As you might have guessed by now, Mayor Lee didn't bring any major surprises with him to Question Time yesterday. Batting around questions like "How will you stimulate the economy?" (from Farrell) and "How are we using youth and family services to prevent gang violence?" (from Kim) gave the mayor a couple opportunities to talk about the Twitter tax break central Market payroll tax exemption. That's not actually an answer to anyone's question, that's just a PR move.
In related PR moves, Mayor Mustache just kind of blinked when Carmen Chu asked how he would ensure the new Muni chief isn't a royal fuckup like Nat Ford was (paraphrasing there). With lots of noncommittal language, he called out the specific priorities he'd like to see the new director focus on: implementing the new labor agreement, increasing on-time performance and ensuring transit safety. Sure, we'd like to see a bus arrive on time too, but we're not going to get anywhere if we're giving out orders for the new Muni chief the same way one asks to see a dessert menu.
We did learn one fun thing about the Mayor during question time: every time he hears about violence in the Tenderloin and SoMa, he can't sleep at night. Which begs the question: what kind of black magic does this guy use to stay on his feet all day? If there are no soda machines in City Hall, where does he get his Red Bull? When is Bevan Dufty going to install a webcam in room 200 so we can make sure Lee isn't napping on the job? -1 to Ed Lee for not just putting all this in a press release and calling it at day. We could have had this board meeting done in under an hour and a half!
Thank heaven for Malia Cohen though. Probably feeling a little tough after protesting U.S. Airways' treatment of Deshon Marman earlier in the day (and having the local chapter president of the NAACP in attendance didn't hurt either), Cohen pointed out that her question about the 3rd Street Corridor and SF Redevelopment agency was actually three questions and she couldn't care less how you feel about that. Another +1 to Malia Cohen for bringing some sass back to City Hall.
In major agenda items yesterday: Elsbernd's charter amendment on retirement benefits and pension reform was amended and then continued until next week. (Snooze.) Likewise with Scott Wiener's charter amendment that would allow the Board to avoid putting everything on ballot measures - it was amended and tabled until next week. (Double snooze.)
Pretty much the whole middle of the agenda was also passed on one vote. For our purposes that means the city's golf courses will be getting more expensive for out of towners. And apparently someone at SFGovTV was having a laugh with the captioning system:
+1 to whoever's working the control room at SFGovTV because, duh: sharks are rad.
In nominations and whatnot: Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and John Avalos were nominated to the Association of Bay Area Governments Executive Board. Our most sincere congratulations to the boys for those appointments. We hope those gigs don't hurt any runs for higher office those two might be involved in, but if they need to bail they can rest assured that Eric "B Team Captain" Mar is ready to go as their alternate. +1 for team player Mar, even if the uniform always looks a little big on him.
Speaking of John Avalos, we apparently forgot to give him a point after we slipped him what we thought was a rather nice compliment the other day. Rather than reveal the vast conspiracy that is the Board of Supervisors Weekly Power Rankings, we'll gladly give Mr. Avalos the +1 he deserves for breaking up the demographics of the Family Flight hearing.
During introductions, the St. Ignatius twins: Mark Farrell and Sean Elsbernd introduced legislation to prevent a lawsuit being brought against the city over public financing for campaign funds. +halfsies for Farrell and Elsbernd - way to keep your eye on the ball.
Finally, we end with Malia Cohen, who came in to the meeting fired up (see above) and introduced a resolution calling for an apology for Deshon Marmon from US Airways and a FAA probe in to the Saggy Pants Predicament. Under normal circumstances, we'd rail against these sort of limp, non-binding resolutions, but in this case we'll give her credit for the San Mateo County DA finally backing down and deciding not to press charges in this case. An angry woman is way more threatening than a non-binding resolution anyway. Another +1 to Malia Cohen.
At the end of the day, the Bayview Supe continues to claw her way to the top (and we love it), gaining on the SI Twins who have held the top spot for a couple weeks now. Eric Mar is no longer under water and we promise we're not being hard on Avalos: we just need a couple more poetry readings to get us in the mood. Speaking of which, there was a disappointing lack of camera time from Jane Kim this week. But here it is, your moment of Kim:
Final Rankings (This week's changes in parentheses.)
8.5 Mark Farrell (+0.5)
8.5 Sean Elsbernd (+0.5)
7 Malia Cohen (+2)
7 Scott Wiener (No change)
6 Ross Mirkarimi (No change)
6 Jane Kim (No change)
4 David Campos (No change)
3.5 Carmen Chu (No change)
1 David Chiu (No change)
0 Eric Mar (+1)
-2 John Avalos (+1)
-1 Billion and 1 Mayor Ed Lee (-1)
