At Tuesday’s Board meeting, Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier will introduce a resolution to censure Supervisor Chris Daly. Alioto-Pier feels “threatened” by Daly, and argues that he should be sanctioned for using profanity at a hearing. But the District 2 Supervisor once saw Daly as a close ally, and her real problem is that he is exposing her hypocrisy. ##M;[more]##
Soon after she was appointed to the District 2 seat, Michela Alioto-Pier met with Trinity Plaza tenants to discuss legislation to prevent the demolition of their homes. She told the tenants( I was also present) that she had a strong relationship with the measure’s sponsor, Chris Daly, and that she looked to Daly for advice on housing issues.
Daly had twice endorsed Alioto-Pier in her losing races for Secretary of State, and she likely knew him better than anyone else on the Board at the time of her appointment.
At the meeting Alioto-Pier expressed great concern about the tenants’ plight, and said that far too many artists and working families were being forced out of the city. But her support for the tenants was short-lived: after a Newsom aide met with her, she proceeded to vote with the Sangiacomo family against the tenants at every opportunity.
The Trinity Plaza issue marked the beginning of Alioto-Pier’s pattern of speaking about the problems of the vulnerable but then voting against their interests. And the Supervisor who has been the loudest voice in exposing Alioto-Pier’s hypocrisy has been Chris Daly.
Chris Daly is the best example we have today of a young John Burton. Both have championed poor people when it was unpopular to do so, and their passion and commitment occasionally-and in Burton’s case some would say regularly- led to profanity.
John Burton has his own wing in the Hall of Fame of San Francisco progressive politicians. I never heard any Tenderloin resident or low-income tenant complain about Burton using profanity in advocating for their interests.
And please don’t try to convince me that the political side of the Alioto family is a stranger to profanity.
In truth, it is not Daly’s profanity that bothers Alioto-Pier—it is his relentless efforts to remedy injustices and unfairness that politicians and the media prefer to overlook.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty noted at last Tuesday’s Board meeting that Daly “makes us all feel uncomfortable.” Dufty said this as praise, observing that Daly’s position on issues often forces Board members to confront feelings they would prefer not to address.
Chief among these feelings is the recognition that there is something wrong with a system that allows speculators to evict elderly or disabled tenants for quick and easy profit. Even Supervisors who strongly support landlords are uncomfortable with throwing vulnerable tenants on the street so that their units can be converted and sold as condominiums.
It was at the hearing on Supervisor Daly’s legislation to limit condo conversions that Daly engaged in the complained-of profanity. It is certainly no coincidence that Alioto-Pier’s greatest problems with Daly have surrounded her support for landlords against the interests of vulnerable tenants.
At last Tuesday’s Board hearing, Alioto-Pier led the charge against Daly’s legislation. She became so emotionally overwrought during the proceeding that it looked like she was about to cry.
Much of her focus was on narrowing the number of tenants who would qualify as “disabled,” surely an odd charge from the only disabled Supervisor. Alioto was clearly troubled by having to vote on the measure, and clearly blames Daly for putting her under such pressure.
Alioto’s attempt to censure Daly is little different from the Republican Party’s successful impeachment of Bill Clinton. In both cases a political adversary sought to use a “character” issue to demonize and damage their chief political opponent.
Ironically, just as the Clinton impeachment inspired the Democratic base and spawned groups like MoveOn, Alioto-Pier’s attack on Daly has galvanized his base. I don’t think the District Two Supervisor spends much time around Sixth Street or the Tenderloin, but if she did she would quickly learn that Chris Daly is wildly popular in low-income neighborhoods.
In 2002, Daly won over 50% of the vote in a fourteen candidate field. This race saw lines at polls in the inner Tenderloin that are not seen even in presidential election years. In one district precinct heavy with SRO’s, Daly won 80% of the vote.
Whereas Alioto-Pier’s base is the wealthy, politically-influential homeowners of Pacific Heights, Daly loyalists can be found in the 12ft by 12ft rooms without bath along Eddy and Turk Streets. These SRO residents want their Supervisor to raise holy heck at the Board, and Daly has been chastised at a town meeting of SRO tenants for not speaking out enough.
Daly’s followers want a Supervisor who aggressively pushes issues of economic justice, as they’ve been victimized by unfair economic policies their entire lives. They would be mad at Daly if he agreed to stop swearing, seeing him as becoming just another politician who gave in to The Man.
I don’t think Alioto-Pier understands the mentality of the locked-out and the disenfranchised. Instead, she is the quintessential “limousine liberal” who claims to share progressive goals but opposes any means chosen for achieving them.
If Alioto-Pier thinks Daly supporters are going to idly sit by while she plays her game of character assassination against their hero, she is badly mistaken. Tuesday should be a very interesting day at the Board of Supervisors.
Matier & Ross Toss Softballs at Mayor: In Sunday’s Chronicle, the once ferocious duo of Matier & Ross sounded more like mayoral press agents than reporters in their interview of Mayor Newsom. Here’s an example:
Q. This last election, you were labeled a big loser.
A. Well, my appointees won, so from that perspective the headline that Newsom is a Bigtime Loser-I’m not sure that’s necessarily accurate, except for J, K and A, and we got 65% of the vote for A.
Hold on a second. Did Newsom’s appointees win? What about Heather Hiles, who was defeated after being appointed by Newsom to the School Board?
Newsom spent so much time campaigning with Hiles that some thought they were having an affair. He raised a record amount of money for Hiles, but she lost to a non-incumbent who spent relatively little.
But Matier & Ross did not confront the Mayor about his erroneous response. Nor did they ask him why he did not do more to pass the ballot measures he sponsored that all lost.
Are we to be happy that Prop A got 65% of the vote? This isn’t horseshoes, where close counts. We’re talking about an election where everyone knew going in that the affordable housing bond needed 66.7% of the vote, where Newsom promised to lead the campaign for passage, but where for most of the struggle he was largely AWOL.
The Chronicle columnists took a pass on the entire budget issue, not asking the Mayor a single question about his plans to solve the deficit and the city’s strategy for coping with state and federal cuts next year.
But they did ask him about rumors of his divorce, and about his hair.
Matier & Ross got their reputation for feistiness for their tough handling of Mayor’s Agnos and Jordan, and their ongoing criticism of Mayor Brown. But for whatever reason, they’re giving Mayor Newsom a free ride.
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