Ghosts and dreams and SF politics

(Gonzalez ignored voice of Hongisto’s ghost)

(2-17-10)

In all the minor swirl about Mayor Newsom’s impending announcement of his run for Lt.
Governor I’d forgotten that the ghost of former SF top cop, sheriff, assessor,
supervisor and businessman Dick Hongisto told me on the morning of November 6th 2004 as
I walked past Walter Shorenstein’s parking lot down the street from Original Joe’s …
said to tell Matt Gonzalez that he should enter the race for Lieutenant Governor of
California cause he’d win easily and then be elected governor in 4 years and then win
the U.S. Presidency in 2008.

A friend wrote to remind me and she was right. We all have plans for our favorite
people, politicians or third basemen whatever and mine was that Gonzalez would be the
second youngest president in history. So, Gavin gets it all. People don’t
listen to me.

Oh well.

Did you know that Hongisto and present Sheriff (since 1980) Michael Hennessey both
hailed from Minnesota and that it was Hongisto who gave Hennessey his start at the
Sheriff’s department by hiring him as his legal counsel?

Or that the New York Times noted in Dick’s obit that he was the first person elected in
SF by: “a coalition of liberals, radicals, minorities, homosexuals and the young”?
Sounds like the Gonzo bandwagon in 2003.

Or that Dennis Kucinich (elected Mayor of Cleveland in his 20’s – see Time Magazine,
‘The punking of Cleveland’) … or that Kucinich hired Hongisto to be top cop in
Cleveland and then fired him live on TV?

Or that he was one of the SF BOS that created Prop M in the early 80’s and that’s the
law that restricts the kind of condo towers for the rich that CW Nevius’ masters have
him pushing in the Chron?

Or that he refused to evict poor Filipino veterans from the I Hotel which was right
down the street from the proposed site of the Prop M wrecking 430 foot palace for
millionaires … refused to evict them and was locked up himself by a judge for doing
so and I wonder if Hennessey was the department lawyer yet?

Did you know that Walter Shorenstein owned the I Hotel through an arm’s length straw
party and that an arsonist burned the last of the veterans out of the building and one
was killed and that Shorenstein sold the building that night to a shady South East Asia
group called Mandalay?

Politicians were more interesting

Chris Daly is the only recent local politician I can think of who has gone to jail for
supporting the rights of the poor and downtrodden. Yeah, they don’t make em like
Dick Hongisto anymore. Of course Nevius and Kenny Garcia who is his counterpart at
the SF Examiner write hateful things about Daly because they are running dog lackeys
of rich people like Shorenstein.

Mar and Chiu: A mission for mediocrity

There were 4 items on the agenda for new ‘chair’ Eric Mar’s first meeting of the
Board’s Audits and Oversight committee yesterday. Mar, I’m guessing on orders from
Chiu – he read from a script – combined the last 3 unrelated items which meant only one
bite at Public Comment for citizens in attendance.

The public was confused as hell. After the items were read they kept trying to come
up and address them individually but to no avail. After a discussion of the MTA
people tried to come up and speak about the Allemany Market fiasco but D-11’s John
Avalos subbing for Sophie Maxwell told them they couldn’t cause it was included with
the MTA item and they should have spoken then. I’m telling you, these fuckers are
in league to shut the public up. It smells of backroom influence by Aaron Peskin who
hated listening to the Public almost as much as he hates listening the the Parrots of
Telegraph Hill. And Mar as chair of anything? Maybe later but right now he’s
not ready to be anything but a fall guy who carries Progressive extortion notes to big
bad guys like the SFFD’s union. The man is the classic ‘Deer in the Headlights’ half
the time and the other half he’s reading from a script.

It was chilling to say the least. Combined with the Daly/Campos strategy of placing
items on a ‘Consent Agenda’ at the committee level and holding the most important
discussions in private (Campos’ excuse for not calling appointees to the podium for
public scrutiny was: “But, we’d all – the BOS – already met all of them.”) … I’d
say we’re well on our way to hearing almost nothing of any substance whatsoever on
SFGTV. Again, discredit Peskin who used to say that he only talked to, “Playahs”.

Budget and Finance (11am)

Chair: D-11’s John Avalos

Vice Chair: D-5’s Ross Mirkarimi

Member: D-7’s Sean Elsbernd

Item #1 Public Power Lite

That’s what Gonzalez used to call ‘Public Aggregation’. The Board is like a bunch
of children playing in the middle of a dusty Texas road oblivious to a semi approaching
at 100 mph.

The ’semi’ is, of course, PG&E. Taking a cue from fellow monopolistic sister
corporation Comcast, the utility will have an item on the June ballot that will make
SF’s venture into Public Power illegal without a public vote with a 2/3rds approval.
Comcast did the same thing to get out of having to support a small amount of public
service programming in SF and elsewhere around the country. Verizon did it so they
can put up cell phone antennas anywhere without a local public hearing.

Items #5 and #6 Dufty’s tax break for business

Dufty like Newsom is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat for the obvious practical
reasons. He hates tenants and loves billionaires. He’s together with ‘Ken doll’
on this one which is applying the old fashioned Ronald Reagan Voodoo Economics of
‘Trickle Down’ to further take funds away from the children playing in the middle of
that dusty Texas road. Only the road is in the Bay View. The most interesting
thing here will be to see a guy the size of Sean Elsbernd tap dancing on top of his
desk as he explains why it’s good to cut the salaries of workers while giving the money
saved to his buddies in the business community.

Items #7 and #8 George Armstrong Custer’s battle strategies

DCYF, DPH, DPH, SFFD and the Office of Emergency Management will explain how to (as a
semi-retired politico used to say) … they’ll be giving a seminar on how to make
chocolate ice cream out of shit.

Power Exchange across from TL Cop Shack

SF cops aren’t very good at policing the streets directly in front, side and back of
their own station houses. Hell, Northern Station doesn’t have a single window on
the street and the few the Tenderloin have are forever covered.

Tenderloin is the worst. The spacious park across the street from the station
(Boedecker) is chained shut most of the time to keep out the winos and crackheads who
instead gather against the walls under mine and other TL windows.

Cop cars clog the streets surrounding the TL station like covered wagons under attack
because the cops keep their personal vehicles in the garage beneath the structure cause
they can’t keep the streets safe enough without walking them and damned if they’re
gonna do that for more than a few minutes a day.

And, directly across from the Jones street side of the TL station is Terrance Alan’s
building, the former ‘Pink Diamonds’. Yeah, the place with all the trouble every
night and the shootings is across the street from a fully manned cop shop that refused
to control their own doorstep.

Hither cometh my buddy Mike Powers to battle anti-funsters Bevan Dufty and Elaine
Zamora and Randy Shaw and David Villa Lobos and at least one preacher with his hand
out.

I’m not gonna dwell on this cause this piece is longish and y’all know my positions on
sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Suffice to say that Powers runs a tight ship and as
someone who lives directly across the street from his previous incarnation on Mason
street let me tell you that he’s a great neighbor.

No loud crowds. No blaring music. No alcohol. Being very real here, Carl’s
Junior draws a lot rougher crowd than the Power Exchange. I’m hoping Mike get’s the
place open and that the issue of the business stays front and center in the coming D-6
supervisor race of which I am a candidate (though Jim Meko is my first choice – see my
window poster and get your own).

Pitchers and catchers arrive at Spring Training today.

Go Giants!