San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Photo by Luke Thomas
By Luke Thomas
August 27, 2010
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced today he is running for mayor.
Herrera announced his intentions on Facebook and on his website.
“I’m running for Mayor to make San Francisco a city that works,” Herrera wrote. “I believe in the City we share. I love San Francisco. But, like you, I know San Francisco faces daunting problems: a City budget in crisis; high unemployment; an economy that’s still uncertain. Our persistent civic struggles include homelessness and addiction, crime and violence, transportation, education, affordable housing and diminishing infrastructure.”
Herrera joins Supervisor Bevan Dufty as the only two prominent pols to have officially declared candidacies for the open seat in 2011.
Should he win, Herrera will be in a position to appoint his replacement to the Office of City Attorney.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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The Hunger Site
August 30, 2010 at 5:10 am
Matier and Ross,
Are reporting this morning that Herrera’s consultant/mouthpiece is Whitehurst of Barnes/Mosher/Whitehurst? Isn’t Sam Lauter part of that group? They’re a Downtown outfit which further defines Dennis.
Still, the fight between Leno and Yee and …
Gonna be good.
So, who’s leading in the temporary mayor race?
h.
August 29, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Ann, thats what I remember. It’s imperative that we hold these crooks accountable for past transgressions. Another futile exercise in ‘participatory democracy’ in the offing.
The sad reality is that once someone gets elected ‘by the people’ as Supervisor/Mayor whatever, no matter how well intentioned they may be, we have at most a couple of years before they start compromising in order to be reappointed ‘by the machine’. A few notable exceptions, eg;Tom, Chris, Sue B.
D6…..James Keys
D10…Nyese Joshua.
August 29, 2010 at 11:36 am
@Pat: I’m glad you remember the 33,000 signatures to put the BVHP Redevelopment Plan before the voters that Herrera swatted off his desk like so many flies. Hope a few other people do.
As I remember that story, Aaron Peskin and Sophie Maxwell went to Herrera asking him to make sure the voters weren’t allowed to decide.
Also, gang injunctions, right around the same time.
August 28, 2010 at 5:06 pm
One could always sue the City demanding enforcement if one’s concern was purely fiscal and purely the best interests of the City, but that would not pay the kind of political benefits that Adachi seeks.
-marc
August 28, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Patrick,
Didn’t see these posts til just now. We needn’t run for Mayor. I only ran because 5 grand fell in my lap and all of our Prog leaders were chicken. We’ll have some good choices this time. I’m guessing Adachi’s aggressive Prop B scared the Mod’s into entering Dennis at this stage. Read the piece in today’s Bay Citizen by Elizabeth Lesly Stevens on this coming Monday’s decision by Judge Harold Kahn which will cut the legs off Prop B. Adachi will have all of 24 hours to get it sewn back together in another court before the September 1st deadline (which will be pushed back).
I see lots of lawyers and typing in our immediate future boys and girls.
Smoke em if you got em.
Go Giants!
h.
August 28, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Howard-
Prop H 2002 is current law for police and fire pension benefits. The voters approved the benefits with an explicit condition. The condition was that in ANY YEAR the pension benefits were a cost to the general fund, the City and police and fire were required to meet and confer to negotiate a material cost reduction through increased employee contrubutions.
Herrera’s office then in turn, signed illegal multi-year police and fire MOUs fixing the pension contribution over mulitple years.
Herrera’s explantion for this does not even pass the laugh test as seen in page 5, paragraph 5 of his reponse to the civil grand jury:
http://www.sfcityattorney.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=617
Non enforcement of Prop H since 2004-05 through current MOUs 2012-13 will cost the general fund about $100,000,000…
August 28, 2010 at 9:29 am
Herrera should have been impeached for not enforcing Prop H and Adachi should be relegated to political oblivion for using billionaire bucks to price kids out of health care.
Herrera has been a triangulator, but whenever push has come to shove, Dennis has catered to moneyed interests over the interests of San Franciscans. His record of interpreting the law and directing the actions of departments and the Board of Supervisors is clear.
Herrera disregarded the signatures of 33,000 San Franciscans calling for a referendum on the BVHP redevelopment deal by arguing that citizens need print up petitions containing the full text of complex development plan tomes, effectively violating our constitutional right to referendum over any legislation over a certain length. It is difficult enough to exercise that right in the first instance. Adding further hurdles demonstrates Herrera’s contempt for participatory democracy in favor of catering to constituencies “that count,” like developers.
Herrera’s shop was also responsible for the debacle that was the bike plan injunction. How many cyclists were killed or injured due to that five year long bout of legal incompetence?
Herrera has also used his shop as a patronage mill, a weigh station for politico lawyers such as right wing, San Francisco moderate, fanatic Scott Weiner.
He will be a formidable candidate, what having used his position as CA to leverage each and every action of government his office has given the legal green light to to pile chits up to the sky.
-marc
August 28, 2010 at 6:28 am
Let’s see … Bevan Dufty will let developers run amuck …. Dennis Herrera has proven to be a good man except for when what is best for the most San Franciscans is at odds with the labor unions that help keep him empowered …. still waiting for a candidate who will put the people of San Francisco first without any hesitation ….
August 27, 2010 at 9:24 pm
OK h, forget it, you obviously have better things to do right now, hope its lucky time. I renege on my proposal of our unlikely and ungodly union. ’twas just a passing fancy. As L.Cohen said – repeatedly – in his recent tour. “I’m just a kid with a crazy dream”.
ARRIBA LOS GIGANTES.
Kick arse, especially Herr Herrera’s.
August 27, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Proposition H from 2002 requiring, among other things, police and fire to engage in material cost sharing for the increased pension benefits that they received if those increased benefits started costing the City money.
The Controller and the election materials said it would be cost neutral, but Prop H has sucked tens of millions of dollars out of the general fund.
August 27, 2010 at 6:08 pm
I hope the 33,000+ registered voters that this tool disenfranchised when he deprived them of their right to vote on one of the most corrupt scams in recent SF history; the Lennar Urban Renewal Landgrab; remember this despicable action that was in direct conflict with the quaint notion of participatory democracy. I realise that the cabal of corporate cronies, led by our preening puke green mayoral poseur, find the very idea of working for the common good somewhat distasteful, particularly when it threatens the profits of their paymasters; ergo massa’s financial support as they vainly try and perpetuate their sleazy political ‘careers’.
Please do not enable these sybaritic sycophants.
I doubt that Herrera can deprive you of your right to vote in the upcoming Mayoral election if you dont vote for him; though a little ‘computer error’ or ballot boxes bobbing in the bay is not unfamiliar territory to these characters.
USE YOUR VOTE. (while you still can)
PAYBACK’S A BITCH. (but feels good)
VOTE NO HERRERA. (stop the rot)
There will be/are many preferable/potential contenders;
eg; Hennesey; Gonzalez; Adachi; Mirkarimi; just to name drop a few.
Hell, maybe i’ll talk to h and we can run as one big unit; twins separated at birth; and whichever one is less hung over can flop into the chair by, oh i dunno, at least before noon, and can start; appointing our lick-spittles to sinecures; claiming credit for innovative, creative proposals, most all of which are plagiarized (providing of course they have been thoroughly vetted and will enhance the myth of our relevance); accepting those unmarked brown envelopes; making stupid boring speeches full of platitudes – just like any “poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ .
What about it h.
If elected we will not be servile.
If sober we will serve the people.
If ifs and ands were pots and pans.
If you vote for a piece of ****
You deserve to be up to your neck in it.
Just my 2c.
August 27, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Everyone,
When mention Propositions it would be very helpful if you would include the election.
There have been 10 Proposition H since November 1999. Which one?
August 27, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Oh joy, another shill for organized labor running for Mayor. Isn’t this the guy who, wotking in tandem with the unions, smeared the all-volunteer 19-member Civil Grand Jury…
He should be impeached for not enforcing Prop H, it’s cost the general fund tens of millions of dollars.
Dufty seems like a good guy and a very decent man. He deserves serious consideration…
August 27, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Our most persistent civic struggle is between the haves and have nots.