By Tim Redmond
The Chron’s piece on the upcoming battle for board of supervisors president was fairly accurate and well-balanced, as far as it went, except for this:
the presidency appears to be guaranteed to a bloc led by the board’s most controversial member, Supervisor Chris Daly.
Daly may or may not be the board’s “most controversial member,” but he clearly isn’t the leader of the progressive bloc. He has his allies — incoming Sup John Avalos used to work for him — but the other three newcomers have other alliances. David Campos ran with the support of Tom Ammiano; Daly backed Eric Quezada. David Chiu is way closer to current Board President Aaron Peskin than to Daly. Eric Mar, former School Board member, is friendly with Daly but also with others on the board and is far too independent to just do what Daly says. And of course, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi isn’t going to follow Daly’s lead.
Daly has made it clear that he shouldn’t and won’t be board president. And with Peskin and Ammiano leaving, there’s no clear “leader” of the “progressive bloc.” That’s why the race will be so interesting.