A City Charter amendment that could lead to the creation of a public bank cleared the Board of Supes today—with two members voting against it.
That means the voters will have the opportunity in November to start the process of creating an alternative financial institution that could provide financing and consumer services that private banks won’t. It could set a national precedent. This is, in other words, a big deal.
Alan Wong, who once identified as a progressive on the Community College Board, joined Stephen Sherrill, the most conservative supervisor, in opposing the measure.
Sherrill raised some concerns about the plan when it was in committee. Wong, at the first vote on the measure week, said that he doesn’t think the city is capable of running a public bank. That’s the same old right-wing argument we hear about almost any new public services, including public power: Supes allies with PG&E used to say that the city can’t manage a municipal utility, although 2,000 cities around the county do that very successfully. San Francisco runs an exceptionally complicated operation, SFO, which involves far more money than a startup public bank.
On the other hand, the private banking sector in this country has a long history of corruption, lawbreaking, cronyism, incompetence—and demands for public bailouts in the hundreds of billions of dollars. It’s hard to imagine how a public bank could possibly be worse.
The process for creating a public bank would, by law, be incremental, with the new agency demonstrating its financial solvency at every step. It would set a national model for local government to use its leverage to finance things like affordable housing.
Since Mayor Daniel Lurie appointed him to the board, Wong has never strayed from the mayor’s positions and has been among his most loyal allies.
Wong and I used to talk about City College on a fairly regular basis. Since Lurie put him on the board, he has not once responded to my calls and texts.
So far, though, Lurie’s Office has done nothing to oppose the public bank measure, and has not indicated to the primary sponsors, Sups. Chyanne Chen and Jackie Fielder, that he has any intention of working against the November ballot measure.
Nine votes is a strong statement of support. Unless the private banking industry decides to mount a well-funded campaign against this, or the mayor decides to oppose it, chances of a public bank moving forward in November are good.
