Why the drop cloth?

(MTA to Manson clones)

(3-2-10)

Bigger is not always better. Aaron Peskin gave the MTA tens of millions of dollars
and 1,500 taxis to add to their fleet. They promptly gave away all of the money for
phony invoices (like from the cops) and put the taxi operating permits up for sale.
And, they’re broke.

MUNI cannot be reformed

If Willie Brown couldn’t reform the Municipal Railway then it cannot be done. The
only answer is to provide government sanctioned alternatives to MUNI and the newly
privatized taxi fleet both of which will only get progressively less competent and
responsive.

Bulldog Ballot measures

Elect the Police Chief

Elect the entire MTA board of directors

Authorize 400 new Patrol Specials to enforce Sit/Lie

(And, return the powers of arrest to them)

Remove minimum staffing requirement for SFPD

Authorize permits for 200 Jitney buses

200 million a year Gross Receipts tax

That’s a start. I like an Excess Wealth Confiscation bill too. I’d push to form
a mutual aid pact with communities up and down the West coast who have also been
invaded by the same Manson Gang wannabees who are small in number now but wait until
there are a thousand of them hitting the Haight like locusts.

Full Board

There are 36 items on the agenda of today’s meeting of the BOS Full Board. I’m
picking out 9 that I think are worth your attention. Five of them are proposed
ballot measures and 2 of the five are competing measures.

Item #12 Extending Just Cause eviction protections to post ‘79 units

This ballot measure is the brainchild of D-11’s John Avalos and was veto’d by the Mayor
a few weeks back as I recall. Of course it will win at the ballot. Shit, almost
70% of San Franciscans are Klingons. I mean, tenants.

Items #13 and #15 Elsbernd’s Benfits reform vs. Mar’s doppelganger

D-7’s Sean Elsbernd is not proposing anything radical here. None, repeat, none of
his reforms would affect anyone now working for the City. That’s Item #13. It’s
co-sponsored by the Mayor and is designed to have new employees pay a fairer share of
their own benefits.

Item #15 is sponsored by supes Eric Mar and John Campos and is a sop to SEIU 1021 aimed
at opening a few more veins in the body of SF City revenue. It’s simply stupid.
Thinking like this will get us to Vallejo status before you know it. And, anyone
wanna buy City Hall? We promise to rent it back from you.

Items #16 and #17 Halting privatization of SF Public Defender’s Office

It’s a bad idea to outsource your legal work or your sex life to the lowest bidder but
that’s what the City has done for years and with an irrational passion for the past 8
months. It always costs you more in the end as they say at the Power Exchange.

Let’s be real here. Everyone involved on both sides of this issue knows that it is
cheaper for the duly elected Public Defender and his office to provide a
constitutionally legal level of defense for those who cannot afford a lawyer.

The goal of those seeking to outsource PD work has never been about saving money or
providing a better public defense. Nope, it’s all been about weakening Public
Defender Jeff Adachi. And, it’s cost the City over 3 ¼ million this fiscal year.

At last week’s meeting of the Budget and Finance committee it seemed that everyone was
finally on the same page. It’s cheaper to keep it in the family where lawyers don’t
get paid for overtime. Both the 3 ¼ million supplemental to the Superior Court’s
indigent defense fund and the 1 ¼ million to fill vacant lawyer (5) and paralegal (2)
positions (these are not new hires) passed unanimously. We’ll see if Elsbernd’s
vote holds at the Full Board or if he’s succombed to pressure.

Pressure from the Newsom camp which had to be there. The main point to keep in mind
here is that both Sean Elsbernd and Jeff Adachi are lawyers. Newsom is not.
Elsbernd and Adachi realize that there is a constitutional floor defining the term ‘due
diligence’ and they can be disbarred for not performing same. It will be
interesting to see if Sean maintains his independence.

Item #26 How much is that bodyguard in the window?

Mirkarimi wants to know how much the Mayor spends on cops as bling and the cops don’t
want to lose all those free vacations. The new chief, in fact, defended the
secrecy of the BBB (Bodyguard Bling Budget) for several months before finally admitting
that he didn’t know what it was himself because no one would tell him because he was
new there and they didn’t trust him. This one is a Ballot Measure and will both be
approved for the June ballot and passed overwhelmingly.

Item #27 Regulating Pot Clubs

Last Ballot Measure. Sponsored by David Campos and Ross Mirkarimi who is the father
of the entire structure under which SF clubs operate. Congratulations to Ross who
saved us from the nightmare L.A. now endures. This should make the ballot and soar
through with no sane opposition. I have a very personal interest in all such
legislation.

Item #32 Mirkarimi puts more fig leafs on Bay to Breakers

If ever there were an odder couple than Ross Mirkarimi and Philip Anshutz I haven’t
seen them. Anshutz is the provincial homophobic evangelical christian who owns the
SF Examiner and a dozen or so other publications all of which are a font for right wing
propaganda. Mirkarimi is a mix of Russian Jew and Iranian Muslim whose partner is a
South American soap opera star.

Still, this is San Francisco and when Anshutz found he’d inherited the nation’s second
oldest foot race (after the Boston Marathon) along with his purchase of the Examiner he
immediately went after all the sinful drinking and nudity and general debauchery
associated with the parade/race. It was left to Ross as the D-5 supe (the most
intense part of the race is in his domain) … Mirkarmi has been dealing with the
Anshutz prudery and the cops’ general hate for all things fun and kept the race a
little bit authentic. Like the pot club industry, nice work Ross.

Sit/Lie Law A tool to reign in some occasional visitors from out-of-town

It’s ripe for abuse but it will pass. It will be largely ineffective (Sheriff says
those charged under this statute will get out of jail just as fast cause it’s just
another misdemeanor) but it will pass.

It will do one thing that makes me a big supporter. It will remove the
respsonsibility of citizens and shop owners from signing complaints and appearing at
hearings and in court. Down that road lies retaliation. Under the new ordinance
as I read it, the cops can do the citing. As I said, it’s ripe for abuse as PD
Adachi pointed out at yesterday’s meeting of the Board’s Public Safety committee but
I’ll take my chances cause we’ll have …

400 Patrol Specials to enforce Sit/Lie Law

And, as I said, return the powers of arrest to them. The Specials are ground
pounders and they almost always walk alone. They have the same Police Academy
training as regular cops. Neighborhood people and merchants love them.

Go Giants!