Umbrage and Prop. A

It's as if the Examiner is daring me to take it on. So, here I am, one insignificant individual and I will dare take on San Francisco's Proposition A, full legal text is available here.

Prop. A asks for approval to issue $185 million in bonds to cover the costs of construction, reconstruction or improvement of 12 of the playgrounds located throughout the city, as well as 9 waterfront parks, and other upkeep. Additionally, it allows landlords to pass through 50% of whatever tax increase the city determines is necessary to meet its payment obligations to pay off the bonds onto its tenants (at least those residential tenants under Chapter 37, whatever that means). I should note that in the voter guide, the city controller could not outline what or how much that tax may be, noting that "the actual tax rate and the years in which such rates are applicable may vary." Heck, it doesn't even propose a schedule to pay off the bonds. In other words, who knows how much it will all cost in the long run.

Also, it will fund an oversight committee to oversee the expenditures and progress.

So, you may ask, what's the big deal? Think of the children and the quality of life that parks bring to neighborhoods.

Yes, indeed, all of that is good. What I am opposed to is that this whole bond mess is even necessary. As noted in the Examiner article, the previous playground upkeep bond that passed in 2000 was a mess and did not accomplish its goals. Even with the institution of this oversight committee, what is there to ensure that the committee abides by the rules of the bond, that this isn't another well intentioned bond proposal that goes awry by special interests?

Further, the text notes that in a 2007 Capital Plan adopted by the city, it outlined several areas that needed to be addressed by the city to upgrade facilities throughout the city. So, instead of weeding through the budget to find programs that can be cut, to make park clean up fit within a budget process, the city instead opts for a bond measure. If the city really wanted to upgrade the parks, it could find a better way through the budget, than through a bond measure.

I don't want crumbling and unsafe playgrounds, I don't want unkept walkways along the waterfront; I want everything the bond proposes to accomplish. But I want government accountability too. I want to make sure that the city isn't wasting current tax funds on wasteful projects, when that money could already be used towards upgrading our playgrounds and parks. Admittedly, I probably could have chosen a better bond measure to take this public stand (although I did vote no in the last election on the library bonds proposition for accountability reasons), because who will deny money to fix playgrounds. I certainly do not want to, but when the city (continually) decides that it will be easier to simply float some bonds, raise property taxes to presumably pay off those bonds sometime in the future, and not through their budget process, then I have to say something.

Therefore, I recommend a No on Prop. A.

What makes this even more interesting is a recent article in the Chronicle that notes that Ess Eff may not even have very many children living here anyway and even less in the future. According to the article, some see Ess Eff attracting young and single management-level workers, going out to clubs and fine dining, then getting married and finding housing too expensive and moving to the suburbs when they can raise children. Then, when children are off in college, moving back into the city. What type of populace this "new urbanism" results in is open to debate. You can begin to see it areas like Haight, where homeowners, looking to protect their investment and live in a safe environment, are beginning to respond to vagrants and homelessness. If this new urbanism does develop, where will these playgrounds fit in? If there are no children, who will use these playgrounds?

Finally, I would like to say Happy Trails to Rep. Tom Lantos, who announced he will retire from Congress at the end of the year due to health reasons. Best of luck to him and hope that he is able to enjoy many more healthy years.

Prop. 91

With the start of the election year beginning tomorrow, and with the California Presidential primary and election a month away, I suppose it's time to start reviewing the propositions on the ballot this February.

First up for today is an easy one- Prop. 91.

Basically, this proposition limits the ability of funds raised through gas taxes that are designated specifically for transportation and transportation-related projects. Historically, in tight times, the State has "borrowed" money from this fund to be used for General Fund shortfalls. Unfortunately, the money is normally not paid back into the transportation fund, limiting funding for needed transportation upgrades, such as seismic upgrades, highway repaving and so forth. So, Prop. 91 is a way to tell the state to stop raiding the transportation fund to pay for excess spending on pet projects.

Now, what makes this so easy is that it doesn't really matter what happens with this because Prop. 1-A was passed last November, which accomplishes the same goal. In fact, the sponsors of Prop. 91 are advocating voting no. As stated in the Voter Guide under "Arguments in Favor of Prop. 91": "VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 91. IT'S NO LONGER NEEDED. As the official proponents of this measure, we are encouraging you to VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 91."

In any other circumstances, this would be a Yes. In order to meet the transportation needs of the state, funds from gas taxes need to be allocated for the reasons they are being raised- transportation. However, with the passage of Prop. 1-A last November, and at the urging of the supporters, I recommend a No on 91.

Coming up- I suppose I should talk about Iowa, but I don't really expect anything to be settled. But we'll see what happens or if there are any surprises.

New Years

Wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Years!

I'll be watching bowl games, drinking, eating (don't forget your black eyed peas and greens!!!) and playing Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero III over the next 2 days. Coming up in the new year, a look at the February election (got the statewide ballot propositions the other day, a preview of what I'll say- just say no), and which songs on Rock Band are surprisingly difficult (Orange Crush by REM, I would have never guessed).

Layovers

With my holiday travels done for the year, what have I discovered. Well, I need to pay more attention to layovers. The first trip was to Alabama. Flew on Frontier from SFO to Nashville (BNA) via Denver (DEN). Flight out of SFO ended up taking off about 40 minutes late, which was not good when we only had a 35 minute lay over. Thankfully, we were seated towards the front of the plane and, according to both our boarding passes and the flight attendants, our next gate wasn't too far from where we were supposed to end up. We rush out of the plane, the jetway attendant's "HEY!" being left behind, and hear "Final Boarding Call for Flight xxxx to Nashville, if you aren't on board in 2 minutes we're closing the door at Gate xxx". Well, needless to say, Gate xxx was not where we were told, but was at the opposite end of the Frontier terminal. With about 4 gates to go, we heard "Final call for Flight xxx to Nashville, we will close the doors when this announcement is over." My final dash for the gate and I make it just time. However, my wife, who has the boarding passes, has not caught up to me. At the same time, another couple walks up and complains that they had been waiting at the other gate and had been rushing to this gate. In any event, we make it on the plane- being out of shape, and running from one end of a terminal to the other at more than a mile high leaves one with a wheeze and a cough that tastes vaguely of blood. It lasted almost the entire length of the 4 day trip. Oh, and our bags didn't make the connection; finally got them a day later.

This past Christmas weekend, flew US Scare courtesy of two vouchers we received after I complained about how awful they were last Christmas. Anyway, luck has us sprinting through the Phoenix airport from one terminal to the other in order to catch our planes. Not as bad as the previous trip, but the US Scare terminals are incredibly misleading- they have 3 terminals, two of which are called A and the third is B. One A terminal is for gates 1-15 and the other A terminal is for gates 16-30. So, unless you land and take over from gates within those ranges, you actually have to run down the terminal, turn and take "people movers" to the next terminal, even though you haven't "changed" terminals. It makes no sense to me. Just call them what they are, three different terminals and be honest with people.

All that being said, the service was much better than I expected, especially for US Scare.

The holiday's turned out to be relatively uneventful, and I got to partake in various regional foods that I cannot go without when I'm there- catfish, hush puppies, and Sonic whilst in Alabama (didn't make it to Krystal this year), and Malnati's deep dish pizza, Portillo's sausage and Old Style whilst in Chicago. Now if only I could find a reliable place for Big Red and Wolf Brand Chili, without ordering it online or going to Texas, that would make me happy.

Just to show that I don't always complain, or plan to use this as a place to vent and complain, allow me a moment to talk about the City of Oakland. Apparently everything is "Under New Management." After we landed at Oakland yesterday and took the Bart bus to the Coliseum stop, I was bombarded with signs all over the place letting me know that it was Under New Management. The first signs appeared across the street from the airport on two hotels. They wanted to let me know that a) they were Under New Management and b) that comes with redesigned rooms. The next was another hotel, telling me the same thing. Finally, I found the same sign attached to a company that offers to mail packages safely; I can only wonder what happened under the old management. All in all, 4 giant signs from the airport to the Bart stop letting me know that they were Under New Management; all that was missing was a Waffle House extolling that they were now Under New Management. So, congratulations to the City of Oakland, I'm glad to see that you are now "Under New Management."

Due diligence

That is what I want to see after reading this. So, feel guilty about taking that vacation to Hawaii, or grilling that steak over charcoal, or just feel guilty about your carbon footprint because you are alive? Then the City of San Francisco has a deal for you- it will sell to you carbon offsets for your guilt. That's right, you don't actually have to reduce anything you currently do, but to soothe your conscience, you can give money to the government which will funnel the money to a few very worthy companies that will plant a tree or dump iron particles into the ocean.

I may have this wrong, but let me see if I understand this. The City will fund carbon offset companies to do whatever it is they will do to offset official travel for the first year, then begin selling offsets to people in Ess Eff who feel guilty about living. So, the City is just setting up a new spending program to ease peoples' minds? Yet they have to float a $185 million bond to pay for upgrading and maintaining playgrounds. I hope they've figured out how much they will have to pay to offset that.

Various rants

So, was in Alabama over the past weekend for my niece's first birthday. Regardless of party affiliation, recycling is a tough sell- don't even ask about CFLs. Even though the cities that my relatives live in don't have recycling programs (apparently), they still would not make the effort to recycle even though they would then reap the benefits of getting paid to recycle. Growing up, I would separate plastic bottles, glass and aluminium from the regular trash and after a month or so, would have my parents drive me (or drive myself when I got old enough) to a recycling center and come home with like $80 for everything. CFLs would reduce the electricity bill, but that didn't seem to get through either. Oh well, when you get your electricity from coal and nuclear sources, electricity doesn't cost very much anyway.

California state assembly passed a $14.4 billion universal health care bill, even though the state is in a $14 billion deficit. The state senate, of all things, has no plans of voting on the bill, thankfully. How does doing this make any sense in a deficit? Instead of finding ways to balance the budget, the Gov. and state assembly has decided to pass a program that increases government spending even more- even with all the gimmicks that the proponents say will pay for the program, such as increasing the tax on cigarettes. Of course, I have issues with the piling on of cigarette taxes (we tax things that people do to raise money, said thing raises alot of money, state begins to rely on money raised from taxes, policy changes to raise taxes on item to get people to stop consuming item, people stop consuming item, revenue from taxes on item falls, budget not meet, government raises taxes on some other item, rinse and repeat). Which leads me to. . .

S.F. Mayor Newsom wants to add a "fee" onto soda to encourage stores to stop selling them and/or encourage people from consuming them. Once again, Ess Eff looks to control the way people live their life, but only on some activities. So, I'm calling this "Pick and Choose" government. As an example- there is no city law requiring bicycle riders to wear a helmet, despite all the studies showing the safety of wearing a helmet. Instead, it's up to the rider to decide whether or not to wear a helmet. Ok, fair enough. On the other hand, a bar can't decide that it wants to allow smoking. So, the government has decided that some issues are ok for people to have their own choice, and on some issues people are "making the wrong choices" so government should do something to correct them. In other words, it has picked the issues it wants to deal with and choosed (sp on purpose) the result it wants.

Needless to say, I've been keeping these frustrations to myself as they aren't necessarily the most welcome viewpoints in the City by the Bay. The last two elections, both statewide and citywide, have been quite an awakening for me. So, I hope to be more vocal moving into the February primary election and citywide election.

At the risk of bringing attention to myself, I am quite lucky that I have not been contacted by anyone from any Republican candidate due to the congressional district where I live. Thanks to the change in the way delegates are distributed, now on a district-by-district basis instead of statewide, I live in quite an interesting district being so heavily Democratic. I think I will wait until closer to the election to reveal my endorsements (which will cover statewide issues and citywide issues). Maybe I'll even bring in an opposing view.

So, one drunk scientist says to the other. . .

hey, why don't pregnant woman fall over? Thankfully, we have our answer. That has to be the way this project was first dreamed up.