Hold the power accountable — not just the progressives

By Eric Jaye : sfexaminer – excerpt

Earlier this year, Breed partied in Vegas while SF was flooding. Who is playing the blame game now?

Who is “ruining” San Francisco?

Well, doesn’t the answer come down to who runs San Francisco?

A recent Sunday opinion piece from investor Michael Moritz published in the New York Times blamed progressive policies for ruining San Francisco. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight recently wrote about how local politicians are responding to a “pledge” to prosecute drug dealers.

These articles serve as well-crafted bookends to the growing body of reporting blaming progressive policies for San Francisco’s rising level of homelessness, crime and general dysfunction. The storyline is well-crafted and seemingly well-coordinated; the progressives fiddle while San Francisco burns…

San Francisco has been called an “imperial city,” and when it comes to our governance, that is not an exaggeration. We have a strong mayor system of governance, perhaps the strongest in the nation. For all intents and purposes the Board of Supervisors has the power to pass a budget, but after that they are largely on the sidelines. They can make noise, but they really can’t do much else under our city charter. They are literally barred by the charter from “interfering” in day-to-day city operations…(more)