San Francisco Needs a Political Revolution

It’s election season once again, and San Francisco’s politicians are once again clamoring for your attention.

The dust of March 5th’s Super Tuesday has pretty much settled and indications are it was actually a mixed bag for San Francisco. Local and national media picked up on the many “moderate” Democrats’ victories, but characterizations of the city having lost the Progressive label are just untrue. Though voters did approve a couple of crime-accountability ballot measures, there were no conservative victories to represent us in state or federal offices.

Two soft-on-crime judges, with track records of releasing arrested perpetrators actually survived at the polls; tough on crime judge challengers failed to be sufficiently supported by PACs. Five incumbent radical leftist members of the SF DCCC (the Democratic Party leadership) retained their seats, thought they will be squarely in the minority as moderate Democrats seized the overall sentiment of the party committee.

We can feel a change coming. Savvy candidates will try to capitalize on the small victories, testing the waters with stances the majority of San Francisco appears ready for, that is, a more conservative view. On public safety, on the city’s out of control spending and more. It’s an issue, though, of available candidates.

San Francisco is no stranger to rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. We have a large bag filled with politicians’ names and controversies, which keep popping up as candidates yet again, be it for school board, mayor, city council, state assembly, US senate, Congress and yes, even Vice President.

To truly effect change, voters still have a lot to do. Educating one’s self about the policies and proposals at City Hall is extremely important, as is learning about alliances of newcomer candidates and incumbents for re-election as to who or which politicians, organization and political clubs are endorsing them.

Here’s the upshot: Not only have the status quo city hall officials failed us, they’ve misused our hard-earned money. Taxpayers are sick of the waste and the rhetoric. We are sick of the time spent listening to excuses and the pleas for even more money, with elected leaders promising results this time, pretending their previous plans just need more time to work this time. We simply don’t believe them, and we shouldn’t support them any longer. We need candidates willing to depart from the status quo, to think outside the box.

Term limits and limits to years of overall participation in elected office is one such idea, as is to repeal Ranked Choice Voting; to return San Francisco to a city-wide supervisors at-large city council; to reduce the city’s annual budget, and to revamp commissions and departments. This is thinking outside the box. We need more of this.

San Francisco needs a mayor, now more than ever, who not only recognizes the failings which have brought down our great city but will act to cancel contracts and terminate and banish people tied to them, with urgency. We need a courageous leader; we are far past the time for tough love and need to be truly bold.  Current Mayor London Breed (and many candidates running against her) simply proclaim how they would work within guidelines of the status quo, when what is actually needed to scrap the policies altogether. Breed has shackled our hard working residents with an unsustainable $14.6 Billion dollar budget. We now have a shortfall; she’s asked department to tighten their belts. A better, bolder move would be for her to cut funding programs and commissions, which led to this insane, unworkable budget in the first place. A mayor can and should wield an ax to unnecessary, wasteful and duplicative agencies and departments. London Breed, She’s actually grown the budget by nearly $5 billion since taking office.

Even more insulting: we see Mayor London Breed scrambling to fix and cure issues, via efforts taken in haste to make her look good to voters in an election year. This is a despicable practice; exploiting San Franciscans today as she distances herself from her own misdeeds and failures of just a few years ago, as if that London Breed person is someone else. In reality, she must be held accountable and never supported for re-election.

Voters, it’s up to us. We need to continue the pressure on the underperforming and nonperforming elected officials, and give our cash donations to the candidates who think outside the box, who don’t support a status quo, and who put the future of the city first. A revolution has begun and we can work together to make real change this November. The next time you listen to politician stumping for your vote, ask yourself: Who will this candidate benefit if elected, how will this person benefit us? After all, it’s our city that has been suffering for years. We need bold candidates for a revolution, now.