Steve Rhodes asked me to ask Tom Ammiano the following question:

"Ask him what he thought of Bruce Brugmann's endorsement of Angela and if it
was a bit hypocritical for a paper that has decried the influence of money
in politics gave one reason for supporting her that she is rich and can
spend her own money in the runoff."

Steve
http://ari.typepad.com

So I did. Here's
Tom's Response (Small - 3 MB)

I don't have time to transcribe this one. But here's Tom on why you should vote for him today.

Tom Ammiano - Why Vote For Me As Mayor (2 MB)

I don't have time to transcribe this one. But here's Tom on voting "Yes" on Prop B.

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop B (1 MB)

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop d (2 MB)

Lisa: "What about D? Something about a small business commission?"

Tom: "Eh. You know, it takes the commission that now exists and makes it a charter commission, and people who are involved in small business feel that it would give them more status and a little more juice. I think the jury is out about whether or not that could happen, because a lot of times things are just very decorous. But perhaps it could work, and I'm not against small businesses so, ya know, fine."

This is another great example of why I think Tom Ammiano would be a great Mayor.

He has great reasons for not wanting N to pass, and an excellent alternative to it: providing health benefits and disability benefits for all taxi drivers (not just disability for only drivers with medallions - as N proposes).
More details below.

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop N (5 MB)

Lisa: "What about N? For taxi permits..."

Tom: "You know, my father was a cab driver in the 50's and 60's before he died. There were no benefits. There were no health benefits. When he died, we had to practice an Italian-American custom called La Boost (sp?) where people actually come to the funeral, which you don't pay for yet, and they make a donation. And I thought 'ya know, nobody has to go through this.' Particularly Taxi drivers.

However, this is a very self-serving avaricious measure that I think is very dishonest. In the world of taxi drivers there are people with permits and then there are people without permits, and this is a way to get the people with permits only some kind of disability benefits. It really shuts the door on anyone else, and I don't like that. And I tried to get something on the ballot that would encompass not just the permit (medallion) holders, but the other drivers too. To me, there was a way that we could have done it for everyone.

So I'm not supporting N because I think it is dishonest. I don't want to deny disability to people, particularly with my personal background, but there is another way to do it. And by the way, my office worked with the waring parties, and their very very very angry with each other and don't talk to each other a lot. Within the taxi industry there are three or four factions and we are moving towards providing health benefits for all taxi drivers. And if it ever passes, and we get the cooperation of everyone, I'd like to call it the "Joe Ammiano Law," because that was my dad.

Lisa: "So that one you're stronger about. You think it's a big NO on that one."

Tom: "Oh yes. It's going to be very harmful. And we'll just leave it at that."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop C (3 MB)

Lisa: "So what about C? About having the City Controller monitor city services?"

Tom: "You know, Jake Mc Goldrick is going to kill me for this. I'm not real happy with this one. They cleaned it up quite a bit and, ya know, I'm OK with it. But personally, if it didn't pass, I wouldn't kill myself. It's one of those things where a conservative group, called S.O.S., wanted to, in their words "have more open government and honest government," but it really is a little more self-serving than that. I think Jake Mc Goldrick did a really good job of cleaning it up and making it palatable. It will give the Controller of our city the ability to audit independently, and I think that's a fine idea. However, I think there are better ways to do it. We could have a General Manager that's elected. The Controller is appointed by the Mayor for 10 years. We have a very good controller. However, I still think there'd be a better way to do what this measure is supposed to accomplish. But I will vote for it."

Lisa: "You will vote for it?"

Tom: "Yeah. But it's not one of my favorites."

So I've let Tom talk a lot about how he feels about the various issues, and I suppose my strategy was that doing so would speak for itself with regard to why I'm supporting him for Mayor.

However, as I was wrapping up my archive of his interview, I came across this clip (5 MB) of him explaining in more detail about the six million dollar renewable federal grant he was able to obtain from the Shrub Administration.

This achievement demonstrates several of the reasons why I think Tom would be a great mayor:

1. His ability to work within the system to accomplish results, even if the people running "the system" are questionable, to say the least.

2. His ability to create "real" solutions to "real" problems, such as homelessness, as opposed to taking the easy way out, like blaming the victims. (Such as I believe to be the case with "Care Not Cash" and its new bastard brother Proposition M.)

3. His ingenuity in coming up with something like a renewable grant that can continue to bring money into the city to help the less fortunate, rather than come up with strategies that will actually cost the city over $900,000 and give police unprecedented power to arrest people for literally doing nothing.

But I'll let Tom explain the details to you in his own words:

Tom Ammiano On The 6 Million Dollar Renewable HUD Grant (Small - 5 MB)

The words below came after our discussion of Prop M (2 MB).

Tom: "...like my ability to get six million bucks from the Bush government two weeks ago, so we could have supportive housing and services for the mentally ill and homeless. Now that's real, and that's happening as we speak."

Lisa: "Right. I actually wanted to ask you more about that, because you brought that up in the debate. (6 MB) After a Judge sort of threw out "Care Not Cash" that you were able to get some money to actually build some housing? Could you talk some more about that?"

Tom: "Yeah. It's not for "building housing," actually, but I understand why people think that. I mean it could eventually. But it's six million bucks of support from HUD, which is Bush, and I actually worked with Mayor Willy Brown.
See, because, what Gavin has not been able to do is take the partisanship out of the issue. And I'm willing to sit down with whomever and even compromise, so that we come up with real solutions. So it's six million bucks from HUD for supportive housing and direct services."

"So you take a hotel that's there already and you rehab it. And we've done this, but only for a very tiny amount of people. You rehab it and provide the room, which is housing, particularly for the mentally ill and people who have been ill and homeless on our streets for over a year. That's about 2,000 of them -- even if "Care Not Cash" was something that could work, it wouldn't affect these people, because they're mostly under SSI and Federal programs -- and then provides all the services right there in that facility. And we've already started in the Bay View little Ramada Inn there, has been rehabed. A woman named "Mother Brown" is actually the recipient of some of this money. And the rooms are full already with the services being provided and we're going to expand that so we can meet the needs of 1,000 or more people that are on our streets. And this is a renewable grant. That's the beauty of it. So, with our success that we're proving this year, we have a really great shot at getting that six million next year as well. So that, again, that's real."

I'm almost finished with my pre-election info coverage. Just a few more clips to go and the rest will be up to you.

Thanks for paying attention. I had 1,600+ people on my site yesterday, and that's a good day for me, so I guess somebody saw this stuff. Hope it was helpful.

I'm going to finish up the Ammiano interview -- just because I'm trying to finish what I start these days. Then I can get to those other clips I promised (Dean on 60 Minutes and on BET and in SF last week, Rummy spouting off the usual rubbish on Meet The Press about his memo), and I also have a special message of faith from the South Park kids about filesharing I can't wait to get up.

Someone sent me a really important article about scary shit like the reinstatement of the draft that you can bet will get more of my attention in the near future. (Once the dust clears from all this election stuff.)

Soon I'll need to get my "Agent" attire together for the music video that Ryan Junell is shooting tonight for the Mayhem Mysitcs. As far as I know, he is still looking for other people to be Agents (and Agents w/video cameras), so if you're interested, shoot me an email and I'll give you the details. He's shooting tonight and tomorrow on location here in San Francisco. (lisarein@finetuning.com)

Well I'd better get to work!

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop E (6 MB)

Lisa: "E. It just says "ethics reform."

Tom: "Oh. This is good. I sponsored this with the Ethics Commission. Basically, it's about conflict of interest. A lot of times, people will be in city government such as a department head, or a commissioner, or the mayor, or a supervisor, and then they no longer do that. But, because their faces are recognizable. Because the juice is still there, even though they're gone, they have undue influence on decision making, and they also get more access, and they can also bring people in. So this really tightens that and says if you were a mayor or supervisor or commissioner or department head or have been involved in any way on that level, you can not come back and lobby for issues. In otherwords, giving you an insider's advantage. If we're really gonna have honesty in government, we need a lot of campaign reform and we need a lot of ethics reform. And Prop E addresses that, and I think it's great. We should be very proud of it."

Lisa: "Can you give an example of when that kind of thing happens?"

Tom: "Well let's say Mayor Willie Brown will, after 8 years, no longer be the Mayor, but he certainly will have juice with certain commissioners because he appointed them, and their term goes beyond his. And so it wouldn't be (can't make out exact word) of him currently to give them a call and say 'I want to introduce you to this developer' etc. and so forth. There's been a number of supervisors, Michael Yahi comes to mind, who, after they were not voted back in office, you start to see them in the halls, using some of the connections they had with the different departments to lobby for certain issues."

Lisa: "So it would make that illegal?"

Tom: "Yes."

Lisa: "Isn't that just going to drive it 'behind close doors' so to speak?"

Tom: "No, actually, it's going to flush it out. This comes on the heels of the disclosure and the Sunshine that we also sponsored. So, some people would say 'alright, I will disclose that I, as a previous supervisor, went and talked to so and so. So what?' So alright fine, now you disclose it, and now we say because of the position that you held before, it's a conflict of interest defined by the State, and particularly by San Francisco, in a very stringent manner. You can't do it. But the average citizen should be able to come in and have the same kind of access that you're trying to say you have because you used to be a super or mayor. So it really does level that playing field."

I just added some brief descriptions from a flyer I picked up from the Youth Vote Coalition.

Every one of their recommendations matches up with what Ammiano recommends, so I thought it would help flesh out the issues a bit to include what they say about the propositions in the explanations in my
easy voting table and
detailed explanation page.

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop I (4 MB)

Lisa: "How about 'I'? Child care for low income families."

Tom: "I think it's a very good concept, but I also think this was put on the ballot as an opportunistic measure. It doesn't really talk about how it's gonna be done or where all the money is gonna come from. It's like, you know, alright, I'm gonna put something on the ballot like "be nice to old people," "don't beat up the disabled," "let's have childcare." Well, who's gonna vote against that? But the real proof in the pudding is how are you gonna make it happen, and what was your background? Now everyone has religion lately about public schools, because it's the mayor's race. Alright fine, we don't need purism and motivation. I'm the person in terms of public education with my background in education as a Board of Education member. My own kid went to public schools. My late lover taught for fifteen years. I don't feel proprietary, but I certainly feel prepared. And what we have proposed is a 60 million dollar set aside from the city government rewriting its mission for universal preschool, for arts and music for libraries in health, and for PE and sports, and that's going to be a charter amendment I hope to see on the ballot in March. And I think the buzz out there is that this is really a good thing for our public schools in San Franciso. So in terms of Prop I, I think it's a nice gesture. Again, pass or fail it's not going to make that much of a difference."

Lisa: "So you would say No? To vote No on it?"

Tom: "No! I would say "fine."

Lisa: "To go ahead and vote for it?"

Tom: "Yes. But understand that it's not always going to meet with the promises, and that it's a Mayoral election device too."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop L (6 MB)

Lisa: "How 'bout Prop L. The minimum wage."

Tom: "Very very good. I championed "living wage" as a supervisor. It took me two years and I got it done, along with providing health benefits for people who do contracting work for the city. I think that Prop L is a very logical next step. It's the brainchild actually of Barry Hermanson, whose a small business man who understands the market in a way that doesn't rip people off. And he knows that if you pay people more than the minimum wage, which is a ridiculous amount of $6.50, that they'll have a few extra nickels in their pocket, and that they'll tend to spend that in the neighborhoods they live with. And I will say this about Gonzales, he sponsored it with Barry. And they both make a very very good point which is "hey, when there's a downturn in the economy, it's not just Chevron that hurts." It's the janitors and the people who are waiters and waitresses and the people doing physical labor, and "hello?" what are we going to do about them?"

So this is a very very reasonable minimal step to at least improving the quality of life issues for working people so they don't always have to choose "should I get some medicine? or should I put food on my table." And yes it gets that dramatic for some people.

Lisa: "And just to play devil's advocate. What about the argument that it would somehow put business out of business and blah blah blah."

Tom: "It's an old saw. And if you were paying what you should be paying in the beginning, you wouldn't even be thinking that way. You get better worker morale. You get more productivity if people are making a more decent wage. And we... give exemptions to smaller businesses. The deal is that when people have more money to spend that actually revitalizes the economy. So the argument that it would hurt business is really only coming from a very small sector who's really not interested in sharing any kind of profits. That's mostly the restaurant association and some of the businesses who back Newsom, and it's a phony argument."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why YES On Prop G (3 MB)

Lisa: What about "G," the "Rainy Day Fund?"

Tom: "Yeah, I think that's really good. Of course, it's mine. But the interesting thing is that you have broad support for it from the business community, from health advocates, from progressives. It's just a matter of fiscal prudency that doesn't hurt anybody. When you're in good times, you take some of that money and put it away, so when you're in bad times, the "boom bust cycle" or "spend and purge" as we call it, doesn't mean laying off people, doesn't mean cutting services, doesn't mean, gee what about this Sophie's Choice that we usually have to face with our social services. You take that money that you put away during good times and you withdraw it for the bad times and it's just a great equalizer. It's a great budget device. I mean there's a lot more to having a effective budget for all people, but this is a very significant way to do it. We should have done it years ago. So I'm hoping that it will pass quite handily."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why NO On Prop M (2 MB)

Tom Ammiano Says:

"M is bad. M is bad medicine. M is the same one trick pony that Newsom has propelled himself into the public eye with. It's criminalizing poverty without any solutions to poverty. It just simply sweeps. It's mean spirited. It's shallow. There are already laws on the books. And I find that this one note Johnny (Newsom) is getting very very tired. I mean, that should really indicate why he's unfit to be Mayor of San Francisco."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why Yes On Prop K (1 MB)

Tom Ammiano Says:

"Let's see, Prop K. That's a little bump in your sales tax that you've been paying for the past 20 years. If you've been around long enough. And it really has been helpful to the Muni, to ladder(?) crosswalks, more traffic signs, traffic calming, bicycle paths. You name it. If it deals with transportation, Prop K will take care of it. So I would really urge a strong vote for Prop K."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why Yes On Prop J (3 MB)

Tom Ammiano Says:

"Prop J, you know. I really think it's unnecessary. I think, for Angela, it was a way to attach herself to a ballot measure so she could get some mileage out of it. It's an old trick. We all do it from time to time. If it fails, I don't really see any great consequences for San Francisco, because we already have that political will in and around the homeless -- and again, (the bill is) just trying to capitalize on that without really trying to come up with solutions that are verifyable. Like my ability to get six million bucks from the Bush government two weeks ago, so we could have supportive housing and services for the mentally ill and homeless. Now that's real, and that's happening as we speak.

(from later in the interview)

Lisa: So getting back to J. Would you say "No"? Or would you say go ahead and pass J?

Tom:

I'd say go ahead and pass J. It's not going to hurt anything. I just think that you don't want to make any empty promises.

Lisa: But it's not crucial?

Tom: Yeah.

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why Yes On Prop H (1 MB)

Tom Ammiano Says:

"Prop H is very important. Not just cause I wrote it. But it is about police reform. People are hungry for that across the class spectrum and across the political spectrum. People want police reform. It's being spun as being anti-cop. It's being spun as a political power grab. That's nonsense. We really need Prop H."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow's elections.

Video clip - Why Yes On Prop A (2 MB)

Tom Ammiano Says:

"I think one of the most import ones to me is Prop A, which is the School Bonds. The new Superindendent, like her or not, has really cleaned up the act of the school district. The clearance of the state in terms of honest finances. So Prop A would really help our schools a lot. In San Francisco, we like public schools. So I would say hooray for Prop A."

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

Here's
Tom Ammiano explaining why he's a better choice for Mayor than Angela Alioto. (Small - 3 MB)

Lisa:

The other person I wanted to ask you about was Angela Alioto.

Tom:

Well, you know, Angela is a very interesting person. She has a lot of personality, but I don't think she has a lot of substance. I worked with her on the Board many years ago, and she can certainly put her heart behind an issue. But when it really came to taking on business, and when it really came to taking on established practices, she's more a woman of Pacific Heights.

I think people need to remember that this is also a "money" person. Now a money person doesn't have to be necessarily an "evil" person. However, I think there is a disconnect with a lot of the working class people and culture in San Francisco. I think she's been somewhat removed, and she certainly has interrupted her political career for the past 12 years, and I don't think she's in the loop in the same way. She didn't support District Elections, and now she says she does.

So there's a lot of reinvention on her part, and I think it would be a big mistake to have her as Mayor of San Francisco. I think, we'd, if anything, have some chaos. If you look at her contributors, they're a lot of the same developers that have been around for a long time, and lobbyists, and we've really gotten away from that. We certainly don't want a mayor that encourages that. And definitely Newsom could do the same thing.

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

Here's
Tom Ammiano explaining why he's a better choice for Mayor than Gavin Newsom. (Small - 4 MB)

Lisa:

What separates you from Gavin?

Tom:

Well, I think there's a class background that can't be discounted. And, as with Matt, the number of years of legislative history. He's pretty skimpy. He's been on about as long as Gonzales, but he hasn't really accomplished very much.

Also, he doesn't get along with any of the Board members. He's at war with most of them. It's one thing to fight with people. We all do that. You want that in a democracy. It's not "the Stepford Supervisors" by any means. But then there's a time to put it aside and work in a common way. And I don't see that with Newsome in any way. So, he gets elected Mayor and we're going to have that wide gap again between Supervisors, elected by neighborhoods by the way, and a Mayor who does not like District Elections and wants to go backwards.

He's supported by Feinstein. Feinstein wants to end District Elections. She's not supportive of comperable work. She's not supportive of police reform. So he, really, for a younger person, really does not represent the future. He represents the past and going backwards, and I think that's a big difference.

How I'm voting this Tuesday

This footage is from October 31, 2003.

Here's
Tom Ammiano explaining why he's a better choice for Mayor than Matt Gonzales. (Small - 5 MB)

Lisa:

What separates you from Matt Gonzales? A lot of people are on the fence about who they're going to vote for, and I thought we could clear that up.

Tom:

Well, a lot more years of experience. And legislative history. I know that sometimes people think "gee, legislative history" is a little boring. However, I come from this activist background. And then, when I was about 49, I took all the social justice issues I knew about and all the populist issues I knew about and put them together and got elected, and I've been enacting those for years.
Living Wage, District Elections, Environmental Issues, and I think that that's a big difference.

Also, I taught school for 25 years, and I think that taught be a lot about not only the economy, but about the diversity in San Francisco, and the job market in San Francisco, and I'm very very supportive of public schools, and I have that hands on experience. And I have a kid, and my kid went to public schools.

So, you know, I think someone like Gonzales is going to find out that there ain't no free lunch for anybody, and you just can't coast on rhetoric and verbage or personality. You're really going to have to prove that you've produced something other than a different voice...

I think my legislative history -- the length of it, the social justice ground, the comprehensive and very wide wide number of issues I've dealt with over the years -- I think that's what people would like to see in a Mayor.