I have absolutely no clue where the “surveillance data” these folks are talking about comes from, and I don’t care: The billion-dollar total may be high, but there’s no doubt that these private luxury coaches clog the Muni stops and don’t pay for it, while an ordinary plebian San Franciscan who parks in the same spot will get a stiff ticket.
Several tech companies have hired Alex Tourk, the political consultant, to help advise them on city issues and lobbying, and he might consider telling them to cut a deal with Muni, quick – and to make clear to the public that the techies are paying to use city right-of-way.
Mission Local, run out the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, is hyping a contest to paint the Genentech buses, which the Uptown Almanac calls an “egregious conflict of interest.”
I’m running a nonprofit here, and while I haven’t yet put together the “thank you” page listing all of our more than 100 individual donors (smallest donation, $5, largest, $5,000, most in the $100 range, though if there’s anyone out there who wants to give more, I’m not turning it down ….) it’s not any big a secret who’s funding this site. If you came to my fundraiser at El Rio a couple months ago, you met most of them. (No foundation money yet, but I’m looking.) And it’s not a secret that I will be writing about the people who gave money, since this is really a community-supported venture and the community I’m talking about is made up of people in local politics and arts, and that’s what we’re covering.
So I have to be aware of potential conflicts, and rely on disclosure (I swear, I’ll get that list posted soon) and the fact that pretty much everyone in town already knows my biases and political positions after 31 years writing about local issues.
That said, on the surface, there’s nothing wrong with a local news outlet partnering with a transportation company to make nice art. But the Genentech buses? Now? With everything that’s going on in the Mission? You can see why this is an issue.
The Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee holds a hearing Dec. 11 on Sup. Eric Mar’s proposal for a soda tax, and you can expect three things: Plenty of health information on why this would cut down on childhood obesity and diabetes (drinking high-fructose corn syrup screws up your system pretty bad); plenty of lobbying from the beverage industry and probably restaurants; and a series of newspaper articles complaining about the “nanny state.”
But face it: We already tax things we think are bad for you (cigarettes, which I don’t buy, Bud Light and bourbon, which I do) and things that aren’t so bad for you (airplane flights) and things that aren’t so great for society (cars). We have a sales tax on pretty much everything that isn’t a necessity.
We also have rules that are different for kids and adults. My teenage son can’t buy alcohol or tobacco products, but once he turns 21, society figures it’s his business. And while I’m not a big fan of soda for anyone, it’s really the young people at issue here. If it were up to me, I’d put the same restrictions on Pepsi that we do on beer, and I think a lot of other parents would cheer, but that’s never going to happen.
What will happen is the beverage industry will try to debunk health reports and say that there’s no “nexus” between soda consumption and public-health costs to the city. And public health officials and activists will say there is, indeed, a connection. And someone will say this will harm the local business climate, and the news media will bring up the Happy Meal ban (which was one of my favorite bills ever.)
According to the Ethics Commission, the American Beverage Association has retained lobbyists Alex Tourk and Sam Lauter to fight any tax on sweetened beverages. There’s not going to be any action on the item at this meeting, but the hearing should be fascinating.
The meeting starts at 10:30 at City Hall; the rest of the agenda seems pretty routine, so I’d guess the hearing will start fairly soon after that.
