Category: Politics

The politics of San Francisco

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An Answer to Prop 13

Many people [including #SFMayor candidates] who haven’t owned a home for more than 10 years are against Proposition 13 that capped property taxes for home owners in California and took money from the schools. There are lots of people who want it repealed either because either they don’t like the the fact that people who have owned homes for a long time don’t have to pay as much taxes as new homeowners or because they’re parents with kids that see them suffering in the school system. I think I’ve come up with an answer and I hope at least one person besides myself will forward this on the our Governor Jerry Brown.

I have a friend who lives in New York and his mother recently died leaving him with a house in upstate New York. It’s not a big house, two bedrooms I believe, but it’s on 12 acres of property. He pays $8000 per year in property taxes and he asked me when we were talking recently how much I paid in school taxes. School taxes? I don’t pay school taxes. He pays $4000 per year in taxes used solely to benefit their schools. This started my mind thinking and as I usually do I started to run the numbers. Here’s the formula if California started collecting taxes for schools and I’m going easy on y’all. I’m rounding down numbers.

California has a population of 38,000,000 people [rounded down]. The median income adjusted for cost of living is $44,000 per year [rounded down]. If California charged every person  a 1/2% tax off the top before everything else was taken out of their paychecks that would give the State of California 7,357,000,00 per year just for the schools [amount adjusted for 12% unemployment]. For those who have trouble reading numbers that is 7.357 billion dollars per year. There are 9324 public schools within California. I’ll let the private schools fend for themselves since they charge parents to send their kids there. If you divide the income by the number of public schools each school would receive $789,000 per year [rounded down]. Think about what the schools could do with that money.

Say I’m Joe SixPack who wants to be able to make $250,000 per year without getting taxed too much. If you were making that much per year how bad would it hurt to lose $24 per week when you’re bringing in $4800 per week [rounded down]? California is the 8th largest economy in the world. Don’t you think we could put into effect a tiny tax that would help our schools immensely? I know I am simplifying the allocation of funds incorrectly as say Los Angeles County has more students than say Bell County, but still, it would better serve our students educational needs.

If you pull Prop 13 it won’t drop prices on homes in California. We’re called the Golden State for a reason. Everyone wants to come here. If anything it might actually raise the property taxes for new home buyers and that new income isn’t guaranteed to go to the schools. It would probably go into more pork barrel politics where the politicians are trying to get the biggest piece of pork out of the barrel [yes that is where the term comes from for you young whippersnappers]. If we had what I call a polite tax to benefit our schools, no one would go hungry for it. Schools wouldn’t have to keep asking parents to purchase supplies and our own state and local governments wouldn’t have to worry about why our great state has schools that are in such need and cannot supply a decent education to our children.

PLEASE! I urge you to think about this and pass this article along to your friends, neighbors and especially politicians. I know I am going to. We might just change the quality of education in our state and step forward to show other states how to do it right. We are the most populous state in the Union so we should be able to convince everyone regardless of part that a polite tax like this would help give California the leading edge in education it needs. Besides, it will also mean that everyone you interact with at the businesses you interact with will be better educated.

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An old joke in a new light

So there’s an old joke that I’m going to paraphrase to start this article that I heard years ago. It goes like this, I’ve written many books, but I’ve never been called an writer. I’ve sung many songs, but I’ve never been called a singer, I make one comment about a practice that’s destroying our oceans that a Chinese politician is in favor of and…. The original was funnier, but the end result is true.

Ever since I posted my articles on why the process of shark finning is bad for our ocean’s environment I have been called a racist by someone using Leland Yee’s twitter account, I have received telephone calls from his campaign managers and Saturday night, I start getting trolled once again on twitter by someone using the name @generic_ This person had a blog on Tumblr where they have passed themselves off as a straight, white, liberal, atheist. They even have a myspace page [really? myspace?] and have posted a picture of a, well, generic white guy. They also mentioned that they did the graphics for Necessary Conversations, a video blog or podcast that is hosted by Beth Spotswood and Melissa Griffin [who incidentally I was up against in the Best Local Politics Blog contest with SF Weekly]. When I look at the site I see that a Cameron Eng is listed as the being in charge of the graphics for the show.

NOTE: I have been informed by a reader that the person posting as @generic_ is not Cameron Eng and is indeed a male caucasian who is trying to win favor with Jim Stearns Group in order to get a job so he attacks anyone who says anything bad about a client of Stearns Consulting. My apologies to Cameron Eng for any possible inferences.  While I can’t say for sure that @generic_ is indeed Cameron Eng things at this point in time do seem to be pointing in that direction. I found out my information by dropping the URL into archive.org which is an interesting website for getting information on website histories. I still will be reserved on who the real identity of this person was, but I can say that I’ve never been called a racist by any person other than Leland Yee’s camp and @generic_ who from his posts seems to also be in favor of Leland Yee for Mayor, so I guess anyone who isn’t in favor of Leland Yee for mayor is a racist in @generic_‘s book. Which then means, Rose Pak can also ride in my racist boat along with Mayor Ed Lee and everyone else running for Mayor.

I would like to take this time to apologize to the citizen’s of California and San Francisco for my previous statements. I am sorry that only people of Chinese decent eat shark fin soup, but at the same time glad, because if the entire world consumed it our oceans would be in extreme danger. In the video I posted on Saturday, Gordon Ramsey noted that the shark fin collectors get $28/pound for the fins and $2/pound for the rest of the shark. There is only one dish made with shark fins and that is shark fin soup. Because it is expensive to purchase in a Chinese restaurant it makes it worth it to the fishermen to harvest only the fins and throw back the cheaper meat that no one wants. If you have a boat that could haul in a ton of sharks would you want to take the whole shark, or just the fins which would give you 14 times the value of the shark? You’d go for the fins.

I do agree with Leland Yee’s comment about AB376 that why not ban the entire shark and not just the fins? I believe they should ban fishing for sharks. The problem was that there are very few restaurants in California that have shark on the menu and very few places that you can even find shark meat for sale. Leland Yee’s camp and @generic_ sited the fallacy that you can buy shark meat at CostCo — You can’t. They haven’t sold it for over 10 years because no one was buying it. A trip to Lucky’s, Andronico’s, Whole foods and Safeway shows that there is no shark available in their fish departments. The people who authored the bill knew that and that is why they focused on the fins. Shark is even noted as a do not buy and unhealthy fish to eat by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.

My comments have been focused on two things:

  1. 1. Shark finning is an outrageous practice that is causing serious damage to the oceans by depleting the top predator.
  2. 2. Shark meat in any form isn’t the healthiest meat to eat being high in methyl mercury due to ocean pollution. It is even recommended as a fish that you should not eat by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.
This has nothing to do with Chinese people except for the fact that they are the only one’s that eat it. Other Asian cultures do don’t consume this dish. I am sorry if those of Chinese decent feel I am a racist for pointing out that the over harvesting of sharks is destroying our oceans as well as pointing out the fact that shark is not a healthy fish to eat.
The only thing good about all this is that @generic_‘s posting stopped at around 9:30pm last night. Most of them where attacks on me and one other attack on my fellow blogger Greg Dewar [also nominated in the same category as me for the SF Weekly web awards], but not once in Saturday’s stupidity did I once use the R word. As they say in poker, keep your cards close, know when to hold them, know when to fold them. Sometimes it’s best to not drop the race card too quickly.

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Leland Yee: Outraged over animal abuse, but not shark abuse

I received an email from Senator Leland Yee yesterday about his outrage of the funding of a $750,000 grant for a Brooklyn artist to create sculptures for Muni who in the 70’s made a film where he made an art film in which he adopted a dog and chained it to a fence and then shot the dog.

I have to admit that I had heard of the film, but never saw it, but not only am I disgusted by the idea of this film, but so was the man who made it. He remarked that what he did was wrong and it was the stupidity of his youth that made him unable to see the bigger picture, yet at the same time, we have a California state Senator who while being disgusted by the shooting of a dog, sees nothing wrong with the dismembering of a shark and throwing its writhing, living body back into the ocean to die as being a Chinese cultural tradition.

To quote Senator Yee from his email:

This week, Ed Lee and the SFMTA approved spending $750,000 of taxpayer money on a central subway contract for Brooklyn artist Tom Otterness, who made a 1977 film in which he chained a dog to a fence and then shot and killed that dog on camera.

Yes, you read that correctly. He chained a dog to a fence and then shot and killed that dog.

This is a completely unacceptable use of taxpayer dollars.

I woke up early this morning to find a youtube video had been sent to me by an old friend of mine, Dave King. This is a video of Chef Gordon Ramsey tasting Shark Fin Soup for the first time to see what all the fuss was about. Not only do you get a chef’s analysis of the soup, but Ramsey also goes out to see how the shark fins are acquired. Warning for those friends of mine who are defenders of animal rights, while sharks aren’t all warm and fuzzy like a dog or a cat [which also happen to be eaten as a part of “traditional Chinese culture”  in China that I have written about before] this video does show the finning of sharks, in which case you might want to stop the video after Chef Ramsey leaves the restaurant.

Senator Yee, who is a candidate for mayor of San Francisco [which I might add he filed for just a week after being re-elected as Senator of California] has a problem with animal abuse as long as the animal being abused isn’t a shark. He talks about how shark meat is available everywhere, yet you can’t find it anywhere and the basis if AB 376 is an attack on “Traditional Asian Culture” when Chinese citizens are the only Asians who consume shark fin soup. In reality, this email isn’t an attack on a man who shot a dog, but an attack upon another fellow Chinese citizen of San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee. While as you all know I am not in favor of our interim Mayor running for re-election because it goes against the promise he had made that he would not run for re-election, I also do not like the focus that our Chinese candidates for Mayor are using to focus on getting the Chinatown vote. While Chinese make up 33% of San Francisco’s population, only 18% of them actually vote and the majority of the Chinese population isn’t living in Chinatown, but the majority of non-voting Chinese is.

Supervisor John Avalos and Attorney Dennis Herrera are making huge jumps in polls because of the fact that they are focusing on the population of San Francisco, not a small eight block area of San Francisco. We need a Mayor that will focus on all of the districts to bring about change. From the Sunset to the Bayview, from the Mission to North Beach and yes, also Chinatown, but not appearing to be only in favor of helping Chinatown.

Now with that being said, on to the movie:

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111 Minna tonight!

SF Weekly is holding it’s web awards party tonight at 111 Minna Street in SF. I will be there to celebrate my finishing in the top three for best local politics blog in SF even though I didn’t win.

I’d like to invite you all to come along and celebrate with me. When I started this blog over four years ago I was writing about San Francisco and apparently my take on San Francisco politics stood out and got me nominated for the change to be the winner. At the very least I’ll be there with tons of cards in hand to promote this site and hopefully get a few more people to read my posts on a regular basis.

i’ve decided I won’t cop an attitude because I lost to a blog that’s an aggregator. I was still in the top three and next year I will crush the competition. So if you have an extra $10 in your pocket come out and enjoy the open bar with me and all of the fabulously hip San Francisco people.

Oddly enough I used to work right across the street from 111 Minna, but this will be my first time actually going there. I’m looking to have a great time and I hope some of you will join me.

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AB376 passes! On to the Governor!

I was informed by the California Director of the Humane Society of the United States Jennifer Fearing yesterday that AB376 passed through the senate 25-9 and now proceeds to the Governor for final sign off to be made a law making California partner with Washington, Oregon and Hawaii on the ban on the sale or possession of shark fins.

To me this is great. In our oceans the sharks are the top of the food chain. We kind of take the food chain for granted. On land, humans are considered to be the top of the food chain. 90% of  the shark population has been decimated by shark finning. If  90% of the human population was decimated by some sort of fate how do you think we would be living? Not too well is my suspicion. The food chain is much more fragile than a chain and when you remove the majority of the top of the food chain it becomes destabilized and starts to fall apart.

This can be seen in parts of the world where animals not from the area have been introduced. Crops fail, livestock dies and people go hungry. Shark is not a popular fish to eat and hasn’t been for almost two decades. Sharks because of their nature living in salt water do not excrete urine and their flesh when caught has a very strong ammonia content making them difficult to prepare. Their flesh is also high in mercury making them and their fins unsafe to eat.

As expected there were a few people against the ban. To quote our local Senator Leland Yee’s comments on the subject:

the bill would not save a single shark because there is no ban on taking the rest of the body other than the fin.

If it won’t save a single shark, then why not vote on it? His logic is fueled by the idea that people still eat shark meat. They pretty much don’t. Chefs are even working now to come up with a substitute for shark fin in the mostly tasteless shark fin soup because it should be more ecologically sound to reproduce a tasteless dish than to destroy our oceans to preserve a tradition that only one type of people enjoy. Shred up some tofu and add some dried shaved tuna flakes to the broth. I am truly sorry that this bill does seem aimed at Chinese people who eat shark fin soup to celebrate at weddings or the birth of a child. It does seem like a cultural attack, but it is an attack on a practice that is destroying our oceans for a small piece of meat that is high in uric acid and mercury. Doing away with this dish will probably bestow longevity on the Chinese people who previously consumed the dish.

I was at my doctor’s office a few years ago and thought I was reading an episode of Time magazine when I realized it was China Today and noted an article on the Chinese fighting against the cultural tradition of eating dogs. You would think it was an attack by PETA to see the pictures,  but these were Chinese citizens who would rather pet dogs than pot them.

Cultural traditions change over time. White people once owned slaves, but they do not anymore. Chinese once bound the feet of their women to make them attractive, but they do not anymore. Shark fin soup has had it’s time and should not be relegated to the history books. California is the 2nd largest consumer of shark fin soup outside of China and is fastly rising to the number one position. Even China is backing away from shark fin soup.

In my travels around San Francisco it is common for Chinese restaurants to post their menus in the window and so far I have only a small number that serves shark fin soup. I’ll admit that I haven’t been to Chinatown that probably has more, but that’s only a supposition on my part. It does seem a bit strange though that there was such a big fight to uphold a Chinese cultural tradition that is rather hard to find.

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I WON! I WON! I, what?

I received a very apologetic email from someone who I will allow to remain nameless at SF Weekly that for a whole ten minutes yesterday I was declared the winner of Best Local Politics Blog. This person apologized for their mistake which is why I am leaving their identity anonymous, but said that I am in the top three run off candidates for the position.

Hmmm…maybe we could have a little ranked choice voting here. There are now three people in the running and I am one of them. I am wondering if SF Weekly will go with the person with most votes or if they will do a ranked choice voting method or if they will just say, screw it, this person will make us look the best.

I woke up this morning in my usually morning fog that I get from living out by the beach and started to do my best thinking in the shower [because waking up in a foggy climate and dowsing yourself with water sets the brain in motion quickly]. Why was I announced as the winner prematurely? Could it be because I got the most votes? Probably that is the case, but since we are a Federal Republic and not a true Democracy the voice of the people doesn’t count, but it only suggests who is the winner. My fate is in the hands of  SF Weekly’s illuminati who decide the fate of the world or at least San Francisco which is the major part of the world for those of us who live here.

That being said I would gladly accept the bronze medal and take third place if that is the case and I will definitely be in attendance this coming September 9th at 111 Minna Street [5-9pm $10 ticket charge] to accept my fate. I had planned to have a Baghdad by the Bay meet up party in September and I’m glad that now I don’t have to foot the bill. I encourage all of you to come to to celebrate the power of the pen [or keyboard in my case] with me at the SF Weekly awards. I will be there in full regalia wearing duds from Harry O’s Menswear across the alley, because no one knows dress for success better than Harry O.

Maybe if we’re lucky we can get Public Safety CTO of Xentrans, David Cruise to pour his award winning Virgin Bull for all of us [vote for his drink at http://virginamerica.com/vx/next-top-cocktail to keep him the lead by a long shot right now]. I would love to meet as many of my readers as possible. Let’s all get together and be rockstars for the evening at one of the coolest hangouts in Baghdad by the Bay!

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Ranked Choice Voting: Mea Culpa

Mea Culpa: latin, “my bad”. I made a mistake in my last post that was quickly pointed out to me by the people at Fair Vote. I made the correction on my last post, but felt that it needed a post of it’s own to explain it. Yes, you can vote for the same person in first, second or third places, but if they are eliminated in the first round your other two votes don’t count because they are considered to no longer be in the race. So while your vote isn’t eliminated you just don’t have a chance at your second or third pick, or so I thought…

I did some further research and it turns out that that according to sfelections.org this is the way it works:

To start, every first-choice vote is counted. Any candidate who receives a majority (more than 50%) of the first-choice votes is declared the winner.
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes begins.

First, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated from the race.

Second, voters who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their vote transferred to their second choice.

Third, all the votes are recounted.

Once the votes are recounted, if any candidate has received more than 50% of the votes, he or she is declared the winner.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, the process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes is repeated until one candidate has a winning majority.

Now I can see why some people who have spoken out against RCV/IRV [Instant Runoff Voting] don’t like it and it lends a bit more credence to my less than perfectly researched previous argument. If you vote for a losing candidate in the first round your first vote gets passed to the second round. [UPDATE: I did get through to the Department of Elections and they confirmed that if your first choice is eliminated that your second choice is selected. They admitted that the working was bad.]which makes me wonder what happens to your second round vote. Since you can only vote once. That would be invalidated if your first vote gets passed to the second round along with your second choice vote then you’ve voted twice. From what sfelections.org is saying your first choice vote is passed to your second choice which means that making a second choice won’t matter if your first is eliminated. They don’t really say much about your third choice other than if 50% is not reached by a member that all votes are recounted.

If after the second choice no one has 50% then all votes are recounted and recounted again until someone finds the mistake and a winner is declared. This is were I see a flaw in the system and I expect to have lots of comments from fairvote.org on this one correcting me. [and Robert Richie did and I’ve made changes to the article]

Sfelections.org in their FAQ though contradicts itself by saying:

If I really want my first-choice candidate to win, should I rank the candidate as my first, second and third choice?
No. Ranking a candidate more than once does not benefit the candidate. If a voter ranks one candidate as the voter’s first, second and third choice, it is the same as if the voter leaves the second or third choice blank. In other words, if the candidate is eliminated that candidate is no longer eligible to receive second or third choice votes.

So which is it? Well, I think I’ve got the answer now, but the department of elections needs to work over their wording so it’s easier to understand. These contradictions are the main reason I don’t like RCV/IRV. On the sfelections.org website they have a link for more information at http://ww.sfgov.org/election/rcv that when you click on it takes you to a 404 page not found spot. The flash version of their website which I tried first doesn’t work at all. The website is registered to San Francisco Department of Elections so I can tell it is legit, but they seem to have a problem explaining how they work.

Now to be fair, Fairvote.org is run by Robert Richie [no not Kid Rock] and is based in Maryland, so the responses I received  to my last post were not from a San Francisco citizen. I did receive an email from Robert in addition to the comments. Mr. Richie apparently has a lot of clout behind him  having appeared on C-SPAN, NBC, CNN, Fox [I won’t hold that against him] and MSNBC as well as writing articles for a number of high profile magazines and newspapers. He has helped me a lot in getting a better understanding of RCV. SF has never needed to hand count ballots and unless we get something like the hanging chad incident or one of the candidates refusing to accept that they lost there probably won’t be any hand counting used at all.

It always amazes me that baghdadbythebaysf.com has such a long reach that I pull a prominent East Coast political activist to send me an email [he worked for three winning congressional campaigns in Washington State].

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Ranked Choice Voting: I don’t like it

This is the first #SFMayor election that will use ranked choice voting. I never liked it for the supervisor elections and I don’t like for the mayoral race and now I’m going to tell you why. First, I cite Oakland who had Jean Quan elected as mayor that was a dark horse from the start. I won’t knock her or Oakland because I don’t live there, but it was obvious from the news reports that they were all reacting as if Chicken John became mayor. The second reason is that ranked choice voting hasn’t been explained very well. If you like one candidate and no others don’t vote for them as your first, second and third choice. You vote will be disqualified. Even if you put the same name down for two categories your vote will be disqualified. This lowers the amount of people who will be able to vote because not everyone knows that rule [thank you Michela Alioto-Pier for pointing that out at one of the debates]. I was informed that the previous statement was incorrect. That you could put the same name down for all three, but if your first choice makes the cut your other votes won’t count again. So if you have three people that you would like to see as mayor vote for three, but you can just put one name or the same for all three.

Bruce Reyes Chow [@breyeschow] who also endorses John Avalos has challenged me to list my second and third choices and I am taking him up on that challenge. It is a difficult one because it’s more about who I don’t want than who I do want. Let’s look at who I don’t want as mayor first:

  1. Mayor Ed Lee: He became mayor by choice of the former mayor Gavin Newsom and the board of supervisors because said he would not run again for mayor, yet he has gone against the premise that got him into office and is now running for mayor. He has gone back on his word and I cannot vote for a man who cannot keep a promise.
  2. Senator Leland Yee: I cannot vote for a man who calls me a racist. As I tweeted yesterday he or one of his minions used the hashtag #racism in a comment to me speaking out in favor of AB376 the ban on shark fin sales in California because he feels it is a threat against an Asian cultural tradition. It isn’t at all. It’s against an Chinese cultural tradition, that should be put aside because of the damage it is causing to the world’s oceans. It is a Chinese cultural tradition just like foot binding and eating of dogs that has been cast away in the U.S. and most parts of China. I cannot vote for a person who plays the race card when what I speak of is about conservation and ecology and not race. I also don’t like the fact that he filed to run as Mayor of San Francisco a week after being re-elected to the Senate. This makes me think that he sees being a Senator less valuable than being the mayor of San Francisco. There was also the shoplifting arrest in Honolulu that he talked his way out of along with being pulled over for cruising Capp street under suspicion of looking for prostitutes. One thing I know about Capp street is that if you aren’t in a band heading to rehearsal space you’re either there for hookers or drugs.
  3. Phil Ting: I cannot vote for a man who wants to reset San Francisco beyond his abilities. He wants to repeal Proposition 13 as Mayor of San Francisco to make housing more affordable. Prop 13 is a state law that the Mayor of San Francisco can speak out about, but not change.  He also misses the point that while San Francisco is listed in the top 10 expensive cities to live in, it is only one of two cities in California under Prop 13. New York, Miami, and Honolulu being the top three all in states with no Prop 13, but they do have addition school taxes to help students that California doesn’t.
  4. Bevan Dufty: He’s on my not sure list. He has worked for the underdog for most of his political career. He worked for Shirley Chisolm and Billie Holiday was his godmother. He seems like an alright guy, but I don’t see anything outstanding that makes me lean in his direction.
  5. Jeff Adachi: Last minute entry into the mayor’s race just like Ed Lee. That’s a showboating maneuver I don’t like. While I like his ideas on pension reform I don’t like the grandstanding.
  6. David Chiu: He’s on my short list since he was temporarily mayor and didn’t push to be full time mayor after Gavin Newsom was elected Lieutenant Governor. He kept to the letter of the law and that’s a good thing in my book. He doesn’t own a car which gets my green side going, but in an emergency is he going to call a cab?
  7. Michela Alioto-Pier: Jesus, she has politics in her veins like no one else running. First she’s from the Alioto family which she reminds us of on a regular basis as well as the fact that Joseph Alioto was her grandfather. She started in politics at 17 by being appointed to the President’s National Council on Disabilities Advisory Board by President Ronald Regan. She went on to work with Vice President Al Gore and many other politicians. She hasn’t had the best attendance record for the Board of Supervisors meetings part of which could be attributed to her being in a wheelchair, but she’s a sweet girl who looks a lot younger than she is and part of me feels that the next SF Mayor needs to be a bit more hard assed to get the job done.
  8. Joanna Rees: Not a politician at all. She’s an business woman, an entrepreneur. She makes a living making money. That’s a good thing.Maybe this city needs a Mayor who isn’t a politician. She also has been getting out to all the neighborhoods, though I do have a bit of pet peeve that she spent most of her Sunset time in the inner Sunset and didn’t get anywhere near my part which is a whole different breed of people. She’s still on my short list.
  9. Tony Hall: This is a guy who is old school San Franicsco politics and this man has the cohones to admit he’s a conservative. This guy will not hold back his punches when necessary and he has done a lot for all parts of San Francisco. I admit that I’m a Democrat and he’s not, but he’s an old school conservative, not a get your hands off of my money, tax the poor type of republican that’s destroying the party of today. He has a great presence and a voice like velvet fog. Tony is on my short list as well pushing for the second or third spot because of his past work. I do think he has a chance at getting the job done.
  10. Dennis Herrera: Dennis has also done a lot for San Francisco. It’s all over his website. He’s also traveled to all parts of the city to meet with the residents which I like. He’s taken some tough problems in San Francisco head on and against all odds that could break a person’s career, yet he’s still kept it together. He works for the working class that is a fast shrinking part of San Francisco and he want to bring that back. Dennis is also on my front runner list for my second and third choices.
So there you have it. While Tony Hall and Dennis Herrera look like they might be my second and third choices, I still can’t count out Michela, Joanna or David. John Avalos has won me hands down as number one, but these other five will have to step it up now for my second and third choice votes.
If you have a chance please vote for me as the Best Local Politics Blog on SF Weekly.

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Interim Mayor: When a Temporary Tattoo Becomes Permanent

OK, I like many of you out there have been wondering, scratching their heads or screaming out loudly during public assemblies [Leland Yee] about the Interim Mayor of San Francisco running for being a real Mayor of San Francisco. I decided I should look this up. Here is what I found for the definition of interim. This specifically refers to a person in an interim role:

An interim official is a person who is filling an official role temporarily. This can be in between two other people, or when the normal person is temporarily unable to do it and somebody else must fill in temporarily or without following the ordinary protocol. For example, a school can have an interim principal, or a country can have an interim prime minister. The interim person may also be called an acting principal or acting prime minister, as they do not have the official position, but serve in the same manner. A specific usage of this term is the interim leader in Canadian politics. The Episcopal Church uses interim clergy to support parishes following the departure of a rector (senior priest) to work with the parish on grieving, the development of new leadership, a rebirth of relationships with a Bishop and diocesan staff, and to encourage discernment for the future without the influence of the former rector – the people of the parish being the “Church.” This helps with the call of a new rector.

Source: Wikipedia

So essentially what we are looking at is a person who has been asked to fill a temporary position that will relinquish said position when the time comes. I have to admit that I’ve liked Ed Lee as the Interim Mayor of San Francisco, but he was just that — an Interim Mayor, not meant to run for re-election [are you hearing me Rose Pak? or ????????????] The term Interim is the equivalent of the term temporary. If you went to a booth at a fair and got a temporary tattoo only to find out that people later voted to make it permanent you’d be a little upset wouldn’t you?

Ed Lee was not supposed to run, nor is he supposed to run for re-election. His post was temporary otherwise he would have been called the Mayor of San Francisco, not Interim Mayor of San Francisco. I am at odds with Senator Leland Yee’s demand that Interim Mayor Lee resign if he wants to run for Mayor, I believe he should step out of the race all together and let a Mayor be elected from those who were bound by the title to not continue on past their selected time was up as was originally stating in his choice for being the Interim Mayor.

Then during the next Mayoral election, Former Interim Mayor Ed Lee can make an attempt to run for Mayor without having to feel like he is reneging on his original agreement. Bruce Reyes Chow asked me in response to my endorsement for Supervisor John Avalos for Mayor who my second and third choices will be. While I am still deciding on my second and third choices and I will post them here [especially since I’ve been nominated as one of the best local politics bloggers by SF Weekly] I can say for sure that Interim Mayor Ed Lee will not be either my second nor third choice in this election. When he took the office there was a promise that he would not run again and he has broken his promise. Therefore he will be crossed off my list.

If you haven’t already, please go to SF Weekly and vote for me as the Best Local Politics Blogger. You have until 8/30/2011 and I’ll appreciate it if I only get into the top three.

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