{"id":1028,"date":"2009-02-09T09:19:20","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T17:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/09\/san-francisco-budget-crisis-ripe-for-mediation\/"},"modified":"2017-05-28T12:39:24","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T20:39:24","slug":"san-francisco-budget-crisis-ripe-for-mediation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1028\/san-francisco-budget-crisis-ripe-for-mediation\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Budget Crisis Ripe For Mediation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Patrick Goggin<\/strong><\/p>\n

February 9, 2009<\/p>\n

When Supervisor Bevan Dufty last week called for locking in a room Board leadership, unions, and the business community until they come up with a solution to the City’s unprecedented $576 million budget crisis, he left out two critical components essential for a successful resolution to the current mess: the Mayor and effective mediation.<\/p>\n

In the legal world, mediation is increasingly used to break litigation gridlock – it serves the dual purpose of ending conflict and cutting costs. Briefly observing the dysfunctional relationship between Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board through the lens of legal conflict might assist us in getting out of this budget quagmire.<\/p>\n

On one hand, the Mayor and his Board allies’ votes to sustain three mayoral vetoes demonstrates a willingness to fight at all costs.\u00c2\u00a0 On the other, Supervisor Chris Daly’s straight talk<\/a> displays a readiness to match the vetoes in kind. Essentially, we have a pitched battle between the ideologically-opposed parties responsible for addressing the economic meltdown resulting in a potential\u00c2\u00a0 impasse that can only make matters worse.<\/p>\n

In complex litigation, special masters or mediators are often chosen by parties to help steer acrimonious legal conflict to a negotiated resolution. Recent activities by relevant City Hall parties indicate neutral assistance is needed to maneuver through the challenging path to a budget agreement. Special masters provide an effective tool to help produce an acceptable solution with mutually agreeable compromises from all sides.<\/p>\n

During international crises, special envoys have historically been tasked with mediating the negotiation of complex solutions to volatile and equally complex conflicts. President Barack Obama’s recent dispatches of special envoys to Afghanistan\/Pakistan and the Middle East were done with the knowledge that effective special envoys can foster an environment of progress.<\/p>\n

The historic 1978 Camp David Accords<\/a> between Israel and Egypt were only reached after 13 days of exhausting negotiations led by President Jimmy Carter who served as the ultimate envoy. Carter’s use of shuttle diplomacy – a commonly used mediation technique where parties are separated while the mediator shuttles between rooms enabling candid dialogue – and sheer will,\u00c2\u00a0 overcame Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin not speaking to one another ten days into the negotiations.<\/p>\n

While the City’s current budget crisis may not be of Middle East conflict proportions, it certainly is a crisis worthy of special mediation. To get to mediation, however, the parties must enter into the mediation voluntarily – they must want to participate and be willing to strike a compromise to end the stalemate the parties find themselves in. Board President David Chiu, a seasoned attorney and one who recognizes the importance of stakeholder buy-in, should propose employing a special mediator to help solutions rise from the current budgetary deficit abyss.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the City needs a special mediator with the necessary experience, people skills, and tenacity to get the likes of Mayor Newsom and Supervisor Daly to the table ready to accept a compromise in order to achieve an agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Patrick Goggin February 9, 2009 When Supervisor Bevan Dufty last week called for locking in a room Board leadership, unions, and the business community until they come up with a solution to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nSan Francisco Budget Crisis Ripe For Mediation - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1028\/san-francisco-budget-crisis-ripe-for-mediation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"San Francisco Budget Crisis Ripe For Mediation - 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