C.W. Nevius
When it began in April, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd’s quest to get enough signatures to put a charter amendment on the November ballot had its doubters.
Elsbernd was one of them.
The proposed amendment, which would delete the guarantee that San Francisco Muni operators be the second-highest-paid transit drivers in the country, has stirred up a lot of passion. But gathering 47,000 authenticated signatures in about three months is not easy.
"Sure I had my doubts," Elsbernd said. "There hasn’t been a successful signature drive for a charter amendment at the grassroots level in a couple of decades."
Today Elsbernd is confident, even if he realistically needs 70,000 signers to account for duplicates and invalid signatures. Insiders think he’ll cross the finish line on July 6 with signatures to spare.
Although it seems logical that Muni drivers should have their contract negotiated like all other city workers, taking on the unions can be politically dangerous.
"Supervisor Elsbernd is showing a great deal of political courage to take on this confounding sacred cow," said Alex Clemens, founder of Barbary Coast Consulting. "He’s staring down a lot of big political guns right now."
He also gets a chance to trash-talk his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, who were not supportive.
"If we’re successful, it sends a message that the Board of Supervisors can ignore an issue but the people will take it up," Elsbernd said. "It will show that the board was woefully out of touch."
Residents at the 2500 block of Larkin were angered to see that they were the latest victims of trash dumping on their street over the weekend. The jerks left an old mattress, bookcase and broken plates. Oh, and one more thing - some mail with the criminal mastermind’s name and address.
There’s a sensational sushi place out in the Richmond that has devoted customers waiting outside the door for as long as an hour. A couple of caveats: incredibly small; a strict list of rules ranging from "No complaining" to "No fork, no Coke"; and not open on weekends.
One more thing - I can’t give you the name. First, because it doesn’t appear to have a name on the front. And second, when I asked if I could mention them in The Chronicle, I was given an emphatic one-word answer - "No!"
