark” through his longtime Bay Area brand, Street Fashions, but no such company appears under his name in the California Secretary of State’s business database.

When asked if he really emigrated from Poland, as his IMDb page suggests, Wiseau emphasizes that he is a “proud American” and “is treated like one” before prompting me with the next question to proceed (Clerks from the San Francisco circuit courts also told me they could not locate his naturalization records as they were physically missing).

Oh hello shark

But other than that, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the boldness of Big Shark.

The film is another low-budget gem that’s packed with abrupt cuts, cheesy CGI, stilted dialogue, and, yes, action-packed sequences starring the aforementioned great shark. Once it finally explodes on the scene, it terrorizes everyone and significantly thins the population of New Orleans.

Street musician? Went. Inconspicuous buyers? Also gone. Shirtless, muscular boxers sparring inside the ring? Didn’t stand a chance. The poor TV news reporter who had the ill-fated job of covering that fateful evening live on the streets of Louisiana also did not survive (RIP). While many of the film’s scenes felt like a grind — and didn’t make a lot of sense put together — “Big Shark” was practically made for live audience interaction and piggybacked on the art-house longevity of “The Room” screenings.

The audience screamed with delight whenever the shark made an outrageous, cruel act; They cheered when one of the film’s cowboy hat-wearing protagonists declared that they had to “blow his ass up” with dynamite, and they happily sang along with Wiseau’s firefighters, who were responsible for killing the bloodthirsty monster. Most of the dialogue is confusing, but at times it’s wonderfully direct.

“C’mon man, you’re living in a delusional mind!”

“Kill the shark at all costs.”

“We have to kill that bitch!”

And so forth.

As the credits rolled, fans lined up for the Q&A, trying to unravel the meaning of Wiseau’s latest work and the enigmatic person behind it. Maybe “Big Shark” really was a complex allegory, as one viewer suspected, or maybe it wasn’t all that self-aware. While Wiseau’s true identity and motivations are still a stubborn question mark, one thing remained clear from the screening: in Tommy’s world, we are all just spectators watching him play the hero.

The post I survived Tommy Wiseau’s ‘Massive Shark’ screening in San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Click picture

• Phtoo courtesy of Enzian / Instagram

The Enzian Theater in Maitland has installed a new HVAC unit with UV filtering to increase the safety of indoor performances.

This type of ventilation device is designed to be more effective at reducing air pollutants, bacteria and (yes) viruses. Other Orlando venues, including the Winter Park Playhouse and the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts, have already invested in this safeguard.

“When guests return to the cinema, we want to make sure that we’ve done everything we can to make their theater experience safe and inviting,” said Janie Pope, director of development and public relations at Enzian, in a press release.

“As more vaccines become available and Oscar contenders like Nomadland (opening this Friday), Minari and The Father hit the market this month and next, we hope to see more participants and we are very excited to see our new air conditioning installed this coincides with the arrival of these award-winning films. ”

It’s also worth noting that the annual Florida Film Festival, presented by and in the Enzian, is slated to begin on April 9th.

The Enzian is currently 50 percent full and has socially distant seats. The theater also hosts an outdoor series, Fountain Features, although the February FF program is currently sold out.

– –
Keep up to date with news and views in Central Florida with our weekly newsletters and support this free publication. Our small but fine team works tirelessly to bring you the latest news from Central Florida, and every little bit helps.

The post Maitland’s Enzian Theater provides new HVAC unit for added indoor screening security appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.