COURT JESTERINGS

With h brown

San Francisco mayoral candidate, h. "Court Jester" Brown.
Photo(s) by Luke Thomas

Court Jester analyzes Peskin as Budget Chair

By h. brown

June 29, 2007

"What are you gonna call them now …
'Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce
Development … and Welfare'?"

(Trent Rohrer of DHS)

Rohrer's a bright guy. I've been impressed at how he hit the ground running with Willie and has successfully managed a series of really under-funded programs over the last few years. He's Gavin's point man on Care not Cash. Takes some strong hits and keeps on coming. He was reacting in outrage to a proposal by Aaron Peskin's Budget committee that over a hundred jobs assigned to his empire be shifted over to the domain of Jessie Blout who runs the aforementioned MOEWD.

Trent Rohrer

It was a mess and it was completely the fault of Phil Ginsberg. No way in the world the billion dollar Health Department should be clashing in public with the Mayor's multi-billion-dollar-project-oversight division. Then Elsbernd starts dissing Mirkarimi for "not giving a single fact" to support some position or other and I felt right at home. Who needs Daly to start a fight in Budget season? Anyway, I watched the hearing for several hours and came away with some impressions.

Peskin's heavy-handed and has a hair-trigger on his gavel. Since he took over chairing the committee, he's used every trick in the book to speed up the process with no regard for consequences. Cut the deliberations in half, which isn't good. Speed is the enemy of transparency and Aaron has lots to hide. He's gonna brag when this is over about how he made it all go smoothly, but the fact is that he denied a fair voice to the people and God will punish him for that.

OK, maybe not God, but hopefully, the voters.

The Peskin Board Presidency has been nearly devoid of accomplishment on their behalf while Aaron has handed our land and our franchises to some of the nastiest people and corporations on Earth. Linked arm-in-arm with the Mayor, the gentrification and privatization of the City hasn't missed a beat since Willie Brown left office. It is a shame. There was such promise in 2000. And now? In coming weeks, Peskin will guide the privatization of our golf courses and public stables. He'll hand our public Wi-Fi spectrum to a consortium that is both incompetent and has no concern for privacy. He'll shake hands with Donald Fisher as Fisher's kids take over more soccer fields. Aaron's the bagman for public property. If you can support category killers like Home Depot (they'll kill all your mom and pop businesses for miles) and Comcast (he gave 'em every single second of government broadcasts for absolutely nothing) … Peskin is a disgrace. He is certainly not 'progressive' in any sense of the word. Shit, the guy even hates the Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

District 3 Supervisor and Board President Aaron Peskin

On the bright side

Salon is on as usual at La Reina's. We've installed a mirror outside so that you can have: "one eye in the mirror as you watch yourself go by". Really though, for a 2-hour period each week, we are the most objective and creative forum in town. That's, of course, If you can put up with a raving drunk in a baseball hat (no, not the Mayor).

Predictions

Gonzalez will not enter the race for mayor. His 4-year tease will term-out the first of August with his announcement that he needs to spend more time working at his law firm. Tony Hall will also quietly fold his candidacy. When the smoke clears on August 11th the political community will be looking at 2 standing candidates. Gavin Newsom. And, me.

Avoid the rush.

h. brown is a 62 year-old keeper of sfbulldog.com, an eclectic site featuring a half dozen City Hall denizens. h is a former sailor, firefighter, teacher, nightclub owner, and a hard-living satirical muckraker. Email h at h@ludd.net.

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