Watching City Hall #444 (3-20-06)

Watching City Hall #444

 

 
“I notice you need a key to enter the pressroom now.� 

(Eileen Left)

 
“Homeland Security has input to press access to City Hall now.�
 
(Guard comments on new venue access pass fm. City Hall mgr.?   Shouldn’t the Board control who get’s access to their press box?)
 
“They’re after gadflies.   Kimo Crossman is next.�
 
(a Salonite ties the dots together)
 
“Under authority of Chief Sanders, I have cancelled hundreds of press passes.�
 
(Sgt. Neville Gittens, SFPD pass czar)
 
“He had one eye in the mirror, as he watched himself go by.�
 
(Carly Simon salutes Ross Mirkarimi who calls Newsom ‘vain’)
 
“The D.O.E. called & I owe .89 cents to run against Pelosi.�
 
(Phil Berg, Libertarian candidate for U.S. Congress)
 
“You’re an anti-Semite!   And, you accused me of fixing the Public Power Election!!�
 
(Jill Lerner, who was City Administrator, Bill Lee’s exec. asst. during that election.    And Jill,  I’m not an anti-Semite.   My dislikes transcend petty race, religion and national origin demographics.)
 
“Why do we need 40 more MTA employees to ride the buses looking for people evading fares when the police are supposed to be doing that?�
 
(Vito Corleone)
 
“Why does the mayor say the City payroll is too big one day and try and add a thousand cops and MTA workers the next day?   That kind of thinking just makes no sense to me.�
 
(Albert Einstein)
 
“The next manager of the SF Civic Auditorium will censor the venue.�
 
(as predicted by Bulldog, top bidders are Clear Channel – who bought name of ‘Bill Graham’ and Anschultz Evangelical Christian Productions …  lead bidders in the contest to  limit free speech while managing the largest public theater venue in San Francisco … for 30 years!!!!  -  Opera, Symphony & Ballet have refused to do modern revolutionary productions for 50 years – this means only place in town to see modern revolutionary art is in small theaters who have been threatened with loss of grants should they continue ‘renegade’ productions  -  you had to know that no good would come of these ‘negotiations’ when you saw Michael Cohen’s name as project negotiator)
 
 
“Packet is available at City Hall, Room 244…�
 
“Packet  is available for review at City Hall …�
 
(Explanation for missing Board meeting agenda packets?)
 
          It’s a beautiful Spring Sunday in San Francisco and we are inundated with censorship and stonewalling and lies and slander and thievery.    Shorenstein is grabbing Piers 27 to 31 where he’ll build an office complex.   The only thing that still works on Walter is his greed and Newsom fed it with a couple of Market street garages last week before handing him the piers this week.    Hellman’s minions snatched the Bartlett street garage (unless Board of Supes grows some) 2 weeks ago.   Fisher is privatizing a few public soccer fields and literally, handing over management of them to his kids.    Newsom did a guest appearance at a charter school owned by a member of the Fisher family (Chester) in Belton last week.    Isn’t he Mayor of SF & not Belton?     Rec & Park is ready to hand control of the 130 year old Golden Gate Stables in the park to a private concern (‘Friends – they ain’t – of the Stables’ or something) whose online drawings show a fence to keep the public out, 2 residences – wanna bet one of em becomes an elaborate party house? … and a polo match going on at the old Polo Fields that have been a Latino league soccer venue for 50 years.     There isn’t time nor space to record all of the rip-offs but the same names are responsible for 90% of them.    I can’t keep up with them all.    Hell, it would be difficult for someone with a work ethic.    Here I am locked into a hundred battles with no chance of winning even one of them.    ‘Toy poodle last defense against Godzilla!’  …  that kind of thing.    I feel right at home.   
 
 

 
          The rain returns and falls in gentle but steady sweeps across the valley below the windows lining the rear of the Kalish cottage.    ‘Cool Guy’, Susan and Charles’ cat snuggles on my lap and purrs while I go through the morning papers.
 
          There’s an item in the Examiner about cabalite field commander, John Eckstrom who forced out the founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics a week or so back.    With absolutely no experience in medicine, he can’t seem to understand why a non-profit doesn’t make money.    Eckstrom was sent by Charles Schwab to get rid of the top clinic staff, disassemble the entire structure and add it to the list of people’s businesses the members of SFSOS have destroyed.     Corporate raiders preying upon non-profits.   The Ex’s Kim Curtis reports Eckstrom as starting a rant against the 60’s, then changing course in mid-sentence:
 
“It will take two more years to get this clinic
to where it should be financially.
 
The philosophies of the ‘60s are here today.
Nothing has changed (like that’s a bad thing?)
 
(he catches himself and changes course)
 
The philosophy can remain the same,
but you have to be financially responsible.�
 
          Well, John, you wild and crazy corporate butcher you, the philosophy of the ‘60s wasn’t about making money!   And, ‘non-profit’, much as it might chill your soulless heart to hear, means what it says.   You’re a no good son-of-a-bitch John.    Same for Charles Schwab who sent you.   And, I know that District 5’s revolutionary supervisor, Ross ‘Che’ Mirkarimi is going to call for hearings any day now and expose you for what you are.   …   Don’t hold your breath waiting for that last bit to happen.
 
 

 
          An article in last week’s Chron traced another move familiar to anyone following cabal activities.    Richard Blum and underling Regents’ chief, Gerald Parsky announced that in order to improve the financial performance of the gigantic U.C. system, they were hiring a …
 
1.     A chief operating or administrative officer.
2.     A chief financial officer
3.     A ‘compliance’ officer
 
They did exactly the same thing at SFUSD.    They did exactly the same thing to the City and County of San Francisco when they installed the same 3-headed beast to survey all of the money coming in.     Remember that one?    ‘Clean streets initiative’?    Clean streets, my ass.    Every government contract of over a million bucks goes through these guys and they all come from SFSOS.
 
     The Chronicle announced the same practice will be extended throughout the UC system and has already begun at Berkeley  where the 3 man team is headed by “public finance banker, Nathan Brostrom.     A quick google of Nathan reveals ties to Warren Hellman, Donald Fisher & Richard Blum.    All belong to a neocon group called ‘The Pacific Council of International Policy whose avowed goal is:
 
                           “Its focus is the interaction of global trends
                             and local effects as national borders become
more porous, traditional concepts of ‘public’
and ‘private’ blurs, and what constitutes
‘policy’ itself is changing.�
 
     I don’t know how you read this, but I see when people start talking about ‘blurring’ the ‘concepts of public & private’, I see the Fisher family grabbing soccer fields and Schwab snatching the Haight Ashbury Clinics and Hellman tossing MEDA out of the Bartlett Street Garage.  
 
     What to do?    Far as I can see, you can’t do shit about it and neither can I.     It’s interesting to me to connect the dots and draw lines between them, but beyond that, you might just as well sit back and enjoy the weather and wait for them to get around to you.    And, they will.    No business or other personal holdings are too small.    They clearly want absolutely everything.    From Calpers to the baggage carts at most American airports, to neighborhood clinics and garages.     
 
     This is getting depressing.    Let me file this and close by saying that the only reason I do columns like this is to put the matters on public record with as many details as possible.    Major newspapers will give you a few names but they’re only going to tell you half of the story.    It’s for wonks like me, sitting around in the rain with a cat on their lap to fill in the blanks.    Friends have told me to write about something more cheerful and I promise to spend the rest of the week doing just that.
 
EVOC rules!