A recent news item highlights the insanity of what the taxpayers are paying for when we employ the police. The police are supposed to be paid to protect life and property, but the sheer number of ridiculous laws gives the police the discretion and power to enforce those ordinances they choose to enforce since no government, save a 100% police state, can possibly enforce all the laws on the books.
A few months ago, we started planning our annual panel discussion, which we usually hold sometime in April to coincide with Tax Day. Early on we decided it would be on Sanctuary Cities, a nice meaty and timely topic. We expected that in a well-known Sanctuary City like San Francisco, it would be a cinch to locate a prominent proponent and we would be hard-pressed to find any prominent person to take the contrarian position publicly in a panel. But a funny thing happened on the way to organizing this panel: we could not secure even one prominent politician, public official, or journalist willing to defend their public stance in a serious, balanced panel discussion on the issue.
This April marked the annual Libertarian Party of California convention, which this year was held close to home for us-- at the Marriot hotel in Santa Clara. Over the weekend, over 80 delegates plus many others met to hear reports from our elected officials, discuss and vote on revisions to the party platform and bylaws, and hear from influential speakers.
Is there no limit to the hypocrisy spouted by our local politicians? Did you read about the recent resolutions introduced by Supervisor Aaron Peskin at both the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), which he chairs, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors calling on state legislators to give government officials the right to review the confidential business data of Uber and Lyft? The reason for this nosiness is because the rideshare companies are allegedly causing traffic congestion in The City.
As we approach Tax Day, when millions of taxpayers deal with our convoluted tax laws, many San Francisco parents have more than taxes on their minds. This is the time of year when the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) mails out the school assignment letters to anxious parents awaiting the results of the government school lottery system. Many a hope realized or dashed rests on that single envelope received in the mail from the school district. This is not just an esoteric issue, but one that strikes at the core of things—the family budget. If the parents are lucky and get assigned to one of their schools of choice, they will save anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 per year per child if they send their children to government schools.
This past Valentine’s Day, while most people were busy sending valentines, flowers, and chocolates to their loved ones, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors were dreaming about what they love the most—more taxes. Seven of the eleven supervisors (Peskin, Fewer, Ronen, Kim, Yee, Safai, and Cohen) voted for Resolution No.
City Hall, aka "The Man", never had the warmest relationship with the hippies who were questioning their authority, violating their rules, etc., and this fact was demonstrated again yesterday. Political appointees on SF's Recreation and Parks Commission backed the decision of department staff to deny a permit to a promoter seeking to hold a free festival in Golden Gate Park to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the legendary "Summer of Love", the 1967 apex in San Francisco of the mid-1960s to early 1970s countercultural revolution.
Do you ever wonder what sets legislators’ hearts aflutter? Is it a desire to pander to where the most votes are? Do they really believe that passing more laws and mandates will improve the lot of the masses? Do they ever consider that their constant attempts to “help” will actually backfire and hurt those who are supposed to be helped the most? Do they really believe that force—backed by the heavy hand of government—will make this a more civil society?
Like the blob, beware the rollout of CleanPowerSF (CPSF)! It’s coming to your neighborhood soon. Recently service was rolled out to 7,400 commercial customers in the Bayview, Haight, and Castro neighborhoods, and they just added in residents in districts 5 and 8. There is another major rollout planned for this spring.
Cronyism is alive and well in San Francisco. Fourteen months have passed since San Francisco voters passed Prop J, the establishment of a Legacy Business Historic Preservation Fund. This is a government-sponsored and financial grant (giveaway) program cooked up by then-Supervisor David Campos to “help” San Francisco businesses keep their doors open with the high cost of doing business in The City. We recently checked the San Francisco Office of Small Business website, which lists all the companies that have been approved for “Legacy” status, and already 64 businesses qualify for the grant program. The bureaucrats certainly wasted no time acting like Santa Claus.