The real defenders of San Francisco valuesBy Steven T. Jones
While Mayor Gavin Newsom gallivants around the country – he’s been back east accepting accolades for same-sex marriage and Healthy San Francisco and trying to shore up White House support for his Treasure Island and Hunters Point redevelopment schemes – other city leaders are doing the hard work of restoring San Francisco values.
On Wednesday, there are two shining examples of this uphill battle that take place on opposite ends of Civic Center Plaza. First, SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi hosts “Justice Summit 2009: Defending the Public and the Constitution,” which highlights the importance of constitutional guarantees of quality legal representation for all defendants, regardless of income level, a right that has been eroded by budgetary pressures in San Francisco and around the country.
Among the long list of respected legal thinkers will be a keynote speech by US District Judge Thelton Henderson, who has ordered California to finally do something about severe overcrowding and substandard medical care in its prisons – a laudable and courageous stand that has been met with utter cowardice, contempt, and pandering by state officials. That event begins at 10 a.m. in the main library’s Koret Auditorium.
Then, at 1:30 in City Hall, the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee will consider a proposal by Board President David Chiu to reject the terrible and short-sighted budget that was just approved by the Municipal Transportation Agency, which reduces Muni service and increases the fare to $2 while asking little from motorists (who will increase in numbers as more people eschew taking transit) or from Muni chief Nat Ford, whose $316,459 salary is the highest in city government (again, Newsom's doing).
These are difficult issues that require hard work (and more revenue from the well-heeled city residents that Newsom is siding with in blocking a special election on tax measures), but it’s good to see we still have some public-spirited elected officials who are willing to take risks and work for San Francisco values instead of simply campaigning on them.
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Comments (3)
Steve, et al, apologies for such a crass response, not up to my usual dry brit wit, but thank god for Jeff Adachi a true Public Defender and servant.
FUCK and god-damn Newsom, Herrera and their whole crooked cadre. OK, bye bye, night night.
PS. A couple of new links about Lennar scam and litigation on Facebook.
Posted by Patrick Monk. RN. | May 4, 2009 09:07 PM
Do "San Francisco values" include having a city government which spends more than the city of Chicago when we have less than 1/4 of the population? The Guardian's "San Francisco values" sound more like the values of the Tenderloin and the Haight (which are the only neighborhoods Steven thinks are "real San Francisco") than they do of the rest of the city.
It's funny how The Guardian keeps talking about "revenue enhancement" proposals as a fait accompli - ignoring, of course, that these proposals will need to pass by a 2/3 majority. How, exactly, is that going to be accomplished in neighborhoods outside of the Tenderloin and the Haight?
Posted by Lucretia Snapples | May 5, 2009 12:49 PM
Lucretia, San Francisco is both a city and county, so it's highly misleading to compare it to any other cities (unless you wanted to figure out what percentage of Cook County services Chicagoans use, which I imagine is very high). The budgets of the two cities are roughly equal (about $6 billion), but Chicago's most recent budget deficit was about $60 million, whereas the deficit in SF is about $500 million (about half the city's discretionary spending, with the rest being locked in by voters or state formulas).
Your prescription of approving a budget without new revenues means gutting our public health system (just as officials predict more global pandemics), transit system (think traffic and global warming are bad now?), code enforcement (more shady developers building shaky buildings), infrastructure maintenance (more potholes in parks and roads), police and fire services, and every other government service you take for granted, not to mention violence prevention, child welfare, emergency preparedness, and other frivolous programs like that.
The San Francisco values I believe in mean standing up for the broad public interest (from Hunters Point to the Marina and the Tenderloin to the Sunset) and not surrendering to the selfish, anti-government ideology espoused by you and the the greedy downtown forces who seek to raid the public treasury and transfer the people's wealth to the powerful few.
Posted by Steven T. Jones | May 5, 2009 02:38 PM