The Daly Show

It's over, and it's beginning

2006-11-10T18:54:00.000-08:00

As you're probably aware, the final results are in, and Daly holds onto his seat (rather than getting a boot in it, as he so richly deserves). At least we can take some consolation from a few facts:

A. Thanks to term limits, the next four years will be the last we'll see of Daly. He'll probably try to run for some other office in 2010 (got to keep up the mortgage payments on that $700,000 condo, you know), but there's no way in hell that he'll be elected for anything city-wide. (Let's not forget that San Franciscans recently gave him a dismal 29% approval rating.) Daly's got too much baggage, and his opponents have too much ammunition to use against him for him to be able to refashion himself into a more broadly appealing candidate.

B. As opposed to the ABCD efforts of 2002 which was met mostly with apathy, there is now a considerable amount of momentum in opposition to him. For the past 6 years, many San Franciscans have viewed Daly with a combination of bemusement, indulgence and irritation. Many people were reluctant to speak up against him for fear of being portrayed as intolerant or against the truly needy. Clearly, he has capitalized on that lack of opposition, but he's not going to have that luxury anymore. We're becoming solidified and plugged-in.

C. Finally, Daly has always been his own worst enemy. He'll keep blundering along, digging his own grave. We're going to monitor the hell out of him, constantly looking over his shoulder. Whenever he does something questionable, we're going to use all the tools at our disposal to shine sunlight on his activities and document them. He'll no longer have the latitude to do what he pleases without being noticed by the public or the courts. When and where appropriate, we'll file suit or for injunctions.

It's never been our intention to merely be against Chris Daly. Opposition is important during elections, but it's not the real goal of our efforts; we're much more interested in making positive changes in District 6. That means that we need to sit down and determine what changes we want, then strategize how to achieve those changes. Since D6 is so diverse, there are bound to be hundreds of different objectives, but there are at least three things that we can all agree upon:

1. Public spaces (streets, sidewalks, parks, etc.) must be safe for everyone, and criminals must be prosecuted and punished. That's going to require the co-ordination of law enforcement, the District Attorney and citizens like ourselves.

2. Those spaces must be clean and free from the garbage, tagging and the mess that we've had to endure for so long. Too much of District 6 has been an eyesore for years now.

3. Public moneys that are spent on services for the homeless, et al, must be justifiable, cost-effective and accounted for. No more endless pork for Chris Daly's pals.

Beyond those basics, which Daly has ignored for the past 6 years, I think that most of us would agree that we need to revitalize the area -- especially the neglected neighborhoods west of 6th St. The mid-Market St. Corridor, the Tenderloin and SoMa all need to rebuild their sense of neighborhood, to create vitality and to encourage cultural development as well as business development (the two needn't be in conflict).

We believe that the public will exists to create this sort of change, and we think that Mayor Newsom and most of the Board of Supervisors is willing to participate in the process. We love San Francisco, and we want this District -- with so much squandered potential -- to be as vibrant, safe and picturesque as the best neighborhoods in town. Chris Daly has been opposed to much of these objectives, so we'll have to work around him.

If you would like to be part of this process, please e-mail us at uppertenderloin@yahoo.com, and say that you want to be included. We'll keep your name and contact information private, and we'll let you know the next step. And a big "thank you" to everyone who has read this blog and participated here for the past two months. It's heartening to know that we're not alone in seeking positive change.

2006-11-07T23:25:00.000-08:00

Sign of the times

2006-11-06T22:21:00.000-08:00

"BlackKat" writes "This pic kind of says it all, you know? About right that Daly would put his signs up outside liquor stores all over the tenderloin, he knows where his supporters congregate. I've seen 4 of these improved versions now, much better than the original!"

Chris Daly's "Big Brother"

2006-11-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Supervisor Daly wants you to know that he knows what's best for you, even if it's exactly the opposite of what you think you want. Daly proved this beyond a doubt on June 6 of this year, when he voted against the will of his constituents, to kill the very crime-fighting tool they had asked him for.

For the past five years, San Franciscans in District 6 have been asking City Hall for surveillance cameras to be installed at the most crime-ridden areas of public spaces. Civic Center Plaza, the intersection of Ellis and Jones, Sixth and Mission and a few other areas have been openly -- brazenly -- used for criminal activity for years now. The Police respond to complaints when they're called, but that only causes the criminals to move away or cease their activity until the Police have left, at which point, they return and resume.

Surveillance cameras are not new to San Francisco. We have had them mounted on BART, MUNI, in libraries and other civic buildings, in community centers and schools for many years now. They have proven their effectiveness in both reducing criminal activity and in helping law enforcement collar and convict criminals. Nor are they new to the City's public spaces. The four traffic intersections that use automatic cameras to catch red-light runners issue more than a thousand tickets every year. Cameras and videotape recorders are mounted in a few trouble-spots in the Bayview-Hunters Point area to catch people who illegally dump refuse on public property. They are an unequivocal success.

And cameras recently mounted above sidewalks in the Bernal Heights area have helped the Police catch Bennie Powell. Powell had been arguing with another man on the 900 block of Ellsworth St. near Alemany this April, when he pulled out a handgun and shot at the other man. He missed, but the bullet hit a 13 year-old girl who was nearby. The camera caught Powell, and he was prosecuted and convicted partly on that evidence. Last July, two cameras were installed on Buchanan St. in the Western Addition; within 90 days, crimes in the area had gone down 30%. And the City is launching a new program with fifty cameras mounted around public housing projects to help make them safer for residents.

Fed up with the chronic crime in their area, residents, merchants and community groups in District 6 have asked time and again for the City to install surveillance cameras at the worst spots in the Tenderloin, Mid-Market corridor and South of Market areas. The City did some research, looked at the results of such cameras being used in other cities, and decided to go ahead with a pilot program. $275,000 was set aside in the budget for the pilot program. The Mayor supported it. The other Supervisors supported it. The Police supported it. It looked like a win-win situation.

Then came June 6, 2006. At the Board of Supervisors meeting that afternoon, Chris Daly voted to eliminate the funding for that program. An overwhelming nine of the ten other Supervisors voted against Daly, so thankfully his vote failed. So why did Daly oppose the cameras that his constituents wanted? Because Daly, like his pal Bruce Brugmann -- the founder, owner and editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian -- thinks that surveillance cameras in public spaces violate a constitutional "right to privacy".

Brugmann wrote an op-ed titled "Put away the cameras" in which he argued that very thing. But, like so many of Brugmann's notions, it falls apart under scrutiny. For example, he writes "(Mayor Newsom) wants to put surveillance cameras — perhaps as many as 100 new surveillance cameras — all over the city, recording everything that happens in big swaths of public space, 24 hours a day." But the cameras that the public asked for and the Mayor arranged for, may be recording 24 hours a day, but the tape wouldn't actually be viewed unless a crime had been committed, and the tape would automatically loop every 72 hours, so that the previous tape would be recorded over. It's no more of a threat to privacy than footprints left on the beach that briefly record the footprints of passersby, then fade away.

Brugmann writes "there's no evidence that cameras deter crime." This is such an absurd lie that I am shocked Brugmann would even suggest it. Brugmann uses the situation in Britain to support his claims. But Britain is totally different from the US. Handguns are almost impossible to obtain, search and seizure laws are different, and surveillance cameras blanket all public areas, not just in the worst of areas. Apples and pineapples. In fact, surveillance cameras are already in use in American cities like Chicago, New York City, Washington DC and others, and in those cities, the verdict is unanimous: where there are cameras, crime has gone down. Furthermore, dozens of criminals have been prosecuted with footage from the cameras. Clearly, surveillance cameras do deter crime and help convict criminals.

Brugmann goes on to say "And in exchange for this dubious benefit, San Franciscans will give up an immense amount of privacy." But it is no one other than the law abiding citizens of San Francisco who are explicitly telling their elected officials that they are willing to exchange a measure of their "privacy" (such as one has while walking down a street) for the fear they feel from criminals who hang out on those streets. Shouldn't citizens be able to make those choices themselves? Daly says "no"; all of his opponents say "yes". And even the term "privacy" is misleading. "Privacy" is to be expected on private property; no one is suggesting otherwise. But in public, one inevitably gives up some privacy. If I do something in public within another's field of vision or earshot, I cannot expect that person to not see or hear it, whether they are an ordinary citizen, a criminal, a police officer or the Attorney General.

More absurdly still, Brugmann claims "Those videos could be considered public record in California — meaning stalkers, angry ex-spouses, and people planning violent crimes will have access to the daily movements of their potential victims." The notion that stalkers and plotting criminals would have access to Police videotapes (which are automatically erased every 3 days) to be able to see a person walking down the sidewalk strains the imagination of even the most paranoid. It's the most baseless fear-mongering imaginable; Brugmann only leaves off the claim that puppies and kittens will be sacrificed if the cameras go up.

The "civil liberties" angle begs a substantial question: if a police officer can view a criminal doing something illegal, and that evidence can be given in court as oral testimony -- which is subject to a slew of problems, from subjective interpretation to outright fabrication -- then wouldn't an objective recording device be a better safeguard against police misconduct or criminals getting off the hook because an officer's testimony was incomplete? If a citizen witnesses a crime (say, Reginald Denny being beaten by cops) and videotapes it, self-professed "civil libertarians" seem to have no problem with that video being made. But stationary, automatic cameras? Somehow, we're expected to believe that they're more of a threat to our "right to privacy"? I don't buy it.

But apparently one person who does is Bruce Brugmann. Although the Guardian touts itself as "the conscience of the Left" in the Bay Area, it's more of a personal vehicle for Brugmann's notions about the way San Francisco should be: an ultra-"progressive" utopia devoid of any big business and off-limits to Republicans and other lower life-forms. Brugmann has used his paper to wage a one-man campaign (some would say "vendetta") against PG&E for the past two decades. If there's a kind word to describe Brugmann, I would suggest "prickly". Someone else might suggest "ultra-Left-wing paranoid demagogue". What would be more useful to such a person than a representative in the local government?

The 69 year-old Brugmann isn't without his own political inconsistancies and conflicts of interest. For example, Brugmann fought for as many years as he could to keep his printing facility non-union and his employees on a part-time basis, so he wouldn't have to pay benefits or relinquish any control (he still owns and operates the Guardian with his wife and son). And he also editorialized against increasing the tax on cigarettes in the 2002 election cycle because it supposedly would be a hardship for poor smokers, at the same time that cigarette advertisements were the most lucrative ads for the Guardian.

The Bay Guardian has heavily backed Chris Daly for the past 6 years, not only endorsing him in every election, but putting him on their cover last month. If you Google "Chris Daly" + Guardian, you'll get over 35,000 hits, which tells you something about the unique relationship between the two of them. But not everything. Because Brugmann also seems to see Daly as a sort of "little brother", showering him with fawning prose and attacking anyone who dares criticize Daly. And at the same time that the Guardian attacks any campaign literature criticizing Daly and/or endorsing Rob Black as being "illegal hit pieces", the Guardian incessantly promotes Daly, encouraging people not only to vote for him but to volunteer and make cash donations to his campaign (something that no other San Francisco paper would dare to do for any candidate they endorse). With free advertising like that, who needs PACs to donate flyers for your cause?

In his editorial about the surveillance camera program that Daly tried to kill, Brugmann ended the column thus: "The best solution here is to simply cut the funding for the mayor's cameras from next year's budget." Is it a mere coincidence that this is precisely what Daly tried to do? Is it a coincidence that Daly advances Brugmann's causes so avidly at the same time that Brugmann acts as Daly's informal campaign vehicle, giving a priceless advantage at the polls? Perhaps more "sunshine" should be directed towards the collusion between Chris Daly and his media mouthpiece at the Guardian. Maybe the best place for a surveillance camera is in Bruce Brugmann's office.

Chris cooks some numbers

2006-11-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

On Halloween, a local webzine called "Fog City Journal", who lists Chris Daly as a columnist, published an article titled "Daly surges ahead 20% in neutral phone sweep" . Underneath the large, fawning photograph of Daly, his wife and son, the article says

"With less than a week to go until Election Day, Supervisor Chris Daly appears to have the lead in the District 6 supervisor's race. A phone sweep of District 6 voters that identified the preferences of 2,190 residents indicated 1,326 (60.5%) favored re-electing Daly, with 864 (39.5%) opposed. Another 809 indicated they were undecided."

A week previously, Matier & Ross -- of the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate -- wrote in their column "Daly at risk of losing seat, new polls say", in which they wrote "First came a David Binder poll two weeks ago that showed Black surging 10 points ahead of Daly. Not knowing what to believe, the downtown folks commissioned a third poll, just this past week, from Evans and McDonough. The results: Black leading Daly, 37 percent to 31 percent."

Now, to have any political candidate's numbers move 26 to 30 points in 3 weeks is extremely unlikely unless he has just been arrested or outed. (Even Governor Mel Carnahan's numbers didn't budge that much after he died in a plane crash!) And so, smelling something a bit fishy about this turnaround, I did a little sleuthing. The FogCityJournal piece mentions that the poll was conducted "by Zata3, a Washington, DC based calling firm".

What is known about "Zata3"? Very little, in fact, and for a good reason -- they're not really a polling firm, they're a one-person business run by a guy named Brad Chism. Zata3's website is quite revealing. It's tagline reads -- "Advocacy is our calling", and it describes itself thus:

"We help elect Democrats and advance the progressive policy agenda by integrating telephone voter contact programs with a campaign's canvassing, mail and on-line advocacy."

Well, nothing like a little honesty about their agenda! In fact, their website never even mentions that they do polling, which ought to tell us something about whatever numbers they gave to the Daly campaign. The website does, however, talk about a service they offer called "persuasion messaging". Here's what they mean, taken verbatim from their website:

"We start by listening to our clients. We learn about the campaign strategy, targeted voters, plans for electronic media, and other direct voter contact efforts. We then review the available data (voter files, polling data, supporter lists, etc.) Only then do we recommend specific telephone voter contract programs. We script the calling program to drive home the appropriate message(s) and select the call center that best serves the campaign's needs. After we complete the calling program, we analyze the feedback from voters, and pass the reports along to campaigns for tactical or strategic adjusments [sic]."

In case anyone missed the obvious: the Daly Campaign hired a PR firm to poll for them. And not even a real PR firm, but a one-man push-polling business that's been around for less than a year. Zata3's website lists their office address as 1200 G St. NW, suite 800, Washington DC. But in fact, that address is merely a mail-drop (or rather -- an "on-demand professional center", the sort of place that rents mail boxes, has a photocopy machine and a couple of computer workstations. That website describes them as offering "virtual offices".

Compare Zata3 with those two pollsters who came up with numbers showing that Black was ahead of Daly -- David Binder Research, a 23 year-old, 7-person firm based in San Francisco with hundreds of clients, including the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the Sierra Club, the Trust for Public Land, the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense and loads of other good causes -- and Evans-McDonough -- a national pollsters with offices in Oakland, who have been around for 17 years.

For all we know, Zata3 called people and asked them "Chris Daly, that tireless defender of the poor and oppressed, is running against Rob Black, a lawyer being controlled by Republicans. Are you going to vote for the good progressive, or the conservative tool?" That's the kind of crap that push-polls do; they lead and mislead. That's NOT the stuff that legit pollsters do, as they have their reputations at stake. But Brad Chism, somewhere back east? What's he got to gain from asking objective, non-leading questions? Or, more to the point: what's he got to lose from asking leading questions?

Faced with harsh numbers from two entirely legitimate and highly respected polling firms, why would the Daly campaign choose to respond by hiring an out-of-state, no-reputation, no-history, no-office, 1-man "persuasion messaging" service? My guess is that Daly tried to find any legitimate pollster who would produce some numbers in their favor, but all of them said "sorry, we can't do that". Then someone trawled up Mr. Chism, who saw the money and said "I can give you any number you want". I can think of no other explanation for why Daly's campaign would've gone him to conduct their only poll.

Chris Daly's remarkable house-buying luck

2006-11-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well.

I've long thought it odd that Chris Daly's fan club seemed to be distinctly unlike him. After all, most of them are staunchly against the rich and powerful, and certainly wouldn't support anyone who exploits them for his own gain. But Daly actually isn't very much like his base. He's a Southern Ivy League alumnus who owns a nice new home here in San Francisco, and gets paid about $118,000 per year -- many times what most of his constituents earn. The deeper I dig into Daly's finances, the odder things become.

In 2001, Daly and his then-fiancée Sarah purchased a new condo on Stevenson Street in the Upper Mission, just off Valencia St. The 1,360 square-foot home has three bedrooms, a full bath and two half-baths; quite spacious by SF standards, and the largest available in the 101 Valencia St. development. The condo was priced at $435,000 -- a daunting amount to most young couples, but Daly had an ace up his sleeve. The condo they were looking at was specifically designated "BMR" -- "below market rate" -- a term which means that, by law, it could only be sold only to an individual earning less than $76,600 per year for one person, or $87,500 for a couple. BMRs are specifically intended to enable low-income people to own their own home.

At that time, a Supervisor's salary was $40,000 a year, plus the additional income that Daly was paid in stipends for sitting on certain boards and commissions. His fiancée's income was $32,000 a year, which meant that they just barely made it below the threshold to qualify for the BMR property. Like most young people (and like the vast majority of his constituents), Daly and his fiancée didn't have $135,000 for the down-payment lying around. Fortunately for Daly, his mom loaned him $95,000 at below-market interest rates, and he sold $40,000 of his mutual funds for most of the rest. Must be nice to have such resources to draw from.

But here's where it starts to get curiouser and curiouser. A few months after Daly closed the deal on his new BMR condo, Daly and his cohorts on the Board of Supervisors introduced a measure known as Proposition J. It called for their own salaries -- $40,000 a year for the part-time positions -- to skyrocket to $118,000 a year. Significantly (but buried in the small print), Prop. J took the power for setting the Supervisors' salaries out of the hands of the public for all time, instead putting future raises in the hands of the Civil Service Commission -- roughly the equivalent of asking the bank robbers to mind the bank. Equally significantly, Prop. J did not prohibit Supervisors from continuing to receive income from other work (most Supervisors have long had other sources of income); many other counties ban such supplemental income. And at the same time that the Board of Supervisors were engineering a 300% pay raise for themselves, San Francisco was going through a recession in which we lost about 100,000 jobs.

The Supervisors placed the measure on the ballot, adding a lot of rhetoric about how the 300% pay raise was merely keeping up with what Supervisors were paid in some other cities (although the Statewide average for a county supervisor was actually $52,000 a year -- near the median income of San Franciscans). The public swallowed the story, and -- boom! -- just like that, Supervisor Daly and his fiancee were now making $150,000 a year, squarely disqualifying them for BMR housing. The more naive reader might think "my, how lucky that Daly managed to qualify for his 'low income' 3-bedroom condo just before that unexpected windfall!", whereas the more cynical might think "my, how clever that Daly managed to qualify for his 'low income' 3-bedroom condo just before he knew he would no longer qualify for it!"

As it stands now, Chris Daly and his wife co-own their condo with World Savings Bank until they pay off the mortgage. Presuming that their mortgage is for 25 years, that means that the Daly's will have spent just a few months of their time as mortgage-paying homeowners while actually qualified to purchase their condo in the first place. And given the certainty that the proposition which yielded such a great pay raise for the Supervisors was being discussed and strategized between the Supervisors during the months before it was formally introduced, it's extremely likely that Chris Daly knew that he'd be getting a monster of a pay raise very soon after he was trying to qualify as "low income". Kind of makes you wonder -- when Daly says that he's the champion of "affordable housing for San Franciscans" -- if he's just referring to himself.

Daly and Bush agree: "Stay the course!"

2006-10-31T01:13:00.000-08:00

The calls of "stay the course" from the Bush administration are echoed from his polar opposite at the farthest corner of America -- Chris Daly's campaign in San Francisco. On its surface, that may seem like a stretch, but the parallels are too strong to be dismissed, even if they are funhouse mirror images of each other.

President Bush has proven himself incompetent (or disinterested) in serving the majority of Americans, preferring instead to focus his efforts on benefiting one small section of them. Likewise, Chris Daly has ignored the majority of his constituents, and has instead focused his efforts upon benefiting one minority group for the past 6 years. Bush claims that Americans who don't back his plans are "unpatriotic", while Daly accuses San Franciscans who don't support all of his causes of being "heartless" or "Republican tools". It doesn't matter how long you've been a Democrat, what other progressive causes you support or how much you care about helping the truly helpless -- in Daly's mind, you're either with him or against him.

Bush has never understood the necessity of being able to work with people of differing ideologies; that's why his "coalition of the willing" was little more than window-dressing for a unilateral campaign of war. Daly has likewise never understood that necessity, and has offended and alienated everyone from the Mayor to business groups to countless citizens in his District. His temper tantrums in public are too well-known to need repeating here. He is incompetent at acting with maturity or respect towards people from differing ideologies. He even once bragged that he had gone for two years without speaking to Gavin Newsom -- his colleague and Mayor.

George W. Bush's contempt for the interests of the rest of the world has isolated America from its traditional allies by starting unnecessary wars but refusing to react to or even acknowledge serious issues like global warming. Chris Daly has shown contempt for the needs of the tens of thousands of people who live in District 6 and the hundreds of thousands more who work here every day, much less the millions who visit us every year. The majority of people in District 6 have been asking for a safe, clean neighborhood. Has he delivered? He hasn't even tried.

Bush has a policy of throwing money at his failed projects, to the detriment of the economy and others who also rely upon the tax base. The war has been a disaster, and we are no safer now, yet he has spent trillions of dollars on it. Chris Daly has advocated ever-growing expenditures to benefit his pet groups. San Francisco's taxpayers have been required to spend more than $200 million every year spent on services benefiting people who are considered "homeless", and to "cure homelessness". But after throwing billions of dollars at the problem, the number of homeless people in San Francisco actually grew. Clearly, people have been coming to San Francisco to take advantage of the most generous public support system in the nation. But this isn't good enough for Daly, who never met a homeless project he didn't want to fund with our tax dollars. And he only intends to expand them.

Finally, Bush has systematically misled the public about the justification for going to war in Iraq, just as Chris Daly has systematically misled the public about the causes for the crime and garbage that people in District 6 has had to endure. Bush attempts to blame Saddam Hussein's regime for the attacks on 9/11. Likewise, Chris Daly blames the Mayor, other officials and public servants, unions, the Republicans, the Police, business interests (the economic engine of our City) and just about everyone else -- for causing all of the City's problems. His claims aren't convincing for one minute. Chris Daly's biggest problem looks back at him in the mirror every morning.

After 6 years of both Bush and Daly, one might well ask upon what grounds they think they have earned our support. Bush pretends to be "tough on terrorists", with calls to rally the faithful -- the "true American patriots" to his cause. Daly pretends to be defending "the soul of the City", with calls to rally the faithful -- the "true progressive Democrats" to his cause. But both claims are little more than jingoism; emotional appeals to convince citizens to continue to support their failed policies and their divisive politics.

They ask for us to grant them more time for more of the same failed policies, more years of "staying the course", no matter what toll it takes on us financially, or through our losses of liberties, or with the harm it continues to cause our quality of life. America has suffered through six years of George Bush, just as District 6 has suffered through six years of Chris Daly. What is needed in both cases is "regime change".

Follow Chris Daly's money

2006-10-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

For a man who likes to pose as someone down with the poor, Chris Daly leads a very comfortable life, thank you very much. Actually, he should thank himself, since he decided how much that we, the taxpayers, were going to pay him. In 2002, the Supervisors proposed that their pay be raised. At the time, being a Supervisor was termed a part-time job, for which each was paid $37,585 (with benefits, that was actually $47,000). To put that in context, the median income in San Francisco is $61, 764 for full-time workers. But the Supes decided that wasn't enough, so they put Proposition J on the ballot, which technically changed their classification to "full-time" (even though their work-load remained part-time) and raised their compensation to $88,000 ($118,000 when you include benefits).

The proposition drafted by the Supes claimed that the salaries of similar elected officials in other cities and counties, and the consumer price index, should be used as justification for the whopping increase. Both Supervisors Daly and Gonzalez had a hand in the proposition's drafting, and it passed. Rather perversely, two years later, Supervisor Gonzalez voted to set the salary for members of the School Board at just $20,000. Gonzalez chose that figure specifically because it was one-half of the beginning wages of a teacher. Funny that Gonzalez, Daly and the other Supes thought that their Board position should be TWICE the median income, but that the other Board should be at 1/3 the median income. More perversely still, when he ran for Mayor, Gonzalez claimed on his website that, at $118,000, Supervisors such as he were "still the lowest paid public officials in the city". Er -- other than those members of the school board that he screwed.

But things this election get much curiouser. The word one keeps hearing bandied about by Daly supporters is that Rob Black is somehow tainted by receiving donations from "rich people who don't live in D6", according to one such True Believer. Now, The Daly Show hasn't endorsed any candidate, but we thought that sounded a bit off, so we did a little research. Candidates are required to disclose all donations, so a little sleuthing at the City's own website turned up the 16 biggest contributors to Chris Daly's campaign. Guess what? At least 15 of those 16 DON'T live in San Francisco! And all 16 of them are somewhere between "very well-off" and "stinking rich".

Here's the line-up:

Alexander Clemens, Barbary Coast Consulting
public relations, home address unknown

Donald Solem, Solem & Associates Consulting
public relations, MILL VALLEY

Calvin Yee, Consultant
consultant, SAN JOSE

Myra Chow, Myra Chow Consulting
consultant; MILL VALLEY

Jay Wallace, Platinum Advisors, LLC
lobbyist, MILL VALLEY

Gordon Fulton, TransSystems Corp.
unknown business type; BERKELEY

Darius Anderson, Platinum Advisors, LLC
lobbyist (and board member of the Willie Brown Center); SONOMA

Shas Arfania, Malcolm Drilling Co.
largest construction drilling company in the US; SAN MATEO

Edward Bucher, Consultant
consultant, SAN JOSE

Kirk Anderson, Gold Bridge Capital
investments, SAUSALITO

Phillip Tagami, California Commercial
investments, OAKLAND

James Gala, California Mortgage & Real Estate
property development, MORAGA

David Choo, California Mortgage & Real Estate
property development, OAKLAND

Mark Hyatt, KDF Communities
property development, NEWPORT COAST

Raymond Harper, KDF Communities
property development, NEWPORT BEACH

Paul Fruchborn, KDF Communities
property development, CORONA DEL MAR

Indeed, it's very likely that the one donor whose home address I couldn't locate -- Mr. Clemens -- doesn't live in District 6 either, which would mean that every single top contributor to Chris Daly is from out of the area! (Not to mention, rich.)

When you add to that the fact that Daly has a campaign war chest of $142,576, compared to Rob Black's $57,726, it's dramatically clear who's being bought by "rich people who don't live in D6".

Chris Daly's green beads of shame

2006-10-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

The "true believers" who follow Chris Daly are instantly recognizable by their wearing of strands of green Mardi Gras beads. While on a superficial level, one might associate green beads with the Green movement (or environmental awareness in general), beads also have very San Franciscan "flower-power" associations, and thus are a perfect way for Daly's flock to identify themselves. The Daly campaign even pushes its green beads on children, in a rather tasteless display of using kids who are too young to know anything about politics, for political gain.

What is not known to any of the children, not known to most of Daly's adult supporters, and certainly not admitted by Daly's campaign is that -- far from being symbols of political correctness and progressive values -- their green Mardi Gras beads carry a shameful legacy. In fact, just about all of the Mardi Gras beads that are sold in the US come from one factory in China, the Tai Kuen Ornament Company.

There, in the prison-like factory complex in Fuzhou, in the southern province of Fujian, hundreds of women as young as 14 work in a envirnment that can only be described as "Dickensian". Their days of laboring with the plastics, dyes and threads that go into making Mardi Gras beads, last for 14 to 20 hours, and leave their hands stained and often bleeding. For their labor, they are paid the princely sum of 10 cents per hour, although their pay will be docked if they are caught speaking with their co-workers, as the owner enforces a policy of silence.

The deplorable working conditions of the women in these sweatshops were recently documented by independent filmmaker David Redmon, in his recent film "Mardi Gras: Made in China". Take a look at the film's trailer and see for yourself where the Daly Campaign gets their green beads.

The next time you see a "true believer" in their Daly beads, ask them if they know where their beads came from, and if they care that their political symbols were made by girls working for 10 cents an hour in a sweatshop.

The view from the street

2006-10-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

A D6 resident who asked to remain anonymous sent in this photo of the sidewalks on the corner of Howard and Russ Streets in the morning. I wish I could say that the sidewalks of our neighborhood in the upper end of D6 look cleaner, but they seldom do. Trash cans that have been knocked over in the night so addicts can pull out anything to sell on the street for their next fix; then come the rats. Not a pleasant environment in which to live, and not a safe one for children. Think this happens in D2? No way.

Children to Daly: "Do your job!"

2006-10-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, a group of about 100 elementary school-age children marched around the neighborhood of 16th and Mission -- the location of Chris Daly's campaign headquarters. Their message? "Clean up our neighborhood!" As Jill Tucker's story in the SF Chronicle put it, the "neighborhood (is) often overrun by gang violence, drugs, prostitution and homelessness". One child's sign read "Please don't buy or sell drugs near our school". Third-grader Fernando Charre told Ms. Tucker that he was concerned about the litter hazardous to children being thrown onto the sidewalk by grown-ups. "I feel like angry and sad. They're throwing stuff on our street and that's not safe."

Indeed, with the open prostitution that goes on on Capp Street (a half-block from Daly's headquarters) and the open drug-dealing that takes place within a 2 block radius of it, the 16th and Mission area is one of the most dangerous and crime-ridden in San Francisco. Any other Supervisor might've seen this as a challenge worth taking on, but apparently not Chris Daly. It's all part of Daly's larger attitude about "quality of life" issues -- that they're not a priority for him to deal with. Instead, he chooses to blame such problems on the SFPD, even though they are under-staffed by about 200 officers and can't spare the manpower for foot patrols.

SF Chronicle photo by Liz Hafalia

The True Believers

2006-10-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

There's a quote attributed to Harry Truman about Rafael Trujillo (the former dictator of the Dominican Republic). It goes something like this: “Sure, he’s an S.O.B., but at least he’s our S.O.B.” In case anyone misses the meaning, it’s that -- no matter how unethical or wrong a political leader might be, so long as they serve your general purpose, it’s better to have them on your side than not. This sort of expedient thinking runs deep in the world of politics, and it’s a position embraced just as much by the Left as the Right. Truman had Trujillo who was, for being corrupt and brutal, at least an anti-Communist -- and therefore favored by the US Government. And San Francisco’s Democrats and others on the Left end of the spectrum have Chris Daly. For the past six years, the messages from them about Daly have ranged between “he’s the only honest politician in town” to “sure, he’s a jerk and a loose cannon, but at least he’s our jerk and loose cannon.”

Daly has managed to become so embedded in San Francisco’s political landscape that it’s difficult to recall a time before his appearance. But in fact Chris Daly is far from being either a local boy or an accurate reflection of his constituents. He’s a native of Maryland (and a 4-H Star, according to his bio), who attended tony Duke University. He moved to San Francisco in the ‘90s, during the dot-com boom, which puts him squarely in the category of arrivistes, relative to many of us who have been here far longer. His only political experience before 2000 was as an activist for a group called “Empty the Shelters” -- not exactly a stellar resume for a politician. And for being the darling of punks, anarchists and the poor, Daly lives a decidedly privileged life in a new condominium in the Upper Mission, on a $120,000-a-year salary.

His activist background (such as his few years can be called) has clearly never left Daly, and is evident in everything he does. For example, at the District 6 debate at the Main Library, the moderator asked the candidates how they intended to balance the different needs of their constituents from both ends of the economic range. Daly’s response? “The problem is the great disparity of wealth” between the two ends. His solution? To take from one and give to the other until everyone is equal. Robin Hood in City Hall. Of course Daly is politically savvy enough to know that the only people he has to concern himself with pleasing are the ones who can vote for his re-election, and that means the residents of District 6, rather than the ten so f thousands of people who work (but don't live) in D6, or the relatively fewer moderates (and perhaps a handful of Republicans) who live within its boundaries. Daly knows that he can rally the far Left, the young and the poor by saying what they want to hear. And rally they do.

Other evidence of Daly’s activism can be found in the majority of resolutions he has proposed to the Board of Supervisors. For example, in March 2006, he introduced a resolution to impeach President Bush. Now, no matter where you stand on Bush (and I would gladly see him impeached, if not drawn and quartered), the notion of a city government passing a resolution calling for his impeachment must surely seem Quixotic, to be generous! Another resolution was to send $1 million of San Franciscans' tax dollars to the tsunami relief effort in the Indian Ocean; surely a project for charities and federal governments, rather than the discretionary spending of a board of supervisors. But beyond these being examples of political grandstanding, such activism saps time and energy from far more pressing (and realistic) goals, like fixing rutted streets or providing care to the elderly -- you know, those things that city officials actually can accomplish. Daly’s resolution will not benefit a single one of his constituents, but it certainly plays well to the sensibilities of some of them.

Activism is, or should be, the role of citizens. Addressing the needs of those citizens is, or should be, the role of elected officials. Why doesn’t Daly understand this fact? It’s because he sees himself as an international activist rather than an official who is charged with the responsibility of looking out for the needs of those who specifically live and/or work in D6. Tilting at windmills on a global scale, while it does nothing for the real needs of his constituents, allows him to take on a virtuous -- even heroic -- role. It is a role he relishes, and one that a remarkable number of the residents of D6 accept. Daly claims to hold down the “righteous” end of the Left. His supporters are the “true believers”, and they will brook no criticism of their leader. Even their practice of wearing necklaces of green beads to identify themselves strikes me as oddly cult-like behavior.

True believers are distinguished by their irrational and slavish devotion to a leader or cause. Their attitude of "you're either for us, or you're against us". Such people are plentiful in San Francisco, a city with a long history of residents with more passion than good sense about causes, and with starry eyes about larger-than-life figures. For examples, one need look no further than the Reverend Jim Jones. Another son of the south, Jones came to town with a background in righteous social causes, leading a church congregation that was integrated; scandalously progressive for the time. When Jones moved to San Francisco, his firebrand rhetoric and championing of the causes of San Francisco’s minorities, poor, homeless, sick and elderly quickly gained him the support of most of Left.

Soon, Jones was appointed by Mayor Moscone to San Francisco’s Housing Commission (a role for which he had no practical experience). This was merely one hand washing the other, as the members of the People’s Temple had vigorously campaigned for Moscone’s election. But not everyone was convinced that Jones was the white knight of progressive causes. In 1972, the San Francisco Examiner ran an 8-part expose on Jones. Predictably, the Left rallied ‘round their man. Church members and others on the far Left staged vociferous protests outside of the Examiner’s headquarters, calling the paper’s owner and editors racists, anti-poor, Republican tools, and worse. Faced with this pressure and the threat of lawsuits, the paper pulled the series after only four segments. Where were the voices of sanity in the progressive camp? They were conspicuously silent. No one from outside of the People’s Temple wanted to appear racist and intolerant, and nobody within was willing to believe anything bad about their leader. It was a politically-correct whiteout.

Now, I am certainly not suggesting that Chris Daly is going to poison hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide. But the similarity in the way that both leaders were lionized by their followers is clear, as is the way that any criticism of them is met with personal attacks. Case in point: the violent crime rate in Tenderloin has climbed during Chris Daly’s watch. Where is the Left when Daly does something stupid, like blocking badly-needed supplementary funding for beat cops in the Tenderloin? They’re closing ranks behind him and shouting down any criticism. The message from the far Left is clear: “Chris Daly is ‘our S.O.B.’; leave him alone”. If you doubt me, try saying anything negative about him. The vitriol you will earn will be far out of proportion to your criticism.

Case in point: a fellow I know who lives in Daly’s district (and who actually voted for him, in 2000) was so frustrated by the worsening conditions in D6 that he sat down at work the other day and made up a flyer that carried the simple message “Our neighborhood can’t survive four more years of Chris Daly”. Scattered around these words were some clip-art drawings of people passed-out on the sidewalk, rats, excrement, robbers -- basically everything that we have to deal with on a daily basis in D6. When he and another D6 resident taped up some of these flyers in the Civic Center, they were met with hostility by Daly supporters, who tore some of them down. The “Left in SF” blog claimed that the flyer-ers were “…paid political operatives (who) have been anonymously putting up street signs and walking hit pieces as well.” In another blog, the flyers were denounced as conveying “abject hate”. Curious interpretations, to say the least.

That brings me to a question. Nearly every candidate I have voted for over the past 25 years has been a Democrat; the remainder have been Greens and a Libertarian or two. I’ve been against the war from the get-go. I’ve long been in favor of gay marriage, and a host of other progressive causes. And frankly, I'm poor. I've chosen to be self-employed in such a way that puts my income below the poverty line. Does that mean that I must support Chris Daly? After all, all of the candidates who are running against him are also progressive Democrats. Why Daly? It’s not due to his political experience; at least one rival has more of that virtue than Daly had when he sought office. It’s can’t be because of Daly’s ability to work with people with whom he disagrees; he’s woefully lacking in that skill. Nor could I justify supporting him because of any accomplishments over the past 6 years. A simple walk around my neighborhood or the mid-Market St. corridor will amply prove that he has done very little to address the problems plaguing D6. I have no reason to believe that any one of the other candidates couldn't do better in that respect.

This dogmatic support of Daly is both dangerous and downright undemocratic. We on the Left are quick to denounce the “ditto-heads” of Bill O’Reilly and other right-wing pundits. But if we don’t have sufficient integrity to question our own elected officials, how are we any better than those who selfishly voted for Bush? Aren’t we supposed to be the party of openness and critical reason? Can’t we call a “spade” a “spade” -- even if it’s our spade? And why the refusal from so many of his supporters to engage in civil discussions about the issues? To resort to shouting? I can only surmise that it’s “true believer” syndrome. Chris Daly is “our S.O.B.” Voting for, supporting, defending, identifying with—him allows people to feel like they’re on the “righteous” side -- as defenders of the poor and downtrodden masses. But those masses have not found their lives improved over the past 6 years due to Chris Daly’s efforts. And for the most part, neither has anyone else.

Daly's condo -- Room for one more?

2006-10-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

First, a shout out to SFist, who thoughtfully posted about us today. It was a good article, and it's resulted in quite a bit of traffic and e-mail. You can read it here.

Now then, "theotherfrida" writes:

"I nearly tripped over this man who was passed out on the sidewalk downstairs from my studio this evening as I was carrying my groceries home. I don't know if he was homeless, a passed-out substance abuser or just really sleepy.

Unlike most of us, Chris Daly lives in a nice new condo in the upper-Mission. I've heard that it was paid for by a family trust fund, although the $100,000 [ed.: $120,000, actually] that he gets paid every year as a supervisor no doubt helps. I wonder if he has room to take in one of the many people that are lying on the sidewalks in our neighborhood. Don't they say that charity begins at home?"

Chris Daly: Poster Child

2006-10-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

Allison writes:

"I just had to show you these posters that I saw on my walk to Bart this morning. They were all over the place!"

Let's rename it "Daly Park"

2006-10-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

"oldpunk66" writes:

"This is Boedekker Park, here in the Loin. Its basically a no mans land except at the edges where it becomes a drug store and campground for bums. Why the fuck can't the city keep it clean and safe? I live less than a block away and my neighbors kids don't have anywhere to play, but their mom won't let them play there, its just not safe. Even though its 'maximum security', there are needles and rubbers and broken bottles everywhere. I think they ought make Chris Daly live in a tent in the middle of the park and see how he likes it. Or see how long he survives! To my friends that support him, I just ask 'has your neighborhood gotten better in the past 6 years, or worse?' For us, its definitely worse."

Daly pisses us off

2006-10-02T19:53:00.000-07:00

Charles writes:

"My neighbor told me about this site, and I think it's great! I live nr Post and Jones, and I snapped this picture while walking back from work this afternoon (I work for the City, in the Civic Center).

I want to point out three thinsg in this picture: first, the man with his back to the camera is taking a whiz in between the two cars. I know, that's obvious! Second, that big green thing about 50 feet past him is one of those high-tech automated toilets that the City spent a zillion dollasr on. Third, that's the Tenderloin Police Station right at the corner.

Smoe people would blame this situation on the man urinating in public, and I suppose that's fair. Others might blame it on the Police, but I have friends in the SFPD, and they've told me that the Police Department won't really deal with these sorts of things because (a) the District Attorney's office puts a very low priority on prosecuting them and (b) becuase Chris Daly has such an antagonistic relationship with the SFPD that they don't get any support from him for dealing with these sorts of problems. I've heard that he's stalling on the Mayor's plan to put more police on the streets, which is hardly surprising, considering that he's so anti-police.

Basically, if we keep Chris Daly, we can look forward to 4 mroe years of people whizzing in the streets. Ha ha! No thansk!"

Daly's just "keepin' it real"

2006-09-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

Alan writes:

"I nearly got my ass kicked for taking this picture today outside of my place on Leavenworth. This is the view that a $1100 apartment gets you in district six. I see this guy out here almost every day. Sad and all but he choses to get drunk and sleep on the sidewalk. He has a home or at least I see him go into a building a couple blocks away but for some reason he sleeps it off on the street. I thought about putting a Daly campaign sign on him as an advertizement for his relection but the two guys leaning against the wall 10' away didn't like me taking pics around them. Wonder why. Hey Chris, you're a failure!"

Daly cares about kids

2006-09-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

"Miss S." writes:

"I'd like to ask Chris Daly if he thinks it's fine for people to be smoking crack around kids. I work at the Tenderloin Children's Playground on Ellis Street, and I see people on the sidewalk right outside buying and selling and smoking crack every day. This afternoon I saw this fellow, camped out in the doorway directly across the street from the playground, lighting up. I wish I could've snapped the picture just a second earlier, because a police car was driving by. I can't believe we live and work in a neighborhood where children are expected to see this kind of behavior, even in their safe-zones. Does he care about this? I'd like to know."

a record of neglect

2006-09-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

Robert writes --

"This sad old building at Post and Hyde has been empty and boarded up for at least 9 years now, and very likely longer. It's been squatted, vandalized and generally abused. It gets tagged and flyered, then eventually someone slaps a little paint over that, and it immediately gets tagged and flyered again. Why should such a thing be allowed? You can bet it wouldn't be allowed in Pacific Heights.

The city has the authority to require property owners to maintain their property, but apparently Chris Daly simply doesn't have the political will to deal with eyesores like this that bring our neighborhood down."

Street life, Daly style

2006-09-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

Maya writes:

"Hello -
Thanks for putting up your blog! I'm really sick of the stuff that goes on in our neighborhood too, and I've never been able to even get ahold of Chris Daly to ask what he can do to improve things. Some of my friends support him (and I have to confess that I voted for him the first time) but after they visit my studio a few times, they start to share my opinion about the way that our neighborhood has been neglected by City Hall. It's like a third-world country here! And it's so unfair, because of how nice many of the buildings and restaurants there are, and how great the location is.

I wanted to show you something that I see almost every day. (Sorry, my phone doesn't take the best pics.) It's this guy in a wheelchair who scoots around between the cars at the intersection of Larkin and Geary almost every day, panhandling from the cars as they drive by. I see Police cars go by all the time, but I've never seen them pull over and tell him to get out of the street. I can't believe he's never been hit (who knows, maybe he has!) but cars honk and every time I hear tires squealing, I think I'm going to hear a crash of them hitting him. Surely there's got to be some city agency that could deal with this, or some group that Daly is involved with that should be involved. It's just so symptomatic of our neighborhood, that everyone turns a blind eye to the problems. Anyway, thanks and good luck. - Maya"

Thanks, Maya!

Daly coddles druggies

2006-09-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

James writes:

"Hi Tender-Nob, I live on Hyde st. Every single day, 24/7, theres a group of crack dealers that do their business on the sidewalk across the street from my apartment. People come by, hand the guy a few bills, he pops something out of his mouth and the buyer pops it into his, and goes on his way. Theyre back a couple of hours later for more.

In all the time Ive lived here, Ive only seen 2 police busts, and Ive never, ever, seen police actually walking down the sidewalk. Its like theyve just given up on our street, and turned it over to the pushers and crackheads. I know Chris Daly doesnt run the police department, but he could provide some leadership or put pressure on the chief of police and the DA. Do you think he has? Hah! I really hope we can get rid of him and get someone as a supervisor who cares about the trash we have to deal with everyday. Thanks."

2006-09-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks for checking out the new blog! I started The Daly Show because I was fed up with Chris Daly's refusal to address the problems facing District 6. I've lived in the "Tender-Nob" (upper Tenderloin) for the past 9 years, and have seen the neighborhood change for the better -- for a while, anyway -- and then get worse and worse after Chris Daly was elected.

A few years ago, I got fed up with people defecating and urinating in front of the apartment building where I live, lying passed-out on the sidewalk, selling and smoking crack 24/7 right in front of my home, and a slew of other unpleasant things. I went in to City Hall to try to arrange a meeting with Chris Daly to ask for help cleaning up the neighborhood. But his assistant told me "Chris doesn't deal with those 'quality of life' issues". Excuse me?

What kind of an elected representative of a fairly small geographic area refuses to deal with the very things that matter most to their constituents? Apparently, Chris Daly, that's who. For the past 6 years he's been paid $120,000 a year -- out of the taxpayers' pockets -- to go to bat for the people who live in District 6. But in fact, he really doesn't care about us. He's got his pet issues, and those are all that matter to him.

And so, this blog. Every day, I'm going to post pictures of things around my neighborhood that shouldn't exist -- that WOULDN'T exist, if Chris Daly were doing his job. And I invite you to post your pictures too. That guy who's passed out and is blocking the sidewalk? Take a picture. The graffiti that keeps appearing on the nice old brick building next-door? Take a picture. The crack dealer that parades up and down your sidewalk? Take a picture, and send it in.

My theory is that, if enough of us remind Chris Daly what District 6 actually LOOKS LIKE, he will be forced to do his job as a public servant, or will be replaced with someone else who will. So please contribute to The Daly Show, and show Chris Daly how he's failed us all.

Thanks --

Mr. Tender-Nob

Oh -- and here's my first picture. It's an entryway that I walk past quite often. Charming, isn't it?