All right, the mayor of San Francisco is inviting the Warriors to come and work in San Francisco, which leads us to our typical conundrum in such circumstances:
How insulting to be toward the mayor.
And not just Ed Lee. Any mayor, especially one with as little leverage as Lee.
I mean, Ed just invited the Warriors over, which is only about half a billion dollars short of what it will take to actually do this, which begs the question, “What the hell is Ed talking about?”
Well, Ed’s talking about getting a few moments of attention and credit for something that won’t happen on his watch, if it happens at all. Way to go, Ed.
It also means that he is putting his toe in the muck-encrusted waters that Kevin Johnson dove into head-first in Sacramento – and found out how much more than swimming skill is involved.
Mayors aren’t usually players at this level, except for the minimal task of shaming/whipping/cajoling/schmoozing other politicians to get on board with a project that typically does not pencil out for the tax payers of said city. Once that is done, he is essentially that noddy spring-necked dog on the back dashboard of an elderly person’s car – decorative at best, anachronistically amusing at second best, but mostly pointless.
But when they are, as Johnson was, he found out that the guys with the money still decide everything, up to and including the definition of the word “handshake.”
But at least Johnson waited until there was actual time pressure to get used by the Maloofs. Lee has more years than he has time left on the job, but in a moment of political inspiration that fades right after you read this, he figured out the TPL.
Typical. Political. Logrolling.
To sum up:
He had an empty invitation for something that is more than half-a-decade away, if not more.
He had a chance to say it where people would hear it.
He springboarded his cheery invitation on the back of more bad financial news for Oakland, in a demand from state controller John Chiang that they return $3.5 million in redevelopment money that was earmarked for planning a new sports complex that would include, you guessed it, the Warriors.
Oh, and he got to smile as though what he just did had import.
Victory is his!
And the Warriors are still in Oakland, and are going to be for a good long time, the Mayans willing. Lee got his moment, a few people nodded, and we all went back to our lives, knowing that somewhere just north of Market Street, a city’s business is being underdone.
- Camelot 2012-05-14 17:54:28 (68 views)
- Camelot 2012-05-14 18:23:15 (21 views)
