Bored of Supervisors - 4/8/08

Constant Readers,

Today's Board of Supervisor's meeting is over and here's what happened:

1. Supervisor Chu is an Aries!

Supervisor Peskin sweetly remembered and announced that today is Supervisor Chu's birthday. Here's her horoscope from my favorite astrologer, Sally Brompton:

The promises you make to yourself on your birthday must be enough to stretch you creatively but they must also be reasonable and rational, otherwise you will fall short of your goals and wish you had made no promises at all. Focus on what you do best - you'll do it better than ever this year.

Sadly, no one sang.

2. Stop, Or I'll Say "Stop" Again!

Earlier this year, Mistermayor's office said it would halt $246,000 of funding that had been set aside in this year's budget to fund the Worker's Compensation Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. According to the Charter, the Mayor has the ability to unilaterally not spend money even though it is in the budget and instead put it in the City's General Fund Reserve for fiscal year 2008-2009. Which is what Mistermayor did.

According to testimony given at a March 5 meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee, the Clinic started shutting down on February 4 by not taking any new patients. On February 5, Supervisor Mirkarimi proposed an Ordinance that would appropriate the $246k back out of the General Fund Reserve to fund the clinic. As Mirkarimi has said about a billion times, the clinic being closed is the last public worker's comp clinic in San Francisco. This "creeping privatization" is the enemy, says Mirkarimi.

Hey, it beats firing people, says Supervisor Elsbernd, who pointed out that no layoffs will result from the closing. (The City employees will be transferred and the doctors are independent contractors.) Current patients will be dispatched to 8 other local clinics. (Though there is some disagreement about whether those 8 clinics are adequate alternatives.)

The Ordinance initially passed on March 18 with a vote of 8-3 (Supervisors Alioto-Pier, Chu and Elsbernd voted "no"). Mistermayor promptly vetoed the Ordinance on March 25 and today's vote was on whether to override that veto. (It requires a 2/3 majority vote. SF Charter sec. 2.106.) With the same 8-3 split, the Board did successfully override the veto. Boooyah! Take that! Right?

Wrong. 

Per the same power to halt the money in the first place, when that $246k comes out of the General Fund Reserve, Mistermayor will just freeze the money again and stick it back in the reserves again. The Clinic will not stay open. After two lengthy hearings at the Budget and Finance Committee (1/30 and 3/5) and now three visits to the full Board of Supervisors (3/11, 3/18 and today) on this futile measure, it's hard to take seriously the Supes who say a City-run anything is efficient and preferable.

QUOTE(S) OF THE MEETING:

I couldn't decide between these two:

"Hopefully we'll bring it down from 7 years because at 7 years you get the 7-year itch problem."

-Supervisor McGoldrick extolling the new "paradigm" created by the City negotiations with developers and the University of California over the 55 Laguna and Market-Octavia plans - which apparently took 7 years. Yeah, hopefully. Under seven years would be good...

"You all listened last week to Free Tibet. I want to know when Bayview-Hunter's Point will be free."

-Community Activist (and one of my favorite commenters) Espinola Jackson during Public Comment discussing the state of the environment in the Bayview.

--Melissa 

Comments

[Greg]

You know what's funny is between you, "h. brown" and the Weekly's roundup, I get some very interesting perspectives on the board agenda.

I find it fascinating, that the supposedly locally owned hero paper, the Guardian, does not do this sort of thing. Odd. Nor does the Chron. Very odd.

[L'Italiana]

Do you ever give awards to the most quoted for oddities spoken? If you did, it would seem to me the McGoldrick would win, hands down...

[R.S.]

Hi, Melissa, different topic--thanks for the shout-out on Calitics. Lots of hits from your article.

'preciate it. r.s.

[Puritan Erosion]

Hi. Traveling down the blogosphere superhighway, I stumbled upon your blog. Along with my fiancee who is waiting for her Massachusetts BAR exam results, we sadly returned to the uniforming socially retarded Augusta, GA. You seem to have more commonalities with her in regards to your fiery wit, albeit your seeming disdain for Harry Potter (personally, I didn't understand the extroadinary jubilation it brought to so many globally as well. However, I do understand how the books attracted different people for different reasons -- goofy, nerdy appearing boy, a know-it-all book worm, bully, dark, sinister professor with inner demons, etc.)

I'm proud to be a Progressive Democrat who believes Democracy's sole purpose is to serve and fend for those who can't serve and fend for themselves. A true representative democracy tends to everyone's needs. In this area, it's about mom, apple pie, a big ass American flag, low taxes for piss-poor service in return, anti-choice for women's reproductive rights, gun rights in the event someone steps on your property you can blast away, SUV capital of the world where this area's citizens show their true indifference and ignorance to environmental conservation, and finally, keep the local economy booming by stripping more land away for more good ole' boys to run a half-ass business. I wish I could say these are conflations, but they're sadly not.

Robin and I extensively moved in our younger years (she in Germany and myself through the Midwest). I guess anyone with common sense who first enters the South is greeted with hostility; Southern Hospitality is a myth. This easily turns what once was a Moderate Democrat into a Progressive in a heartbeat.

I will part by saying I enjoy reading about SF via your blog and how you endure those sometimes long, innane meetings. It was a nightmare when I covered them as a journalist working in a Georgia bumkin town. There were times when I seriously considered asking for a translator for a few of the commissioners. They could barely construct one or two complete sentences. Also, the meetings were mostly pointless since items were discussed with each other before these proceedings even began. So, it was like listening to people speak in redneck code. Take out the Fox Noise-like news mentality these people had along with myself. Freelance writing is much more liberating while working somewhere that actually pays the bills.

Keep up the great work and continue voicing your convictions. This is one of the most disastrous times in our country's history. Recommended read: Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine."

P.J.