Watching City Hall #439 (3-15-06)

Cabal seizes control of another non-profit

          God damn, man, these bastards never sleep.    With MEDA’s Bartlett Street Garage barely swallowed, SFSOS founding member, Charles Schwab yanked another Cabal string and, voila … the Downtown python had Dr. David Smith’s lifetime work, the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic (now employing 180 at various locations) …  had all but the tail of the poor’s safety net health care clinic system down his throat … Schwab’s hand picked bomb-under-the-table, one John Eckstrom fired 10 top staff and forced Smith out while simultaneously crushing the good doctor’s related creation, ‘Happening House Ventures’ created to develop space for the ever growing 40 year old Clinic.
 

          I brushed off my hangover this morning and scraped some pot off the inside of a clogged glass pipe to get my morning buzz.    Turning on the tube (channel 4 at 5:30am - KRON), I was presented with an amazingly touching piece of TV.    The news crew was filming a broken-hearted Dr. David Smith, founder of the Haight icon, standing beneath the landmark Victorian weeping.    Yeah, Schwab and Hellman had driven him out.    And … you know how these stations all run their stories on a virtual round-robin?   Well, the Smith story was by far the most touching of any KRON ran this morning and they only ran it once.  I’m betting Wade Randlett was on the line to them threatening loss of the little advertising they have if they didn’t pull the story.
 
          Saber toothed tigers aginst bunny rabbits.    It’s really no contest.   As in the Bartlett Street Garage rip-off, a little googling turns up the names of Eric Flowers (current CEO of the clinic - he came from Charles Schwab), David Schwartz (a Hellman appendage) … and, their 3 year campaign to seize control of the venerable non profit.
 

          The Cabal has already moved the administrative offices of the Clinic into Walter Wong’s building at 13^th and Mission and promises to move more of the operation into the politically astute Wong’s cavernous ‘City Center’.    What the fuck’s up with that, I couldn’t say.    Certainly, a big part of it is to make certain that they have all of Smith’s financial blood drained.    But, Wong?    Has he mended fences with the Downtown carnivores?    Weird shit.
 
          The genesis of this thing could have come from an article Carol Harvey wrote for the Sentinel in 2002.    That would have been when various senior staff at the Clinic went public to disclaim support for, then supervisor (and SFSOS front shill), Gavin Newsom’s initiative … they denied having endorsed Downtown’s ‘Care not Cash’ ballot initiative.    At the time, top Cabal strategist, Eric Jaye had plastered the small white dove logo of the Clinic all over the measure’s campaign literature.    Smith and his top people were quick to point out that they were not endorsing anything (they were, after all, dependent upon donations from all sides).    The confusion was caused by Jaye, who exploited an endorsement by Clinic shrink, Pablo Stewart’s championing of the measure.   …  Interestingly, having used Stewart for their campaign, he was one of ten fired by SFSOS raider, Eckstrom last week.    What’s up with that?    Probably cause he’s a Latino and they were in the ‘crush-the-Latino’ mode after last week’s smashing of the MEDA garage.
 

Item 2 … Capital Expenditure Plan timeline amendments
 
          SFSO has 4 certain willing votes on the Board.    However, only Sean Elsbernd understands what they’re up to.     Ma and Pier read their scripts & Dufty is in comfortable denial.    This measure started as a charter amendment but Hellman & his cohorts backed off when it appeared they couldn’t sneak it through the Board and onto the ballot. 
 
          I noted back then, that the maneuver appeared to be a cash grab for Cabal designated projects ear-marked downtown and funneled through Elsbernd.    That’s still what it is.
 
          When the powers-that-be tell you that it’s necessary to rush something into law, you can bet it’s a fuck job for the people.   That’s what’s happening here.    I said that the legislation was tied to Prop ‘C’ which was titled ‘Clean Streets & Clean Parks’ (who had to have sex with the Ballot Simplification Committee to get this title?) … anyway, you’re my wonks so you get the idea.    Bottom line here is that Elsbernd is trying to get the rest of the Board to present their personal capital expenditure plans for the next 10 years within the next 60 days and for the Mayor and Board to “review, update, amend and adopt the plan by August 1^st�.   It’s a bad plan anyway with Harrington working with 3 SFSOS designees to isolate all expenditures over a million bucks for study before they reach Board Budget Analyst, Harvey Rose.   At any rate, this thing should go back to committee again to analyze the relationship of the legislation to prop ‘C’ and who has the advantages and why.    If you don’t understand something, don’t vote for it.    Whatever, budget season is the last time to be rushing something that could determine the expenditures of a billion or more dollars over the next decade.    I said when I warned about this legislation in the beginning that Harrington would announce a surplus of 100 million and that only Elsbernd would be ready with the Downtown projects most deserving of the cash which will be distributed ‘pork barrel’ style to those who supported the measure.
 
(Go to:  http://p097.ezboard.com/fsfdebatefrm2   I’m joining as soon as I can figure out how.)        
 
Items 9 and 10 … saddling Muslim liquor store owners with cops’ job
 
Maxwell always means well.    That’s a given.    She is often led to introduce and support bad legislation because she has a good heart and trusts people who are assholes.    Her time would be better spent devising taxes on the rich so that her constituents can have the jobs that developers have promised and promised but never delivered.     This legislation is racist & escapist.
 
Item 12  …  The cops use any excuse possible to run up overtime to pay their mortgages on their Walnut Creek homes.     You can find 400 of them out covering a demonstration with a couple of hundred participants.    Send this fucker to committee and get a breakdown of who gets the overtime and it’s justification.
 
Item 17  …  Another pig-in-a-poke sold to Maxwell.   I’m told that the entire purpose of this legislation is to hand the 49’ers and Mills corporation millions in tax breaks.    Back to committee.   (I will remind you all when these bucks head to Florida or Ohio instead of the SF general fund.)
 
Item 18  …  The final screw job for the hardest working members of the SFFD.    Yeah, that’s the paramedics, of course.    Hey, I was a firefighter for 5 years and I know how much plotting goes on sitting around the TV and eating ice cream.    The paramedics were out working while the likes of Chief Hayes-White and her bully boys figured out how to keep the ambulance and pumper/truck boys from integrating.    Every other major city in the country has integrated fire and paramedic forces.    Once again, SF heads backwards due to it’s entrenched ‘Old Boy’ network.
 
Item 35  …  An outright capitulation by Ross Mirkarimi to the Downtown puppet, John Arntz and the Republican, Bush administration.    Caught stuffing the ballot boxes, the Republicans came up with a thing called the:  ‘Help America Vote Act’ (HAVA).   The purpose of HAVA is to install rigged electronic voting machines in every single precinct of the U.S..    This resolution means nothing.   It’s an admission that the Board doesn’t understand the real problem and hasn’t the time to study it.   There is no more important a problem before the American electorate today then the integrity of their votes.  In San Francisco, of all places, our representatives are reduced to begging the assholes to give us a free election.   Time to get their backs up and fight.    Arntz should be required to give a weekly report between now and election day to the Peskin Audits & Oversight Committee.  
 
          That’s enough for today.    Enjoy the rain.    The marvelous little Kalish feline, ‘Cool Guy’ and I are sitting and watching the rain fall over the valley that stretches from Bernal all the way up to Twin Peaks.  Have fun Marc & George on your South African adventure.    Your cats will be fine.    Hit www.krissyforcongress.com and check out the ever growing campaign web site.  
 
EVOC rules!