Odds and ends and odd ends

(Bulldog musings in rain)

1-19-10

Got in a full walking workout yesterday when the weather broke in the afternoon.
This year is for my body first. Building a file with my primary care physician
(whom I’ve yet to meet) at Curry Senior Center. Went to get the morning papers in
the steady rain at 6am and the desk clerk (Joe) had a shopping bag for me behind the
counter.

Knew right away what it was. My buddy Gerry (’Colma kid’) gives me a care package
of essentials every year for Christmas. Like a kid writing Santa I put in for a
hoodie sweatshirt and pair of sweat pants. He gave me 2 fully fleece-lined hoodies
from Weather Wear that are more luxurious than any I’ve ever seen. At exactly the
right time.

Plus a pair of sweat pants that feel like cashmere. And, a couple of packages of
hankies. Everything is polyester and impervious to the rain. I’ll check that out
later today I hope. He included a copy of ‘Catholic Agitator’ which I’d never
seen. Out of L.A.. Gerry feeds the poor as a volunteer and is one of my chief
contributors (he’s one of many people who make up ‘Eileen Left’).

Kudos to Richard Waldman’s Eagles

This one’s belated. Richard is big fan of the “Iggles” and I promised to say
something nice about them if they beat the Niners last month. They did and I
forgot. Well, here it is. They’ve been consistently far better than the Niners
on every level for the last decade plus. Donovan McNabb is a class act and Andy
Reid has coached circles around every other coach in the conference.

Richard promised me White Castle burgers if the Niners prevailed and lo and behold,
even tho he won, his buddy Eric Safire delivered the burgers to Daniel Cohen’s for the
game the following Sunday. Just finished the last of them yesterday.

Calvin Welch extorts Academy of Art

Mea culpa to my buddy Luke Thomas. You were right, Luke. The new art school in
the Civic Center on U.N. Plaza is an Art Institute branch and not Academy of Art
University at all. A group headed by Warren Hellman took control of the Art
Institute a couple of years back and apparently have gone beyond censoring faculty and
students and begun copying the AAU model.

My question to D-1’s Eric Mar who is sponsoring a tax aimed exclusively at the AAU to
gather money to give to Welch and Brad Paul and their ilk. Do you think that other
out-of-town students should also pay the $1,000 fee to rent SF units? And, is that
per year or is it a one time thing?

In my years working residence hotels and apartment buildings I had hundreds of student
tenants from places like the University of San Francisco and SF State and SF Community
College and the Art Institute and the City never taxed them for coming to SF to attend
school. Suddenly you’re calling for a tax on one group of students?

So, c’mon Eric. You’re out from under your rock and taking positions now. Are
you in favor of taxing SF State students the same as AAU students? You’re not!?
Is that because you taught at SF State? How about the Art Institute’s student body?
U. of SF?

You don’t know do you? It’s because no one has told you what you think about these
questions isn’t it? Another nice guy completely out of his league. Deer in the
headlights. Welch and Brad Paul sent Woody Allen out to rob people along the
highway. What a joke.

Bottom line is that there are more than 100,000 students attending institutions of
higher learning in SF and Aaron Peskin wants to make coming to SF less attractive to
them just to line the pockets of a few buddies. Cause the Palmer decision in San
Diego could cut off affordable housing fees in the entire state. And, Treasure
Island’s development (big shout out to Jack Sylvan) … TIDA wants to cut back or
delete the affordable housing requirements for that project or make it possible for
developers to pay a larger percentage of in-lieu fees. And, don’t get me started on
Mello-Roos bonds as a financing instrument for such projects.

Folks, this is insanity. While the Mayor regularly cuts or eliminates taxes on new
businesses coming to SF, the Peskin gang wants to increase the cost of non-polluting
universities.

Jane Kim enters D-6 OK Corral shoot-out

Did you know that Jane shared a Richmond District flat with David Chiu (and others I
believe, I’m not implying a romantic tie) … with Chiu a few years back? Sources
in the Mayor’s office tell me that Downtown interests approached the Grassroots
Enterprise co-founder to run against first Jake McGoldrick for supe and later to run
for City Assessor until they downgraded to Phil Ting.

I don’t recall if it was Matt Gonzalez or Chris Daly who first supported her for the
SFUSD board but they were both on top of their game at the time and my point is that
Kim is an instant force in this race.

Win? Best qualified? Independent? I don’t think so on any of those points.
Jim Meko is by far the most independent front-runner and he and Debra Walker have 40
years of service to the residents in what is now D-6. As supe Kim would kind of
duck waddle behind David Chiu in much the same way as Carmen Chu waddles behind Sean
Elsbernd. But, we’ll see won’t we?

Giants need a bunting coach

I’m going to Spring training to watch the Giants for 4 days in March and I’m going with
an agenda. If I can get anyone to listen I’m going to advocate for a new bench
coach who teaches nothing but bunting. Someone who speaks Spanish and has
credibility with the players instead of just being a buddy to the manager. With all
these millions floating around they can afford 150k or so. How about Rod Carew?
We could use a Panamanian.

“Lineup change, Dewar for Wachs.”

Staying with the baseball theme, the SF Weekly just vastly improved their front line
political writer lineup by calling up veteran consultant/pundit/award winning MUNI
blogger Greg Dewar to fill in for the self-benched Benjamin Wachs who simply can’t hit
the pitching at this level. With the Weekly and Guardian lucky to print more than
50 pages a week (half where they were 18 months ago) … the Weekly opted for a
change to a writer superior both defensively and offensively. A wise move. The
Guardian meanwhile has stayed pat with Steven T. Jones who is their version of Milton
Bradley.

Top SF ‘Time Sinks’

(“Words without wisdom are only noise.”)

I think the author of that statement was God. He must have been talking about
either Arthur Evans or Rob Anderson. Both spend most of their waking hours
desperately trying to sucker bloggers into the quicksand of their pointless circular
arguments. It’s amazing how many intelligent people (e.g. Marc Salomon and Eric
Brooks) fall into their traps.

I’m going to put Annie Garrison in that class too and that’s in spite of the fact that
the woman knows her shit. Her numbers are faultless and unlike Snave and Anderson,
her knowledge of a wide breadth of issues is unmatched. But, you can exchange
emails with this woman for 20 hours a day and never reach a resolution on anything.

I mention this because as someone who has the time to read the pertinent (to me) local
political blogs I am overwhelmed by how much of the space is dominated by Evans,
Anderson and Garrison. Three buses to nowhere.

Nate Ford a Richard Blum creation?

When the Mayor hired Nate Ford a couple of year’s back he said that it was the result
of a nation-wide search to find the best and brightest. We needed an outsider who’d
bring a new and independent perspective to the SF scene was the argument I believe.

Of course he was lying and he knew it. He knew that Ford was a creature of Dick
Blum’s URS corporation and had been a project chief on a BART extension busted for
accepting and installing miles of bad rail that had to be replaced.

So Nate took off for Atlanta where Blum spouse Dianne Feinstein used her connections to
land him the top transit job. Where he got out of town one step ahead of locals
carrying a rail, bags of feathers and buckets of tar (it’s a Southern thing). But,
what about his outrageous salary? I’m thinking that there are probably at least a
dozen cops making more.

Question for Harvey Rose

How much does the City pay to Greg Corrales every year? I don’t mean just his
salary. What’s a cop captain make after 30 years? Gotta be approaching 200k.
I mean his take in salary and retirement benefits? Gotta be over 300k.

Think I’m kidding? Nope. Only reason you aren’t hearing about this is because
most of the local media strongly supported the POA ballot measure enshrining the ‘DROP’
program passed in, I believe, June of 2005. By that measure if a cop has over 30
years service and is 55 or older he or she can apply for the ‘deferred retirement’
program and stay on duty collecting their regular pay while having their full
retirement benefits (over 125k a year) banked for them by the City.

Thus, the cop with the most brutality complaints in his service jacket (almost or just
under 100 – I’m not kidding) … makes more money than Nate Ford and it’s all legal.
And, over 300 cops are now eligible for the program.

The other reason you don’t hear about these ridiculous numbers is because officers like
Corrales have their take from the City divided into proceeds from the department
(regular salary) and retirement income (different pot). It would be interesting to
have a supervisor ask Rose just how many cops are in the Drop program and what their
combined individual incomes might be. How many are eligible and if all of them get
into the program what’s the combined cost to taxpayers yearly?

That’s more than enough for today.

But, you knew that already.

Go Giants!