Will the real Newsom stop campaigning?As we predicted , Mayor Gavin Newsom used today’s budget announcement at at the Hunters Point Shipyard to campaign.
But there were, in fact, two Newsom’s at today’s event, but only one was told to shut it.
‘You can’t campaign here, it’s city property,” police told the guy, who was wearing a Newsom mask and protesting the Mayor’s Budget.
“I’m not campaigning,” the guy replied, his voice muffled by his mask, as his friend, who was wearing a Ronald Reagan mask handed out fliers that listed nine ways in which “Mayor Newsom terminates poor with massive budget cuts.”
(These included closing the Ella Hill Hutch shelter, Caduceus Outreach services, SRO Families United program, and a 22 percent cut of residential substance abuse and mental health treatment programs budgets.)
But no one said diddley when the guy who one was wearing a very well tailored suit and presenting the Mayor’s $6.5 billion budget, began to campaign by unashamedly pushing Prop. G, which out-of-town developer Lennar has spent $4 million to promote.
“You can’t have a budget speech about the future of the City and the structural challenges we face without talking about it,” Newsom said.
Nor did anyone say squat, when Newsom began to bash the competing Prop. F, which requires that 50 percent of housing built at the Shipyard and Candlestick Point be affordable to families of four who make $65,000 and under, which is the average median income for that size household in the Bayview.
Yes, it was cool to be inside the SFPD’s unit, without being on the wrong side of the law.
But it felt odd to see the Mayor standing against a backdrop of police vehicles and berating the unions for refusing to take pay cuts, when we’d all just read how it was the Police Officer’s Association who refused to give Newsom any budgetary ground.
As the POA’s Gary Delagnes President told the Chronicle, “We feel strongly that it’s the city’s responsibility to know their financial situation when they negotiate a contract.”
But then he began to defend the police and public health nurses need for decent pay.
“This is not about pitting one group against another, “Newsom said, shortly before he added that he’s hopeful that the POA and the nurses “will reconsider,” and shortly before he explained how he proposes to wipe out this year’s projected $338 million deficit: by reining in overtime, raising city fees—and laying off 450 workers.
That, by the way, means laying off 450 real people, not just eliminating vacancies. (If you include vacancies, then it’s a total of 1,085 layoffs).
Defending decisions to invest $38.7 million on street repaving, $37 million on Healthy San Francisco, and $4.9 million on three more SFPD academies to reach mandated police staffing levels for the first time in the City’s history, and getting increasingly wonkish as he threw out more and more figures, Newsom also wanted us to know that the City’s current budget dilemma is not comparable to Vallejo.
“That’s not a case of comparing apples with oranges,” said Newsom of attempts to make such comparisons. “It’s an apple and a kiwi fruit.”
So, would that make San Francisco the Big Kiwi?
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Comments (3)
I was not there, but isn't it illegal for the Mayor to use an official city event, such as the budget announcement, to campaign for a measure on the ballot?
-marc
Posted by marc salomon | June 3, 2008 08:47 AM
Supe Daly has said the Mayor's campaigning during official announcements is illegal. I'll bet it is. Unfortunately, no organized group of Supervisors or attorneys seems to be stepping up to the plate to join Daly and hold Newsom accountable to the law...
Posted by Eric Brooks | June 3, 2008 01:13 PM
Wow it sounds like things have really gone downhill there in SF since I away out a few months ago--and that's saying a lot.
I can't help but wonder why a more serious and organized effort against Gavin Newsom didn't spring up in the last election cycle--I saw the intensity of effort by the city's activist communities for Matt Gonzalez in the 2003 election to pick a successor to Willie Brown, which Newsom only very narrowly won and needed to have Bill Clinton parachute in at the last minute to cement his vote with the GenXers and the Nob Hill crowd..anyway I was stunned at the meek acceptance of Newsom the second time around.
Now that you've got Guzzlin' Gavin in for another term, it's got to suck.
Posted by Dan | June 3, 2008 02:10 PM