VOLUME 2, NUMBER 31   <>    MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2001

Watching City Hall

by h. brown

I went down to City Hall last Sunday. Now that I’m jobless & bouncing between friends’ places to crash, I avoid the place more than usual. Too many people even one more step down the ladder from me walking around or lying in heaps. (Or making speeches in the Board chambers.) Still, I wanted to get a sense of the place. Maybe hit on some chicks. You know.

I zigzagged through the Tenderloin to arrive at our local civic palace on the Polk Street side. As I arrived, two figures in all black caught my attention. The first was a single crow who called to me from his perch above the mayor’s office. One crow. Perched at the peak of the gable above the mayor’s office window. An American flag fluttered in the breeze above him as he screamed his presence to all below. “Caw! ... CAAWWW!” I don’t know what they say about single black crows where you come from but back in Missouri ... it ain’t good.

I watched the crow for a while, then turned to head across the square to where the Farmers’ Market was set up in United Nations Plaza. The second figure in all black stepped out of the shadows to watch me from a distance. It was a private security guard.

I glanced down at my clothing. PayLess sandals, a raggedy denim jacket & a “Recall Willie Brown” T-shirt. Yeah, I fit a profile for the bird and the guard. I wondered if they had little silhouette outlines for the guards to refer to that included everything from Jihad terrorists to wacko reporters. You know, the kind they gave to coast watchers and crow’s nest lookouts during the big one. I would definitely be on the card.

I steered a wide berth around the guard. I vaguely wondered what he was doing in the square. If anyone patrolled that area, shouldn’t it be a city cop? I headed on down to U.N. Plaza to check out the scene. Then I saw another figure in black.

It was another private security guard. He was talking affably to a couple of street folks lounging on the Market Street side of the teeming portable produce carnival. My curiosity peaked & I approached him and passed him a card identifying myself as a secret agent for the Hungarian government. He looked confused.

Seeing I’d handed him the wrong card, I apologized & replaced it with another which extolled my skills as a door-to-door liposuctionist.

I kept fishing till I found the one that said I was a reporter for the San Francisco Call. That one got him nodding with understanding. I asked why he was there and not a cop. He smiled and said that the Farmers’ Market Association/Collective/Whatever hired him and he worked for them. I nodded too.

I looked again across the thousand or so people shopping in the temporary outdoor market and saw nary a “real” cop.

I looked up and down Market Street at the usual scene. No cops.

I began to understand Willie’s thinking on the matter and that’s two terrifying processes. (Willie Brown’s thinking & h. brown’s analysis of same.) It goes like this…

Mayor Willie Brown wants to give mid-Market to his rich buddies. Hardin Golf Course too. And the docks around Marina Green. Also the stables in Golden Gate Park. The mayor and his advisers know there would be a public outcry if he simply tried to deed over public treasures to his friends. He’s got to have an excuse. His excuse is that the public assets would be much better cared for by his rich friends. “Just look at the condition of the docks down by the Marina!” ... “Can you believe the condition of Harding Golf Course?” ... “The stables in Golden Gate Park are a disaster!” AND ... AND ... “Can you believe the conditions around 6^th and Market?!” How stupid are you?

No, really ... how stupid are you? Do you not realize that Willie Brown has spent around 20 BILLION ... 20 BILLION dollars in this city over the past 6 years?

The bastard controls 99.7% of expenditures in the city. If he had chosen to spend 1/10th of 1% of that money on properly addressing the aforementioned crumbling public properties, they would be beautiful and no one would have to lose their boat slip or their cheap golf or affordable stables. If he had spent 1/10th of 1% of that cash on expanding programs for addicts & the insane, U.N. Plaza would still have its benches.

The cops can do the job. Hell yes, they can!

A police lieutenant with 28 years in and a wish for early retirement or assignment to a desk next to Aaron Peskin’s new Peaker Power Plant at SFO said in last week’s Examiner that 8 beat cops and 2 sergeants could control the area.

Chief of Police Fred (the ‘Graduate’) Lau said he couldn’t do that. Hey Chief, how come you and your brass can get a hundred troops out for a demonstration comprised of 20 aging hippies and you got NO ONE at 6th and Market where 1,000 peaceful citizens shop fearfully wading through drunks, crazies, junkies, and worse?

Don’t think, Fred. It makes smoke come out your ears and that looks bad on anyone. I’ll answer for you.

It’s because your boss told you to let the situation crash & burn so he (or Gavin) could ride through on a large white horse and drive out EVERYONE.

Oh yeah, that’s the goal. He’s gonna not just throw out the dealers and crazies when he moves. He could have done that long ago. He’s waiting until the Examiner & his other media henchmen get the citizens so upset that he can go through and sweep out EVERYONE!

He wants the SROs where the folks live who play chess and just hang out live. He wants rid of the non-profits and the people who run them. After he runs out their clients, what need for them?

Letting crime fester is purely intentional. Y’all mark my words … you can trust me. After all, I work for the Hungarian Secret Police.