Has Muni CEO Nat Ford Even Read SF Weekly Cover on Muni?

• As the source for the story, I would like to fill out the story. 1) I first encountered Mr. Ford at a community meeting some years back (again in the Hall of Flowers). He offered no vision (save cut service and raise fares � just what MUNI has been doing for months now. All of the questions were submitted by card and carefully sorted. 2) On Feb. 27, I heard there was a Town Hall at the Hall of Flowers. I crashed. I found myself sitting next to Jeff Adachi. (Most of the people in the room worked for the City government). I then asked Gavin Newsom why we have not had a community meeting about the attempt to charge $7 to enter the Arboretum (which has three entrances � which will be closed if the fee ordinance passes). Here's his "answer": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovcQFRTeHZQ {Search Youtube! for "Newsom" and "walk away." Very illuminating!} Spying the $360,000 man (his approximate salary) at a neighboring table, I borrowed a sheet of legal paper from Jeff and wrote some questions about the outrageous "Culture Bus". I presented it to Nate, he pulled me aside and told me that someone would get back to me (they did not) and gave me a glib speech about how MUNI gets criticized "for trying something new' and we have to "reduce' the system by 10% to make it "manageable." (Or, at least it may equal those of such world-class cities as Mumbai and Medan). (As a sidenote, this event was an atrocious waste of money....and beyond satire.) 3) Again seeing our most highly paid government official entering the Hall of Flowers, I told him I had not had a response. He wrote down my name and phone number in his notebook. I then asked him what he had thought of the article in the SF Weekly (since it had highlighted the Culture Bus0. "I don't have time to read blogs," he told me. I told him it was an article, and he expressed no familiarity with it (although it had been in the paper the previous week). 4) As I have a life and responsibilities in addition to waiting for hours to give a two-minute (timed!) comment to the Board of Supervisors' Budget Committee, I left and came back later bringing the SF Weekly article with me. I gave it to Nate (something for him to read during those chilly evenings in his rented Presidio mansion) and he expressed thanks. I told him that if he had not seen it then "heads should roll." "Oh, that's vicious (or words to that effect) he replied. I told him he should take $100,000 cut in salary. I wish he had told me that he had read it because that was my only copy of the article. 5) A MUNI staff member did call me on Friday. I'm hoping to get some (promised) documents in the mail and by e-mail. 6) I used up part of my two-minutes to wave these insane schedule changes and relate my conversation to Avalos, Mirkarimi, Elsbend and Mar. (Maxwell being in China � on who's dime? � and Campos having left early. Sigh!

• He doesn't read blogs? For heaven's sake. Does he also eschew those new-fangled motion pictures? All them pinchback-suit-wearing internet fiends are a bunch o' big out-of-town Jaspers if you ask me!

• either way - Nat Ford can go fuck himself. Considering the information in that article, if the first is correct - that he's trying to get rid of a "meddlesome person" - then he needs to be fired immediately. His actions and mannerisms should be of a person who is deeply humbled for having completely failed at his job, especially one that essentially answers to you, me, Harry Pariser and everyone else in town. The jig is up, and Ford needs to man up and start cleaning up his mess. If the second is correct, the same consequences should be enacted. Anyone who gave a single goddamn about their job would be scrambling for damage control after that article's release, but Ford's behavior in the last few days says otherwise: he can't be bothered.

• Taking Ford's response seriously is almost as disingenuous as the response itself. Almost.

• Can we see this letter? I want to see!

• Where is this letter? Sorry to be all "please google this for me" but I am having a hell of a time getting your site's search function to reveal your letters to the editor, and I cannot find a letters section in your hierarchy. Is this what it's like to be old? Anyway, link, please?

• When I was the editor of a certain eyepatch-wearing San Francisco newspaper columnist, I heard similar things all the time: "What? No, I haven't read it. I don't read that junk." Yet these same people often had complaints about some detail that had appeared in the column. Their protests aside, the truth was that they hung on every word. I would be very surprised if your first explanation were not closer to being the right one.

• I just want to know why Newsom didn't take Muni to work every day like Bloomberg does in NYC.

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