Goodbye from Steve Sims

The previous two weeks have been a time of change and opportunity. Last week I graduated from college, and the week before that I had finals.

Last Thursday I moved from Berkeley to Hayward; I went to job interviews during finals week and even during the week of my graduation. Believe it or not, I landed a job only a few hours after I was handed my diploma.

In a few weeks, I’ll be working in public relations for a small software company that designs iPhone apps. Until then, I’ll spend my time fishing at the rock wall in Alameda, spend time with my family in the Bay Area, and visit my sister and her husband in Los Angeles.

OurNextMayor strives to provoke thought and inspire debate. so blog will continue but with a different author.

- Steve

Is Edwin Lee running for mayor?

No.

Why not?

A Chronicle article posted today listed a few reasons, namely that Lee would have trouble getting back his job as city administrator if he runs and loses.

We like to think that politicians don’t run solely for political reasons. It’s almost cliché to say that you’re not running because of your wife, family, or kids, but personal, real-life reasons are often a legitimate reason for not running.

Plus, actual campaigning is backbreaking: From April (or earlier) till November, mayoral candidates work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If he does change his mind, I think Lee will have as good of a shot as any of the other frontrunners, but running for office just isn’t worth it if you’re up against seven or eight people.

Value-driven policy

“A budget is not simply a lot of numbers and figures. It is also a policy statement.”

I’ve been thinking about quote this for a while, since Leland Yee said it in the May 4th debate.

Literally, it means that the budget, a specific piece of legislation that allocates city funds, states the city’s policy, but I think deeper meaning can be derived from it: The budget, or any piece of public policy, is driven by values, by what we believe in.

When I rewatched the debate, I got the impression that Yee agrees with this extrapolation because he uses moral arguments to argue against certain budget cuts. Why shouldn’t Schwarzenegger have cut funding for domestic violent programs? Because it’s wrong. Why shouldn’t we cut education? Because it’s wrong. Why shouldn’t we cut mental health services? Because it’s wrong.

Public policy comes down to right and wrong. Right and wrong is a very powerful and simple argument that can easily sway voters, and our public policies should be reflective of what’s right and what’s wrong.

Consider this example: Does requiring restaurants to prepare food in a sanitary way infringe upon my freedom to run my restaurant as I please more than it infringes upon your freedom to eat safe food?

Our values are reflected in our policies, and how we fund those policies is reflected in the budget. We don’t fund health inspectors if our values are such that the restaurant owner’s freedom to run her restaurant as she pleases trumps everyone else’s freedom to eat safe food.

By funding health inspectors in the budget, we state that it is our policy in San Francisco to ensure that people have the freedom to eat safe food.

The funding of health inspectors is not just a policy in and of itself. Funding health inspectors is also a statement of our values, and our policies help us realize those values.

Debate video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAOZEjNTW2s

Alex Tourk resigns from Herrera’s campaign

According to documents he filed with the SF Ethics Department, Alex Tourk was paid by third parties to lobby Dennis Herrera four times since late August.

San Francisco law prohibits campaign consultants from lobbying clients, but Tourk worked for Herrera in 2009 and until today worked on his 2011 mayoral race.

In his own defense, Tourk said “my firm and I have done nothing wrong” and that he resigned because the accusations were becoming a distraction to Herrera’s mayoral campaign.

Most campaign workers in San Francisco end up working on things that are outside of their official job title. Plus, due to his experience and background with Herrera, Tourk almost certainly wasn’t working solely as Herrera’s field manager. Tourk probably won’t be able to fulfill any unofficial role as an adviser or strategist to the campaign, nor will his consulting firm be able to do any work on it; this could hurt Herrera’s campaign more than losing his field manager will.

Beyond that, I don’t think this will hurt Herrera much.

How? The anti-corruption candidate had to fire one of his staff in a corruption scandal!

Remember when Obama hired a lobbyist to run his New Hampshire primary in 2008? Obama had already built up an image as an anti-corruption candidate, like Herrera has done as DA. There were a few stories about Obama hiring a lobbyist, but most people still saw him as a clean government candidate.

When I was doing research for the candidate introduction about Herrera, I was surprised to see how much positive press coverage he got exposing fraud and punishing wrong-dooers, like illegal waste dumpers and con-men.

I think this will blow over because Herrera’s gotten mostly good coverage during the past decade and has built up a narrative as an anti-corruption, clean government guy.

One or two scandals that don’t get a lot of coverage and don’t snowball don’t usually ruin a candidate’s image. Stories by themselves don’t really stick, narratives do, so Herrera will only in a lot of trouble if this story is repeated for a while or if he gets into a few more corruption scandals that get decent coverage.

First mayoral debate is tomorrow!

There’s going to be a mayoral debate tomorrow at USF’s McLaren Conference Center from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. I’ll be there, and all of the major candidates will be there. I’m gonna get footage of the debate and post it on Our Next Mayor. The overarching theme of the debate will be “service” (as in serving one’s community, working toward the greater good) and questions will be asked by high school students involved with service organizations.

Debate info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217214648305092

Candidate Introduction: Dennis Herrera

I remember City Attorney Dennis Herrera for challenging Prop 8 in court, but he’s done a lot more than that. This year, Herrera sued a con artist for fraud and minimum wage violations, and in February announced plans to sue two companies for illegal dumping at Hunters Point.

Herrera got his B.A. at Villanova University, a large Catholic school in Pennsylvania. He then got his law degree at George Washington University. In 1989, he served as a Deputy City Attorney for San Francisco. In the 1990’s, he practiced mostly maritime law, including being the Chief of Staff for the U.S. Maritime Administration and later returning to San Francisco to enter private practice as a partner at a maritime law firm.

Herrera has two big advantages in the race: Name recognition and money. As of Monday, Herrera received a total of $423,000 in public funds from the City, compared to Dufty’s $452,000 and Yee’s $246,000. He’s gotten plenty of media coverage during the ten years that he’s been City Attorney.

herreraformayor.com

Candidate Introduction: Leland Yee

Leland Yee is a State Senator, former Assemblyman, and former supervisor whose Senate district covers western San Francisco. In the state Assembly, Yee was the second-highest ranking Democrat.

Originally from China, Yee immigrated to the United States when he was three years old. He graduated from Mission High and got his bachelor’s at UC Berkeley, and later got a Ph.D in Child Psychology from the University of Hawai’i.

Before entering politics, Yee worked as a therapist at the Mental Health Department of San Francisco, the Oakland Unified School District, and with a non-profit provides care for low-income people.

For his 2010 Senate re-election campaign, Yee raised over $1.1 million, which he can transfer to his 2011 mayoral campaign; as of February, he raised $170,000 specifically for his 2011 campaign. Last year, Yee wrote SB 1391, which would have closed corporate tax loopholes.

In February, Lee caught flak from animal welfare activists and others when he opposed a ban on shark fin soup. He said that the ban was an attack on Asian culture, and pointless because “Costco sells shark meat. So those sharks that come in – what are you going to do with that fin?”

lelandyee.com

The Tea Party Mayor of San Francisco

I initially didn’t think former supervisor Tony Hall was a serious candidate. Why?

He spoke at a Tea Party rally and is running for mayor of San Francisco.

That’s right, Tony Hall spoke at a Tea Party rally, and is running for mayor of San Francisco.

The Tea Party is a group of wealthy, right-wing political activists that are closely associated with the Republican Party. Much of their funding comes from the health insurance industry and the Koch brothers, the same Kansas oilmen who tried to pass Prop 23 last year (Prop 23 would have suspended California’s anti-pollution laws).

The only thing Hall could conceivably say to excuse his appearance is that he was there to stand up to the Tea Party, but that’s not gonna sell. He probably got voracious applause from the conservative crowd when he said “We need to bring America back to San Francisco, and San Francisco back to America.”

So what made me change my mind? How can Tony Hall possibly be a major candidate if he spoke at a right-wing rally?

For one thing, his appearance shows that he’s willing to speak to anyone, which is almost always a plus for a politician.

But my main reason is that the ranked choice system could easily cause the mainstream vote to scatter among the other seven viable candidates. Under the old two-round system, if Hall were to get second place he would be easily eliminated in the second round, since most of the city’s non-Republicans would vote for whichever Democrat is on the ballot. Obama got 84% of the vote in San Francisco in 2008, do whoever would face Hall heads-up would be a shoe-in.

I’m not saying Hall’s extremely likely to win (in a way, none of the candidates are more than 50% likely to win, since there’s so many of them), but it’s a reasonable possibility that locking the Republican first-rank vote will give him the election. Since wealthier and better-educated people tend to vote more in non-Presidential elections, Hall could easily get more than the 16% that McCain got in 2008.

Let’s say he gets 23% of the total first-rank vote, more than any of the other seven major candidates. Depending on how voters rank their second- and third-place votes, a lot of votes could get exhausted, or won’t be counted when there’s only two candidates left. Maybe half of the ballots get exhausted before the final round (if you don’t know how rank choice voting works, read this article).

Under this scenario, if the other candidates’ ranked votes scatter amongst themselves (so no candidate picks up many votes after each time a candidate is eliminated) then they might not have picked up enough second- and third-rank votes to overcome Tony Hall’s 23% and win the election.

If that happens, a Tea Party longshot becomes the next mayor of San Francisco.

Candidate Introduction: Michela Alioto-Pier

About six months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Michela Alioto-Pier at a banquet. We only spoke briefly, but I was struck by how polite she was. When she spoke to the entire banquet, she was direct and to the point. She didn’t step on any toes, but she didn’t try to avoid stepping on any, so to speak, since her natural directness and politeness synthesized into a clear and straight-forward speech.

Michela Alioto-Pier is a moderate former district 2 supervisor. One of her grandfathers, Joseph Alioto, was mayor from 1968 to 1976. Another grandfather was a San Francisco Port Commissioner, and her aunt Angela Alioto was President of the Board of Supervisors during much of the 1990’s.

During her teenage years, Alioto advocated for disability rights, being appointed by Ronald Reagan to the President’s National Council on Disabilities Advisory Board. She was later a delegate to the United States-Japan Summit Conference on Disabilities.

After graduating from UCLA, Alioto served as an aide to Al Gore. When she was 28, she ran for Congress for a district along the coast that stretched from Napa to the Oregon border. In 2004, Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed her to the Board of Supervisors, a position she held till getting termed out last year.

In 2010, she campaigned against Propositions J and N, believing that the tax increases would force businesses out of San Francisco. She has strong support within San Francisco’s business community, and while supervisor worked to make City Hall more accessible to the physically disabled.

michelaformayor.com

Candidate Introduction: Joanna Rees

Groomed to be a businesswoman from the cradle, Joanna Rees took over her family’s hotel business shortly after getting her MBA from Columbia. In 1993, she sold the family hotel business and moved to San Francisco to start Eric Restaurant with Eric Gallanter, her husband at the time.

In 1996, Rees founded VSP Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, and today works as VSP’s managing director. A self-described “progressive independent”, Rees is the only mayoral candidate with no prior political office. But that hasn’t stopped her from utilizing her connections in the financial industry to raise money for her campaign.

As of February, she had raised over $150,000, of which $30,000 came from the financial and banking industries. City campaign finance laws prohibit corporate contributions but corporate executive can contribute money to campaigns as long as they don’t go over the cap, which is usually $500.

Rees also received $500 from Jennifer Newsom (Gavin’s wife) and another $500 from Hillary Newsom, the President of Plumpjack. The Mariucci family gave her another $1000.

joinjoanna.com