The Weekly Digest (July 23, 2023)

Written By Bill Jackson

Happy Sunday, Brionies! 

If you ran in today’s marathon, put your feet up, you’ve earned it. If you didn’t participate, we sure hope you didn’t try to cross the Golden Gate this morning.

Here’s what you need to know about San Francisco politics this week and beyond:

Action items

Use this form to protest a $1.50 hike in state bridge tolls intended to bail out BART and other transit agencies. If passed, the proposal by Senator Scott Weiner would raise the toll to $9.50 for many bridges by 2025.

City Hall

  • Tuesday, July 25, 2:00 pm: Regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda and call-in instructions here)

    • Item 2 – The Board will vote on Mayor Breed’s latest attempt to revitalize downtown, mainly consisting of a 0.45% break on taxable gross receipts.

    • Items 4, 5, and 6 – The mayor has proposed extending Covid-era emergency contracts with hotels to shelter homeless people. Using privately-owned hotels as homeless shelters was intended to be a stopgap measure, but as Milton Friedman teaches, “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Notwithstanding the fact that we are no longer in a pandemic, the supervisors propose amending the contracts without adhering to these requirements of the Administrative Code: Salary History Ordinance, Minimum Compensation Ordinance, Consideration of Criminal History in Hiring and Employment Decisions, Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance, Local Business Enterprise and Non-Discrimination in Contracting Ordinance… (deep breath)... First Source Hiring Program, Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Funding Ban Ordinance, Tropical Hardwood and Virgin Redwood Ban, Arsenic Treated Wood Products, Food Service and Packaging Waste Reduction Ordinance, and the Bottled Water Ordinance. The supervisors’ willingness to skip over the administrative requirements that they themselves enacted leads us to think the ordinances may not be necessary after all. Vive le Sugary Beverages!

    • Item 13 – Ordinance amending the Planning Code to facilitate residential development by authorizing the conversion of non-residential properties in commercial zoning districts. Let’s keep that revitalization train rolling by turning downtown into a Paris dupe, with retail shops (including “formula retail” - somebody tell El Farolito!) on ground level and living spaces above. Of course, simply allowing this type of zoning doesn’t guarantee it will work.

    • Item 19 – Annual Salary Ordinance for any position paid by the City or County of San Francisco. If you’re interested, they’re all listed here. The mayor makes $366 thousand a year, for what it’s worth.

    • Item 44 – Motion approving the mayor’s nomination of Dena Aslanian-Williams to the new Homelessness Oversight Commission. This vote was supposed to take place at last week’s meeting, but it was delayed when it came to light that the nominee posted on social media in opposition to harm reduction and an RV site for homeless people. Aslanian-Williams was actually Mayor Breed’s second choice: her original nominee bowed out after admitting he lied on federal expense reports while working in the Obama administration. This new commission is off to a roaring start!

    • Item 78 – Saving the best for last, this resolution would declare July 28th and 29th Taylor Swift Weekend in the City and County of San Francisco. Sadly, this won’t help the Swiftie in your life score a ticket for less than a grand. 

Happenings around town

What we’re reading

  • This story ticks all the boxes as a microcosm of the current ills facing San Francisco. A small business owner who started a sandwich shop after losing his restaurant job due to the pandemic (check) has a problem with a man urinating on his trash cans (check), is attacked when he confronts the man (check), and is advised by SFPD not to pursue the perpetrator when the understaffed department can’t come to his aid (check). “It’s frustrating because I knew if he just kept walking away, they weren’t going to find him.” 

  • A litany of businesses have recently left San Francisco. Still, this one hits hard: local institution Anchor Brewery, “the oldest craft brewer in the U.S.,” gave word this week that it planned to cease operations after 127 years. The pandemic, inflation, and difficulty catching on in the grocery-store market were named as the culprits. Since the announcement, a number of potential buyers have expressed interest in purchasing the company, including the brewery’s employees. Here’s hoping this iconic San Francisco brand –  which survived the 1906 quake – can stick around. 

  • It’s hard to find something that San Francisco government does well, so pardon us if we aren’t confident that running a bank would be one of them. Alas, the Board of Supervisors is set to take a look at a proposal to do just that. Like many progressive ideas, a public bank sounds good – it provides basic banking services and small-scale loans to low-income people. However, public banks are funded by taxpayer money, so guess who’s holding the bag when one fails? 

  • The Mohammed Nuru corruption scandal continues to make waves. In addition to a recent guilty plea, new (alleged) participants, and businesses barred from doing business with the city, a property tycoon from China has now admitted to bribing Nuru.

  • Like many other public services in the Bay Area, mass transit is struggling. Ridership is down since the pandemic, of course, and there are safety concerns. Scott Weiner has proposed a solution: charging more money to people who aren’t using the systems he intends to save by “temporarily” (ahem!) raising bridge tolls by $1.50. Register your opposition by signing the form under “Action Items” above.

  • Speaking of Weiner, he has raised some serious cash in hopes case Nancy Pelosi decides to retire from Congress, but says he won’t enter the race if Her Ladyship decides to give it another go. 

  • There’s a joke in here that we haven’t quite figured out: the developer behind the never-gonna-happen 50-story housing project in the Sunset District was sentenced to eight years in prison for bilking investors out of millions in… a pyramid scheme.

  • Heather Knight has been a tenacious columnist for the Chronicle since 2017, willing to shine a light on City Hall incompetence, expose the horrors of open drug scenes (though we disagree with her stance on supervised consumption sites), and point out the ridiculousness of $1.7 million toilets. She’s also an unapologetic cheerleader for our city. It’s no surprise to us, then, that Knight has been scooped up by the New York Times as San Francisco bureau chief. Godspeed. 

Quick Hits

Palate Cleanser

Bill Jackson
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