COURT JESTERINGS

With h. brown

h. "Court Jester" brown
Photo(s) by Luke Thomas

Court Jester reviews Board of Supervisors agenda

By h. brown

February 5, 2008

I voted for Barack Obama!

You vote for whomever you want but get your ass out and vote and try and get at least
one person you know wouldn’t have otherwise voted to go out and vote.

Today’s Board agenda

You always have to watch it when the Board meets on an election day. They don’t think you’re paying attention and they’ll try and run some bad, bad shit past you. Today is no different. Here’s the ones that stink the most:

Item #15 Giving twice the money to King Security

These people are union busters. But, they’ve given money to every single major politician in this City and that’s why they jump past lower bidders everytime. Enter their home offices and you’ll see pictures of both Mark Leno and Carole Migden hanging along their walls.

The new contract seems to be a payoff for their cooperation in pushing Aaron Peskin’s cabdriver killing Prop A.

This is double the money they got last year and they’ve been busted for not just opposing union organizing, but firing workers for doing same. It should be sent back to committee where the whole thing should be opened up again.

Who the hell do these people think they are, Clear Channel?

Item #16 Moral turpitude?

Moral turpitude? Moral turpitude? Moral turpitude?

Item #18 Money for Dick Blum’s buddies

This is another year of Smarte Carte at the airport. Actually, they’re at another 1,000 airports too. Nothing wrong with that except that they’re there because Senator Dianne Feinstein was on a committee in the U.S. Senate that gave them the inside track while her hubby, Blum was a major stockholder.

Item #19 A bridge with its own lobbyist?

What’s this about? The 4th street bridge project was a disaster that only Matt Gonzalez could sort out. Which he did. The reconstruction is complete. Why the hell does the City need to pay TRC-Imbsen to consult them for 10 more years?

Item #26 Minimum qualifications

This is a Downtown push through Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier (who else?) to dump Progressive commission representatives. It sucks. Vote no. Wait, you don’t get to vote. Vote for Obama and then call for your supe to vote ‘no’ on this piece of doo.

Item #31 Charter amendment for even-numbered year voting

Love that Supervisor Jake McGoldrick guy to death but this one won’t fly for me. It would mean that I can’t lobby Jeff Adachi to run for Mayor in an off-year (for him) election for Mayor. Thanks for the effort, Jake but I gotta turn thumbs down on this one.

Item #32 Charter for elected MTA Board

I don’t know. You know? It would take some power from the Mayor and I like that except if one of my guys or girls becomes Mayor. Some of the Salon crowd says that it would give an advantage to the swells because City-wide elections always favor money.

I’m not certain I agree with that. I’ll follow my usual course and vote ‘no’ on something where I have doubts. Although, I’d enjoy more candidates and elections and …

Item #33 More diversity in City commissions

Who could be against that? No one. Except that’s the first part of the legislation. The second part says that City employees couldn’t serve on City commissions. I’m gonna go with Robert Haaland on this one (get out the smelling salts) and say this one should be voted down. Hell, some of my best friends are City employees.

Item #34 Elsbernd screws with retired City workers

This is an attempt to weaken the City’s promise of health benefits to retirees. As a retiree who barely makes anything for 47 years of public works, this one get’s the hair on the back of my neck up.

Item #36 RIP-OFF OF CAB DRIVERS !!!!!

This is the worst thing on the agenda. It is shameless. It is the first time the Republican cab company owners have been able to put forward a raise for them (gate fees) without a raise for the drivers (meter). The fact that it got this far is a disgrace.

Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval sitting in with Supervisor Alioto-Pier and Sean Elsbernd to push it forward guarantees that I’ll never back him for anything ever again. This is mother friggin’ highway robbery of the middle class cab drivers with an ink pen instead of a gun.

Item #40 Study the Zoo

Oh yeah. In the City of St. Francis? Oh yeah. Let’s take care of the shivering koalas (turn 'em loose in the eucalyptus forest on Mt. Sutro?) and make our operation a rescue-only thing with no public there to taunt the recovering animals.

Item #41 Mayor’s MTA raids

While this one has an air of hypocrisy (Peskin made 500 of Willie’s special assistants permanent) about it, I’ll encourage the thing be sent to Budget and Finance with Daly as chair. Air this bedding in public. Hang the bloody sheet out the window and check the dna.

Item #47 Dr. Philip R. Day Jr. Day

Tell me this isn’t the guy who stole all the money from the kids and spent it on a campaign for more money and used it to hire political lobbyists who are friends of Peskin’s? We gonna have a ‘Jim Jones Day’ next?

Items #49 and #50 Allowing filming of Milk film at City Hall

Oh yeah. Let the world see the gem that is SF City Hall. Once again. Remember right after it re-opened all prettied up and someone wanted to film there and Willie followed them around with a bucket and rag making certain everything was perfect? Our lady (da Dome) deserves to be in film after film after film after film.

Item #45 Farmers’ Market on O’Farrell between Fillmore and Steiner

I think this is the one where Karen Babbitt works Saturdays. I’d support it anyway and so would you. Farmers' markets rock and should be a damned near automatic approval.

Legislation in the colon and about to be crapped:

080136 ISO deal with FERC

This one needs to run by PUC Commissioner Dick Sklar and Bruce Brugmann before it goes anywhere. The fact that it needs Board approval gives us our only shot for input to a deal put together by our PG&E friendly City Attorney’s office.

Sklar said at a PUC meeting that he didn’t think the ISO should be allowed to require us to have more fossil fuel plants because we didn’t need that much power.

ISO works for PG&E. Fight them at every turn. They want peaker power plants? Let 'em build 'em in Turlock.

080141 Give Olivia Chen Consultants a 50 percent raise?

This is the kind of PUC contract that Dick Sklar fights at every meeting. I don’t know who this woman is but I know that bottomless contracts are not good for you.

080137 Payoff of gangster trash company

A black trucking firm was the low bidder here. They were passed over because the City was in their pocket and staff argued that they didn’t believe the black truckers had the competence to do the work at the price they bidded. Now, Sunset Scavenger, after vanquishing the black truckers, says that the high bid they submitted isn’t enough and they want even more. Screw 'em!

080140 Construction Management (‘CM’) agreement at Airport

Fifteen million bucks for what? Try Googling the group being handed this cash. Parsons Transportation Group in partnership with EPC Consultants, Inc. and Allen Group LLC. It’s pretty much a straight giveaway.

Correspondence

Superior Court wants a supplemental of over 2 million dollars?

I didn’t know we even paid for the Superior Court. How many Republican judges do they have over there? This is at least worth a hearing before a Board committee to educate idiots like me as to how the Superior Court is infrastructured. There’s a new word for you.

Vote early and often.

I did.

Angela, you there? See you at noon.

--

Permalink

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.

####

Editor's Note: Views expressed by columnists published on FogCityJournal.com are not necessarily the views or beliefs of Fog City Journal. Fog City Journal supports free speech in all its varied forms and provides a forum for a complete spectrum of viewpoints.