Sometimes while I’m working I’ll have SFGOV TV on in the background, just in case something happens. This morning I was out and about and wasn’t able to catch the SF County Transit Authority meeting, and apparently (according to various sources), things got very ugly.
I’ll have to watch the replay online when it comes out, but word was that Sup. Daly, apparently unhappy at the Fix Muni Now campaign, decided to call Sup. Elsbernd a “racist” (the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard) and that things got so heated that people had to block Daly, who, in his true bully-boy fashion, was acting like he was gonna throw a punch or something on his colleague. WTF? Whatever record Daly had in the past has been eclipsed by his mindless behavior of late. This is the learned debate of our city leaders over Muni policy? God help us.
But not to be outdoen, “Supervisor” Alioto-Pier made a visit from her faraway home to spend a few days doing a job she doesn’t seem to want much, to try and torpedo plans (supported by all the businesses and residents in the area) to extend the F-line. Turns out Ms. Pier (I can’t call her Supervisor because she doesn’t actually do any work for the public at this point) decided to use her bullying abilities to help out a handful of wealthy donors to some failed campaign (which one?) of hers and screw up what was a great plan.
This little meeting proves that the bullying do-nothing out-of-towner elitists exist on both sides, and that both “Supervisors” are embarrassments to our City.
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Last night at the Rescue Muni general meeting, we had a member of the TWU declare Sup. Elsbernd a racist multiple times though the meeting, very loudly, then finally dramatically storming out the door. I think the union is backed into a corner here, and is now desperately playing the race card as a last resort. The TWU knows that if Eslbernd’s amendment makes it to the ballot, the public will pass it, probably by a super majority.
Chris Daly is aligned with the union, and has probably colluded in a political strategy with them.
TWU’s leadership needs to watch it with that. Crying wolf like this only means they can’t justify being the only union that has their pay locked into the city charter, unlike other Muni unions, or any other unions, period.
I’m also a bit disturbed that TWU has representation on the board of the nascent Transit Rider’s Union, which I want to succeed. TWU’s leadership (note how I said leadership not rank and file members) have been so out of touch with reality with Muni owners (us) and the situation (epic FAIL at the state and city level), I kinda don’t like the idea of their union boss having a say in what should be something for the owners of muni, not the employees. They already have their own union and certainly don’t listen to, or allow us to have a say in their affairs.
I have a new theory: this situation, especially the financial problems of Muni and SF as a whole didn’t happen overnight. It took at least a decade and a half to develop, but it was masked first by the dot-com bubble and later by housing bubble, which happened just in time to let everything kind of muddle through the early-2000s downturn. Now in an extended crisis, the unsustainability of it all (the political and financial situation of SF and California as a whole) is finally becoming obvious.
@anonymouse: of course it didn’t. But in addition to what you describe, add in two more factors – the fact that Prop. 13 took away the ability of local communities to make decisions about what they wanted as a priority (ie. low taxes or some taxes and services etc) and ended up with the State of CA doling out tax money (Great in good times horrid in bad). Even the authors of prop. 13 NEVER thought that would happen.
The other thing though is that when times were good in SF you had a Mayor and BoS who priortized giving away the store to the Mayor (Brown’s) buddies, and approve developments that were totally boom-fueled. As for Muni, we got saddled with the Bredas which suck and with things like the Central Subway, which will suck billions but has been so compromised over the years, it’s no longer as good an idea as it could have been.
Finally, it’s easy to be popular and effective in good times. When the final storm hit the city, it was up to the Mayor and his legion of overpaid aides to find a way out. Instead they resorted to budget bullshit and to giving out pay raises to people to win his re-election. We were told that by electing a “moderate” like Newsom we’d have a better run city. Instead we have a city littered with press releases about feel good showboat “green” BS, and a city that’s a joke. And this was the “moderate” solution to the mess Willie left us in?
Ugh.
It always comes back to Prop 13, doesn’t it. I agree, the authors of Prop 13 sound like the small-government types who like local control, rather than having the state control the funding of everything.
It always comes back to Prop 13, doesn’t it. I agree, the authors of Prop 13 sound like the small-government types who like local control, rather than having the state control the funding of everything.
Let me tell you a story of how Prop. 13 got started. Many years ago my mother was a first-grade teacher in Monrovia (east of Pasadena). One election day the school was one of the polling places, and Mama came home that day and told of all the “little old ladies tottering down to the polls to vote NO on school bonds.” There were too many stories in that era of elderly people being “taxed out of their homes” being property taxes kept going up and their pensions and Social Security payments didn’t. Prop 13 probably helped prevent, or at least slow down this situation, but it applies to commercial and industrial property as well as residential, and these properties don’t change hands as often as houses do. We wind up with two similar side-by-side houses, with one owner paying twice as much in taxes as his neighbor, while the “Widget Works” on the other side of town keeps its low rate; probably not what Mr. Jarvis and his colleagues had in mind (or maybe precisely what they had in mind!)
I feel like “old people getting taxed out of their homes” was the way that Prop 13 was marketed, and a big part of what got it passed, but it had other motivations behind it (which you can more clearly see in its other parts). And I think it’s part of a long trend in California, of older people and established homeowners being privileged over younger people and newer homeowners. This worked great as long as there were plenty of people moving in and plenty of new households being formed. Those days are over now, and California needs to shift to a more sustainable model to survive. It seems to be failing to do so.