2011 Endorsements

Email sent with endorsements for the November 8, 2011 San Francisco city elections

Dear fellow SF voters,

To those of you who I just added to this list, let me explain: each year some friends and I sit down and grind through all the things being voted on and come up with our recommendations.  We try to go in with open minds and research, debate, and make jokes about the various candidates and ballot measures.  It takes quite a while - we go through it so that maybe you won't have to.  Or have another opinion in case you were looking for one.

I'm also attaching a little candidate cheat sheet that I put together.  I can tell you that this research was pretty mind-numbing as they all say they will create jobs, fix Muni, improve the schools, blah blah blah.  So what I did is try to list each candidate's top 3-5 issues in the order that they talk about them most, plus list anything that was atypical.  For Sheriff I thought it best to just give a résumé.  There's also endorsement lists and links to their websites if you want to learn more.

Anyway, here's our results, with explanations following:

A: No
B: No
C: Yes
D: Yes
E: Yes
F: No
G: Yes
H: No


Mayor

1: Jeff Adachi
2: John Avalos
3: Dennis Herrera


District Attorney

1: David Onek
2: Sharmin Bock
3: Vu Trinh or Bill Fazio


Sheriff

1: Ross Mirkarimi
2: Paul Miyamoto
3: David Wong



Prop A: $531 million school bond - No

We were torn on this one.  On one hand, of course we want schools to be in good shape. But on the other hand, we really don't think a bond is the way to do it.  Let me explain:

Government should take out a bond when it's doing a big one-time thing like building a highway.  Something where it makes sense to spread the payment out over years because you will be getting years of benefit from it.  Something that is so beneficial that every year you delay having it is benefit lost.

What bonds should definitely NOT be used for is the type of thing that needs to be maintained every year like, say, roads (see Prop B).  Building maintenance is in that vein.  We know politicians would much rather float these bonds than raise taxes or cut something else, but that's really what they have to do.

Oh, and remember that by the time you pay off a bond, you've spent about twice as much on it than it you paid for it up front.  And you've paid that money to people who are bond investors, i.e. more wealthy than not.  (That's right, we're a bunch of progressive hipsters.)  No, we much prefer that taxes are raised so that more money comes from rich people instead of going to them.

Anyway, that's why we voted No on this.  Although it gave us no pleasure to deny the kids anything.



Prop B: $248 million road bond - No

Read the discussion for Prop B.  We think roads are a great example of the kind of thing that should never be paid for with a bond.  Politicians, grow a pair and make us pay for the services we demand.



Prop C and D: Pension reform - Yes and Yes

We've done this before: taken two opposing propositions and voted for both of them, even though their supporters say we should say yes to one and no to the other.

First of all, we give props to Jeff Adachi for bringing pension reform to the forefront. Even if Prop C beats Prop D, he still wins in our book.

Both Prop C and D are steps toward relieving the city of an unsustainable pension burden. There is still more deficit to make up, but these are steps in the right direction.  Prop D goes a little further than Prop C ($1.7 billion vs $1.3 billion over 10 years), which is not surprising considering that Prop C was made in cooperation with police and fire unions.  It's also not surprising that Prop C somewhat protects police and fire from the pension reforms, while throwing every other city worker under the bus (even bus drivers, ironically).  We like that Prop D protests the lowest paid city workers (under $50k) from pension changes.

Then again, some claim that Prop D will get brought down in court if it wins, but we've heard that scare tactic before.  We're going to vote for both and see what happens.



Prop E: Amending voter-approved legislation - Yes

Initially, this seemed like it was giving the Board of Supervisors too much power, letting them take away laws that the public had voted on.  We agreed that after a long time (especially after the board had completely turned over) it didn't seem so bad.

But then we found out that Prop E will not apply to any laws that have been passed previously and will only apply to measures that the board themselves placed on the ballot.  Sounds pretty reasonable to us.

But what REALLY makes us like voting for this is that our old election-pamphlet nemesis, Terence Faulkner, is against it.  We love voting opposite him.



Prop F: Redefine campaign consultant - No

This law would re-define what constitutes a campaign consultant and have them report their activities more often.  OK.

But then if this law passes, apparently the board of supervisors will be free to change the definition in the future without voter approval.  So I guess that's bad.

We were on the fence, but then noticed that for some reason nobody had bothered to file any paid arguments in favor of this proposition.  I guess they just don't care.



Prop G: Maintain current sales tax - Yes

If California sales tax drops because some law expires, this would bump the total tax back up and the money would go to the city.  The money is earmarked for police, fire, nurses - you know, the usual suspects.  We don't like earmarking, but are convinced that sending this money to them would let the city give them a little less from the rest of the budget.

Yes, sales tax isn't just a tax on the wealthy, it also taxes the rest of us poor iPhone-toting schlubs.  But last I checked a new Maserati cost even more, so the rich will still be paying more.  Yes.



Prop H: Local school assignment - No

We were somewhat split on this one.  The progressives in us are all for giving opportunity to people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and Prop H would be a step against that.

But we also noted the plight of an average San Francisco resident that wanted to put their kid into a school and found out they had to go to one of the "bad" schools.  Yes, they are paying an expensive mortgage to live in a good neighborhood, but under the current system they might not get to send their kid to their local "good" school.  That would probably be pretty frustrating.

Really, instead of sending their kid to the "bad" school, they would probably opt out, sending him/her to private school if possible or maybe deciding not to live here in the first place.  Is that going to help the school system - losing those students from a more, shall we say, stable background?

Finally, it really bothered me personally that we just accept that we run some schools that suck and will always suck.  Someone needs to get all Jeff Adachi on this issue.

Anyway, the group voted, and the group voted No.



Mayor

1: Jeff Adachi
2: John Avalos
3: Dennis Herrera


One thing you have to understand about us is that we tend to be progressive.  The other thing is that we really don't like the Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom lineage.  And since Ed Lee is part of that lineage, we aren't voting for him.

Here's another thing about Ed Lee: he has admitted that the reason he decided to run after promising he wouldn't is that he "couldn't resist Willie Brown and Rose Pak." Well, if he couldn't resist their influence to go through the election process, what do you think are the chances that he could resist doing them any number of political favors while in office?  He'd be a puppet.  We like him because he seems like a nice guy, but maybe he's too nice....to them.

What sets Jeff Adachi apart from the other candidates is this pension reform thing.  He saw a problem and he took action.  He doesn't seem full of ambition to us.  If you read all the candidate statements, they all make the same age-old promises: fix Muni, create jobs, yadda yadda.  But only Adachi has taken an issue and really made it happen.  And yes, he wants to fix Muni too.


District Attorney

1: David Onek
2: Sharmin Bock
3: Vu Trinh or Bill Fazio


We simply liked David Onek's positions slightly more than the other candidates, but the other names listed here would also do well for us.

We did not want George Gascon because he's part of the Brown/Newsom political machine. Also, we dont' think he has any business being DA, given his previous career in law enforcement and relative lack of experience in the courtroom.



Sheriff

1: Ross Mirkarimi
2: Paul Miyamoto
3: David Wong


What do Sheriffs do around here, anyway?  Oh, they run the jail.  And a list of other things.

In this race, Paul Miyamoto and David Wong are Sheriff deputies who are working their way up the system.  We respect that.  On the other hand, Ross Mirkarimi is more of a civilian, although he does have experience with law enforcement.

So do you want an insider our an outsider for Sheriff?  Well, retiring Sheriff Mike Hennessey apparently did a good enough job that he was there for decades, and he was an outsider.  He also hand-picked Ross to replace him for that reason.  We're convinced.