Watching City Hall #391 (8-30-05)

"And yea, the lamb will lay with the lion.
Bill Barnes will leave the Bay Reporter.
h. brown will write once more for Pat Murphy.
Arlene Ackerman will resign as SFUSD Chief.
Nature will serve the French Quarter a hurricane.
Gary Delagnes will long for the days of foot patrols.
And, it will all happen on the same day."

(Plus, I'm gonna interview Chris Daly)

That's not even everthing that happened. Rachel says it's cause of global warming. Art Bruzzone writes to say there is a "consensus" that it's a myth. I querried a small environmental blast list and got buried. Best piece is in today's Boston Globe and says basically that 'Katrina' is just another name for global warming. "What will it take for you to pay attention?" asked a character in Krissy Keefer's 'Dry Ice' that ran couple of months ago. "For New Orleans to become uninhabitable?"

Yeah, she wrote that and she and her Dance Brigade will be back with a souped up version of 'Dry Ice' soon. Sometimes you hate to be right. Susan Vaughan, I think, capsulized the significance of the hurricane named Katrina:

"Let's see if anyone talks about the storm
and global warming all in the same breath.

Hell, the developing world has made landfall
in the ghettos of New Orleans as if they were
the shores of Bangladesh!"

On another disaster that's about to hit, let me give Bruzzone some props though for outing the Shorenstein strategy for creating housing bubbles.

"We get the money from Calpers."

(BOMA's Ken Cleaveland rolls over on his boss)

It was one of those moment like the one where the kid is robbing the 7-11 and he gets the money and demands beer and the clerk says 'No' cause he doesn't look old enough. So, the kid, he flips out his ID and shows it to the guy who gives him the beer and remembers his name and address. Yeah, Cleaveland stepped on his pud. Big time.

Bruzzone: "If the market for office buildings is so bad, why are they selling at record prices?"

Cleaveland: (surprised at the aggressive question from a fellow Republican who's been blowing smoke at him gently - Cleaveland pauses then blurts this out) "We get most of our money from pension funds like Calpers. They lend money at low rates and we use it to pay high prices. They take the risks."

Damn! So that's it! I wondered why Dick Blum got so upset when someone said that he shouldn't be on Calpers just because he had about a gadzillion dollars worth of stock in companies getting billions from Calpers. Shit, it fits perfectly. Hellman and Shorenstein (Cleaveland's boss) control the governor's appointments to these pension boards and that's why the boards give their various enterprises billions to purchase properties at inflated prices.

So, they create the bubble with public funds, move the property and mortgages around until their own liabilities are as low as possible, then wring their hands in false shock as the deals go belly up and state workers and retirees absorb the losses. Then, they buy the buildings back and start all over.

Do you understand that? Think back. Remember the Savings & Loan rip-off the Republicans ran on us (one of Bush's brothers just dodged jail) on the country 10 or 15 years ago? Again, you put the money in. They take it out by lending it to their friends on bad investments (or, give it away - Bush's brother got a loan of a hundred grand that was 'forgiven' - how long since anyone forgave a loan for you?) ... Check it out. It was last weeks show and, as I mentioned, Art spent the other half of the show with the SF Bicycle Coalition's chief, Lisa Shauman. Art is good about putting these things in archives for accessing online. Go to the Bruzzone site for his show, 'San Francisco/Unscripted' at Bruzzone@mindspring.com. Of course, that sucker might be 'unavailable'. I bet Blum and Shorenstein are plenty pissed.

Educated SFUSD guesses

I heard months ago from sources who swore me to secrecy (you can let my kids go now) until the amiable board Superintendent announced. Soooo, they were right about that one. Let's let the cat out of the bag on the other rumors I've been hearing and not writing (a rarity for me to clam up).

Ammiano will be the new Superintendent of SFUSD. No, folks, he doesn't need a Phd. Rojas didn't have one. It's all part of the alliance formed when Ammiano endorsed Heather Hiles for the School Board last year. Is that shit strange, or what? Tom's 'floor manager' for the Board vote will be Dan Kelly. His other 3 votes are Wynns, Chin and Yee. And, people think it's strange when I moonlight back with Murphy or Meko comes over to write with the Bulldog? It's gotta be something to do with global warming.

When Ammiano steps in, Newsom will appoint Michael Farrah as the new supe in District 9. With Gerardo Sandoval as the new Assessor Newsom will appoint Ahsha Safai as the new District 11 mouthpiece. The big Downtown money this year will go to try and elect the dead-cat-on-a-rope Newsom appointed as Treasurer (that would be Jose Cisneros - just say 'meow!!' when you see him or 'Here, kitty, kitty!"). For obvious reasons, enumerated above, our 'friends' downtown want to be certain they have control of where your tax dollars are invested. I know, a few billion is nothing compared to the trillion in the Calpers retirment fund (Warren Hellman responded to one of my columns on his SFSOS crew sent in to manage SFUSD money: "Why I'm insulted that anyone would think that I'd do that for a billion dollars!" Matt Smith noted that the Mayor's people have already appointed the hack accountant who hid a million bucks SFO Enterprises took illegally from the peoples money and invested in Central America. He's in place to take charge of things too complicated for a dummy like Jose to understand. When Smith asked Jose about the accountant's track record, Cisneros, he say, he don't no nuttin' bout that, man. Sighhhhh.

On the new supe appointments, Gavin's playing with deuces. But, even if both lose to Progressives (that's a given - D9 & D11 ain't D2 & D7) ... even when Gavin's appointees (Farrah's a good guy - grew up with Alex Clemens in Glen Park) ... before they lose, Downtown will have had a year or so with a solid Board majority. First thing they'll go after is LAFCO. Second is probably you.

Meko, Murphy, Daly, Thomas, Barnes & brown

(and ... Da Wall)

It should bother you if you already know who all those people are. It should bother you ... alot. If we had a decent newspaper in this town, you wouldn't have to read us at all. ... Who am I kidding? You're all political junkies and we sure as hell don't have a real newspaper here. I can insult you all I want and you'll come back because, God forbid, I'm pretty much the only one who tells you the truth.

So what's the truth on the above group of reprobates? Well, I have an interview scheduled with Chris Daly tomorrow and if things work out, Luke Thomas will do some photos for the story which will appear in first in friday's Sentinel, then rest in the archives there and back at the Bulldog. Now, that's an opportunity. We'll see how it works out. Personally, I find Daly to be, hands down, the most exciting politician in town. Peskin's getting worn down by the likes of Comcast and the Falun Gong. I like the dude and hope he's having a good vacation cause he's been looking tired as hell on the tube. Newsom's an automaton. Herrera got one of those invisibility cloaks Harry Potter wears, for Christmas (he should have hired someone to run against him in November - campaigns are steroids to these people & he'll go 8 years without a fight). Adachi, like Mike Hennessey, seems to only be interested in doing the job he has to the best of his ability. Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing new of any consequence.

Yeah, the bright lights are Daly, all out in front alone. ... Next is Luke Thomas, simply because he's so friggin' good with that camera and as far as I can tell, is pretty apolitical (he's a Brit from London). Then, I'd have to list Ross Mirkarimi who's presently the only genuinely really bright-eyed & smiling member of the Board.

That's enough for now. It's a minute to 8pm and there has to be something on TV that beats this.

Or, as my buddy Jens said last night at the same time when his clock with the vintage Corvette hour markers roared out with the sound of the engine on a 57 model:

"Vrooom, Vroooomm, VROOOOMMM!!!"
"It's 8 o'clock. Do you know where your money is?"

You won't tell, I won't tell: