Redistricting Task Force leaves the rails

Hard to find anyone to root for in this mess

Perhaps you haven’t been following the city’s Redistricting Task Force, which is examining and redrawing the boundaries of the 11 districts of San Francisco supervisors. How’s it going?

It is an unmitigated civic embarrassment.

In a city where residents are deeply concerned about crime and violence, where homelessness and tent cities seem to be unsolvable problems, and where deeply mentally ill individuals are left to care for themselves without shelter, groups of people are screaming at each other over invisible lines on the streets.

Just to give you the flavor of how things are going, consider this snapshot from Monday’s 10 1/2-hour meeting on the proposed new district map. The clerk had just requested that speakers in public comment address the task force as group and not single out individuals.

Soon after that a speaker (I’m not identifying public comment speakers) pointed at committee member Lily Ho.

“You,” the woman said to Ho, “are an asshole.”

Are you starting to get a sense of the tone here?

A couple of points.

First, public comment in San Francisco politics has always had a large element of performance theater. Angry shouting, self-righteous speeches and personal attacks are standard. Often as longtime Tenderloin activist Randy Shaw says, the speakers are “paid staff and organizational leaders.”

But this, as Shaw also says, goes beyond the usual debate. This looks like confirmation of every Red State attack about dysfunctional, delusional San Francisco.

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Second, redistricting isn’t an idea that someone came up with on a whim. It’s mandated by the City Charter.

The charter states that the districts be re-evaluated every ten years, based on the census, and that the districts be equal in population, as much as possible.

Because of that, this year’s version was going to need some pretty serious revision. As we know, the South of Market, Mission Bay and Dogpatch neighborhoods have experienced dramatic growth in housing and new residents.

Eighty-five percent of new housing in the city has been in those areas, adding some 30,000 residents. That’s a big increase for District 6, which also currently includes the Tenderloin.

Some adjustments were going to have to be made to keep the district equal in population. And you can bet some people were not going to be happy with the new district lines.

They aren’t. It is easy to get in the weeds here, but the angry responses, sending Task Force meetings well into 10-12 hours, basically boil down to the same point. The Task Force should redraw the map and re-make the lines to what we want.

At Monday’s night’s meeting, advocates pushed the Task Force to rescind the proposed map and go back and extend the process.

(This ignores the fact that the Task Force began its work on Sept. 17 and has held over 40 meetings to date.)

And although the black community is particularly upset with the proposed map, it would be a mistake to think that one cultural or ethnic group is the only agent here.

At Monday’s meeting there were complaints that Asians were getting too much representation, that the ultra-wealthy Sea Cliff neighborhood should be moved to D-1 and that Lakeshore Acres should be relocated.

With those and other issues pending, it is no surprise that a lot of people are unhappy.

That’s to be expected. We’re not building walls here, just creating 11 supervisor districts. It is understandable that the black community worries about representation, but it also should be said that the mayor, London Breed, who is black, was re-elected in a landslide in 2019.

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And this is the point where we express sympathy for the poor committee members who have had to put up with this.

Except the members have hardly covered themselves in glory here.

During a long, wee-hours of the night meeting last weekend, vice-chair Ditka Reiner voted against a map proposal. But then the meeting was adjourned briefly so members could “move their cars for street cleaning.”

When Reiner returned, she said she had been confused about what map she was voting on, asked for a re-vote and changed her mind. With her vote the map was approved.

That not only caused four members of the Task Force to walk out of the meeting, one member, Jeremy Lee, subsequently called into public comment and delivered an F-bomb-filled rant.

He called the remaining members “spineless . . . sellouts who got on their knees,” for political power brokers, including Mayor Breed.

And then, Monday, Lee again appeared in public comment to offer “a formal apology.” He said he “deeply regretted” his remarks, which he said were “deeply offensive and unbecoming of a public official.”

So there’s a ray of hope right?

Nope, committee member Lily Ho replied that Lee’s comments were “homophobic, sexually driven verbal abuse . . . and I don’t take degrading dick-sucking comments from men.”

Wow. Are you getting the idea this has gone off the rails?

At a time when we clearly needed a grownup in the room, the city’s elected politicians weighed in, pouring a little gasoline on the fire.

This came after advocacy groups made an appeal to have three members of the Task Force, including Reiner, removed. The Election Commission looked at the idea, but voted unanimously not to remove them.

That made sense to D6 supervisor Matt Haney, who is running for California State Assembly.

He Tweeted that he disagreed with some of the Task Force decisions, but the members “should not be removed, just days before the final map is approved.”

That sent Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who supports Haney opponent David Campos, to fire back on Twitter:

“Disgusted. You used to stand with us before you decided to abandon your District in your first term. Thought that wasn’t a betrayal because (Haney aide) @honeymahogany was going to win. Not with these gerrymandered districts your [sic] standing up for. Truly disgusting.”

And then Ronen followed that up with: “Matt, are you really starting to believe your own bull shit or is this just more bull shit?”

Whew.

Despite all this, there are those who think we’re coming to the end of the process. Perhaps, they say, a map can be approved and we can finish this up with at least a modicum of decorum.

Unfortunately, decorum left the building several meetings ago and is currently in a tavern, doing shots and regaling barflies with tales of what San Francisco used to be.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Twitter: @cwnevius