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Vingt Regards:XIV. TSR's Guide to SF Elections

San Francisco's sample ballot (I guess I'd prolly vote for Xiao Ma Ding)

Among the great joys of living in San Francisco are the Voter Information Pamphlets, which arrive in the mail seemingly six or seven times a year. Though I often say that the $10 standing room tix at the Opera are the best entertainment deal in town, they may in fact be trumped by the Municipal Election voter booklets, which are always chock full of laughs. To celebrate yet another Election Day, here are a selection of actual quotes from this election's 152-page installment.

From Candidates for Mayor:

"This is a One Issue campaign which is to Make Golden Gate Park Clothing Optional.... For other policy issues, a well known City Manager will be appointed."

"My occupation is: Vegan Taxicab Driver."

"For the past 6 years, I have raised funds to distribute over 8,000 turkeys to low income residents."

"My promise is to fire your boss."

"Hi, my name is Chicken John."

"My creation of the Power Exchange [caution, probably NSFW] adult sexual liberation experience..."

And, in so many ways the most absurd of them all:

"My occupation is Mayor of San Francisco."

From Local Ballot Measures:

"San Francisco does not need to be in the horse business. Horses are large animals."

"If anyone thinks this measure will enrich our democracy and improve the public discourse in the city, the person should be forced to watch a continuous video loop of the behavior of some of our supervisors."

"Because this measure will take cars off the street. Proposition H will, likely reduce congestion." [sic through, out]

"Don't allow the proponents' anti-business bias deprive San Franciscans of more ... esthetically pleasing newspaper racks."

And, as you might guess, my favorite:

"Let [the Municipal Transportation Agency, a.k.a. the unmitigated disaster that oversees both MUNI and the DPT] exclusively set rates for parking fines, fees, and penalties that would go into their own coffers." [LOLZ!! Wait, never mind; I'm crying, not laughing. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.]

Disclaimer: The funniest part may be that just because it's quoted here, doesn't mean I voted against it... 

HAPPY ELECTION DAY

~~~~~~

Vingt Regards / I. Strange Bedfellows / II. A New Era, Indeed / III. Hommage à Paolo Conte / IV. Hommage à S. Bar. / V. They Speak According to the Book / VI. Overheard in New York / VII. In Rotation: August 2007 / VIII. LA Phil's New Housemate / IX. Apples and Amoebas / X. Sunday in the Park with Bert / XI. Epilogue / XII. Taking Stock / XIII. De Quadratis Magicis

Conundrum

Say you went out to move your car and saw a Cushman parked directly alongside. You looked at the ticket and said, but Officer, I wasn't parked here at that time. And the officer said, too bad, all the cars were checked at that time. And you said, but I wasn't parked here at that time. And the officer said something unintelligible about a grace period, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock and started to drive away. And you ran after the Cushman saying, I'm sorry, what did you say? And the officer stopped the Cushman. And you said, I'm sorry, I honestly didn't understand what you said. And the officer took the ticket out of your hand and said, when did you park? And you said, after the time that's on the ticket. And the officer said, are you sure? And you said, absolutely. And the officer took out a pen and said, GO! with a wave of the hand...

Would you then consider the $40 citation to be voided, and therefore rejoice? Or would you steel yourself for a delinquency notice in the mail in a month bumping the fee up to $60 or $80?

(Either way, you'd have to move the car again in 2 hours.)

Another Milestone

Post-Cabrillo (Mason Bates, Adès, Glass)
tx nochmal to Mlle XL

Dude, Where's My Car?

Imagine my surprise, coming 'round the corner and seeing no cars on a street where there should have been cars—namely, ours.

It turns out every car that had been parked on this block was in violation of Sec. 33(c) of the San Francisco Traffic Code:

SEC. 33. DIVERTING OF TRAFFIC AND TEMPORARY PARKING RESTRICTIONS.
(c) Violation. It shall be unlawful for any person to park a vehicle in violation of such prohibition or restriction or to disobey the lawful order of any Police Officer or Parking Control Officer directing the removal or diverting of a vehicle from said street or area.

In other words...

...they wanted to shoot a Volkswagen commercial.

There was no signage up when we parked the car there on Friday, and by 9:15am Sunday morning the City Tow vultures found themselves with a couple dozen carcasses to feed on. It turns out that they need give just ONE DAY's notice:

Parking areas on public streets needed for equipment and filming must be posted by the movie company no later than 24 hours prior to the start of filming at that location.

The cost of the citation: $40. The towing: $290. The ulcer: Priceless.

Palindrome

One week, $80 + $0.78 postage (which is to say, more than 8 nights in standing room)

The Cost of Absentmindedness

Another 40 fucking dollars pissed away. What a heartening start to the week.

Today's Puzzler

This morning, at O'Farrell and Leavenworth, I wondered...

How many days did it take for him to find four adjoining empty parking spaces?!?

Spoonful of Sugar

Note to self: Next time I break into somebody's car...

...remember to flatter the owner of the vehicle by scattering some "you are beautiful" stickers around the car.

(at least they didn't take my pitchpipe this time)

The Other Half of the Story

As longtime TSR followers can well imagine, coffee nearly shot out my nose at the breakfast table on Saturday when I unfolded the New York Times:

San Franciscans Hurl Their Rage at Parking Patrol

... Over all, 2006 was a dangerous year for those hardy souls handing out tickets here, with 28 attacks, up from 17 in 2005.

All of which has left officials in this otherwise civilized community scrambling to explain, and solve, “parking rage.” [...]

People in the field say abuse is common, often frightening and, occasionally, humiliating. In November, an officer was spat on, another was punched through the window of his Geo Metro, and an irate illegal parker smashed the windshield of another officer’s golf-cart-like vehicle.

“Just driving down the street, you get yelled at,” said Lawanna Preston, staff director for Local 790 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents parking control officers. [...]

“They can’t even eat lunch with that uniform on, because people approach them and curse at them,” Ms. Preston said. [...]

That frustration extends all the way to people like George Anderson, president of the American Association of Anger Management Providers, a mental health group, who said the parking problems here were so notorious that he had stopped holding paid lectures here.

“They’d be angry when they walked in,” said Mr. Anderson, a clinical social worker who lives in Los Angeles. “I’d spend half my time defending why I couldn’t include parking in the fee.”

A shout-out to the kind souls who forwarded this article my way. You see now why this blog was founded on the dual pillars of singing and parking.

I take umbrage at one thing in the article, though:

“It’s hard for me to understand people reacting in such a hostile manner,” said Nathaniel P. Ford Sr., executive director of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees parking. “Clearly, this is a working person simply doing their job.”

Mr. Ford, have you ever considered the fact that your Parking Control Officers are themselves abusive sadists, who repeatedly fabricate tickets based on falsifed times, who write tickets for cars that still have 5 minutes left on the meter, who reject appeals even with multiple affidavits proving the invalidity of a citation, who surround the DPT office with 1-hr meters (knowing full well that no one gets out of there within an hour), who inflate authorized penalties and replace them with arbitrary amounts that are double what's allowed by law, who....

Excuse me, I have to lie down.