SFist Goes to Gavin's Townhall Meeting
This morning, we dragged our flu-ridden butts all the way out to the Richmond hoping to see what had all the makings of a circus. We didn't get it. What we got, instead, was a serious policy discussion about the homeless. How do you prevent a circus from taking place? You bore the crap out of everyone.
We have to give credit to Team Gavin. They diffused any potential for the meeting getting out of hand with two brilliant gestures. The first one was to have it early in the morning all the way out in the Richmond. We expected a full-house full of the usual suspects but didn't get it, partly, we think, because saying you're going to go out to the Richmond at ten in the morning and actually getting up and going out to the Richmond on a very, very cold morning at ten in the morning is a completely different thing.
The second thing they did was just completely overwhelm everyone in the audience with boredom. This was a serious-minded townhall, full of serious discussions about serious issues by serious people using serious statistics. It was mind numbing. Anyone who wanted to be starting something lost any sort of motivation to be starting something after statistic after statistic was brought out by either Gavin or Gavin's panel (Angela Alioto, Friar John Hardin, Ron Miguel, Ken Reggio, and Trent Rohrer). And it was typical Gavin-- he threw out detail after detail of every nook and cranny of some sort of city governance that there's no other option than getting lost in it all. We have no idea if anything Gavin was saying was right or not, but gosh, doesn't he sound smart?
More details of the event and more pictures by SFist Rita after the jump
Project Chicken Connect
Not that there weren't people looking to cause trouble. Picketers were out front of the Richmond Recreation Center calling for a liveable wage. And we saw a few people from the San Francisco People's Organization there, handing out questions for the audience to ask. Then there were the chickens-- four people from the SF Party Party who dressed in full chicken costume ready to cluck cluck there way into some publicity. But here's where Gavin's diabolical plan really worked-- half an hour into it, one by one of the chickens all gave up and left to go wander the hallways. It's hard to be a chicken when everyone's being wonky. And we'll say this for Gavin, he did not even bat an eye at the chickens. When one of them walked up to him to hand in a question, Gavin didn't even acknowledge the fact that he was getting a question from someone in costume. The only who did was Angela Alioto who said "instead of sitting around in chicken costumes, go do something."
Gavin's people also did a good job of controlling the thing. Any chance of things spiraling out of control was easily nipped at the bud as there really wasn't much in the way of give and take. For the most part, Gavin played MC and let his panel do the talking. The idea that people were going to ask questions didn't happen as the only sort of questions being discussed were one's that were written down and handed in. Then someone (supposedly Gavin) sorted through them and decided what was a worthwhile question to ask. So if anyone wanted to even ask a question about Question Time or anything that didn't deal with the homeless, there'd be no opportunity too.
We do have to say that in Team Gavin's defense, this definitely was a neighborhood meeting and that there were large parts of the audience who were into it. Other than the gawkers and the chickens and the large contingent of press, most of the crowd looked like people who lived in the Richmond. We have a feeling most of them were pretty satisfied with everything. Whatever issues they might have concerning the homeless in the park and in their neighborhoods, Gavin and the panelists tried to address. We think they were a lot more satisfied with everything than we were.
One more thing-- this type of townhall meeting actually proves one thing, that strip away the glamour and passion of politics, at its heart, it's actually pretty boring. We might not have cared as much about all the numbers and details, but all those people on the panel did. Better them and not us.
Gavin totally not reading anyone's questions
Chicken, table for one