Dude, WFT? Newsom takes advantage of a tiny typo

Last week at a party, a friend of mine told me a story about the New Mission Theater that I did not believe. He said that a typo in some zoning legislation gave the theater an 85-foot height allowance, when it should have been a 65-foot allowance. Everyone knew it was a mistake, so the Board of Supervisors tried to pass a little cleanup bill to change the height limit back to 65 feet.

But Mistermayor vetoed that bill. What’s worse, my friend continued, the beneficiary of the typo is a big old donor friend of the mayor’s. “Yeah, right,” I thought.

Frankly, there are a lot of paranoid people in this town who blame Mistermayor for everything from rain to their achy feet, so I generally listen to such outlandish stories with polite skepticism. I believe it was President Ronald Reagan who used to say, “Trust, but verify.”

Imagine my horror when, at Tuesday’s meeting, Ken Rich from the Planning Department set out the chronology of events, admitted making the mistake and apologized. (In his defense, the zoning ordinance was some 800 pages long.) Supervisor Chris Daly pointed out the fact that the beneficiary of the typo is longtime Mayor Gavin Newsom supporter Gus Murad. Newsom’s veto was sustained anyway.

Now, I don’t know how high the allowance should be at the New Mission Theater, and I don’t care. Mistermayor’s act of giddily serving up a veto to enshrine an admitted clerical error is opportunistic, lowbrow and an abuse of his executive power. Obviously, I overestimated him. Next time I get rained on, he’ll be getting an angry phone call.

Comments

[Mission Made]

what about the Supervisors who opposed the legislation correcting the typo, and supported the veto. They are as guilty as the mayor.

[Sweet Melissa]

@Mission Made - excellent point. They were Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, Bevan Dufty and Sean Elsbernd.