Tuesday, March 12, 2013

SF Media Ignores Ed Lee Largess But Does Anyone Care?

Ed Lee, as you can see, seems to be having a ball.

It's real cool and fun to be San Francisco mayor, in fact, it's even better when the local press dares to ask Lee about his frequent travel itinerary, his wanton go-aheads with developers that have turned the city's downtown into a virtual Manhattanization, and his quasi inner-courtship with former mayor, Willie Brown.

This all may seem a big fuss about nothing. After all, the city is awash in full blown prosperity; downtown, particularly the mid-Market area, which used to be a haven for the drug addicts and homeless, is chock full of building cranes. Twitter and high-tech start-ups proliferate the area. Restaurants are full. China Basin and even Hunters Point are also filled with cranes and developments either underway or on the drawing board. Even the 49ers, who are splitting for Santa Clara, have cozied up to Lee in hopes of getting the 2017 Super Bowl. Life is good in the 415.

Again, all fine and dandy if you're a developer. And if you happen to be in Lee's inner circle, great, there's a party going on almost every day. But what about Lee's seeming dismissive feelings about his troubled ex-housing chief? And it would be nice if some reporters were to investigate Lee's cozy liaison with Willie Brown, wouldn't it? Just askin'.

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19 comments:

  1. sure is better than being mayor of Oakland..... then again anything is better than to be the mayor of Oakland!

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    1. Oakland's problem isn't that they're dysfunctional, it's that they crave dysfunction. An embarrassment and I wonder where they'd be without the port.

      Mayor moonbeam was making things move but bailed. The last police chief, very capable and making a dent, was handcuffed by the politicians and bailed too. Kwan and Dellums are/were both disasters. Edgerly? Please! For 250k a year, you'd think that the word "asked" could be properly spoken. What a hopeless bunch. Welcome to Oakland, enjoy the muck and mire.

      Lee is quietly getting things done without being a media darling, that's his style, good for him. For whatever reason, the city officials are in line with same/similar objectives and things seem to be running like a watch.

      Is development necessarily a bad thing, presuming it's the US developing and not China based? Great for developers, great for workers, great for business, bad for occupier types, bad for traffic/parking. Housekeeping wise, he needed to push the Mirkarimi issue and let the process arrive at the outcome.

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    2. 12:32's post reminds me of when i was a child in the 50's...the adults
      around me we fond of saying "better to be a wino in San Francisco
      than to be the mayor of Oakland!"

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    3. And CW Nevius says "Everybody in San Francisco is a wino"..right Stanley Roberts?

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  2. San Rafael's Note...I don't live in Thee City, as they call it, I live in, as you may have guessed, San Rafael. I still pay a modicum of attention at what political winds are blowing a any given moment. This is sort of an unusual time in The City's history of leadership. Mayor Lee seems more a Worker Mayor instead of a Celebrity Mayor. Usually, the title of San Francisco Mayor is owned by an individual with an outsized ego and personality, such as the colorful, and at turns diabolical Willie Brown. Brown displayed a deep understanding and attachment to games of strategy, both clandestine and purposefully blatant.

    Gavin Newsome was one of the first big city mayors to come out and offer support for gay marriage. I'm sure he did a lot more, but I do recall that as being a nationally noticed risk of leadership. I still do not know the real reason he chose not to run for the Govenorship, maybe he simply did not have enough money or backing by the invisible power brokers. It always seemed to be a case of Gavin Newsome-Career-Interruptus. Something was decided, and to the surprise of many, Newsome accepted this decision. Afterward, all the talk was about Jerry Brown's latest Lazarus trick.

    Ed Lee seems ready to do the work of managing a top tier sort of city. I wish him luck and happiness. Was it not this mayor who got tied up in the case of the newly elected sheriff who almost lost everthing because he grabbed his wife's arm and left a visible mark? Mirkarimi! That was his name. Surely you haven't forgotten that byzantine soap opera. I was somewhat disturbed, a lot disturbed that Mayor Lee went public with information on this case, and allowed his negative view of Mirkarimi's credibility to be widely known to the Bay Area. That to me was amateurish and vindictive. Hopefully Lee will continue to mature in office. At least he dealt forcefully with the Occupier destroyers and illusionists, not like Oakland's Quan.

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  3. I wonder why San Fran people gladly let the 49ers leave the city? What good does that do for revenue producing? Sure, Lee will be rewarded by the 49ers, but the city loses its team.

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  4. Rich, for someone who claims to be a 'news junkie' you are amazingly uninformed.
    "Manhattenization"? That shit started with Mayors Christopher,Shelley and Alioto.
    So Lee hopes to woo the W's from gawd-awful Oakland, is this what it is about?

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  5. I was delighted, actually, to have had the opportunity on the radio several times to point out the nature of Lee's attempted political lynching of Ross Mirkarimi. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence and a sense of local history can see who controls Mr. Lee. Unfortunately most broadcast news these days doesn't dig for anything. It's all headline, an inch deep and no more. ABC 7 did some excellent reporting with their I-team examination of the Ivory Madison text messages etc.....a delightful exception to the current standard of "journalism". Too bad there isn't more to want to watch and hear.

    When and if the Conway/Lee/development cabal builds its highrises aplenty in SF and on TI, they'll be so confused when the big one inevitably hits. Heard some good reporting today on KGO about John Avalos and the flagging funding for the America's Cup. Big warning signs...guess who has to pick up the financial slack? it won't be Ed Lee.

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    1. New buildings are designed with a greater understanding of soil conditions and seismic structure engineering. Common sense leads me to believe that I'd rather be in a new hi rise as opposed to something pre-loma prieta. If your argument is that high density occupancy creates a people management problem during a crisis, that might hold some water.

      Regarding Ross, he got off easy compared to the average Joe and should have been held to a higher standard considering his occupation/office. Lee threw sharp elbows? A media railroad? That's just playing ball. A poll of SF citizens, properly framed or not, had 2/3 responding that Ross should go. Sounds like his PR/political machine(you?) earned their keep considering he's still in office. He's towed a truck load of manure into every office he has held and SF deserves him.

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    2. truck load of manure? every office he has held? He was a supervisor, now the sheriff. To what are you specifically referring? I had never met Ross Mirkarimi until I had him on the radio on Front Street. Are you saying I was hired to do his PR?
      Vis a vis "greater understanding of soil conditions and seismic structure engineering" blah blah, it might assist you to talk with a scientist at USGS or with the state. Did you think the Richter scale defined the limits of seismic activity? Clue: it doesn't. Did you think that contractors and developers could build seismicly safe buildings?..or that they adhere rigorously to the best seismic standards while in construction?(see Bay Bridge scandal stories..Sac bee). For those of us who remember reporting from the collapsed Cypress freeway which squished to death unfortunate drivers, from the Marina and from so many parts of San Francisco which are built on fill which liquified, reality can be startling, to say the least.
      As for your adherence to biased polling, where one can register under several names and post a vote numerous times, your faith is on shaky ground. In any event, one arm grab does not an abuser make. The attempted lynching of Ross Mirkarimi wasn't about the arm grab, it was about the cabal who couldn't control him, and still can't.

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    3. WOW, a person that compares privately funded, underwritten, engineered, developed, and managed/constructed projects to Public work...engineered, overseen by state employees(no accountability, just a clog in the wheel) ,that is then awarded to the lowest bidder...all on the tax payers nickle.

      Get well soon.

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  6. Anyone who complains about "too many buildings" in downtown San Francisco needs to have their head examined.

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  7. This blog feels dead now that Rich is censoring so extensively.

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  8. Development isn't just good for developers. More and higher-quality housing is good for us SF residents too. That's the way economies are supposed to work--people create stuff that other people want. Except in the SF you and so many others want, where the government prohibits anything new from being created, because of some fantasy that the "good old days" were so great.

    The less time Ed Lee spends making regulations to prevent progress in this city, the better.

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    1. And if you'd been here in 1989, you would have wet your pants and gone screaming out of your highrise, adrenal glands a'pumping. You probably think earthquakes are just an urban legend,something limited to the"good old days".

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  9. what's a "nickle"? What's a "clog" in the wheel?

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  10. I can't imagine that private developers would ever bribe building inspectors, can you? Both private developers and government are dangerous,with the private side even more dangerous to the public good.

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  11. Bribe inspectors? We're not(I'm not but you might be) talking about a residential remodeling job with craig's list contractors. Once you get past the sleazy task of zoning and land use, developing a major project is a professional business. Reputations are like virginity, once it's gone... You might want to look into the behind the scenes activity...engineering, specifications, acceptance of materials, inspections/verification, cash flow, etc BEFORE you dig into a position with foolish/subjective opinions.

    Loma Prieta: a vast majority of the casualties can be attributed to poorly designed and built roadways. All the crummy houses and buildings the the metro area, with or without inspections, built on crummy soil, and only a handful of casualties.

    The newer federal building(not private work) in SF is a disaster due to the LEED objectives. I can't comment on the structural integrity without some research, but if I were you, I probably would be.

    Scary bedtime stories about monsters under the bed don't work...but leave it to a person with a legal degree to try.

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