How to get Gavin Newsom to give you taxpayer dollars
San Francisco's evil Board of Supervisors is standing in the way of hunky god-mayor Gavin Newsom and his efforts to save the world by giving thousands of dollars to San Francisco home and business owners to install solar panels on their property, if you believe the San Francisco Chronicle. This should give Valley privateers a good idea of how to work with City Hall. Need to divert public money to the private sector, get a few laws changed, and at least win favor with our possible future governor? All it takes if five easy steps.
- Pick a popular, if quixotic, issue: Everybody loves renewable energy, and everyone hates global warming. A few solar panels will do little to change anything except the Hair Apparent's chances for statewide office.
- Run it through a minion with political ambition: Even though city assessor and Gavster appointee Phil Ting's job doesn't include proposing environmental spending legislation, its his proposal. If it works out, he's got something to sell voters in a run for mayor, and if not, he takes the fall.
- Suggest that it will help hardworking people: Never mind that this amounts to grants to people who own property in one of the most valuable real-estate markets in the country. These are, in the Newsomverse, homeowners and small businesspeople struggling to make ends meet.
- Fast-track it to skirt public review: The time to find solutions to global warming is now, not after careful research, competitive bidding and public comment. If anyone questions the process, suggest that they aren't "creative" or "visionary."
- When all else fails, blame your failure on democracy: Sure, our duly elected public officials are politicians, and therefore should expect politics to be part of the program. So when the Board of Supervisors delay your plan because it has no provisions for funding, don't take responsibility, blame them for petty political opportunism.
