Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Connoisseurs of City Hall politics surely gave the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee meeting five stars on Monday.
There was a woman in a frog hat, allegations of gamesmanship directed at Chairman John Avalos, and dozens of speakers.
Technically the issue was the future of the Sharp Park Golf Course and the frogs and garter snakes that live there. But the behind-the-scenes maneuvering was the real show.
Avalos denied it, but it certainly looked as if he was playing pretty fast and loose to get an ordinance passed that would give the course to the National Park Service, which doesn't have much interest in it. Conspiracy theorists think Avalos was trying to rush this to a vote - the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance called it "the rocket-docket method" - before Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi leaves to become sheriff. They add that the ordinance was transferred from Budget and Finance to City Operations so Avalos could shepherd it through. They also claim that his late revision of the ordinance last week was an attempt to avoid having to do an environmental impact report, which would drag things on beyond Mirkarimi's stay.
But the showmanship may be much ado about nothing. The ordinance will be at the full board today. It will likely get six votes to pass, but not enough to withstand a likely veto by Mayor Ed Lee.
And it will all have been sound and fury that accomplished nothing.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/06/BAN71M8K5K.DTL
Posted by Steve Sinai
Thank you San Franciscans for voting for Ed Lee, hopefully. Here's the Pacifica Patch account.
ReplyDeleteRoster of Members on today's vote at Bd of Supervisor's Roll Call vote:
ReplyDeleteJohn Avalos District 11 John.Avalos@sfgov.org
AYE
David Campos District 9 David.Campos@sfgov.org
AYE
David Chiu District 3 David.Chiu@sfgov.org
AYE
Carmen Chu District 4 Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org
NO
Malia Cohen District 10 Malia.Cohen@sfgov.org
NO
Sean Elsbernd District 7 Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org
NO
Mark Farrell District 2 Mark.Farrell@sfgov.org
AYE
Jane Kim District 6 Jane.Kim@sfgov.org
NO
Eric Mar District 1 Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org
AYE
Ross Mirkarimi District 5 Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org
AYE
Scott Wiener District 8 Scott.Wiener@sfgov.org
NO
As C.W. Nevius has said, "It is a meaningless vote, it will not survive a Mayoral veto or a court challenge...."
From the lips of C.W. Nevius to God's ear.
ReplyDeleteI was at the meeting on Monday and Avalos was calling the speakers up. On the SF cards to speak you have to say whether you are for or againt the agenda item. Avalos called the first 25 speakers that agreed with him until Supervisor Elsbernd called him on playing "gamesmanship" with the speakers. I was there representing the Chamber of Commerce as President to speak for the golf course and finally spoke at 1:30 (2 hours after input began).
ReplyDelete