Friday, April 20, 2012

15 long minutes with Supervisor Olague


Taking the issues in the order discussed:



The interviewer asks her about Mayor Lee removing Mirkarimi as sheriff:

Question: Well I could get more specific.




















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At 2:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...



Olague mentions Japantown a couple of times. Just for the record, according to the Japantown Task Force, people of Japanese ancestry are only 10% of that neighborhood's population. There are more black people (17%) living there than Japanese. And there are more white people (44%) than any ethnic group.

At 2:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This Japantown thing is only the tip of the iceberg. A much bigger issue is that only .02 % of the people in San Francisco are named "Fransisco" or "Francis", and of them, only 3% are in fact saints.

The problem is more acute down south in Los Angeles - the "City of Angels", which has no actual angels.

Then of course there is "Indiana" - a state that has .03% Indians. And half of them are from India - technically Indians but not the Native American Indians that the state was named after.

At 3:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Identity Politics", identity districts...that's no way to run a city. What ever happened to giving back to the community as a whole instead of advocating for a particular "identity".

The whole "good city" movement was undertaken almost 80 years ago to do away with such fractionated, divisive politics of self interest. You can't run a city that way.

At 2:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The bank branch that started the whole discussion about formula retail is a Chase Bank "store" (that's what they call them now) not a Citibank. And while I'm decidedly not a progressive, I don't see any reason why banks should be treated differently than any other sort of retailer when it comes to chain store ("formula retail") rules.

The problems with allowing unrestricted formula retail are many. These national chains can afford to pay more – a lot more – and so property owners are happy to kick out small local retailers, or hold space vacant for months or even years, until they can secure a formula retailer. Allowing too much formula retail in a neighborhood destroys any unique character that might have been present, and often replaces neighborhood-serving stores with stores which are non-neighborhood-serving.

I find no problem with allowing neighborhoods to weigh in on proposed new formula retailers by making them go through a conditional use permit process just like a McDonalds or a Walgreens would have to endure. On the other hand, I do think that some availability of banking locations is vital to a neighborhood's prosperity, and I wish they'd carved out an exception for neighborhoods which have an absolute ban on formula retail uses. Chain bank branches ought to be allowed in those neighborhoods with conditional use authorization rather than being banned outright.

Olague's use of the term "community of interest" is not any attempt at a euphemism, that term is one of the factors the redistricting task force was legally obligated to consider as it redrew the lines. It may sound like politico-speak to the uninformed, but it's part of the language of that particular endeavor (redistricting) and I find it a little silly to criticize it.

I agree with much of the rest of your commentary, and am not a big fan of Olague's, but I think it was a little silly to critique her for speaking about the fact that many (most, even) would consider the LGBTQ (agree with you about the Q) community to be a community of interest as defined in the redistricting rules.


My point on Japantown: Since residents of actual Japanese ancestry are a small minority in that neighborhood, what exactly is City Hall trying to "preserve" when it talks about preserving Japantown?

The answer: a marketing strategy for that neighborhood, which has some Japanese restaurants and shops. This is okay with me, but it's silly to pretend that there is a "Japanese" neighborhood there like there is a real Chinatown in San Francisco.

At 4:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Olague apparently accepts the SFBC lie that the issue around the Oak St. bike lane is about parking. Wrong! It's about SAFETY. Mixing slow speed bikes and cars moving at 35 mph on the same pavement is a known traffic hazard...for the cyclists. That's why Hayes is a smarter plan. But then again, judging from the about 50% of bike riders in SF who don't wear helmets, safety of their diminished brains doesn't seem to be a great concern.


The lie is the claim about "safety" for cyclists, since the city has no convincing evidence that the area is in fact dangerous for cyclists. It's about making people on bikes feel "comfortable" and nothing else.


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