The mayor's perspective Newsom laments the city's bad budget options and fires back at critics By Steven T. Jones It's never easy being the mayor of San Francisco, but March 2 seemed particularly tough for Gavin Newsom. He was already facing a nasty budget hole and rising demands for new spending, several areas of labor unrest, a persistent problem with unsolved and unchecked homicides, and a strong backlash to some of his reforms - and, on a personal level, his own unfolding divorce - when workers suddenly decided to shut down the city's cable cars. And to top it all off, the Bay Guardian city editor was waiting in his lobby for an extended, exclusive interview that had taken months to finally set up. Yet the 37-year-old Democrat seemed to take it all in stride. He called Transportation Workers Union president William Sisk and agreed to meet with him about the firing of two cable operators that had prompted the wildcat strike, but only after he got the cable cars running again (which they were by 1 p.m., after a two and a half hour shutdown). He then summoned Muni chief Michael Burns to his office and in the meantime had his press secretary Peter Ragone bring me in, much to the consternation of the City Hall press corps, which by then had gathered in his waiting room trying to get a comment on the unfolding cable car strike. Bay Guardian: What's happening with the cable car strike? That really seemed to come out of nowhere. Gavin Newsom: Yeah, well, I think the broad strokes are, there are a lot of issues as it relates to grievance procedures and the MOU between [the Transportation Workers Union] and [Municipal Transportation Agency] that have been percolating. This was ... a grievance that was filed - what they call “Tier 3,” sort of the end of the grievance process - where the grievance officer adjudicated in favor of the MTA against the union, on an issue associated with two of the operators that had been taking money. Because, as you know, it's an all-cash thing. You have three bucks, and you're supposed to get a receipt, but who knows you have to get a receipt? So you can just take the money, and then you come back, and the receipts are supposed to match, or the reduction of the receipts match how many dollars you've collected. But if you're not handing back receipts, then it's pretty easy to just pocket the money. So there was a grievance procedure that just went the wrong way just in the last day or so. So today they went out and pulled back and stopped all the cable car service, which is against the MOU, [which says] you can't strike. We were going to force disciplinary action; people were going to be deducted for pay. So they were over at the cable car center, and I said, “I'm coming down there, or you're coming down here, and if you're coming down here, then those guys go back out to work.” They said, “Do we have your word?” I said, “You have my word as long as those guys are out." So they just called and said they're going out. BG: So it's a temporary solution? GN: Very temporary. And it's part of a larger issue, part of what's going on not just in the city, but in the state and the country as it relates to labor issues and the pressures of health care, pensions, the costs of government, and how to create a sustainable system that is affordable. Everyone's worried about the $57 million we have to find to balance the MTA budget. I don't know anybody who's jumping up and down and saying we want fare increases or $5 cable car rides. That's crazy. I mean, that's huge. If you've got a family of five and you need to go there and back, that's $50. You're not going to take the cable car ... so those are the larger issues, and it's tough. You know, we had to eliminate 1,200 positions, and we got $138 million in labor concessions just last year for this current fiscal year, and then that kicks in again next year. It's hard. BG: And now you get hit with this powerful political symbol of shutting down San Francisco's cable cars. GN: Oh yeah, and that's why I'm appreciative it was short-lived. It was a bold action by TWU. The good news for me is I have a good relationship with the guys in this union, and I really like and respect them. And I have a good relationship with Michael Burns on the other side. We keep fighting ourselves in the middle of all this on all the labor issues, but we'll try to work through it. It's not easy. BG: How do you feel about the overall budget that MTA just approved? GN: Well, I don't like it. And it always goes back to this one fundamental point. We wouldn't be here for a lot of these discussions had we passed [the tax measures Propositions] J and K, which was going to fill a big part of that gap. And I keep reminding people when we're closing rec centers, we tried to do everything - hell, I did commercials - so you've got physical evidence of my advocacy on the initiatives. It was just a lot of people that opposed them are now the biggest critics of these closures, and you think there and scratch your head and say, "Well, wait a second - where were you on the campaign?" Even members on the board were opposed to J and K, and now they're out there protesting [Muni] fare increases, and we're saying, "All right, I'm with you; I'm right behind you. But what alternative do you have?" And they say, "Well, tax increases." I say, "Well, when? This year or next year?" And this budget's got to be balanced in a few months. So a downtown assessment district? Interesting. But when's that going to happen? And what are the realistic chances of it winning? And you can't delay these tough choices. BG: So you're saying Muni fare increases are unavoidable right now. GN: I'm concerned about that. I do not like the senior citizens' increases. I do not like the cable car increases. It's draconian. I'm glad we were able to get the - by the way, it was a split vote, so it was hardly as if we're telling this board what to do. I mean, it's mostly Willie Brown appointees, not mine. I'm glad they didn't start charging for the transfers. We made it crystal clear I was vehemently opposed to that. I think some of the [parking] meter increases are aggressive. There's still a chance of tweaking - not just a chance, there's going to be some a tweaking. And we're working with the Transportation Authority, members of the Board [of Supervisors], with some ideas that we've floated that they're now searching, so I think some members of the board are going to jump on that. BG: And you think you can find enough common ground with the board to keep them from rejecting this budget? GN: I think [Sup.] Gerardo Sandoval, to his credit, said it would be a nuclear bomb. Meaning it's great to stand up to say, I'm going to oppose it, but what's your positive alternative? You want more service cuts? You want more layoffs? Do you want much bigger meter increases? Do you want much bigger fare increase and no meter increases? You've got to have an alternative. And again, with the downtown assessment district that people are advocating, you've got to consider when it can go on the ballot, which is not going to help us this year. People are upset about people going on and not paying their fair share. That's great, but even if it is a $6 million problem, or a $5.5 million problem, that's not going to solve your problem. How do you figure that out? Who do you hire? And where do you find the money to hire them for more enforcement to get more aggressive, to get the money for, what, next year's budget? It's not going to solve this year's stuff. If anyone's got a better idea - and I'm looking, myself and my whole team. We're going to try to do what we can to avoid fare increases. BG: Another big labor issue is dealing with the San Francisco Police and Fire Departments' salaries, which will rise pretty high next year because of the deal you cut on the last budget. GN: Well, as you know, the police, a number of years ago, got a substantial wage enhancement based upon a survey, and they have the provision in the contracts that show parity in terms of police and fire wages. So we went through the longest negotiation of all our negotiations. We got some concessions on the workweek - not as much as we'd hoped for - we got some wage concessions with the other labor unions.... We get the 7.5 percent cut for the term of the contract, for all the contracts, so it's close to half a billion dollars of wage concessions, which is, from my perspective, unprecedented in any city in America. I simply don't know another major city in the country that's ever gotten that kind of agreement with labor, to their credit - including layoffs - it's a remarkable thing. I keep saying for those that love to beat up on labor that on this one, they deserve enormous credit across the board for stepping up and being part of the solution this year so we didn't have to have deep cuts in direct services. BG: Do you still intend to make cuts to the Fire Department's budget? GN: Absolutely. In fact, I went to the Fire Commission last week and said, minimum, $8 million of additional cuts, and everyone there started yelling and screaming, telling me how their budget's been cut three years in a row and this will cause brownouts and everything else. So there are some sacred cows, but there are few. Sacred cows [are] direct services that have real and substantive value. Now that being said, there are going to be direct service cuts, and people are going to say, "Well, doesn't that have real, substantive value? Why'd you cut it?” Again, I have to deal with reality and a balanced budget with [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger taking an additional $19.6 million. On top of the $113 million budget deficit, he's proposing another $20 million in cuts. We're assuming that we're going to get those back, either through [In-Home Supportive Services] cuts or welfare cuts, CalWORKS cuts, TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] cuts. I, in fact, went to the governor last week and said, "This is the same thing you did last year, and we stopped the IHSS cuts, but this year we're going to get more aggressive. Don't think for a second we're going to roll over on this." In addition to that, we have all the [Community Development Block Grant] cuts, 50 percent by the president; people now want to backfill all those. We've got the cuts in the Housing Authority budget - which just got hit hard last year, going to get hit again this year - when we have problems with crime and violence, and we've got all the private security contracts now being substantially reduced in a time when we need more funding. We have the COPS' MORE [Making Officer Redeployment Effective] program cut: 77,000 additional police officers are supposed to be cut and eliminated in the COPS' MORE program by the president, which would reduce the funding we have for our community policing. So all these pressures on top of the $113 million [deficit], people are going to expect all that to be backfilled without onetime reserves, without the ability to liquidate properties that we haven't liquidated in the last three years, without the ability to raise fees because you can only raise fees to their actual costs - meaning it's fee per service, and you can't legally go above that, with the exception being some of these Muni and parking fees which are being raised. So you don't have many fees to go. You can't negotiate any more concessions from labor. And there's no savers. There's no more tax money coming in ... so there are some tough choices that need to be made. BG: At the same time, lots of people are making stands right now. At the Ethics Commission, they're saying they don't have enough money to meet their mandate and can't take a cut. GN: Right. You've got Ethics. You've got Rec and Park. They're saying, wait a second, you closed after-school programs, you got the summer coming up, and rec centers are closed on Monday, and you're trying to get people to positive alternatives and get them to do something constructive. You got the Health Department saying, we had 218 positions eliminated last year, and we've got copays that were increased this year - enough's enough, you've hit us for three years in a row. You've got a police department that's got more demands. [Sup.] Ross Mirkarimi saying, you've got to do more community policing. You know, it's a resource issue, that means more officers, but where's the money coming from? It's still not enough. Environmental justice issues, what about the money to upgrade our sewage system, what about the money to get rid of those power plants today, not a year or two from now? How dare you keep them up, you should force them into bankruptcy right now. You know, it's not easy. So that's the difference in this job. I don't get to be - I have to be responsible and accountable to balancing the budget. I can't borrow, and I can't tax. The public can tax, but we can't borrow. And there's no help in sight. And so it's great to be against a fare increase - I'm the first one to be against it - but again, what's the alternative based upon the existing reality? We're going to be putting a lot more money in the schools this year. That's going to take more money from the Health Department, from Rec and Park, from the Ethics Commission, from the Elections Department, where we need to be doing more as well, so it's tough. And everybody comes here and says, I understand, you know, the Health Department's budget, but you've got to understand my budget. And everyone gets to say the same thing. For four years in a row we've cut. It's the fifth budget deficit in a row: $75 million, $152 million, $300 million, $307 million, and $113 million. Those are the last five years. BG: Why don't we try to get more money out of downtown? GN: Yeah, but what does that mean, exactly? And again, it sounds great, and it's a good sound bite, and you can get out that sign. And OK, that's fine. We had the ability to do a tax, and we failed. Now we've got to get two-thirds [of voters to approve it] this year, and that's money that wouldn't come in until next year at the end of this fiscal year. So that's great for a year or two from now, but today, honestly, are we going to get two-thirds in November? C'mon, on what tax are you going to get two-thirds from this town? We couldn't get two-thirds for an apple pie housing bond. Forget it. BG: Can't you do downtown transit development fees without going to the ballot? GN: Yeah, you can start increasing those to a point, but again, there's a lot of parameters. I'm not ideologically opposed to any of that as a guy who does support revenue enhancements and more taxes, in certain circumstances. But you've got a big problem, and those are: great, maybe you'll get $3 million or $5 million. That's all good, and I think we should, you know, pursue those ideas. But at the end of the day, the gap is such that there's just going to have to be cuts. And you can criticize them, and I can write a letter to say, "I can't believe the mayor would propose a budget that didn't increase this or decrease that." And they're right. I get it. So they're not wrong, but sometimes we're going to invest more money elsewhere. We're never naive to this. This year we expanded the universal health care area. No city in America's ever done that - first time a city's done a local or an income tax credit to allow working poor, working families to keep more of what they're earning. We have a record number of people applying for the federal earned income tax credit because of our efforts and outreach - you'll see billboards all over town, on busses, etc. We invested $1.1 million into the Planning Department this year to complete the Better Neighborhoods plan for the central waterfront-<\d>Balboa Park area, Geary Street-<\d>Market-<\d>Octavia. I want to invest more next year. We're working to make investments. We'll have a thousand people in housing by the time this is written, because we're close to that now. I'm going to do more direct access to housing through Project Homeless Connect. It's going to come out in April with - I can't, I was just going to tell you, but we don't want to market it because people will then get upset. There'll be substantial increases in housing units on that outreach effort because I'm just going to find the money to deal with chronic homeless issues. So just because there's cuts everywhere else doesn't mean there are not investments. BN: This interview is going into our freedom-of-information issue, and I know that you've proposed reforms to nonprofit contracting that don't seem to be going anywhere right now. What's going on? GN: You can go in with a hammer and have such blowback that nothing gets accomplished. You can go over with a scalpel and really start trying to create a framework on a foundation that you can justify the reforms. What we've done through Project Connect is do the surveys, do the outreach, we've looked at the RFPs, we've tried to funnel or focus in terms of priorities in the city based on the outreach and surveys. And we're now going to be in the process in the next year or two ... to then start making the shifts and adjustments. People are going to get outraged. They're going to get this sort of [Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center] thing [which caused a stir after Newsom proposed to give it funding that had traditionally been going to Hospitality House], where we had everyone outraged because it's not my service, it's another service trying to do my job, but we do our job better, even though we've been sole-sourced forever, and usually people criticize that, but in this case, it's my favorite program, so it's OK to sole-source. BG: But it's tough to take on the nonprofit world here. GN: We know exactly what we're doing, and we're ready to take the heat because it needs to happen. And I love the nonprofit service sector. We have some of the greatest nonprofits in the world, literally in the world, culturally competent in the neighborhoods - we've got all the ingredients that make San Francisco a world-class system. I don't want to dismantle Health and Human Services - no, quite on the contrary - but there needs to be more transparency and accountability, and I know that a lot of the nonprofits are very defensive about that transparency from the federal grants, transparency from the foundation grants, transparency from state grants as well as requirements at the local level. But it doesn't mean we can't streamline that to make the transparency much more meaningful for the city's purposes, and also much more streamlined from their perspective so it's not a giant bureaucracy trying to get state and federal funding. BG: And in the process, you can probably find some cost savings, right? GN: I don't think this; I know this. I mean, there's a ton of waste and duplication. You're paying for office space, you're paying for cars, you're paying for salaries, you're paying for insurance. And all of a sudden, what's left over for direct service, after you're paying for, you know, if five people have office space, and you've got five rents, and you've got five cars and you've got five reimbursements? What happens if you streamline that, aggregate it, and add more service that goes directly to clients as opposed to it being filtered and disappearing in terms of administration? BG: Might you try to bring some of those services in-house? GN: I always think it's a failure if government can't do the job that private sector can do more effectively and efficiently because we have no profit motivation. Now, nonprofits presumably in most cases don't. But in some cases, nonprofits act like corporations, and the salaries reflect corporate salaries too. So that's why philosophically the idea of contracting with the nonprofit system, I'm not opposed to - quite the contrary - nor is San Francisco ... you'll do the reporting, and you'll see how many dollars we spend on nonprofits. We have one of the largest privatization efforts in the country. HIV and AIDS created this social service network, which we built for drug and alcohol treatment, we built for probably Health and Human Services, domestic violence, mental illness. I mean, it's a remarkable network. And it's a privatized nonprofit network that I think is important and strategically viable as long as there's always a focus on accountability. The problem I've had, though, is we had the nonprofit task force come in who made a lot of recommendations, and we're implementing a lot of those recommendations, and there are good recommendations, a lot of them. They make a good argument: get your own house in order before you start trying to get our house in order. When they read about cable car operators stealing money or they read about some of the things that go on here, where the guy's a clerk that's making $183,000 because he got $110,000 in overtime. The fire department - there was an example like this - they get a little testy, and I understand that. BG: But you can do both at the same time, can't you? GN: Not as much as I could be, or rather should be, but as much as I can at this moment. We can always do more, but let me tell you, Dwayne [Jones] came in, and I said, “Dwayne, do what you think is right. Just because you've been getting money for 15 years doesn't mean you should still be getting money.” And Margaret [Brodkin] came in, she said, “Is it OK that I start - ” I said, “Margaret, that's why I'm bringing you in. You know this stuff, Dwayne, you know this stuff. Go in there, and you two in particular, I want you to make the tough choices because you both have credibility.” BG: And then you have Randy Shaw [from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic] working with Joe O'Donoghue [of Residential Builders' Association] to strongly go after you and Aaron Peskin and even us. What do you think of that? GN: Joe who? BG: O'Donoghue. GN: Oh, I've heard of him. I didn't know. I guess there are some people that are elected to public office and have the right to make policy and influence things, as policy makers do, and I happen to think government should be open to everyone, not just special interests, and it doesn't matter if you're a special interest on the extreme left, or a special interest on the extreme right. If you have too much influence, then we should analyze that and question whether or not that's healthy when there's a lot of people that feel left out. And I think that a lot of people have been left out of the Building Inspection Department and planning process of the city. I think if there's anything people will say about me - and the development community will criticize me for this - when people will come in here and talk about their projects, I don't get involved with that. I try to get good people - get Dean [Macris] in there to deal with the planning; I think he's doing a good job objectively - and they do their job, and if you could compete on merits, then you've got it. But don't use my name because that always backfires. When I hear someone say, well, I talked to the mayor, he said this - well, forget it. So we're just trying to open that process. So O'Donoghue doesn't have an open-door policy. Randy Shaw, with his sole-source contracts for decades - I was serious about competitive bidding. That was one of the first things I did when I came into office. BG: Yet even with all those contracts, Randy has been pretty aggressive about going after you on the Beyond Chron Web site he started. Does that cause you concern? GN: Hey, it's democracy, and no one is more used to criticism than me. I can assure you, people in the last three years have made an art of it. People have made lots of money; they've gotten a lot of satisfaction criticizing. Listen, I think Randy Shaw does a lot of good work, but I think he's got a very strong and subjective agenda, which is not always San Francisco's agenda. I think that other guy you mentioned, whatever his name was, some would argue he does a lot of good work for the people he represents. But is it a San Francisco agenda? I'm a guy who's not just the mayor of the city. I'm a guy who's going to live here the rest of my life, and I hope my grandkids can expect to live here. So mine's a very subjective agenda as well, but it's not an advocacy agenda. It's a citywide agenda. It's about how this city can prosper, not how my constituency can prosper as a building developer, or a nonprofit developer. BG: You've focused on the southeast part of town, but it still seems to have lots of problems. We're on track to have even more murders this year than last. GN: Yeah, but not in the southeast sector, though. It's interesting. We had a 60 percent decline in homicides between the end of June and the end of last year of gang-related homicides, black-on-black homicides. So we made progress in the second half of the year and after a horrible first half. This year it's interesting - we had a westside homicide last night. We had great success in the Mission last year, but we're seeing some homicides in the Mission. Western Addition, we did decently but not as well as we could have, but now we're seeing an increase in the Western Addition. So you're constantly tweaking and evolving and restrategizing, and I'm not satisfied. I'm accountable. No one will hold me more accountable than myself. I'm as angry and frustrated when I get those BlackBerries at three in the morning as any human being in the city, and he [gesturing to press secretary Peter Ragone] knows more than anybody how everyday this drives a disproportionate amount of my attention. And I'll keep analyzing, I'll keep being self-critical, and I'll keep trying to hold folks accountable. The chief's going to have to be more accountable. I'm certainly going to be more accountable. And the supervisors, I give credit where credit is due. Ross Mirkarimi, when he came in, I'll tell you, this guy's aggressive about it. I think it's dynamite. We didn't have that in the past, and he cares a lot, and he's demonstrated that through action. I think that's healthy. I think the whole board - I can't do this alone. It takes all of us to work together and not play favorites and not take cheap shots. BG: Yet the police are still having a hard time solving these homicides. GN: We're actually making a lot more progress, and closed down a lot of the older cases, and keep prosecuting and making arrests in cases this year more than we have in the past. So we're making progress. We're still, what, a dozen, 15 or so, investigators short, but, what, you want me to put 15 investigators in and cut the Ethics Commission budget? Good luck. I'd love to see that on the front page. BG: Do you feel like police resources are being put to their highest use right now? GN: Not to their highest - I think there are few resources in the city that are at the highest and best use. We've got to maximize our output. That's what S.F.-STAT [Newsom's initiative to integrate city data] is all about. By the way, you should come to those meetings - they're open to the public - the most transparent meetings in the city's history. We had Rec and Park yesterday. It's great, you know, we're tracking overtime, absenteeism, worker's comp; we're tracking the budget on a consistent basis. We're tweaking, making mid-year adjustments, and we're starting to maximize, where I'm doing internal town hall meetings with our workforce, trying to get more motivation, more focus, more of an entrepreneurial spirit to unleash these guys from the 9-to-5 mentality, where they're kind of beaten down - layoffs and layoffs, seniority, discipline. Just start opening again, that's what Project Connect is all about, getting the bureaucracy out on the streets. If nothing else, if nothing else, those that criticized us on Project Homeless Connect, if nothing else, I can tell you the faces on those quote-unquote "bureaucrats," you see those faces. Those are no longer miserable people. Those are people who feel a part of the solution, and that is an intangible benefit on our output as a city. I really believe that. I've seen it in my own organization. You know, when Bruce [B. Brugmann, Bay Guardian editor and publisher] comes in and says, "I value you guys. You're doing great work; let's make this thing happen," you have, you know, you feel better about your job, your output will be better, you won't be complaining about your job. BG: Speaking of labor issues, you recently expressed hope that the hotel labor impasse would end soon, but it doesn't look to me like there's been much movement. What gives you such confidence that the end is near? GN: My confidence was exuberance, if I may be so honest. I told you the biggest mistake I've made this year, probably not last year - I made a lot of mistakes last year - was overstating my enthusiasm for a quick conclusion in weeks, not months. As soon as I said that, we had the two-hour meeting the next day, and I quickly called Peter [Ragone] and said, "Can you quickly amend my statement about weeks and get it back to months." [Laughter] But what's interesting - I mean, they were all in here, and we had a good meeting, and I think it was our 46th meeting ... the management group's not going to meet till March 11 to talk about their internal strategy. So it's going to take more time. [Union president Mike] Casey is doing exactly what he said he was going to do, and the hotel representatives recognize that. I've done exactly what I said I was going to do - they recognize that. There's some frustration. There's obviously residual concerns about the impact that it's had on the city and the economy and perception. We try our best to ameliorate that, and I'm on the phone saying to folks that are working to pull in conferences, you know, "Hey, come on. San Francisco's open. It's just 14 hotels. There are a hundred other hotels." Marriott's at 85 percent occupancy. They're doing a lot of the work that the other hotels aren't doing. It's not a San Francisco boycott. There's a lot of misnomer cases being chastised and criticized for San Francisco's boycott. That's utterly untrue. It's just those 14. And we say, hey, we encourage them to go to the other hotels, and we know this. So it's just going to take time ... these guys still have respect for each other in spite of the rhetoric ... I think they both know where they need to be; it's just a question of time. BG: And you could have more labor unrest over at the San Francisco Chronicle this summer. How worried are you about another newspaper strike or lockout in San Francisco? GN: I don't think there's ever four years of any big city where these are not issues in this economy. I'm worried what could happen at the Chron, obviously. Hotels are still in the cooling-off period. So that's why I'm feeling a little bit better, now that lockout is damaging the city in other manageable ways and the residual is still being felt. That's why it's going to take longer. The extent of the lockout created a lot of bad will and bad feelings. So that's going to take time. We'll get there. And there may be other strikes, like with Local 250 and Sutter. You know, those are issues - luckily, the grocers' strike - I thought that would be a bigger issue - that was fixed in time. You know, we had a little unrest of today, and it's just the nature of the job. BG: On a personal note, how are you adjusting to single life? GN: I thank you for the question. [Nervous laughter] Not very well, by the way, so if you know of anybody ... BG: What's your opinion of the new Board of Supervisors, particularly the Peskin-Ammiano effort to be more proactive on setting budget priorities and telling you what they should be? GN: Hey, yeah, they already do - trust me. Literally both of them have been where you're sitting many times. With Peskin and Ammiano, I get along very well, and I think it's because we've been around so long; and especially Tom has been there, done that. He's seen all the good and bad. Supervisor Peskin has been here every week, and we get along very well. And we can agree to disagree on issues, but we do it in an amicable way without taking cheap shots. I think it's going remarkably well. Supervisor McGoldrick, he was extraordinary successful and helpful stewarding some of those $97 million in cuts and adding back here and adding back there. I think it goes in the spirit of working together as opposed to staying out front with protest signs. You're not going to get anything accomplished then. But when you say, but when Supervisor McGoldrick comes in and says, "What about this? What about that?" I would say, "Look, that's a great idea. Let's try it. Let's try something different." And I'd say, "Is that really meaningful to you? And Supervisor Ammiano, this really matters to you?" And so I said, "Oh yeah. Let's make some adjustments." It's hardly perfect, but Supervisor Mirkarimi and I are meeting on Saturday, late afternoon, to talk about crime in District 5. And, you know, I'm meeting with most of the members of the board: Supervisor Maxwell is in here all the time, talking about what we're going to be announcing, a big thing on job training, which she's worked so hard on with my office - a lot of good collaboratives. I'm appreciative of that, besides Michela [Alioto-Pier] and Supervisor [Fiona] Ma and Sean [Elsbernd] and others and Bevan Dufty. And so it's pretty good right now. BG: Do you support Elsbernd's proposal to disband the Local Agency Formation Commission, which has been doing all the work on public power? GN: Here's the thing - yeah, look, I mean, it's a good question. I mean, if it goes to: you've got a hundred dollars, where do you want to spend your money in the time being? Is that near the top? I mean, I don't know. That's a good question for everyone to answer. Money's got to, you know - if we can use that money to fund the gap, maybe that's a debt solution at this time, put money there and still advance some of the lack of work in a less formal setting. BG: Do you still support public power? Because LAFCO is the only body moving that forward. GN: Why aren't more members of the board doing this? Can't they create a new subcommittee of the board to do public power, or create a quasi-LAFCO body, or get the legislative analyst to do the same thing? BG: Is there anything you can do to spur the Public Utilities Commission to take this on, because it wouldn't come out of the General Fund budget? GN: Yeah, but right now we're just trying to get our hands around that $3.6-to-$4.3-million retrofit [of the Hetch Hetchy system] and get our team in - that's been our number-one focus. No, there's a lot more we're going to do. With World Environment Week coming up June 1, you're going to see, in the next few months, a lot of environmental efforts on sustainability, a lot of ideas around creating a local power system and others. All that relates to the issue of public power, tidal power, renewable energy sources, which I'm very enthusiastic about. E-mail Steven T. Jones