Skeletons in Every Closet!?!

Steve Moss is getting a lot of attention at the SF Bay Guardian as allegations fly surrounding improprieties in residency, money diversion, ties to a group that promotes condo conversions and rails against tenant protections, etc. in articles in their paper:

Steve Moss, carpetbagger - 09/10/10
Steve Moss Responds - 09/13/10
Five Things You Should Know about Steve Moss - 09/14/10
Plan C Endorses Sweet and Moss - 09/21/10
The Real Steve Moss - 09/23/10

No other candidate has gotten this kind of scrutiny besides Lynette Sweet:

Lynette Sweet and IRS Strange Story - 09/02/10
Lynett Sweet, the "no-comment" candidate - 09/20/10
Plan C Endorses Sweet and Moss - 09/21/10
Lynette Sweet's Finances: Curiouser and Curiouser - 09/27/10

Why is it that SFBG and other local news outlets aren't pressing the other candidates on the skeletons in their own closets that are perhaps just as bad, or, at the very least, simply raise questions about these candidates' willingness to disclose information to voters or help us figure out how they'd operate as our supervisor?

Has Ms Sweet's tax evasion "mix-up" simply faded and become a non-issue? Maybe not, as SFBG has a piece on it today and BeyondChron mentions it as a reason Ms Sweet has dropped out of the lead pack. An allegation by a commenter here on D10CanWatch regarding a large unpaid tax bill for Tony Kelly's "Thick Description" theater company may raise eyebrows, and questions like these need to be answered directly by the candidates so as to tamp down the rumor-mill. As Mr. Kelly responds to voters, in part,

"Like so many small theatre companies in this economy, the one I ran - Thick Description - has had its share of tough times.

"Thick Description has a significant tax debt to the IRS. The company has a proposed repayment plan for that debt, based on the proceeds of Thick Description's contract with another company to help them run their new theater, opening in the summer of 2011. While the IRS considers that repayment plan, and even during that repayment, the agency will hold liens on the company to protect its claim; those liens will be released as the debts are paid off over the coming five years."

Read Mr. Kelly's full response here.

I've heard a couple of times as-yet-unfounded allegations regarding Ms Sweet and Ms Cohen actually living in the district. Of course, these latter allegations could be completely bogus, but since no one in the main stream media seems to be looking into these things and asking (and finding answers to) the truly tough questions of the candidates, we may never actually know.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Ms Sweet and Ms Cohen on these questions, but, in one case, a quick look in the phone book lists Malia J Cohen as living on Silliman Ave in 94134, which is indeed outside D10. Is this our candidate Malia Cohen's actual home? Her candidate filing papers all list a 94134 ZIP, but since the actual address is redacted in the publicly available version of those papers, it's not possible to tell anything more. If this is her, why is she listed in the phone book as living outside D10, and when did she purchase her home in D10 as she claims on her website to have done?

My point is, sure, some skeletons are less important than others, but are all the other candidates so squeaky-clean that the media isn't even going to do more investigation on them? Why aren't the candidates themselves publicly asking these tough questions of one another? Have they all taken a vow of silence on these issues, and if so, would that be the backroom kind of political dealings that we would want from our next supervisor?

Portola Festival today

See you on San Bruno Ave today, 10AM - 4PM.

http://www.portolafestival.org/

Just got back from the festival on San Bruno, with a couple of observations... Teresa Duqué, Tony Kelly, DeWitt Lacy, Steve Moss, Lynette Sweet, Marlene Tran, Steven Weber, and Diane Wesley-Smith all had booths, while Eric Smith, Chris Jackson and Kristine Enea were there pressing the flesh. Malia Cohen was the only majorly endorsed candidate whom I didn't see there.

In talking to the candidates and voters today, one overarching theme made itself plainly clear - the candidates have GOT to show up on doorsteps and at street fairs if they want votes. Steve Weber told me that he went and knocked on a voter's door the other day, and was told that the last candidate to do so was Dan White. Dan Frickin' White, people!! A couple of voters remarked how, not only was Steve Moss at the Portola Garden Tour yesterday, but that he is at ALL the Portola and Visitacion Valley vigils and events, and really seems to get it when it comes to voter communication and engagement. Furthermore, they said that this, over everything else they're reading in the papers about him, is the most important thing to them. You get to know the people of the district by talking to them, not by sitting in a bubble thinking that you understand them or by waiting for them to come to you. This is why Tony Kelly was at the coast clean-up yesterday, to show engagement with the community. Like his politics or not, he gets out there, and that is important to voters. Like her or not, this is why Sophie Maxwell shows up to so many events, even if just to show face.

Marlene Tran, whom a couple of candidates seemed to be wooing at the League of Women Voters forum last week, made some hugely obvious points to me that only she seems to get - namely that, if you're coming to a street fair, whether you're a candidate, the SF voting commission, or a local group, KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE! A large percentage of the people in the Portola, Silver Terrace, and Vis Valley sections of D10 speak a Chinese language as their first language, and for many of them (60% according to Marlene), as their only language. Why did the city have two non-Chinese-language-speakers sitting in its booth trying to get people to register to vote? Ms Tran likely signed up more voters in ten minutes than the city did all day, because she knows her audience and can provide someone, herself in this case, to talk to the voters in a language they understand.

Candidates, the job of Supervisor is more than a full-time job. From the moment you filed papers to run, you gave up your personal lives. The jobs of candidate and supervisor are an every day affair, and what this election is showing us more than anything is who's up to the task. Showing up and answering a few questions at a forum is one thing, but what we need to see is you, the candidates, at every event, whether it be picking up trash, at a street fair, or just talking to people and telling them what you are about as you walk through their favorite park or down their favorite street with them.

If you chose not to come to one event because you have another to attend, that's fine, but instead of just blowing off a community-building street fair like the one today, you need to organize a crack team to work the events you can't so as to make sure you're represented. But if 80% of your competition is showing up to an event, you'd better do the same, and all the endorsements in the world won't keep you from being toast come election day. And those who do show up had better have a person with them who can cross a language barrier when it arises.

Chinese voters in D10 - SF Bay Citizen

My thoughts on today's post online in the SF Bay Citizen:

Asians make up over a third of the population of D10, so while the candidate forums so far have skewed heavily toward the concerns of the African-American community, Blacks make up a smaller 28% of the population in the district. Fifteen candidates in the D10 race are African-American, with only Duqué and Tran holding down the Asian fort and Moss, Enea, Weber, and Kelly the only Caucasians. It'd be nice in future elections to see greater representation from the Chinese-American community, and if anything, greater engagement of this growing population needs to be done by our next supervisor to encourage our next generation of Chinese-American leaders. One thing that comes to mind here is that the Chinese community tends to skew a little more conservative, so Progressives may need to watch their backs - Jackson's move to engage this community is a smart one.

It's a shame, really, that I haven't seen more Asian voters attending the forums, and although campaign materials are often printed in other languages, including Chinese, I worry that candidates are not reaching out to the Chinese community as much as they ought to. Hopefully the candidates will all be in attendance at next week's Visitacion Valley Community Center forum, cosponsored by the Chinese American Voter Education Committee, and will make a showing at Sunday's Portola Festival - No Folsom St Fair for any of you, I'm afraid!!