I’m just kidding about upping our Coca Cola quota, but in all seriousness, the first shots of The Great Soda War of 2014 were fired on Tuesday, as legislation was introduced by nearly half of the members of the Board of Supervisors to put an initiative on the November ballot that would add a two- cents-per-ounce tax to all sweet beverages sold. Similar efforts in cities around the Bay Area have been shot down thanks to millions of dollars from soda manufacturers but San Francisco, the Diet Coke/Kombucha capital of California has a population already sugar averse who might buck this trend.
While the ballot initiative has gotten unanimous public support from elected officials, I have heard some grumblings amongst progressives that the tax is regressive (paying an extra quarter for your two liter of Fanta has less of a financial impact on someone living Nob Hill than it does on someone living in the Bayview) and that if successful it will give Scott Wiener yet another high-profile victory feather to stick in his cap.
Grumblings aside, I’m a master prognosticator (I picked the Seahawks to win it 44-7 – so close – just kidding) and I foresee soda-swilling opponents to this initiative having a hard time watering it down.
Decrying the Ellis Act was understandably the cause de célèbre in the Fall of 2013. With high-profile evictions popping up across the City and a voter backlash against the housing crisis made evident in the defeat of 8 Washington even Mayor Ed Lee vowed to take the fight to Sacramento and save our City from the Ellis Act!
Shockingly, nobody had done anything substantial and evictions continued on un-fettered until this Tuesday when David Campos introduced legislation that would dramatically increase the relocation fees that property owners evicting tenants must pay. The logic behind this is simple: San Francisco is home to the country’s highest rents, staying here with those rents when you have previously been under rent-control for quite some time is next to impossible at market rates, so the speculators kicking you to the curb should have to pony up.
First off, Goddess bless David Campos for bucking the trend of other elected officials and actually doing something about Ellis Act Evictions instead of just holding press conferences to talk about how they are going to do something about it.
Now comes the real fun – will folks like Mayor Lee and Supervisors David Chiu and Malia Cohen put their votes where their press conferences are and actually support this legislation that truly helps tenants?
Cohen is about to face a tough re-election race against tenant-friendly Tony Kelly, so my guess is yes. She will likely be joined by the city’s four progressive supervisors, as well as London Breed, who has been on the right side of an increasing number of votes and has lots of tenants in her district. I’m also going to give Norman Yee the benefit of the doubt on this one. This count means there are seven votes – more than the number necessary to pass the board but not enough to override a mayoral veto.
Now the math gets thrilling. Should the mayor decide to veto the legislation (despite his promise to help curb evictions), which seems plausible given the degree to which his pockets are lined, overriding a veto would take eight votes. Then it all, as it has so many times before, comes down to David Chiu. Casting a deciding vote for an important piece of tenants rights legislation should be no-brainer in an election year. Of course, Chiu’s brain could be kept busy by the hundreds of thousands of dollars developers have dumped into his campaign and his wariness at giving his rival in the Assembly race a huge victory to tout on the campaign trail.
MOVIE TIME: I haven’t had a moment to watch movies this week because I was recently turned on to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which, in its seemingly unending hilarity, has taken up all of my precious tube time. Every time Andre Braugher, who plays Captain Holt, a stone-faced out gay captain getting his first shot in a leadership role, makes a subtle reference to his husband my insides get all melty.
Tom’s Top Two Things To Do This Weekend
1) The Citywide Tenants Convention. Saturday from 1-4pm at Tenderloin Elementary School.
For the past month, tenants in neighborhoods across the city have been convening to organize and articulate demands to help end our housing crisis. This Saturday, the neighborhoods come together for the Citywide Tenants Convention, with our city’s future in the balance. It’s basically like the Sochi Olympics (which are also happening this weekend) except that it actually matters.
2) The California Democratic Party Pre-Convention. Saturday at 11:30am at Transit Workers Union Local 505 in Burlingame.
This is the pre-party of the year for local politics, as San Francisco politicos descend on the unsuspecting hamlet of Burlingame to duke it out for the much-coveted Democratic Party early endorsement. The real showdown (as will be the trend pretty much all year) is between David Campos and David Chiu as they look for an early nod from the powerful Democratic Party. All signs show to a squeaker, with David Campos, who won the SFYD endorsement and all of the delegate votes that come with it, possibly walking away with the early endorsement — a huge win. Does all that sound confusing? Well – it’s supposed to. It’s politics!
