Watching City Hall #380 (6-23-05)

Odds & ends & odd ends

It’s been a busy week for news and I’ve been busy living the good life so I’m a bit backed up. Let me take the matters of the last week or so since I last wrote in the order of import to which I feel they are entitled.

Gavin’s goons continue at DPW

Where the hell is the Board of supervisors with an investigation into the firing of some 3 dozen long term dpw street workers and the replacement of same with goons who worked under DPW’s rogue gorilla, Mohammed Nehru to fix the last mayor’s race for Gavin Newsom? Yesterday, the scene played out once again before the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee.

For at least the fourth time, around 2 dozen of the fired workers made the trek up to the Board of Supes to ask them to represent their plight against the Mayor’s good squad.

Yeah, they belong to you, Gavin. If you don’t complain when people use thugs and lies and fraud on your behalf then you’re no better than them and that is the fact.

There was Mohammed Nehru sitting directly behind the speaker’s podium in the Board of Supes glaring at the workers who were begging for their jobs back. This is the son of a bitch who ran van loads of ex cons all over Hunters Point and the Western Edition and the Tenderloin for the sole purpose of scaring the shit out of minority and poor voters. And, all of these poor assholes were carrying ‘Newsom for Mayor’ signs and wearing his ‘t’ shirts. They threatened voters at precincts. They blocked the Gonzalez office in the Bay View (the cops refused to help). They transported voters who had already voted absentee in the districts down to the basement of City Hall to vote yet again for Gavin. They literally looked over the shoulders of people as they voted to make certain they got it ‘right’.

These ‘cool guys’ have lots of incentives. First, they can go back to the big house if they challenge King Willie’s lieutenants. Second, they get a some semblence of a job even though they understand that their real task is to be muscle for Gavin’s consultants. When a few brave workers blew the whistle, they lost their jobs. The crooks went over to DPW with Nehru. Why would Newsom allow this to happen?

Reality is that Nehru knows too much and Gavin has to give him and his criminals shelter or they’ll blow the whistle and the house of cards will start to fall. How else can you explain that while every single charge I’ve made above has been documented and confirmed, that Gavin’s only action has been to cancel the contract for the shell corporation that paid the goons (SLUG) while bringing them on over to DPW along with their leader (illegal immigrant, Nehru) who acts as the fucking assistant to outgoing Department Head, Ed Lee. Yeah, Nehru is the assistant at over a hundred grand a year although it has been substantiated that he conspired to fix the last mayor’s election! Imagine that shit. After Lee had to ban Nehru from departmental management meetings (he has the habit of threatening other senior staff), it was revealed that not only was the asshole working to overthrow honest elections in San Francisco, but that, at the time he was doing all of this, he was also in the country illegally. I mean, shit! Do we really need to outsource the rigging of our local elections when we have Willie Brown walking amongst us?

I don’t blame Newsom for covering his ass. Firing good people and putting gangsters into their positions (3 of them have been murdered in the last year - that will give you an idea as to their lifestyles) ... firing good people is just out of line. The Board of Supes not calling a committee hearing on the matter is the most egregious sin of all.

Look for the Board to fink out on this one. When the orange-vested fired workers make one of their frequent trips to the Board to plead their case in public testimony, supes find it an excellent time to talk to aides or go take a piss or otherwise ignore the travesty before them. No one will ask if it’s true that U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein intervened to keep Nehru from being deported. No one will ask how many of these new Nehru henchmen (who came to DPW with Mohammed) ... they won’t ask which of them worked for SLUG and were accused of goon-style tactics. No one will ask about the deaths of the 3 men that Nehru brought over with him. No one will ask about Nehru’s terrorizing of the senior DPW staff (including Ed Lee). You know why? Cause they’re chickenshit. You think Charlie Walker was bad? This guy is much, much worse. Hell, Jake McGoldrick sponsored a certificate honoring the thug! But, we can solve this. First, we have to make it im possible for Donald Fisher to be able to hire his own private army of black cons. How do we do this? Easy.

Redistribute the wealth

There’s plenty of money to house the homeless. Way more than enough to provide universal health care for the entire population. Free and quality public education is easily affordable for all Americans. The cost of treatment-on-demand for junkies and housewives would cost a drop in the bucket compared to the money that is wasting in the vaults of the super-rich.

When a government official answers one of my supplications on behalf of the public, they often say the same thing: “There just isn’t enough money.” This is utter bullshit and they know it. I call upon the Board of Supervisors to be the first legislative body in the United States to call for an equal distribution of the wealth within their domain.

Well, not ‘equal’. Hey, I’m feeling generous. I wouldn’t want Warren Hellman and Walter Shorenstein and Donald Fisher and Richard Blum and Richard Goldman to end up broke. No. Let them keep a hundred million in cash and assets. Now, could you live with that? If they’d agree to it, every program cut out of the local budget could be restored and universal health care, housing, rehab ... you get the idea. Do you think that Warren would agree to give back all but a hundred mil? This one is a ‘balls check’ for the boys and girls on the Board. It costs them nothing? It’s just a resolution. You know; not worth the paper it’s written on?

200 new cops - 50 from San Francisco

The Police Department stated at a recent Board Budget Committee hearing that they were outsourcing 75% of their new hires to applicants who live outside the City of San Francisco.

Now, if that’s not the most dip shit thing I ever heard, I don’t know what is. Yeah, no kidding. They announced that only 28% of those chosen to enter academy classes were actually City residents. With a force of some 2,600, that means that 75% live and spend the majority of their income outside the City and will not be here when the ‘big one hits’. This is, again, utter insanity. The City needs a charter ammendment specifying that ALL new hires to the Police and Fire Department are City residents. As the law takes effect, it will bring some 3,000 new jobs back to City residents. Could City residents use 3,000 jobs with full benefits? Wellllll, duhhhhh.

Jake’s going deaf

Me too, so I know what I’m talking about. But, his loss of hearing is affecting Board meetings. I’m just watching Ross Mirkarimi asking questions to Elections Director, John Arntz and there’s loud talking in the backround drowing out Mirk & Arntz and, as usual, the voice belongs to Jake McGoldrick. He’s speaking loudly because he is hard of hearing.

Believe me, I can relate. I don’t think he’s admitted it, though. He is constantly asking for members of the public to adjust their mikes cause he can’t hear even when everyone else can hear. So, Jake, good buddy, ... get your hearing tested. I said, Jake! ... I say, I say, JAKEEE!!!

When life imitates television

Two weeks ago on the ‘Shield’, the squad had a close call. Two of them had been requested to take a lie detector test and while one of them was able to lie like the narc he is and still pass with flying colors, the other had refused to take the test. The other cops were all over him. It’s easy to fake a lie detector machine. That was their argument and one proved it.

Same thing happened to SF Weekly’s ‘Infiltrator’ columnist at the same time. He busted into one of these reality TV shows built around a lie detector test and beat the machine to prove it can be done.

Then, our Fire Chief takes the test!

An ex cop turned attorney with connections throughout the entire local law enforcement community (Jim Collins) found a retired FBI agent to administer a test to Joanne Hayes-White in the middle of the night and, voila ... she passes!

Seems the Chief’s husband called 911 for help when (he says) she clocked him with a bottle (which later became a pint glass). Quickly moving into their ‘Fajitagate mode’ the department sent away the officers first on the scene and replaced them with a Lieutenant and Sergeant whose report of the matter was promptly lost. What did the guy say in ‘The Big Easy’? ... “This citah is such a mahveluss place for coincidences!”

The Bulldog speaks

Now, I’ve had 6 wonderfully happy marriages during the course of which one lovely wife tried to shoot me with a pump shotgun and another charged me with a kitchen knife. Love, as they say, hurts. Or, can hurt you. You know what I mean? Thus, it is not the violence in the Hayes-White’s failing relationship that concerns me. You learn to survive that kind of thing to move on and make other bad decisions.

What bothers me is the immediate cover-up that has been accepted by the rest of the local media as just peachy OK. And, there’s the mayor immediately reaffirming his confidence in the least qualified of his appointments as department head.

This woman was a chauffeur for the department’s chiefs. How in the hell that qualifies you to be chief fire ground commander over the site of an earthquake or terrorist’s attack is beyond my shallow comprehension. She even refuses to live in the centrally located house the City built for the fire chief after the ‘06 quake. Instead, she lives in what looks like a suburban plantation manor in the SW corner of the City. She told the City to rent out the chief’s house we built as a “bed and breakfast”. ... The lady should resign and be replaced by a chief experienced in dealing with catastrophes. Someone from Tokyo or Istanbul or Mexico City. English not necessary. We’ll teach you that in 6 months. We want a Master OF Disaster, not a Master Disaster political hack.

Pot clubs being raided

I doubt anyone would deny that I know as much about most illegal drugs than pretty much anyone in San Francisco. Thus, you should listen when I tell you that the upshoot from closing the weed dispensaries will be to expose people such as myself to the temptation of doing drugs other than marijuana.

Oh yeah. I was talking to a couple of friends last night about the closing of the OMI clubs and we all realized that none of us had done anything other than pot since the clubs opened some 5 years or so ago. It didn’t take us long to deduce that the reason for this was that we no longer bought our buzz of choice from illegal street or personal dealers who, more often than not, offered a wide range of fares.

Honest. Think about it yourself. Those of you who are ‘heads’. Remember when your dealer was like a member of your family and delivered? That all went away when the clubs began dispensing medicinal pot. To the ‘personal dealer’, the risk is all the same. They might just as well carry around a little coke or speed to sell with their pot mainstay. Lots of people will fall off the wagon.

So, the public (poorest - cannot afford prescriptions) will become more addicted and criminalized. The prices of pot will increase and the supplies of more potent substances will grow. More people will get arrested for more serious offenses and the jail and prison population will grow. Drug, cigarette and alcohol companies will make more and America’s health will suffer.

Those are the goals of the majority of people who oppose legal pot. Decriminalize drugs and 40% of the state’s prison guards would be unemployed. Legalize prostitution and another big block of law enforcement types hit the bricks. Illegal pot means big money for drug companies. (ever heard a caution that use of pot could make you: ‘go blind/have a stroke/cause renal failure’? - those are typical disclaimers in ads of the ‘legal’ drug dispensers) ...

Keep in mind that it isn’t just about pot. The drug companies have the Bush administration in the palm of their hands. Any move to cut their exhorbitant profits meets with multi-million dollar ad and legal blitzes to keep the arm on the poor and elderly. Witness now in California where a group of drug companies is pouring millions of dollars into an initiative to make lowering the prices of drugs to the poor and elderly ‘voluntary’ on the part of the manufacturers. ... I mean, like ... Geez, Louise.

Let’s close with an observation from Jens, just so’s there’s at least one attempt at humor in the day’s rant. We were talking about the fact that my building has something like 45 cameras spread throughout the public spaces and fed into monitors behind the desk clerk’s position. There are speakers all over the building and phones to the desk at each landing. I mentioned that ‘Katz’ the Zappa look-alike had been seen with a Security jacket on at the black and white ball leading a guy with a bleeding nose into the toilet at the Asian Art museum. I made a side reference to Newsom’s call for cameras on street corners and querried Chicago’s finest export.

h.: “What do you think about people taking pictures of you everywhere you go?”

Jens: (taking a tug from a pipe of killer weed) “I always wanted to be in the movies.”

go in peace,