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Hey kids! Tomorrow is Election Day across this great land of ours and you know what good citizens do on Election Day? They vote, that's what! Here is a quick run down of what we have to look forward to dealing with here in San Francisco as we engage in that great experiment this writer loves to call la democracia:
Proposition A - Budget Process or I Ain't No Accountant, Mang! Why Am I Even Voting On This?! Amends the City Charter to establish a new budgeting process including requiring a two year rolling budget cycle, setting up a five-year budget plan, and Zzzzzzzzzzzz! Boring! Next!
Proposition B - Aides to the Supervisors or You Do This! You Do That! Amends the City Charter which currently limits each supervisor to only two aides and allows them to decide all on their own whether they want to hire more and better aides than ever before! This one reminds this writer of the time his sister decided she wanted 25 bridesmaids, even though she only had 150 guests, and Emily Post said, um, no, you can only have like three bridesmaids, and his sister said Emily Post could go stuff it, or similar. Um.
Proposition C - Renaming Candlestick Park or Don't Leave Us 49ers! Please?! Here! Have Some American Dollars! Allows Rec and Parks to enter into a contract with the 49ers to sell off the name to Candlestick Park to the highest corporate bidder. The City and the 49ers will then split the profits. Half the City's share will go to fund the salaries of directors at rec centers for the impoverished masses, the rest to maintaining the windswept outpost we will always call Candlestick, no matter what. The 49ers can do what ever they want with their share. Maybe they'll use it to hire U-Haul trucks for their move to Santa Clara. Or maybe 49ers kingpin Jed York will use it take this writer out on a glamorous date at French Laundry! Hey! One can dream! This is America!
Proposition D - Mid-Market Street Special Sign District or The New Times Square, Only Better, Because This Is San Francisco! Establishes a new special sign district on Market Street between 5th and 7th Streets and on parts of Turk Street and Golden Gate Avenue that would allow property owners to spray down everything in site with digital billboards (up to 500 square feet in size) and then pocket most of the money made. A cut (20-40 percent) would be spent on crayolas, construction paper, and safety scissors for the teeming hordes of barefooted, burlap clad ragamuffins who daily are forced to play in the gutters of the surrounding areas. We Heart Art!
Proposition E - Bans New Ads on City Owned Property or [Snarky Name of Your Own Choice Here - For Sale] Would ban any new advertising on city owned property (excluding the future bike share kiosk thingers) and would phase out existing advertising once ad contracts expire. Codifies Prop K, which all you people approved back in 2007, because you hate capitalism, plain and simple.
Also, Dennis Herrera is running for reappointment as City Attorney and José Cisneros as treasurer, so vote for them. It's not like you have any choice, they're running unopposed! Huzzah for democracy!
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No on D! I like your coverage of it ". . .would allow property owners to spray down everything in site with digital billboards and then pocket most of the money made. . . "
it also privitizes public space and makes it impossible to change this privitization without a follow up ballot measure.
This is a bad idea and the ballot is not the place to experiment with bad ideas!
Private. Privatize.
Just sayin'.
-- (Nazi Spell-Check Asshole)
Unlike the various sorts who already hang out in this area by, say, peeing on the street to mark their territory.
And allowing someone to sleep on the street means you're allowing them implicitly to privatize the public space. So you've really missed the boat on this one.
Yes, sleeping on the street is totally the same as handing it over to a developer.
It is the same. Because you're allowing someone to take possession of a public space, hence it is no longer public.
But let's remember that "developers" are not the issue here. It's property owners getting a chance to make a buck off their property, which should be their right. And if you owned a building in this area, it would be your right not to post any digital billboards. But instead of investing in the city, you'd rather make it worse for anyone who has.
Holy christ, you're a drama queen.
Remember the idiots who are running this state into the ground when you vote
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California wage earners will soon notice a little less money in their paychecks.
Starting Monday, employers in the cash-strapped state are required to withhold 10 percent more in state income taxes to help ease the budget problems.
It's part of a plan to artificially inflate state revenue by $1.7 billion through next June.
Brenda Voet, a spokeswoman for the state Franchise Tax Board, says it's technically not a tax increase since workers will get their money back after April 15.
A single wage earner making $51,000 a year with no dependents will get about $4 less a week.
Can we add something to the ballot to get Gavin out of office sooner so he doesn't get a worse case of short-timer disease and sell the city to Somalia to balance the budget or pay for breast implants for Kimberly-Mountz-Rippey-TheNewDippyBlondeChick-Newsom?
I am tired of paying for this asshole to ride around town like some socialite acting like he owns the place when he hasn't even put down a deposit on it yet.
There is a recall option under CA law, but I doubt San Francisco would be up for it. An attempt to get enough signatures to recall Jake McGoldrick (former Supervisor from district 1) failed pretty badly a few years ago.
You're right.
When it comes to politics, San Franciscans are the Down's Syndrome play date of the political universe. Idiots electing idiots, everyone is too busy to read up on the issues and nobody demands accountability. Gavin Newsom would run sobbing from a real town meeting in any New England state and soil himself when faced with any issue of substance.
The Board of Supervisors, in their entirety, would be handed makeup and little red clown noses with a time to appear at the big top. Another big inside joke with no clear mission or leadership.
Newsom is incapable of considerate, original thought, has the mental capacity and attention span of a starstruck teenage girl at her first Jonas Brothers show and cannot string more than two thoughts together without it turning into a douchey, meaningless soundbite.
I know third graders with more knowledge about civic service than this shoemaker possesses.
He should 'Pull a Palin', head to Alaska for some advice and hit the lecture circuit before he embarrasses himself any further. At this point it is absolutely laughable.
I'm calling our next Mayor, Ammiano (why? because everyone is going to vote for him because he's Ammiano) and telling him that he is on notice to fix things or I'll run him up the flagpole too.
The only flaw with the (beautiful, granted) mental image of Gav being ground into paste in a New England-style town hall is that there is no way he could get elected dogcatcher in the northeast.
Rob. All your posts are about how much San Francisco sucks. Why the hell do you live here?
Oh, come on now. Complaining loudly about our elected officials and pretending like no other town anywhere else has these problems has been a San Francisco pasttime since 1906. If you're not doing it, you're not a true San Franciscan.
It's an honest question. I'm all for bitching about city politics and our inept man-child of a mayor, but it's odd when that's all you rant about. I seriously want to know why RobinSF lives here, is it inertia? a persecution complex? family property? the weather? Michell's? Seriously...
His babble gets a bit tiresome sometimes, but he has a valid point -- Gavin Newsom is an idiot and the people who voted for him are blind, deaf and dumb.
I read a lot of blogs and newspapers based in other cities and it's kind of fun to see commenters having the same "our city/mayor/newspaper is the worst!" attitude all over the place.
"When will Philadelphia wake up and clean up?!?"
"Our local newspaper is a liberal/right-wing mouthpiece!"
"The city of Nashville is taxing us to death!"
It's kind of refreshing to know that every place has unhappy people
Vote NO on D. It's a corporate scam. It will NOT help any homeless people. I live in the neighborhood that the whole city is voting on today, and I am voting NO. I don't want billboards in my 'hood, I want REAL solutions.
I want REAL solutions.
Such as?
Electing me king of San Francisco?
I'd vote for it.
Free It's Its for all!
Free It's Its for all!
You've got my vote.
Just because nobody is offering REAL solutions is no reason vote for ANY solution that comes along just to say you've done something and perhaps (or likely) make things worse in the process.
NO on D!!!
I don't think anybody is saying this is a "solution," period. Just a way for local business owners to make some bank, brighten up (literally or otherwise) what is a pretty horrific stretch of street in an attempt to attract visitors and further legitimate businesses, and kick-back some money to the community.
I mean, no skin off my nose if it doesn't pass, I don't feel compelled (usually quite the opposite) to spend much time on a barren and blighted mid-Market as it currently is but you feel free to enjoy it while you wait for these supposed "REAL" "solutions."
Joel, agreed.
I think everyone would love it if some local community organization pulled together and made a real push to bring funding and resources to this district. Except, that local community doesn't yet exist (vacancies) or is pretty happy with the status quo. I give props to Mr. Addington for taking initiative to try to improve his neighborhood.
I think at this point, with the given resources in the neighborhood, private dollars could be much more of a catalyst in bringing in a critical mass of businesses vs. waiting for otherwise.