Middle class issues resonate with former school board member Eddie Chin.
Presidential election years like 2012 mean high lib San Francisco turnouts and best shots at passing big tax measures. In 2008, SF overwhelmingly passed an $887 million bond for SF General Hospital while nixing a property tax set aside for affordable housing. In 2002 and 2004 (a presidential year), voters sank two affordable housing bonds…. Key to breaking the losing streak is getting middle class voters, especially Asian Pacific Americans (APA), to buy into $50 million November housing trust fund measure promised in Mayor Ed Lee’s January inauguration: “Not just low-income housing, but workforce housing as well as for middle class families we need to keep in our City”…
MIDDLE CLASS CATCH-22: Resonating with the mayor, former school board member Eddie Chin said SF’s middle class is in a Catch-22. “Their income is a little too high to qualify for low income housing and their income (about $60,000 to $100,000) is not high enough to qualify for a loan to buy a house. They are caught in the middle. Basically they have to leave San Francisco,” said the Chinese American Democratic Club president. “If the trend continues over the decades, all you have basically is the rich and the poor [in the City]”…While the jury is still out on Lee’s 14 months, Chin said his predecessor, Gavin Newsom, “did a lot for low income, the homeless…the low end and the high end, but what about the middle class?”… SHOW US THE MONEY: Mayoral housing point man Malcolm Yeung last month in the Chronicle was considering trust fund options while conceding he’s “not married” to a transfer tax hike. That might make the SF Association of Realtors President Jeffrey Woo and 4,000 members happy. But they’re still accumulating signatures, 1338 as of March 7 against a transfer tax and considering the City has whacked them with rate hikes in 2008 and 2010… YEUNG OPTION?: Chin was awaiting details on an upcoming $185 million Recreation and Park bond debate. A $5 to $10 million slice of the bond might go towards mayor’s housing trust fund. “That’s what I think they are trying to do,” said Chin. “However, it’s not firm”…
President Richard Hashimoto (right) of the Japantown Merchants Association and Sandy Mori (left) honors Mayor Ed Lee.
Japantown Merchants Association good luck Daruma doll for Mayor Lee
EYE WISH FOR A SURPLUS: Among the Nihonmachi gift stash for Mayor and First Lady Anita Lee, a round red Daruma doll for good luck. “All the politicians in Japan have this in their cabinet…you make one wish, you color one eye. When that wish comes true, you color in the other eye,” said Hashimoto. On the dotted eye wish list: balanced budget and keeping the 49ers in San Francisco…Now if the Daruma doll lucks out, the Mayor might strap on last year’s JMA gift kabuto (Japanese warrior helmet) and head butt owner Jed York to keep the team here… Superior Court Judge Garrett Wong, seen with President Celia Lee of the Asian American Bar Association in 2008, is a stickler for jury duty. (Photo courtesy of AABA)
WANT JUSTICE, DO THE TIME: Embattled Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi got to see Judge Garrett Wong last month over his trial for domestic violence against wife and former soap actor Eliana Lopez and son Theo. The same justice excused this columnist back in 2010 as a juror for a hate crime case in his Hall of Justice courtroom and then chastised and excused those pleading hardship, including Mr. Potsticker on standby for a business trip to Shanghai…. Nevertheless a teachable moment – when we cry justice for a hate crime, then do the time as in jury time even when given a longer sentence as a juror than some criminal defendants…In Wong’s courtroom was hate crimes prosecutor Victor Hwang of then DA Kamala Harris’ office and ex-head of API Legal Outreach, the former Nihonmachi Legal Outreach …
NEXT LANCE ITO?: Presiding over People vs. Mirkarimi has gotten Wong ranked third as of Mar. 7 in weekly profile views among over 20,000 SF lawyers and 164th worldwide among over 1.4 million attorneys at Martindale.com …And to think he was Governor Schwarzenegger’s first APA SF judge appointed in 2005 after disappointments with non-APAs succeeding late Lenard Louie’s and Lillian Sing’s first retirement in 2004.
Brian Kimura of Nihonmachi Roots supports Japantown in SF Board of Supervisor redistricting. He and Steve Nakajo (right), director of Kimochi Inc., are at the Japantown Merchants Association reception for Mayor Lee.
PEEKING WEST OF TWIN PEAKS: Solid vote for the mayor? You might say that of terming out District 7 (West of Twin Peaks) incumbent Supervisor Sean Elsbernd – an appointee of former Mayor Newsom. Elsbernd has lined up with Newsom and Lee. Progressives looking to reclaim a board majority don’t stand a chance of winning with a lefty in one of the town’s most conservative supervisor districts (to be redistricted April 15 to adjust for the 2010 Census). However, progressives could pick up an independent conservative like court administrator Tony Hall who upset incumbent Mabel Teng in 2000. Hall did not eye-to-eye with Newsom on issues like Care Not Cash homeless programs and housing and supporting progressive Green Matt Gonzalez for Board President… To succeed Elsbernd, School Board President Norman Yee has declared for District 7 while holding a Planning Summit on PreK to 3rd grade students with the Mayor last month in the Mission’s Everett Middle School, FX Crowley of the Port Commission kicked off for supervisor on his birthday on Feb. 22. No age revealed except that he’s at least 18….And Assembly Speaker pro Tempore Fiona Ma supports Norman and FX… SCHOOL BOARD XING : Yee’s entry vacates a school board seat that Skyline Colleg e anthropology instructor and public school parent Beverly Ho-A-Yun Popek is stumping for this November. Beverly who lives on Beverly Street is quite popular on “Rate My Professor”…getting a red pepper for “Hottness”…
Assembly Speaker pro Tempore Fiona Ma (right) celebrates her birthday at NC2 Studio tonight with a fundraiser for California Board of Equalization. Ma is at her January press conference endorsing Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting (left) for State Assembly.
PUFF THE WET DRAGON: Giddy civil service contestants on Feb. 24 at the Coalition of Asian American Government Employees tooted “Puff the Magic Dragon” while inserting the Mayor’s name or something sounding like a magic bong in the lyrics during the Lunar New Year luncheon benefit…. Lee, a veteran civil servant, wasn’t there but did celebrate old homecoming week with the JMA on Feb. 22 at Hotel Kabuki. The mayor, also ex-managing attorney of Asian Law Caucus , reminisced about long ties with Cherry Blossom Festival activists and Nihonmachi legal eagles Don Tamaki, Bill Tamayo and Dennis Hayashi. “We all sat in that dunking booth. When I am the ‘wet’ dragon, it’s for other reasons,” said Lee, born under the Lunar Year of the “Water” Dragon…
MISS ME?: Email Samson Wong at potsticker@prodigy.net.
Veteran columnist has appeared in up to 450,000 households weekly in the SF Independent, Examiner (2000-04) and AsianWeek since 1996. As Editor-in-Chief (2003-07), AsianWeek and Samson received wide recognition from the California Legislature, New American Media, League of Women Voters, GLAAD, Organization of Chinese Americans, SPUR and APA civic groups. Thru the SF Citizens Advisory Committee on Elections, SF Elections Task Force and Chinese American Voters Education Committee, Wong helped boost APA influence from 25,000 in the 1980s to over 50,000 voters by the early 1990s.