Mayor Ed Lee appears before the Board of Supes Tuesday/12 for Question Time, but according to the agenda, no supervisor from an even-numbered district had any questions to submit.
This has become pretty common.
Once a month, by law, the mayor has to show up at the board and answer questions. The supes alternative between odd and even districts so no more than half of them will have questions at any one time. All the questions have to be submitted in advance, which means the mayor’s staff prepares generally worthless written answers that the mayor reads out loud.
When then-Sup. Chris Daly put Question Time on the ballot, his idea was that the mayor would appear once a month for a free-ranging policy debate with the board. But David Chiu was board president when it passed, and he and Lee’s office set up rules that totally undermined what Daly and the voters had in mind.
There is no debate, no discussion. It’s all so scripted that I suspect many of the supes just consider it a waste of time.
Which is too bad, because the mayor of San Francisco should engage in unscripted public debate with the supes. Destroying the concept of Question Time wasn’t the worst thing Chiu ever did on the Board (that was allowing Airbnb to take thousands of rental units off the market), but it still annoys me.
Because there is so much to ask the mayor about.
Does he support the striking workers in Oakland (and acknowledge that his pro-tech-growth policies are one of the reasons that the workers can’t live in their own city anymore)? Does he support the repeal of Costa-Hawkins and the extension of rent control to vacant apartments – and what is he doing to help? He wants to house 1,000 homeless people over the holidays – but what about the other 6,000 or so people on the streets?
Does he support the ballot measure that would provide a lawyer for everyone facing an eviction? Why has he said nothing to defend Sanctuary City in the wake of the Garcia Zarate verdict?
I don’t want a press release answer. I want a real discussion. Board President London Breed can change the rules to make Question Time consistent with what the voters wanted. But she doesn’t to want to. So: Nobody asks the mayor anything.
If we seriously want to address homelessness in San Francisco, we have to address evictions. If 70 percent of the people living on the streets used to have a home in this city, then the most effective way to prevent more homelessness is to prevent speculators and greedy landlords from throwing people onto those streets.
The data is overwhelming: Tenants who have legal counsel are far less likely to get evicted. If you want to help guarantee every tenant facing eviction a lawyer, you can help gather signatures for the June ballot measure. Contact sfrighttocounsel@gmail.com
The SF Berniecrats are holding an “Intro to San Francisco Politics“ event Tuesday/12, to explain how local government works and who is trying to influence policy. “The material will be presented from an unapolgetically Bernie-progressive perspective,” the flier states. 7pm to 9pm, 518 Valencia. It’s free.
Democratic Socialists of America is holding a march Friday/15 to protest the “open class warfare” of the Trump tax bill. 5:30pm, Harvey Milk Plaza.
We love to list progressive political events! Email me at tim@48hills.org.
That was an isolated example of someone relatively famous getting help from a political group. Most who face evictions cannot afford lawyers, and are assisted by the Eviction Defense Coalition who provide an attorney for settlement conferences ONLY. And there is tremendous pressure from the courts to settle. If the issue is non-payment, and the tenant can somehow come up with the money, that may result in them being allowed to catch up, and stay. If, on the other hand, the landlord is looking to evict in order to bypass rent control, the landlord may be pressured to allow the tenant to remain for a period, even though the landlord might have made false claims or enforced absurd rules (there is a case going on where just that is being done in Chinatown) in order to create phony excuses to evict. In the Chinatown case, it is things like leaving shoes outside the unit (a cultural practice of Chinese people) or hanging laundry outside windows (something that has been allowed for a very long time, but is suddenly against the rules) in order to force out long-term residents, and offer “a unique San Francisco experience at two or three times the current rent.
In answer to your second question, your premise is crap, and one does not explain crap.
Lawyers who work for free?
Oh, and I can end anything with a question mark and you lap it up, eh little puppet ?
Actually the article I linked stated that SFTU was there to help Paul Madonna. The SFTU would have been there throughout the eviction process not just at Settlement conference.
Why hasn’t the progressives attacked THC if he’s the single largest evictor?
The donation based lawyers are usually only available during the settlement conference, when the court twists both sides arms to reach an agreement.
And Randy Shaw bragging about how THC lawyers fight evictions is rather ironic since THC is the largest single evictor in San Francisco.
And now her hopes and dreams have come true. What a train wreck!
Well. He’s dead now. Discussion over.
“when someone is served with an eviction, they should not be at the disadvantage of not having the representation of an attorney while the landlord can afford to pay for one”
There are donation based tenant lawyers (SFTU) already serving these tenants. No tenant is at a disadvantage. In some Just Cause evictions relocation payments are paid prior to any eviction. If a tenant does not have extra money saved up then they have more pressing problems!
http://www.beyondchron.org/even-sf-chronicle-writers-get-evicted/
“If the landlord has a legitimate case, they will prevail fairly.”
Having a legitimate case does not necessarily mean you will prevail. With any case there is risk. Lawyers on the wrong side of the case will often use delay tactics to hopefully wear down the other side down. Lawyers on one side will make false claims for which it is up to the other side to debunk. It gets messy.
No, I am saying that when someone is served with an eviction, they should not be at the disadvantage of not having the representation of an attorney while the landlord can afford to pay for one. If the landlord has a legitimate case, they will prevail fairly. If they are trying to circumvent the law, and evict someone illegally, then they will not have an unfair advantage. You seem to be pretending that landlords are pure as the driven snow, and would never do anything dishonest.
I support free lawyers to defend anyone who is served with an eviction, no matter what the basis. Landlords have a long history of filling false evictions in order to get around the law, and raise rents.
But you seem to be saying that free lawyers should be provided to everyone who breaks the rules, creates problems, and can’t play nice with others. Law school deans everywhere applaud your efforts.
The stated intent of such laws is to protect the supposed vulnerable party. However, the real reason such laws are made (and re-made, and re-made) is to benefit both sides of the Bar.
BTW, who are most of the law-makers? Yeah, lawyers.
So then you don’t support free lawyers for those facing Non-payment? How about Nuisance or Breach of Lease suits?
What free lawyers do is add to the cost of legitimate actions. Is the city willing to pay those costs too, along with the legal defense fees?
And what happens if the laws that were in place when the landlord signed up were then changed to something else? Did both parties get to assent to those changes? (no). Does that connote “acceptance” by the person who has then become the unwilling partner in this transaction?
Yeah.
No one is talking about free lawyers for people SUING landlords. They are talking about providing free lawyers for defense against evictions. Big difference. No one is saying lawyers should be paid to sue landlords. In a case like that, the lawyer would take the case on contingency in most cases.
They are not talking about providing lawyers for tenants who want to sue landlords (housing providers? Seriously?), they are talking about providing landlords for defense in cases of evictions. You know, like when one of you decide you want to toss a rent controlled tenant so you can put in someone willing to pay nosebleed high rents. And my name is none of your business.
How about protecting housing providers form greedy tenants. If a tenant want’s to sue a housing provider he/she should find a lawyer to take the case on a contingency or borrow the money. Taxpayer’s money should not be used for private business disputes. BTW, what’s your real name. Are you ashamed to let people know you are a neo-socialist?
So, are all tenants greedy?
Professional larger landlords can deal with suits but mom and pop may not be able to. They could lose their livelihood with a suit. Wasn’t there a case where the tenant won millions? If the City is going to pay to have landlords sued maybe the City should also pay for the landlord’s attorney.
No, Chiu just ran roughshod over the wishes of the voters, and protected Ed Lee from having to defend his positions.
So, I take it you are a greedy landlord. The right to counsel helps protect tenants from illegal and improper evictions. Why would you oppose doing that? If a landlord has a legitimate reason to evict someone, like non-payment of rent, or provable violation of rules affecting the safety and health of other tenants, a lawyer would be of little actual value. But if the landlord is trying to evade the laws he accepted when he chose to be a landlord, why should be be able to afford top level counsel, and have the tenant unable to respond?
Tax dollars should not pay for lawsuits or to defend greedy tenants. The greedy tenants, who for some reason believe that they are entitled to have there lifestyles sublidised by their housing provider, should pay for their own legal representation.
Lee is a puppet so he can’t work without a script. London Breed is a coward who won’t go where she can’t counter apt criticism or avoid hard questions by bringing up her milk powder and moving vans story. She’ll never change the rules because she hopes to be mayor one day.
You make David Chiu sound like a dictator, the way you say he single-handedly controlled SF as a President of the BOS. Campos, Peskin, Avalos, Daly were all there too. Did David Chiu manhandle them?
Will the Berniecrat event explain that when Berniecrats stayed home for the general election, it helped Trump win?