The Argonaut recommends–as we are forced to comply with the city’s confusing and hideously expensive Ranked Choice Voting system–the following candidates and yea or nay on ballot propositions (We will explain our reasoning below):

Mayor:     Ed Lee, 2nd Choice: Michela Alioto-Pier, 3rd Choice: Bevan Dufty
DA:             Bill Fazio, 2nd Choice: George Gascon
Sheriff:     Chris Cunnie 2nd Choice: Paul Miyamoto

Proposition A    (School Bonds)                                       NO
Proposition B    (Street Repair Bonds)                           NO
Proposition C    (City Pension Benefits)                         YES
Proposition D    (City Pension Benefits)                         NO
Proposition E    (Amending Legislative Ordinances)   YES
Proposition F    (Campaign Consultants)                       YES
Proposition G    (Hiking Sales Tax)                                NO
Proposition H    (School District Assignments)            NO

Before we get to the candidates and issues on the overlong ballot, let us express our complete and unqualified contempt for the city’s system of ranked choice voting and taxpayer  financing of campaigns – to the current (already spent and still climbing to the highest mountain peak) whistle of over 14 million dollars of taxpayer financial  underwriting by a bone-broke city of candidates campaigns.  Many of them had no business running in the first place – but the city’s idiotic law makes it impossible for them to drop out of the rat race because if they do the practical thing and drop out of a race they know they have no chance of winning, the prudent candidate is has to pay the city back for the taxpayer money received, which most of them can’t afford to do. But if they wait and stay in the race and go ahead and lose as everyone in town including the candidate him (or her) self knows they will.
Just how stupid is that?  Very.

The Argonaut believes Ed Lee – who was picked by the Board of Supervisors to serve as Mayor for the remaining months in Gavin Newsom’s term of office after he climbed the Artic heights to the office of State Lt. Governor – has performed admirably in the job and deserves election to his own full term as Mayor. Lee put hands on the reigns of the city sleigh in the most difficult of times and got done what others could not do. The biggest crisis facing the city long and short term is its burgeoning pension and health care payments for past and current city employees which were granted in boom times but times as everyone knows are no longer booming. Ed Lee achieved what was once considered impossible – bringing both Big Labor and Big Business to the same table and getting all parties to agree on a realistic program to adjust city pension and benefit costs, both the immediate and long term. In this fractious city solving such a giant problem is politically impossible without cooperation and compromise – and Lee has proved himself to be the master of achieving compromise. He then worked successfully to bring together the parties another major issue to compromise on another major issue – the details of former Mayor Newsom’s universal health care plan, which had economic consequences that would have, bankrupt many San Francisco small businesses. Lee achieved all this in a cheerful and calm matter that put a good face on the city and improved the tone of civic civility. He is a natural born leader; his previous years of experience in city government have given him a well-tuned understanding of how the wheels-within-wheels of San Francisco government work; the taxpayer was lucky to get him in the mayor’s office by an accident of political succession and voters would be well-served by granting him his own term.

The shrill and semi-hysterical response by political opponents to Lee’s decision to seek a full term after originally planning to only fill out the remainder of Newsom’s term – the decision of an adult who realized that he would actually be a better mayor than those clamoring for the job who are size to small for the shoes he is filling – does a disservice to civil poitical discourse. We are particularly disappointed with the angry campaign run by City Attorney Dennis Herrera – under normal circumstances a very nice fellow – who has attacked both Mayor Lee and Board of Supervisors president David Chiu (another adult in the room) raises questions about how in hell Herrera after he returns to his day job will manage to deal with both men who because he is City Attorney are his clients. As to the over-the-top anti-Lee political mailers with which State Senator
Leland Yee is stuffing your mailbox, it can only be supposed that Leland is suffering from the sticker shock when Mayor Lee entered the race, but Yee’s low campaign is beneath the dignity of his office. (He overreached by producing a phony biography of Lee (See “The Pinocchio Candidate” p. 16) which is full of obvious lies, and attention to lying is something Yee can ill afford. He has made almost a habit of telling the opposite thing to opposite interest groups (during this campaign, Leland told the Tenants Union and a landlord organization the exact opposite positions on his stands on the Park Merced expansion and condo conversion.) Under the city’s ranked choice voting procedures, the Argonaut has given 2nd and 3rd choices for Mayor to Michaela Alioto-Pier and Bevan Dufty. We can only speak well of each and under the uncertain outcome of the ranked choice voting counting if either were to ascend to Room 200 they are the most able among the other mayoral candidates to hold the job and perform its duties.

Proposition A (School Bonds) – The Civil Grand Jury issued a report on the many surplus, unused and un-income producing real estate owned by the San Francisco Unified School District. While the Argonaut has supported school bonds in the past, we must in the face of the city’s looming financial crisis ask the proponents of Proposition A to go back to the drawing board and come up with a bond amount that clearly outlines the funds needed after the District finds a way to turn its unused properties into cash before the taxpayer is again asked for open pockets. After previous School Bond issues (anyprecise accounting for how that money was sent remains elusive to us). Bond issues are very expensive deals – once the interest to be paid over a length of years is added in, some amount to almost double cost stated on the ballot. NO on A

Proposition B (Street Repairs) – Here we go again. The City has no business paying for street repair through special bond issues because many billion-dollar city budget you pay your taxes to support includes budgeted funds for street maintaining and repair. Money set aside for street repairs has in the past been diverted by City Hall grandees to their favorite causes soaking up city dollars, including the non-profits whose functions are often provided by city workers but who do their master’s bidding and whose employees have been known to help out on political campaigns on the city’s dime.NO on B.

Proposition C (City Pension Benefits) This is the compromise measure brokered by Mayor Lee between unions and business interests that lowers pensions and benefit costs for city workers short and long-term. If the city is not to go in the fiscal tank over its pension obligations, continuing this collaborative process is the only way San Francisco can regain fiscal stability. YES on C

Proposition D (City Pension Benefits) This is Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s stand-alone Rather draconian proposal which Addachi seems to be spending a lot of time away from his public-defending of accused criminals responsibilities promoting. It was little wonder that the path of his advocating pension reform led to a run for mayor – it certainly gave him visibility. This is at the end of the day a partisan political proposition that whacks public employee unions (and given the enormity of the pension situation, does not save that much more money than Mayor Lee’s Proposition C. NO on D

Proposition F (Amending Legislative Ordinances) We have been of two minds on Proposition F, one being that although the current, more moderate Board of Supervisors might be trusted with the judgment to alter previous voter-approved ordinances when they become outdated or redundant, the same may not be true of giving such power to future Boards. Supervisor Scott Wiener has, for the moment, convinced us to give this a try, as it is clear that housecleaning and updating are in order on many ordinances and laws. Wiener believes this will lead to less proposition put on the ballot by the Board, which has clearly been packing the ballot with measures that Supervisors were elected to deal with by legislation, a way of ducking responsibility. If Weiner is right and Prop. F leads to less ballot measures, Glory Be. Otherwise, we reserve the right to change our mind. YES on E

Proposition F (Campaign Consultants) Considering the obscene amount of taxpayers’ money to fund candidates for elective office that is enriching the coffers of campaign consultants, it is becoming a matter of public interest to have that pack of charming scoundrels subject to public scrutiny. YES on F

Proposition G (Hiking S.F. Sales Tax Further) San Francisco already has one of the highest sales tax rates in the country, socking tourists with whopping hotel taxes and the like. Adding to the burden will only send more visitors to spend their money in South San Francisco and environs. Besides, we don’t trust the politicians who will figure how the additional funds will be spent. NO on G

Proposition H (School District Assignments) Enough already of fiddling with the school-assignment system. NO on H