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Originally Posted by a very long weekend
menino and bloomberg? both of those men oversaw visionary changes to their cities, i don't think i need even to list them. our guy here is in way over his head. he sees his main job as being basically not to break things and mostly to preside.
a few things for me stick out:
- very annoyed at his ambivalence on the importance of nightlife in sf, along with his caving to virtually any nimby opposition along the way (his refusal to champion anything even remotely controversial, including his named "legacy" which was the basketball arena under the bay bridge, just jettisoned because he's a coward, especially compared with a wiener or, yes, a leno).
- the disastrous state of muni at this point, even though it has been twice infused with "save muni" cash, and his relationship with the sfmta - not just the sunday parking or polk street or whatever but his management of the file generally, just disinterested and over his head, listening to the wrong people, misinterpreting the data, failing to familiarize himself with state/national/global trends in transit, living in the past. nothing compelling comes out of the mayor's office, it's basically always out of the sfmta itself, planning/parks or the board of supervisors. this guy is a placeholder, a presider during what could be the time for the most innovation here in sf in a hundred years;
- his complete disinterest in several things i care a lot about, including the jettisoned road diet on the great highway, the ridiculous fight for the waterfront for which any mayor worth anything would have fought tooth and nail in the face of the village people, a disinterest in extending the central subway, his ambivalence in the face of virtually any big idea for real transit expansion (where is the fort mason f-line extension? where is the urgency on geary rapid transit?), etc.;
- still annoyed about his refusal to support the public power initiative, which was all set to go but for his blocking it because of pg+e's goons getting their talons in;
- that all major roads stuff not proposed by bureaucrats is coming out of the offices of supervisors because the mayor's office only ever opposes things and doesn't even really consider the file until some high level type puts in on their desk;
- how he refused even to try to get the back taxes from airbnb that they basically admitted they'd be willing to pay in order to get the legislation that they got without the extra penalty;
- just airbnb generally, i'm in the feinstein (she's a u.s. senator here) camp where like rezoning of a whole city seems a bit crazy to me and seems pretty experimental, i'd have preferred mayoral leadership on it instead of leaving chiu to it, seemed utterly botched...
bah, the list goes on. we just have a mayor who doesn't have any vision. in the political science circles, they call it 'institutional capture' or 'bureaucratic capture', where the elected office holder comes to abandon his views as he adopts those of the entrenched interests and bureaucrats. except that lee came out of the bureaucracy and thus is working to bring the lethargy, empire-building, lack of imagination and straight rent-seeking appeals to the mayor's office. i'd vote for wiener in a heartbeat because he'd take the hammer to that with all the management prowess of a lee, leno too if proves right on the issues. we have this lame presider-type mayor who's blowing this boom time economic bonanza now and it drives me crazy.
edit to add: wakame, sf way going to boom no matter what. just like nyc and other cities riding the wave.
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I know it's "off topic", but considering mayoral elections and policy (widely known as part and parcel with SF) impacts real estate in big ways, I do think it's all relevant to occasionally discuss and bring up. That being said, I agree with most of your comments above, but what in God's name makes you think Leno will address your concerns better? Also, while no visionary, and with limited backbone, Lee is pretty hamstrung, politically. He was appointed after all, not elected by the people. We're also in fairly "touchy" times where most politicians who oversee larger, more diverse populations (e.g. mayor, at large supervisors, etc) walk on egg shells in the current climate of change. Perhaps Lee will break out of his cage and stand for stuff and enforce other stuff if he is elected to a 2nd term and doesn't have to worry about reelection.
Just a thought. And maybe Leno is better for business, and for real estate, and for all of your poignant concerns addressed above, but that's not what's been conveyed to me thus far. I was really just asking for your opinion on why Leno's better, not where you think Lee's shortfalls have been. Also, keep in mind that before Menino left office, every developer in Boston rushed to get their projects permitted. I feel that a departing Lee would have the same effect (to the extent regulations such as Prop M don't put the kibosh on things). That's where I got my analogy for Menino.
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