Newsom takes a trip...and all the credit
Last year in Davos, Newsom's avatar was interviewed in Second Life, the highlight of his trip.
While Mayor Gavin Newsom was jetting off to Switzerland to play celebrity and attend his fourth World Economic Forum – where on Friday he’ll lead a panel discussion entitled “How Cities Are Aiming For Sustainable Growth” – smart growth activists here were working with Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin to actually create sustainable growth policies for San Francisco.
In fact, the legislation Peskin has introduced to limit the amount of parking that will be built with housing downtown (and to delink parking from the housing price, thereby lower housing costs for most and making drivers pay for their impacts) is the kind of thing that Newsom has blocked or ignored in the past.
But as Peskin noted in the Examiner article, this is a smart solution that should be embraced by both environmentalists and developers. That means, no doubt, that after Newsom watches others do the work and take the political hits for being bold, he’ll swoop in later to claim the program, just as he did with Sup. Tom Ammiano’s health care measure.
BTW, on Friday morning, Newsom will be taking part in the “World Class Health Care for World Class Cities,” led by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who willingly meets for a monthly Question Time with his city’s legislature and has led the way in the traffic congestion pricing program that San Francisco will consider adopting this summer (and which Newsom recently got on board with after Sup. Jake McGoldrick and others did the heavy lifting over the last two years).
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Comments (3)
What possible incentive would Newsom have to adopt the progressive agenda espoused by Supervisor Peskin, Daly, and others if professional sourpusses like the editorial board of the SFBG crap all over him for doing so? If he goes against Daly, he's a Marina-ite, pro-developer, Republican. If he joins with Daly, he's a Marina-ite, pro-developer, Republican, sellout.
It's because of insipid pieces like this that no one takes you seriously.
Posted by Jer | January 23, 2008 11:27 PM
I'm glad that you took us seriously enough to offer your comment, thanks. As to your main point, we're simply encouraging Newsom to take more of a leadership role on the issues he later claims to have championed, rather than being an obstacle to the progressive reforms that this city, country, and planet need to become more sustainable.
Posted by Steven T. Jones | January 24, 2008 11:12 AM
the mayor won the election by a huge margin. progressives didn't bother to show up, either to vote for one of the baker's dozen of candidates that did, or to run for said office - the aforementioned electeds were too busy protecting their own power base to run against a mayor who had holes in his first term in office.
elections have consequences. this is one of 'em. whining changes nothing. action does. Too bad progressives were asleep at the wheel in 2007. but as they say, who dares, wins and in this case progressives did nothing.
Posted by gdewar | January 25, 2008 10:49 PM