San Francisco's political royals treat the City like a general partnership, aka, "public private partnership"

Laurence Pelosi, former Executive VP for Acquisitions, Lennar-Southwest, then Mayor Gavin Newsom's campaign treasurer (2003), then Executive VP for Acquisitions Lennar-Bay Area, then Executive VP Finance Morgan Stanley (underwriter of Recurrent Solar). Also Nancy Pelosi's nephew and Gavin Newsom's cousin. Currently an international investment banking exec.

I kept wishing I had time to go downtown to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, during the mayoral succession follies, just to express my absolute disgust with the way San Francisco's political royalty treat the City like its own general partnership, aka, "public private partnership"--i.e., to say this during the public comment that, of course, had absolute zip impact on imperial San Francisco's back room dealing to hold onto the mayor's office.

I kept wishing I had time to go down and say it out loud, even though to no effect, but this blog post will have to do.

Anyone else notice that Laurence Pelosi was a VP in Finance, aka underwriting, at Morgan Stanley when it financed Recurrent Solar, that he and Recurrent Solar's CEO were co-panelists on some garbage panel about how to profit on green tech, at Cal, a month or so before the City handed Recurrent that way overpriced deal to install solar panels on the Sunset Reservoir, justified by Obama stimulus plan tax credits?

Everyone realize that Laurence Pelosi became VP for Acquisitions/Lennar-Bay Area after leaving his post as VP for Acquisitions/Lennar-Southwest to manage Gavin Newsom's campaign treasury?

And BTY, the Labor Council's collaboration in all this in-your-face corruption is just as disgusting.

Also BTY, In October 2006, on the day after Schwarzenegger announced his plans to relieve California's prison overcrowding by outsourcing Califonia prisoners to private, for profit prisons in other states, the PR Newswire reported that the stock of Lennar's stock price had soared in after hours trading because of its investment in the private prison industry. The PR Newswire removed that report from the Web several days later and said they'd made a big mistake with regard to their report on the GEO Group, a private prison corporation also included in the original report, without mentioning Lennar.   

Who'll be mayor when Gavin's gone?

Regarding the selection of the next mayor of San Francisco, Chris Daly told KPFA Weekend News, on Sunday, 11.14, that "what we don't want to see is San Francisco's downtown interests to continue their rule in San Francisco."  

I'd like to see an end to downtown's rule myself, but I'd also like to see an end to South Florida's rule, i.e., that of the South Florida based, multinational Lennar Corporation, with the collaboration of San Francisco's ruling class and their national electeds, whose financial empires, profit thereby. 

The Board meets at San Francisco City Hall tomorrow.   Starting at 4:00 P.M., it will consider items 45 and 46:

45.  Board of Supervisors Sitting as a Committee of the Whole (Pursuant to approval of Item No. 55, File No. 101404)
[Public Hearing - Appointing a Successor Mayor]  Sponsors: Avalos; Campos and Daly  


Hearing to consider the motion to take nominations and appoint a successor Mayor in the event of a vacancy in the Office of the Mayor. 
Question: Shall this Hearing be HEARD AT PUBLIC HEARING?   (YES.)


46.  Committee of the Whole Adjourn and Report
[Appointing a Successor Mayor]  Sponsors: Avalos; Campos and Daly  Motion to take nominations and appoint a successor Mayor in the event of a vacancy in the Office of the Mayor. 
Question: Shall this Motion be APPROVED?  (YES.)

As Chris Daly pointed out, in this KPFA News, "It's unclear right now . . . where the votes are."   I.e., members of the current Board, who'll get to vote, are talking to one another, and those who don't get to vote, but have access to those who do, are no doubt talking to them too.   


Supervisors are likely to vote as they think those who helped to elect them, and may help to elect them again, want them to vote.   

Be there or be colonized.   --Ann Garrison

KPFA Weekend News transcript re San Francisco's mayoral succession:

KPFA/Anthony Fest:
Turning now to Bay Area News, earlier this week Oakland City Council member Jean Quan was declared the winner of the Oakland mayor's race.  She'll become the first woman and the first Asian American to be elected Mayor of Oakland.

San Francisco will soon have a new mayor, although the office was not on this month's ballot, but incumbent Mayor Gavin Newsom won the race for Lieutenant Governor, and will resign as mayor once he's sworn into the statewide office.   Newsom's impending resignation has touched off widespread media speculation about who the next mayor will be.  It's the cover story of this week's Bay Guardian and also has been heavily covered by San Francisco Chronicle political columnists.  If the Board of Supervisors takes no action, Board Chair David Chiu will become Acting Mayor.  However, by majority vote, the Board could choose an interim mayor to serve out the remaining year of Newsom's term.

Current State Assembly Member and former mayoral candidate Tom Ammiano is considered the only prospect who could win a majority vote of the Supervisors, but Ammiano has said he wants to stay in his present job.

The Board will begin discussion of the issue at its meeting this coming Tuesday.  Supervisor Chris Daly told KPFA he hopes the City will finally get a mayor from the progressive wing of San Francisco politics, and he says he also thinks it important that the choice take place as a public debate.

San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly: 
Hopefully we'll see dozens if not hundreds of folks who care about San Francisco, who care about progressive politics and what is to become of the Mayor's office in San Francisco, say that 'Hey, we do need a very public process, that the discussion needs to happen with full sunshine, sooner rather than later.  And that what we don't want to see is downtown interests to continue their rule in San Francisco.'

KPFA/Anthony Fest:
So do you anticipate taking up nominations on     Tuesday?

Supervisor Chris Daly:
It's unclear right now, y'know, where the votes are.  I think that it's safe to say that there isn't any individual name at the moment who is likely to emerge at the moment, with the appointment, as successor mayor on Tuesday.  But that may be a good thing.

Hopefully we can have a more robust discussion on Tuesday, and maybe that can continue, but, at a certain point, it would be nice if the next Mayor of San Francisco had at least a few weeks,

KPFA/Anthony Fest:
San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly; his essay about the mayor succession can be read at FogCityJournal.com, http://goo.gl/NCZEe.

The Board of Supervisors will meet this coming Tuesday at City Hall.  The regular meeting begins at 2:00 P.M. and the mayoral succession issue will be addressed at 4:00 o'clock.

Open letter to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, on the City's commitment to the U.S.A.'s perpetual war on people and the planet

San Francisco Board of Supervisors

 
On October 9th, 2009, the  Blue Angels FA-18 jet fighter bombers flew past my window, in San Francisco, in diamond point formation, at close to the speed of sound, with about 3,000 gallons of kerosene based jet fuel on board.  

The FA-18s are wired to drop B-61 nuclear warheads, from their wingtips, though, so far as I know there were none attached this year. I nevertheless remembered 2007, when nuclear warheads were “accidentally” attached to the wingtips of a B-52, at the Minot, North Dakota, Air Force Base, unbeknownst to the pilot, who then flew the B-52 across the heartland to the Barksdale, Louisiana Air Force Base without knowing that he could have dropped nuclear warheads on Iowa, or other parts between. 

Flying with nuclear warheads attached to the wing tips is a practice called “airborne alert” which ended after one of our B-52s flying in airborne alert crashed in Greenland in 1968, but, it was accidentally revived in 2007.  Greenland, which was a colony of Denmark at the time, later sued Denmark for not protecting them---from us, the U.S.A.                                           

I now seem to be San Francisco's lay expert on the history, culture, technology, and official procedure that brings the annual Blue Angels military recruitment fest to San Francisco.  This year I finally learned that there was a Blue Angels TV drama series, starring Dennis Cross and Don Gordon, filmed with the cooperation of the Navy, and aired in syndication from September 26, 1960 to July 3, 1961.  

So, shortly after four Angels roared past my window, KPFA Radio News called me and Laura Magnani of the American Friends Service Committee's Bay Area office, after which I made this little video, posted it to the Youtube, and sent it to all of you, San Francisco Supervisors, and to Mayor Newsom, though I have yet to receive any indication that any of you watched it:

After I talked to KPFA News, I called Mayor Newsom's office, for the fifth time this year, to ask who had requested this year's Blue Angels Air Show, and he said---through his press office-- that you had: the government of the City and County of San Francisco, which includes you. 

In 2007, Mayor Newsom was proud to say that he had requested them; in 2008, he claimed that the Port Commission had, and that he therefore had nothing to do with it; and, in 2009, this year, he—through his press office--claimed that the government of the City and County of San Francisco, including you, requested it.

The Blue Angels recruitment drive doesn't come unless you request it. That's official procedure. Dianne Feinstein requested it in 1981, eight years after the end of the draft, six years after the end of the Vietnam War, and three years after the assassination of Harvey Milk.

So, officially, you, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, joined the mayor in requesting the 2009 military recruitment drive, tacitly or no. 

If, for any reason, you'd like to cancel the 2010 request already submitted at the end of September, all you have to do is write a letter to Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter. , preferably before the end of December, but anytime between now and next October.  Blue Angels Air Shows are often canceled, for many reasons.  The mayor can request the Blue Angels, but you can tell the Secretary of the Navy that you, the Board of Supervisors, would rather not host them in 2010.

Even if the Mayor requested it in your name, you could write a letter to the Secretary of the Navy saying that you'd like to cancel the request. There is nothing in the San Francisco City Charter that says who has the power to request or cancel a Blue Angels recruitment drive. So, the Mayor can request it, and you can write a letter saying that you'd like to cancel it.

It's not a legal issue; it's a cultural issue; it's about the culture of militarism, or peace.  Three entities---the Mayor, the Board, and the voters are legally constituted to express San Francisco's culture, by requesting or canceling the 2010 recruitment drive.   


But, all three have requested it, even if only tacitly, by allowing the mayor to request it, since 1981.