Watching City Hall #316, (9-17-04)Once again, ‘nobody’ looks good in November.
(tks Art Hoppe)
Granted, I have issues around pot and alcohol that sometimes slow me down, but … normally, my clouded vision tends to approximate the innermost yearnings of the average San Francisco voter. But, this year, … this year is different.
wrap your headcheese around this
SFPD Chief, Heather Fong transferred Greg (the gorilla) Corrales from Mission Station where the PD’s top headbanger had come to hold ‘warlord’ status. She did this on a Thursday; a few days after Corrales scoffed at Newsom’s call for more cop shoe leather hitting the pavement in high crime areas. Also, old Greg, he entered the race for supervisor in D7 against Newsom appointee, Sean Elsbernd. … Then, the next day, Fong files charges (basis for which as yet unreleased) … next day, Fong files charges against Leanna Dawydiak, an SFPD cop/lawyer who, it turns out, is also running against a Newsom protégé. … What do you make of that?
All that makes any sense is that Fong is attacking cops who run against the Newsom machine. (Just like Corrales’ signs say) … But, that is so convoluted. I mean, Corrales and Dawydiak are cobra and mongoose on the SFPD’s pyogenic handling of the Fajitagate strong-armed robbers and their victims. You recall, Corrales was called out in the middle of the night cause he has more experience with being charged with beating the shit out of people than anyone in this town who’s not a pimp. He knows how to fill out reports on stuff like that and make it sound like the bastards had it coming to them.
And Dawydiak is being accused by Fong of releasing some of those papers to the press. … Got that? She attacks both the perceived gorilla cop and the perceived whistle-blower-on-gorilla cop. … and then, … you’re gonna love this.
Dawydiak turns out to be a very conservative candidate who wows the local business forums while Sing sinks slowly. It is Dawydiak who turns the heavy guns upon McGoldrick, calling him a “thug” who frightens old ladies.
But, Newsom already has all of his chips on Lilian Sing. A Supervisor Dawydiak might be harder to reach than Jake. She could be, good lord, she could be another Tony Hall!
Learn to fly Tinkerbell … or DIE!!!
While cornering, confining and torturing elephants is just good sport during an election year, let’s keep it confined to the human, Republican variety. The Swells, who use the privatized San Francisco Zoo (whose director they pay – anyone who saw this guy before the Board on the elephant issue, will have second thoughts about the same group of people who hired him, now trying to pay the salary of a Chief Financial Officer for the SFUSD) … The Swells, as I predicted, are making excuses in the back pages of the Chronicle (their ‘organ’) … saying that they’re about to get thrown out of the club they belong to that allows its members to trade each other exotic animals (owned by the public) … they keep each other’s collections complete and up to date. But, there’s a problem.
Torturing, eating & wearing exotic animals turns on the rich.
How the hell else do you account for foi gras? Why would anyone wear a coat made from the skin of a murdered baby seal. … These people don’t care about the animals.
They do care about Matt Gonzalez. … They hate him is what they do. I predicted here that the Gonzo victory over the Swells at the Zoo in which the Board gathered behind their President to force the Zoo to send their remaining 2 elephants (2 died from the cramped conditions of their confinement, for God’s sake!) … the Board used it’s budgetary hammer over the Zoo to force them to agree to send the two surviving elephants to actual sanctuaries. Imagine, thinking of the animals for a change! … I said that, like Gonzo’s pioneering work to bring Tidal Power to San Francisco, it was a victory that would be overturned quietly. I have some advice for the elephant.
Unless you learn to fly and flap your way on over to the paradise sanctuary designed just for retiring sad beasts like you … unless you learn to fly, you’re going to wake up next year tethered to the end of a chain, restricted to some ‘dog run’ in Cleveland. Hopefully, Walter Shorenstein will be in the next cage.
Phony Housing Authority bankruptcy
We all saw this one coming. I saw it. Angela saw it. And, Joe Blue probably saw it best of all.
Joe’s a real estate broker who runs for office every couple of years to hand out business cards and expand his influence. He does, however, have connections into the black mob that runs the Housing Authority. That’s why his campaign theme this time around: “Sell the projects to the tenants!” made me think and start tying together threads.
“They’re gonna sell this view!”
Angela Alioto was talking about the projects that dot the tops of the hills in poor neighborhoods from downtown to Candlestick Point. She’d gotten into some of the boarded-up structures and was amazed to see that they were in good shape. She took a bit to connect the dots as to just why some 700 of the units were vacant at a time when several thousand people lived on the streets.
One of Willie’s last acts as mayor was to try and get 90% of the remaining project units under control of the authority … to put em on a list for privatization. You know the drill … 85% for me & 15% for you. … And, oh wait, your 15% don’t get to live on top of the hill anymore.
Following Angela’s speculation & Willie’s actions, I took Blue’s idea to sell the projects as something more than a hair brained scheme. It made sense, I figured, that if I was going to push such a scheme, I’d push it through a front of aggressive black mouthpieces with a stake in getting the blacks off of the hills. … I figured Joe knew something I didn’t and now Greg Fortner’s announcement that he may just have to take the agency into bankruptcy. And, Newsom’s curt admission of knowledge of the plan and nothing else.
Poor people … pack your bags.
Willie Brown’s ‘Hope’ project showed just how to get rid of poor (mostly black) people from housing projects. First, you force as many of them as you can to move (see Trinity Plaza for a private sector version) … move all you can, give papers to last to vacate that say they can come back. Course, not if you or anyone in your household has every been locked up or knocked down or sued for this or that.
“Less than 10% of the tenants make it back.”
Willie chased over 20,000 poor black people out of San Francisco. The Newsom plan will remove most of the remaining ghetto poor from all over town. Think of the advantages.
Chasing poor people out of town by methods like ‘Care no cash’ and the ‘Hope’ projects works great for your bottom line. Think about it. Less of the riff raff cluttering up the emergency room of the hospital. Less poor to feed and house. Less crime born of poverty. Less of em screwing up the public schools with their bad attitude and personal advocates.
Privatizing the EMS
Fratricide and sistercide seem to go with badges in this town. While the cops were pounding away at a couple of their own on opposite sides of town, the latest political hack to run the SFFD was doing her department’s version of : ‘Mooning the Grand Jury’ at City Hall. What they have going in the fire houses is what both sides agree is a ‘culture war’. I know something of this.
From 1971 til 1976 I was a firefighter in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. It was a small department, but the parallels with the problems presently facing the SFFD are amazing.
Red necks against the world!
The Chief of the department used to like to brag that he’d “never taken a test” for anything in his career. He liked to surround himself with good ole boys like himself and greatly resented it when the city council decided (it was a old & upscale bedroom communities with 100 year old oaks and the like) … they decided to require, first, a high school diploma, then a year or two of college. Later, they went so far as to offer bonuses for employees who went to school to get certified as EMT’s and beyond.
“College jack-offs!!”
Yeah, that’s the kind of bullshit you heard from the knuckle-draggers on the chief’s side. And, you know what they were like? Pick-up truck driving, American flag flying, racists, sexists and homophobes. … Kind of like what you have here.
You’ve seen em. They put a flag on the fire truck that’s as big as the truck, then cruise the Haight harassing the citizens. On duty! … Now, they want to toss the medics out of the fire service.
It’s outrageous
Not only should all medics be firefighters. But ALL firefighters should be required to become medics. It,s like a NO BRAINER, dude!!
What’s the JPTA?
Maybe I got the initials wrong, but one thing is for sure. They have the best looking figure-head in town running the show. Her name is Christine Ayerdi and it is a sin of major magnitude that meetings of her ‘authority’ have been keep off the SFGTV program list until now. That said.
Those of you who read Matt Smith in the Weekly will recall that he did a piece a month or so back in which he noted that the terminal that the JPTA is charged with building is about 4 times as expensive is necessary and takes the wrong route. It destroys old businesses and imbeds itself in mud instead of bedrock. … But, that wasn’t the most interesting part of the authority’s first online appearance.
“God bless Don Perata!!”
“It’s time the San Francisco Board of Supervisors realized that this is a regional authority and that they aren’t in charge!” … Don’t know who he was. Bad suit. Imitation seersucker if there is such a thing. … Jagged nerves. Made you wonder if he had his own meth lab.
I swear, though I’d read about the project and realized intellectually that, like Hetch-Hetchy, we don’t hold all of the cards … the reality of it never hit me until this guy starts raving.
“What happened to our $10 million?”
In the single most incomprehensible move of his political career, Aaron Peskin ran through a ten million dollar blank check for the JPTA to study alternative designs for a building proposed for construction in the middle of the tunnel complex. A private development. Tom Radulovich rushed forward to challenge the precedent. Spending public bucks to aid an opportunistic developer to bleed the General Fund/other citizen resources. … And, they said they’d do all of this in a month!
A whole string of engineers who’ve built numerous tunnels for this little City came forth and said it was a bad idea. Peskin pushed it anyway. … Now, here comes Daly (the SF Board rep to the authority) saying that he’s heard that RFP’s (‘request for proposals’) were being solicited for ideas about how to spend the 10 million. … What’s the expression? … “I don’t like the looks of this, Vern.”
Congratulations to Frontlines
The new poll purloined by my fellow Trotskyites down in the Mission was a great read. Thanks to Robles and Petroni & Chris Finn for their primo muck-raking. Correct me, but I think the results show almost complete chaos. That can only be good for people accustomed to confusion and disorganization. … I mean the Greens, of course.
Y’all think about that. … I’m gonna set up Kalish’s telescope and see if I see any flying elephants. If Tinkerbell doesn’t get airborn on her own in the next few days, we may have to give her an assist.
How about we load her into a balloon? I’ll provide the hot air.
Mirkarimi in D5: h@ludd.net
