I strongly supported the measure that mandates that the mayor of San Francisco appear before the supervisors once a month to take questions. But the rules adopted by the board — with waaay too much consultation between Mayor Ed Lee and Board president David Chiu — have turned this great idea into a farce.
The supervisors have to submit questions in writing a week in advance. The mayor in essence stands there and reads pre-written answers. Aaron Peskin, one of the backers of question time, sent a text to Sup. Chiu’s office during the April 12th board meeting and made the point:
“Your idiotic question time rules have led 2 an absurd charade of folks reading (poorly) 2 eachother. What a joke.”
It’s embarassing. The board needs to rewrite the rules, now, and allow some actual interchange and debate, which is what the whole thing was supposed to be about in the first place.