Fat Taxes and Ohio Ladies of All Races: It's Public Communications Time!

Constant Readers,

I continue to mine the mountain of public communications sent to the Board of Supervisors to bring you the gems. Here are two recent ones. 

From one of my favorite contributors, Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D. is this letter:

Dear Supervisor Elsbernd,

I would like to work with your office toward implementation of that tax on carbonated beverages that has been offered by Mayor Newsom, an idea I campaigned on during my run for Mayor in 2007. The “fat tax” proposal was documented on the candidate interview web sites of the SF Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. I am disappointed that the mayor continues to engage in self promotion of ideas proposed by others. This legally constitutes plagiarism. From the plastic bag legislation, to Healthy San Francisco and Sunday Streets, the mayor has a clear track record of using the ideas of others to promote his political agenda.

Ouch!

One of the best things about each of these letters is that I'm pretty sure there is a kernel of truth in them. I'm trying to picture the events(s) that prompted this one:

The Municipal Transit System should check terminal points for vehicles, driver rest areas and remove alcohol from these rooms as needed. It should never be there.

The women who create these conditions try to push alcohol onto the drivers. They ask them if they would like a drink. These women are from all races and from OHIO. Sometimes the drivers, men or women, are in such a condition that they cannot do their work. They do not turn up for their routes.

The police should show an interest in keeping these places straight. Pour out that alcohol. The people of the city also have an interest in keeping alcohol out of such places.

This is a public offense, a disturbance of driver safety conditions. The people who do this should be arrested and detained and removed from the state.

The Steuart Street terminal is the baddest one. There are more than five such places.

Keep Muni safe.

So now we know who to blame for Muni driver absenteeism and accidents: Ohio wimmin. [Shaking fist!] And Steuart Street just got a lot more interesting.

-Melissa

Comments

[gdewar]

Ohio, eh? This puts a new spin on my current gig...

[vansmack]

I'm hardly an apologist for Mister Mayor, but I do get annoyed when somebody gets upset when the Mayor does something that they WANT HIM TO DO. The proper response is "Thank You..."

If you, Dr. Sumchai, had won the election, which to be honest I'm shocked you didn't with such a vast and expansive platform directed at the part of the city with lowest voter turnout, I'm sure the mayor would have called you and thanked you for cleaning up the Bayview. Ok, maybe not, because he like me, has no idea who you are. Either way you just come off looking bitter.

[Phil]

Mel is right, there have been rumors of idea plagiarism by Newsom for years now. It fits his public image how he likes to be known as some creative super brain that is going to save SF and California, even the world. If he were more mature he would have formed broad coalitions of these idea people like the Dr above so they could have felt some recognition, and then Mr Mayor would have had fewer enemies and better ideas. That's the one big reason I think he unfit to be an executive, unless it's decorating a restaurant or picking menu specials of the day.

[Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D.]

Plagiarism constitutes theft of intellectually property and can be adjudicated in civil court. To brainless individuals like Vansmack I can only point out that numerous musicians, authors and inventors have successfully won court orders to prevent theft of their original posted and copyrighted ideas. Mayor Newsom appears to have dropped his cliam of original ownership of the fat tax not because he used an idea I campaigned on but because of a national effort to implement taxes on carbonated beverages implemented by the Senate.