San Francisco Diary--Journal Of An Exile

By popular demand from my previous diary entry, the picture shown is the new Federal (non-court) Building at Mission Street. I have personally dubbed it "The Crosley Building," since it closely resembles a 1959 Crosley clock-radio I had in my childhood. About the only difference between them is that my clock-radio actually worked.

In keeping with city and federal nonsense about fabulous "green" buildings, this one includes all the politically-correct refinements. Much of the power for the building comes from solar panels poorly disguised behind a metal latticework trim on the top of the building. Needless to say, that source is grossly insufficient for the needs of the building. Air-conditioning is nearly nonexistent, but you can't just open a window, since most windows don't open at all. It's too hot during the days the sun is out, and too cold when it isn't. And it's always stuffy inside.

The elevators only go to every third floor. This is to help the occupants to get their exercise. If you go to the third floor, for instance, but your office is on the fourth floor, you can walk up a flight of stairs to your floor, or go to the sixth floor and walk down two flights. Clever, huh? But what about those in wheelchairs, you ask? There are two elevators for the differently-abled, and they go to every floor. But you must either be in a wheelchair or be able to prove that you are somehow unable to negotiate the stairs, or tough luck. Big Brother has thought of everything, except how to avoid the bribes the building guards will be getting to allow people onto the special elevators.

There is some planting surrounding the building, with plants that look like they come from Mars, or are located right in the logical path for approaching the building. The metal sculptures scattered around and about the building are beautiful, if you consider piles of barbed wire, slightly rusty, to be beautiful. It's almost as if they went out of their way to create a building that was designed by Rube Goldberg. But at least it's an "honest" building. It is almost as inefficient as the public employees who inhabit it.

NOTE: As I've mentioned before, San Francisco has a huge budget deficit. As I've also mentioned, Mayor Gavin Newsom has given up his dream of becoming governor, and seems to have had a mid-life crisis which drove him to sanity. He is now proposing that city employees have their work-week reduced from the current forty hours per week to 37.5 hours. That may not sound like much of a cut to normal people, particularly during a fiscal crisis, but the result would be huge. In fact, it's a savings of $50 million per year. Why a city of less than 800,000 needs 20,000 full-time city employees (which doesn't include those on the public dole, such as the Muni transport workers who do not work directly for the city) and a $522 million annual budget is entirely beyond my ability to comprehend, but a $50 million annual savings would be a helluva good start.

In our oddball form of city government, the mayor actually has the real power to make that cut without the concurrence of the drunken-sailor Board of Supervisors. Whether he has the political power and will to do so is another question entirely. Needless to say, the grossly overpaid city employees are having none of it. They are demanding that their forty hour guarantees not be touched, and by the way, where are our raises? Those who work in businesses or industries which actually produce revenue understand cutbacks during hard economic times. Public employees, who merely eat public money and produce nothing of value don't understand fiscal discipline. The nine percent temporary cut in hours for city employees would leave them making approximately 20% more than a full-time forty-hour employee in the private sector performing the same or similar work. And that doesn't include paid benefits.

NOTE: The recent ruling by the U.S Supreme Court regarding corporate spending on federal political candidates and campaigns has Senator Barbara "Don't Call Me Madam" Boxer in a tizzy. For the first time since her initial run, she is facing serious Republican opposition and a national trend of conservative-moderate-independent voter dissatisfaction. Candidates for state offices are not affected by the decision, since California has always allowed corporations to participate in state elections. But Boxer (and to a much lesser extent) local candidate Nancy Pelosi will be impacted by the decision. By how much remains to be seen.

Pelosi is a House member, so her district is strictly San Francisco, land of the free-spending and home of the gay. That likely means that her campaign will not be opposed by large corporate spending that would have little effect on the outcome of the election. Boxer, on the other hand, is a statewide federal candidate, and she knows she had better start scrambling. One of her Republican potential future opponents in the general election, Carly Fiorina, is within the margin of error on polls. Tom Campbell, the conservative Republican primary candidate is not within the margin of error, but his numbers keep growing as the anti-government sentiment of the public continues to grow.

Big and medium-size corporations will be watching the primary results very closely. If the Republican candidate has a reasonable chance of winning during California's current desperate financial crisis, they are likely to pour many millions of dollars into the Republican cause. Over the past few decades, even in those races which are not federal, corporations have been hesitant to spend money that ends up thrown down an electoral rat-hole. The recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts have altered that dynamic by quantum numbers.

Even Boxer's own people, on condition of anonymity, have admitted that they haven't experienced anything like this in the past. Labor has expended major resources on her past campaigns, and will likely do so this time as well. But this time, the corporations, sensing possible victory, are the spoiler for her usual walk in the park re-elections. With independents also willing to participate in the rightward drift with their money and time, this general election could actually turn out to be a genuine horse race, with horse's patoot Barbara Boxer coming in second.

NOTE: The San Francisco Police Commission continues to come under fire for its complete uselessness. This time, the controversy revolves around the issue of one Officer Lionel Sevilla. Five years ago, a police review board found that Sevilla had forced a rookie officer to lie about the circumstances in which the rookie failed to follow procedure for cuffing a felony suspect, resulting in the felon escaping from custody. The rookie spilled the beans, and Sevilla was suspended with pay pending the final decision of the Police Commission.

Sevilla was put on "desk duty" in the records room, but the final determination of his employment as a police officer is still in limbo. He is earning $97,000 per year plus paid benefits and retirement at what essentially amounts to being a file-clerk. Both police management and the police union are up in arms about the outrageous delay in a decision. Both are willing to accept the decision, whatever it is, but can't understand what is taking the Commission so long. Five, long, inexplicable years. Are you starting to get a feel for why The City is so far in debt?

NOTE: While the San Francisco School Board continues to run record deficits, just like the rest of The City, it continues to diddle with the ethnic makeup of the public schools. In what is the fourth or fifth revamp of what has been a constant hot-potato, the Board is trying to decide how to make it easier for students to go to school closer to home while maintaining some idealistic "racial balance." The simple idea of "you go to the school closest to your home" is far too logical and cost-efficient even to be considered. This is what is called "the post-racial society."

We must be diverse, and damn the cost. The minority most affected by all this idiocy is the white student population. Most would be perfectly happy going to the school closest to their homes, but that's just not in the cards. The majority students, black, Latino and Asian must be accommodated first. Rather than simply distribute the teachers by whatever demographic and ethnic makeup most benefits the local school, it's much more inefficient, expensive and damaging to play musical schools with the students. The ultimate result is that the only ones who actually benefit are the teachers unions and the top-heavy school administration.

It has taken months, thousands of man-hours, and plenty of money to come up with the latest plan, which is so complicated that nobody could possibly understand it, let alone implement it. It is abundantly clear that the lowest priority of the School Board is education. Diversity and political-correctness, along with social engineering and rabid egalitarianism trump everything. The three Rs have become X, which is to say, unknown.

Note: Speaking of schools, budgets and diversity, The School Board is expected to vote favorably next Tuesday on creating a full-time new position to manage "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning" youth issues into the district's Student Support Services Department. It would also create a whole new bureaucracy to look into "tracking harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation and distributing education packets to parents, encouraging them to discuss the issues of sexuality, gender identity and safety with their children. The staff position will pay $90,000 per year, the materials will cost an estimated $30,000, and the implementation and staff size will be determined later by the lucky person who gets the position. Considering that the entire lesson coming out of that office will be "if it feels good, do it, and the taxpayers will pay for it" I could do the job for half the price.

NOTE: And speaking of gay, it was recently revealed that Judge Vaughn Walker, who is presiding over the Prop 8 gay marriage trial, is gay. Opponents of Prop 8 insist that it's a non-issue. Maybe it is, since I follow these cases carefully, and this is the first time I knew he was gay. Kate Kendell, head of the National Center Rights, says: "There is nothing about Walker as a judge to indicate that his sexual orientation, other than being an interesting factor, will in any way bias his view."

Well, I am not so sure of that, Ms. Kendell. It might explain why the anti-Prop 8 folks had to search California from the Oregon border to the Mexican border to find a judge who saw any merit in the plaintiffs' case sufficient to allow it to go to trial. It might also explain the "questioning" from the judge during the trial which leaned heavily in favor of emphasizing the plaintiffs' arguments.

Ironically, as a private attorney, Walker represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in a successful bid to keep San Francisco's Gay Olympics from infringing on the Olympics name and logo. That has caused him to be very unpopular with local gays who don't understand that a private attorney represents his client's interests, not his own. A judge is supposed to remain neutral, not showing favor to either side. As a private attorney I represented murderers, rapists, police officers, labor unions and company management. That's what I was paid for. As a judge, I labored mightily to remain totally disinterested in the outcome. Walker did the same thing as an attorney. As a judge, not so much.