Prop W [1 Attachment]

Activists List
1

Hi Aubrey,

I went over this again to see if there was anything to trim to cut back on cost....but really didn't see anything. I appreciate Marcy's suggestion about "Stop the Madness" but for the extra few bucks, it seems a good slap in SF's collective face and worth the price of admission. Happy to consider something else if anyone has anything punchier. And to be honest, I wouldn't mind having my name attached to it so if removing "Stop the Madness" gives us room for my name, that would suit me just fine. But it's your call.

Let me know if you need any help down at City Hall tomorrow. I'll be happy to join you.

Michael

2

Hi Mike

I like your argument. Although I am guilty of a lot, I was not the one who said anything about "Stop the Madness". I saw that comment, but cannot recall from whom.

Marcy

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I’m dropping off a friend at work at 930 and can come over right after. Call me whenever and I’ll meet you to sign. 415-608-0269.

Mike

4

I continue to feel we need to balance our paid and unpaid economic freedom arguments in the Voter Handbook with some paid civil liberties arguments. I'm happy to write concise arguments in support of Prop. G (police reform) and against Prop. Q (prohibiting tents on sidewalks). We should avoid coming across to SF voters like conservatives, focused only on opposing taxes and not caring about civil rights and civil liberties.

Love & Liberty,
                                ((( starchild )))

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Sorry Marcy....just another senior moment. Smile.

Mike

6

Hi All. Just a short report tonight (for a change). As agreed upon by the majority, B, V, and W were submitted as paid arguments at the Department of Elections yesterday, along with the A rebuttal. What a commotion there--I was there 3 hours. They set up a whole system with "stations" to streamline the whole process but only had 1 or 2 folks at the most at the final station inside the office to accept the actual paperwork, so it was hopelessly bottlenecked. At times it was like an accident on the freeway--the final line just wasn't moving at all. Even the leftists were complaining! I did see some familiar faces--Mike Denny (thanks for schlepping down), Terrance Faulkner, Avalos, Gollinger, Howard Wong--but mostly unfamiliar folks of the young ilk. I'm sure they were there submitting paid arguments for more government, definitely not less. Being there that many hours, you do get into interesting conversations with those in line closest to you. On my right, I had one of the tree people supporting E, and on my left a guy from a Haight-Asbury group opposed to Q (prohibiting tents on public sidewalks). We had some interesting discussions during the long wait. The tree guy had been in Cuba recently and had interesting thoughts about his experience there--he felt it was probably the US embargo that caused the revolution to fail there but conceded that when they ate out, the "private" restaurants were awesome but the state restaurants were lousy.

Did speak to Howard Wong about the pre-empting business. He said that you can never be sure what these supervisors might do, so he decided to submit against J (Funding for Homelessness & Transportation) & K (Sales Tax Increase) just in case--and thank goodness he did. He did say that he knew Peskin did try to submit some paperwork and had a problem with it, so possibly that could explain B, but I doubt it because the DOE guy on Friday definitely said that Peskin did not submit an argument. Never did hear back from Peskin, so I think his silence indicates hanky panky shame--or he's still trying to think up a good excuse. Regardless, I did not get a chance to visit the Ethics Commission because it was so late, but I have to go back to the DOE this morning and bring another check since The Bottleneck Manager gave me the wrong amount and I only had one check with me. Will swing by the Ethics Commission since it's close by and see what can be done about the Peskin shenanigan. Will update tomorrow.

Thanks!
Aubrey

P.S. By the way, Mike Denny said that Sarosh will contribute to half of the NO on W argument, so thanks to Sarosh!

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Thank you, Aubrey. Your Herculean efforts are very much appreciated.

Humble comment: if the DOE accepted Howard's argument, sounds like you were right when you said the DOE just plum bluffed us into not submitting our argument. Sounds like that's what Peskin was counting on, but that's guessing.

Marcy

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Hi All. Just a really short one this time. I turned in the second check
at the DOE yesterday, and I still think the amount was wrong this time, but
I did point it out ("Ned Stark") and the Mr. Know It All in charge didn't
want to hear any objections, so I'm pretty sure we underpaid on Prop V, but
I think the County of San Francisco with its almost $10 billion budget will
survive with a few sheckels less.

Then I went over to the SF Ethics Commission to talk to the folks there.
They were pleasant enough but a total waste of time. Apparently the Ethics
people aren't really that interested in real ethical problems--and if this
wasn't one, then I'll eat my hat. The lady I had the conversation with was
totally sympathetic to what happened to us, but she basically told me that
the commission has no jurisdiction in a case like this. They mostly work
on things like if you didn't file the correct paperwork or folks at City
Hall voting when there's a conflict of interest and stuff like that. She
pushed it back to the Department of Elections, but I had already spoken to
Gregory (Know It All) there the day after the lottery, and he already told
me that Peskin broke no law as long as he didn't sign the obligatory
paperwork certifying that you're not opposing when you're really a
proponent and vice versa (the Gollinger incident is now part of the
required paperwork). Since Peskin didn't submit anything, we know he
didn't sign anything that might get him in trouble. She recommended a good
letter to the DOE to change their procedure for future elections, which
makes good horse sense. So, in the end, this is just another useless
government club that is no help when you need help. What was I thinking
when I thought they might actually be helpful? I must have been on drugs!

OK, so now it's time for action, and by the way I never did hear back from
Peskin, so after all this time, I think it's safe to assume that he will
not bother to answer for anything. I will write the Department of
Elections a letter regarding the incident and request that the procedure be
changed for future elections so that there's a real deadline for
pre-empters to withdraw a pre-emption so the public has advance notice that
there's an opening. I think it's going to look really weird in the Voters
Handbook on B that all the voters will see on the first 2 pages of
arguments is a proponent argument for B, no rebuttal, and no opposing
argument or rebuttal on the adjoining page. We know now that was by
design. Hopefully the voters will turn the page and see Les' sound
argument against and at least read it.

I'm also going to fire off an email to Michael Howerton (Editorial VP) and
Laura Dudnick (City Editor) at the Examiner about the incident and ask them
to investigate. Marcy and I met with them last year in an interview about
the ballot measures, and they seemed genuine enough, though the Examiner's
final recommendations for the election were completely the opposite on
almost everything. Let's see if they are interested in pursuing what is
obviously a dirty political trick.

Les, I think it's OK to fire off your letter to the editor and whatever
else you were working on now that we know the Ethics folks are useless.
Also anyone else who is outraged--let's make a big stink!

Thanks!
Aubrey

P.S. Thanks, Francoise, for dropping off the door hangers. You must have
earned your wings by now!

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Yes Aubrey….what were you thinking? It must have been the drugs. Smile.

In the past I’ve found that the Dept of Elections is pretty committed to doing the right thing. So appealing to a rule change is probably a good idea that might bear some fruit going forward. In the meantime it seems our policy should be to ignore these preemptions for issues we feel strongly about and submit anyways.

You and Les might try to contact the Chronicle too…..don’t know if any of these are the right political news contacts anymore as I don’t read it….but here’s what I have.

Carla Marinucci cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com<mailto:cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com>
Debra Saunders dsaunders@sfchronicle.com<mailto:dsaunders@sfchronicle.com>
John Wildermuth jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com<mailto:jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com>

Good luck….

Mike

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Thank you Aubrey! Sounds like the Ethics Commission has an interesting view of "ethics". I'll say something on FB etc

Marcy