Power grid in critical condition at SF General Hospital; city's first-ever Economic Plan padded like an undergraduate's book report. It's ...

By Benjamin Wachs

Let's skip straight to the good stuff.

Wednesday, January 30 – Budget and Finance Committee

It’s nerve-wracking to see an agenda item titled: “Emergency contract to design and install permanent high voltage electrical distribution system at San Francisco General Hospital.”

Um … what?

Did you know that San Francisco General Hospital had recently “experienced a major failure in its high voltage electrical distribution system, requiring emergency response … the temporary setup including re-routing of high voltage cables and doubling-up on circuit breakers …” and that the whole affair is “vulnerable to compromise and failure because they lack proper seismic support and are connected by exposed cables posing an unsafe condition”?

Because I did not.

Holy shit.

Let's hope they ... you know ... fix that. Should we even be waiting until Wednesday's committee meeting?

Now back to your regularly scheduled government, which is a lot less exciting but does involve even more tiger-attacky goodness.

Monday, January 28:

10 a.m. – Government Audit and Oversight Committee

Our SF Government kicks off this week with a closed consultation between the Government Audit and Oversight Committee and the City Attorney to consult about the pending zoo lawsuit.

Did something happen at the zoo? I can’t think of what.

After that a public hearing on the zoo follows … yet another one … and then a continued discussion of Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier’s proposed “gate fee” increase for taxis, which I’ve written about here, mocked here, and mentioned in passing here.

That’s a full day. Wait, what’s that? There’s more government?

10 a.m. – Public Safety Committee

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi holds an ongoing three-ring circus of justice in which city officials are called to the mat to explain how public safety in San Francisco went so horribly, horribly wrong. I always recommend showing up, and bringing popcorn, because this is one of those rare instances when good government is also entertaining government.

Otherwise, Public Safety is a slow committee, and has been for a while now. Shouldn’t they be holding another public hearing on the tiger attack?

1 p.m. – Land Use and Economic Development Committee

The Land Use and Economic Development Committee is juicy this week, and I rarely get a chance to say that. Not only will they be extending a moratorium on new institutional development in SoMa (because the Academy of Art ruined it for the rest of us by not filing a required master plan for 20 years), but they’ll be reviewing San Francisco’s first-ever city-wide economic development plan.

Can’t you just hear the wheels of good governance grinding?

The city was required to develop this report by 2004’s Prop I; it was released in late 2007, and this will be its first public airing, which leads to a very important question: it took four years to write an economic development plan?

Granted, San Francisco is a 6 billion dollar economy, but … it’s not "War and Peace," people. The Marshall Plan took less time to develop. And timing counts: unless they crammed everything into the last 6 months, they started writing this thing well before the housing market went bust and the tourism industry went boom.

The actual planning process, it turns out, didn’t start until 2006 – so that’s a little better. But I’d still feel a more confident if we weren’t planning for an economy two years out of date. Hey, have you heard about these things called “computers?” They’re going to change everything!

The report is 221 pages long, and by page 2 in the “executive summary” you can tell it’s mostly padding, because they use an almost full page chart to explain how … put your thinking caps on … “Policy and Action” leads to “Economic Foundations” which leads to “Economic Drivers” which leads to “Economic Performance.”

Whew, I’m sure glad we cleared that up.

The filler keeps going: “Economic performance is a set of economic outcomes that reflect a city's economic past, and its vision for the future.” ( 1. Deep. 2. No. It isn’t.)

And going: “The City’s economic structure is shaped by global economic forces as well as local actions.”

And going: “The most critical link in the sustainable prosperity strategy framework is the one between economic drivers and economic outcomes.”

Would it be too much to ask that SF’s city-wide economic plan not be written by a Stanford Undergraduate?

I’ll review the plan in more detail later at the Snitch.

Tuesday, Jan 29, 2 p.m. – Board of Supervisors

There are two kinds of items that the Board of Supervisors will be considering this week: new items and boring items. Unfortunately, all of the items that are new are also boring, and none of the items that aren’t boring are new.

The mayor’s proposal to ban fun in parks … public hearings regarding SF’s response to the oil spill … changing the sidewalk width on a portion of Jessie Street …

Look, people, either pass it or don’t, but it’s time to move on. Let 2007 go.

Thursday, January 31. 10 a,m. – Rules Committee

It looks like we’re going to have dueling MUNI charter amendments on another ballot, as Supervisor Jake McGoldrick proposes that the MTA Commissioners be directly elected, while Supervisors Maxwell, Dufty, Peskin, Mirkarimi, and Ammiano insist that the Supes be given the power to appoint their own members.

If neither of them pass, the Mayor will keep all the nominations himself, with the Supes getting an up or down vote.

(Sigh) It’s always something with MUNI, isn’t it. Shouldn't the Rules Committee be holding a public hearing on the tiger attack?