Wednesday, October 23, 2013

What if they gave an election and hardly anyone came?


No on B and C

Contrary to all good sense and conventional expectations, San Francisco is having an election on November 5. Although we've managed to get elections to the Board of Supervisors -- the local legislative body -- synced with national elections, we still vote on many city wide officials in obscure off-year contests. This year we get to vote on the Assessor-Recorder, the City Attorney, and the Treasurer.

Not that it matters. All three incumbents are running unopposed.

The four ballot measures riding along with on this election include two heavily contested ones.

Measures B and C would enable some big developers to raise the height limit along the waterfront so they can construct and sell $5 million Donald Trump-style condos to our local plutocrats. The details are complicated but the story is pretty simple: the San Francisco waterfront is an attractive place no longer marred by the smells and noise of a working port, so very rich people want to live there. The rest of us have won some limits on what can be thrown up on our waterfront and we want to keep it that way.

Developers are throwing almost infinite money at their sales campaign for Measures B and C. There are lying ads during 49ers broadcasts for goodness sake!

Everybody in city politics that I trust at all -- Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, Supervisor David Campos, former Mayor Art Agnos, tenant organizations, the Sierra Club -- is saying "No Wall on the Waterfront."

In this election in which hardly anyone will vote, I have already voted by mail: No on B and C.

3 comments:

Rain Trueax said...

good luck. Hope you win. I've seen a lot more of that along the Oregon Coast and it blocks all view of the ocean where it happens.

Hattie said...

Good luck on that one. We have been spared this kind of thing in Hilo, because we have not just quake danger but tsunami danger. We have one medium-high rise on the island, and building regulations forbid building more of them.
Maybe you need a good shaker.
The greed never stops. I am so weary of the rich.

Civic Center said...

Amen. The political consultants for Yes on B&C must be laughing all the way to the bank because I can't imagine either proposition winning. Anybody in San Francisco who's going to bother voting in this election, with the Soviet Republic Style We-Have-Only-One-Candidate-For-You, is probably going to be fairly sophisticated about why B&C are such potential disasters. Then again, one should never underestimate the swaying powers of lots of P.R. money.