When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going -- to Davos?
Tuesday, Jan. 27 2009 @ 7:30AM
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| Where's Gavin? Far from San Francisco. Far from our problems. |
Not today. As the city begins the process of pulling the rug out from under its wealthiest and most powerful residents -- sorry, our mistake: its poorest and most vulnerable -- Newsom is off on a European junket. Yesterday, courtesy of the San Francisco-Paris Sister City Host Committee, he toured the French capital, got a gander at some really fast trains, and took in some seminars.
Then -- at his own expense, assures deputy communications director Joe Arellano -- Newsom and wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom are off to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1.
Now, if the powers that be at Davos were handing out economic elixirs to mayors of moderately large cities facing $500 million shortfalls, that'd be one thing. But the Davos festivities have devolved into a superficial orgy of celebrity-watching and photo-ops -- according to none other than the founder of the whole damn shebang.
"The partying crept in," 70-year old executive chairman Klaus Schwab said in a truly stunning article on Bloomberg.com. "We let it get out of control, and attention was taken away from the speed and complexity of how the world's challenges built up."
From that article:
Helping the supes hammer out an equitable budget may not look as good on a Newsom for Governor poster as Gavin and his stunning wife standing next to a TGV train at Gare de l'Est -- and it sure as hell ain't as fun. But, if he seriously has anything to offer the people of this city and state, it's a no-brainer.
Voters will not back the man who fiddled around while San Francisco burned.
From that article:
WEF Chief Operating Officer Kevin Steinberg says the vast sums of money that rolled in from Wall Street celebrities for marquee billing in Davos contributed to complacency among forum organizers and often obliged them to publicly massage the viewpoints, wishes and status of their superstar guests. ...Other American politicians facing troubling budget shortages -- show us one who isn't -- nixed their Davos plans; New York Gov. David Paterson cited "deficit reduction" as a rationale to stay in Albany ("Deficit reduction," incidentally, aptly describes Andrew Cuomo's progress in gubernatorial polls for the 2010 race). Besides, there'll be no hobnobbing with Bono this year -- U2 is plugging an album.
Steinberg says the most-discussed housing issue among some delegates centered on Davos' Belvedere Hotel, where corporate chieftains and their deputies were "more interested in entering into bidding wars to secure the biggest party room than they were in attending sessions held there.''
"We catered to what the financial leaders wanted: solo speaking slots, luxury hotels and VIP treatment ...'" Steinberg, 38, says. "We gave them a soapbox. It was all political. We try to minimize the politics, but can't."
Helping the supes hammer out an equitable budget may not look as good on a Newsom for Governor poster as Gavin and his stunning wife standing next to a TGV train at Gare de l'Est -- and it sure as hell ain't as fun. But, if he seriously has anything to offer the people of this city and state, it's a no-brainer.
Voters will not back the man who fiddled around while San Francisco burned.
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