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If you haven’t noticed City Hall has been pretty quiet. The supervisors have been on a 21-day summer recess since mid August, but as the Supes head back to work The Examiner gives us the 411 on what they were up to during their vacation.
Supervisor David Campos, who is warring with Mayor Gavin Newsom about immigration issues, visited Cancun, Mexico, and then spent time in Los Angeles.
Campos said there’s nothing wrong with taking a few weeks off. “It’s a good balance,” he said, noting that being a supervisor is an “intense” full-time job.
And while Supervisor Daly was certainly out of the legislative chamber he took no time away from being in the political spotlight. Daly was interviewed for Vice Magazine’s Guide to San Francisco. In the provocative Q & A Daly took time to recognize the Mission District as his favorite part of the city.
The Mission also made the interview when Daly was asked about the trouble spots for drugs.
Sixteenth Street probably used to be the most significant heroin-distribution point on the West Coast… Southern Mission seems to be mellower.
And when asked about changes in the city Daly responded,
Neighborhoods like the Mission, which has been known for decades as a predominantly working-class Latino community, saw incredible turnover during the dot-com years and the late 90s. In 2001 there were evictions of renters and families from the neighborhood, apartments being converted into condominiums, and the construction of liberal lofts, which weren’t built as artist housing, but as yuppie housing. I think it really changed the dynamic of what may still be, and once was, one of the coolest neighborhoods in the land. Clearly there have been demographic changes, and I think you see neighborhoods that are whiter and a little bit higher up on the economic ladder. They lose a little of their edge. I think that we have a city that is less hospitable to people who are different, even though they have been the foundation of what has historically made San Francisco great.
But while some city official have spent the last month poolside the new Police Chief George Gascón has been working around the clock to get his various departments in order. Mission bikers will be happy to know that Gascón met up with SF Streets Blog to talk about improved bike lanes, high speed chases, and the potential of forming a bike task force to deal with bicycle and pedestrian issues. And while Gascón appears to be pro bikes he did call out some city bikers bad behavior.
I see it all the time, a bicyclist comes to a red light and then they look both ways and they basically go right through it.
Who said politics was boring? – Amanda