Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has been doing exactly what Pacific Gas and Electric Co. wants at City Hall, is complaining that some of the supervisors are Bay Guardian puppets.
Campos and Mirkarimi pushed the move after the San Francisco Bay Guardian posted an online editorial about two hours before the meeting that ended with:
Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Campos suggest that the board simply refuse to sign off on any contracts, appropriations, or other approvals for anything the SFPUC does until this contract is completed. That’s a fine idea; they should start today.
Newsom blamed the editorial for Tuesday’s parliamentary moves.
“That happened yesterday. Why? Because at (11:44 a.m.) the San Francisco Bay Guardian … wrote an online op-ed saying that’s what they should do,” Newsom said. “I’ve never seen puppeteering like this is my life.”
I’m glad to know we’re so immensely powerful, cuz man, do I have an agenda. Now that the supervisors are going to do everything we want, I’m going to pull some strings and get maybe $1 billion in new taxes on the rich, to fund free Muni for all, and take over not just PG&E’s sytem but Comcast, too — municipal broadband and cable TV! And a moratorium on all new market rate condos, and a massive bond act to build 10,00 new units of affordable housing … let’s do it! Now!
And as soon as the mayor starts doing what we say, too, it’s all possible!
Now then: Let’s be serious here for a moment. Our editorial simply endorsed an idea that Campos and Mirkarimi were already pushing; they were planning to introduce their measure anyway. We just said it was a good idea. And although I haven’t talked to Mirkarimi today, I know that Campos hadn’t even read the editorial when he went into the board meeting.
Not that the Guardian editorials aren’t brilliant,influential, and important, and I’d like to think that city officials read them and are impressed by the logic and cogency of our arguments, but I’m afraid we can’t take credit for everything good the progressive supervisors do.
And it’s a little odd for a mayor who is clearly doing PG&E’s will to be calling someone else a puppet.