SF Streetsblog reports that Mayor Lee’s hybrid car was caught in a bus zone. Seems to me that we wrote something about the Mayor’s zero tolerance for double parking, but not so for Muni stops – not yet at any rate.
Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.
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What you omitted to report was that Lee was not driving the car. He was driven to his destination by his police driver and then that driver parked the vehicle in this zone.
Lee had no knowledge of the infringement.
Moreover I would imagine that the police can park wherever they want when on official business and/or there are safety or emergency issues.
For instance, there may be a requirement that the mayor’s vehicle is always available within a certain distance or time in case of a threat or incident that places the mayor at risk.
Some further investigation here might have been helpful.
How do you know what the Mayor knew? Does your tin foil hat provide access to the wavelengths of his internal thinking and knowledge?
Because, as I said, the ML piece above omitted various exculpatory details that have been reported elsewhere.
Leaders and VIPs are typically dropped off at their destination and the driver then parks somewhere nearby, so as to be ready to leave at short notice. In this case it has been revealed that the driver was a cop, presumably part of the mayor’s protection detail.