Response to PROSF Questionnaire

Dear PROSF(Panhandle Residents Organization Stanyon Fulton):

Your questionnaire is conceptually flawed. The idea that candidates should have some kind of comprehensive, "written plan" for the 5th District is not based in any political reality I know of. In any event, consider this letter a response to your questionnaire, though I won't necessarily respond to all the questions when I think a response isn't particularly to the point. Consider this reality: Matt Gonzalez had very little knowledge of the city when he ran in 2000. Quick, name a single major policy position or initiative he championed in 2000! I was one of the candidates then, and I can't remember a single thing. Yet we all more or less agree that he has been a good supervisor, with the significant exception of the homeless issue (more about that later).

So there's been "a decreasing quality of life in the neighborhood"? Maybe. Depends on what time period your sample covers. For example, I lived on Oak St. across from the Panhandle in 1970, and the neighborhood was pretty rough then, as the hard drug scourge hit the Haight and spilled over into other neighborhoods. I can't believe that things are actually worse now.

And we have "erratic and infrequent public transportation" in your neighborhood? I don't believe it. I ride Muni every day and often take the Haight St. lines to get off on Divisadero to walk home. After the big Muni meltdown of 1998, the system has steadily improved. Overall, Michael Burns has done a good job. People who complain about Muni to me are usually people who don't ride it much. Shortage of parking? Of course. Do you think we need more parking lots? I don't. In fact I think we should make it difficult and expensive to own a car in the city, which is too small to handle the traffic it already has. Yes, this makes one more advantage that the rich have over the rest of us, but that's already a permanent reality in many areas of life in S.F. Should we encourage car ownership in the name of of some kind of populism? I don't think so. The delivery vehicle issue will be with us for a long time, until someone invents a way to move goods to shops another way. Small businesses rely on trucks to deliver their merchandise, and a heavy-handed city approach to delivery trucks would hurt business in the neighborhoods. It's a difficult problem with no easy solution in a small city.

Yes, drug dealing and "quality of life" crimes should be discouraged. Graffiti is one of my pet peeves, an infraction that many progressives seem to tolerate on the grounds that it's some kind of cultural statement. Bullshit! And drug dealing should not take place on the streets; it should be done only indoors.

There is no possible "plan" to address homelessness in one neighborhood. It's a citywide problem and must be dealt with as such. Mayor Newsom's approach should eventually provide a comprehensive approach to the problem, with Angela Alioto heading up the commission that's hammering out a plan right now.

Speaking of homelessness, the progressive community has failed shockingly on this issue. Some of you may recall that I tried to interest progressives in doing something about the issue in 2000. I failed, partly because my campaign was necessarily part-time---I'm a dishwasher and often work at night---and underfunded. But mostly I failed because the progressive mindset evidently saw---and still sees---the homeless as an oppressed class whose "right" to live on the streets must be defended, not as seriously dysfunctional people whose lives are in an often fatal downward spiral. Hence, progressives have been guilty of political negligence by not addressing the issue and leaving it laying around until Gavin Newsom, to his credit, seized it and used it as the centerpiece of his mayoral campaign. People have wanted something done about the problem for years, which the political left didn't seem to understand. Where was the compassion progressives have been historically known for? 100-200 people dying on our streets every year didn't seem to move our progressive leadership. The Bay Guardian obsessed on public power, while people died on our streets. Matt Gonzalez never showed a shred of interest in a serious effort to do something about homelessness, an indifference he carried into his campaign for mayor. He might have won if he had a serious proposal on homelessness to challenge Care Not Cash.

Of course I'll attend neighborhood meetings if I'm elected. But accessibility to one's constituents doesn't mean I'll dedicate every waking hour to that end. And, as I pledged in 2000, I will never carry a goddamn cell phone!

Regards,
Rob Anderson