By Luke Thomas
February 3, 2009
Expect things to get really sticky and stinky for Mayor Gavin Newsom and the conservative bloc during today’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Word has it; Supervisor Chris Daly will rise to expose what many will correctly perceive as cronyism and lackeyism.
Some may go as far as to allege corruption.
Items 6 and 7 on today’s Board agenda include two mayoral vetoes. The first, a veto of an ordinance deappropriating $998,145 for Newsom’s Community Justice Center, will not garner the eight votes needed to override a mayoral veto. Voting to oppose the override will be Supervisors Sean Elsbernd, Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu and Bevan Dufty.
Elsbernd’s vote against the override will be particularly amusing. Just last week, Elsbernd sounded like a broken record, repeating the phrase “structural budget deficit” as if he suffered from a mild form of Tourette’s syndrome. This is Elsbernd’s new code for his worn out catch phrase: “We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
Elsbernd’s vote in defense of the CJC today and its funding, against the will of San Francisco voters and against his own principles, will further diminish his credibility as a legislator because it will make clear he does not believe his own rhetoric.
But most egregious of all, Newsom’s veto of legislation that removes a spot-zoning concession for Small Business Commissioner Gus Murad, a concession that got packaged in with the Eastern Neighborhoods development plan, courtesy of former Supervisor and cocktail spoiler Gerardo Sandoval – will further expose Newsom and the conservative bloc as instruments of cronyism.
Bring your wellies to the meeting, folks, as you’ll need to wade through all the slime and sludge on the way out.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Follow Me:
The Hunger Site
February 9, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Gus Murad has shown that progressives can be bought off just the same as all other politicians.