| Doug Shorenstien: San Francisco has a lot of positives and
negatives. The positives include a well-educated workforce, a high quality
of life and people fundamentally want to live here.
Fortunately, the political side of San Francisco hasn't been able to
fully destroy that. The negative is that they're trying. I think there are
three major political problems that need to get fixed.
|
In the last eight years,
we've seen the size of the city's budget increase by 70 percent and
the number of city workers increase by 30 percent. And we haven't
seen a corresponding improvement in the quality of city services. |
First, the city has been poorly managed over the last several
administrations. In the last eight years, we've seen the size of the
city's budget increase by 70 percent and the number of city workers
increase by 30 percent. And we haven't seen a corresponding improvement in
the quality of city services. So the mayor has to get control of managing
the city and the budget.
Second, we have a major problem with the Board of Supervisors. The
city's lost 60,000 jobs and yet many members of the board are doing
everything they can to prevent job growth. The reality is that each job we
bring back to the city adds about $1,500 in tax revenue. So the Board of
Supervisors has to cut it out and start acting like adults and start
recognizing reality. We need to do everything we can to bring jobs back to
the city, not force jobs out.
The third problem we have is that the last couple of administrations
have allowed San Francisco to be run primarily by special interests. You
don't manage special interests by giving them everything they want. So I
hope the next mayor is able to haul business into his or her office, haul
labor in, haul community activists in, and beat their heads together to
come out with compromise solutions that will allow the city to be run more
efficiently.
Q: What about the homeless problem? To what degree do you think it's
harming our economy?
A: It's obviously a major issue, but it's not restricted to San
Francisco. Virtually every city I spend a lot of time in has a similar
problem. San Francisco's problem may be more acute because the homeless
issue hasn't been particularly well-managed here. But it's a nationwide
problem. |
- SF Mayor 2K3 at http://www.sfusualsuspects.com/mayor_2k3.htm
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What the Mission needs from the Mayor of San Francisco
