Hi Mike, Starchild, and Nick. Your story, Mike, kind of sounds like the
infamous Kelo eminent domain case in Connecticut. A personal story is
always more interesting to an audience than pure political persuasion.
I did the Delpha Sigma ladies group in the Western Addition tonight on Prop
A. Smaller audience than 2 years ago when the room was packed, but it was
a presidential year, so that was probably a factor. I tried to squeeze too
much into 2 minutes, so the moderator cut me off, but when someone from the
audience asked a question about hurricanes and flooding, I used that
opportunity to read Willie Brown's classic quote, and that seemed to
resonate well. Two people afterwards asked me for a flyer on A, which I
didn't have, but I referred them to the Voters Handbook and our website. I
arrived well before the scheduled time for ballot measures, so I sat and
listened to the various candidates running for local office. It's always
the same old stuff--identity politics and obsession with what group you're
part of--and of course clamoring for more "funding." Apparently CCSF is
running a big deficit again with "Free City," and I heard one candidate for
CCSF College Board say that they needed 2,500 new students to balance their
budget this year and only got 151. Special present for Les: talking about
yet another parcel tax to "Save CCSF," again! A bond for 2019 was also
mentioned too. Carmen Chu spoke after me, and when there was time for
questions, I put her on the spot by asking her what she thought about State
Prop 5 (transfer your Prop 13 property tax savings to another county), and
she talked around the issue and finally said it was a bad idea because it
had a flaw that it didn't limit the number of times a person could move and
still keep their taxes low. She mentioned moving 20 times--like how many
seniors or disabled people move 20 times so they can pay less taxes?! I
would have respected her more if she would have just come right out and
said she objected to the measure because it will mean less money for The
Tax Collector. Also saw Sonja Trauss there on my way in and out and
stopped to say hi, but missed her presentation since it was before I
arrived.
Mike, here are a few tidbits I ran into preparing for tonight's
presentation that you might find useful if you have time:
1. The lawsuit that San Francisco and Oakland filed against 5 major oil
companies trying to get a fund set aside for damage they caused due to
"climate change" mentioned, "Global warming places at risk at least $10
billion of public property within San Francisco and as much as $39 billion
of private property." This is from the lawsuit the cities filed and tells
me that close to 80% of the work is going to protect private property.
That supports Starchild's assertion that this burden should not fall on the
taxpayers in the rest of The City and should be borne by the property
owners who live near the waterfront who should assume the responsibility
because they knew the risk of owning property by water when they bought
there. (Fortunately they lost the case as the judge said they had no proof
of actual damage.)
2. No question of this bond not requiring a tax increase as $13.23 per
$100K of assessed value would mean an extra $132.30 for a minimal million
dollar house. And that's on top of all the parcel taxes passed lately.
This measure does include the 50% pass-on to renters.
3. Interestingly enough, the "seawall" at SFO was so poorly maintained
that the BOS had to authorize an emergency $1.5 million so SFO could do
some quick repairs to it early last year. The US Army Corps of Engineers
issued a scathing criticism of the federal and state officials who oversaw
SFO and noted deferred maintenance and lack of proper inspections. To me,
this sounds like the same situation on the waterfront, and you could draw a
parallel there.
4. The Director of the Port of SF said, "*Early* money in a project like
this is critical." My emphasis, and then you can quote the illustrious
Willie Brown, since these thoughts run together.
5. Steven Reel, the port's project manager said fears that a major break
in the wall could flood downtown are overboard. He noted, "First I want to
say the seawall is not about to fall in the bay." I'm surprised he wasn't
reprimanded for saying such things publicly.
6. Lastly this "project" is already expected to, incredibly, go on for 30
or more years! One op-ed I read by 2 union leaders whose hearts were
aflutter with the thought of thousands of "jobs created" talked about it
being an intergenerational project. I suggested in my presentation that
with The City's budget at $11.5 billion, if it's going to go on that long,
I don't see why they couldn't fund it out of their current operational
budget. If you divide the "estimated" top cost of $5 billion by 30 years,
that's only about $167 million per year, less than 1.5% of the annual
budget. They're always saying that their pet projects are only a small
percentage of the budget, so we should turn this on its head and use the
same reasoning to make the point that an expensive set of bond measures is
unnecessary when a project like this will go on for decades.
Thanks!
Aubrey