If a newly created public advocate is the one elected official dedicated to holding all other elected officials accountable to the people they serve, who oversees the public advocate? And how do we keep that office from becoming a bloated, ideologically driven and inefficient parody of the offices it monitors?
Read More“It was a kick in the gut and a wake-up call,” Paul Barbagelata said about his car being stolen in front of his West Portal home -- only a few weeks after his neighbor’s car was also stolen. A vacuum of leadership around a westside crime wave has motivated residents to take matters into their own hands.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- When it comes to things that evoke absolute feelings of love or hate, Airbnb is in the same league as Donald Trump, LeBron James and cilantro. In San Francisco, forces against Airbnb clash with those who swear by the polarizing innovation. There is a solution, but not everyone will like it.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Legislative aide Gary McCoy proved that the human spirit can survive some very dark places when there is a path to realize its full potential. Yet McCoy also proves that simply throwing money at social services is not what saved him.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- What do Groundhog Day, the boogeyman, Whack-a-Mole and the phrase “like sand slipping through your fingers” have in common? They illustrate San Francisco’s perpetual housing crisis.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Large Catholic and Asian populations on the westside are less inclined to embrace issues like marijuana dispensaries or LGBT rights accepted by the rest of San Francisco without question. So it’s a profile in courage that Assemblymember Phil Ting doesn’t just give lip service or stay neutral on LGBT issues when he needs westside votes to keep his job.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- “Sometimes when you put people together the sum is worse than the parts, which is the best way to describe the old board of trustees,” said Rafael Mandelman, president of City College's new board. “We can’t afford to have factions pitted against each other like before. My role is to keep folks working together and focused on saving the college.”
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Now that I have both a column and a voting record as a new member of the Democratic County Central Committee, everyone wants to know if I’ll adjust my views for maximum votes. If only it were that simple.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Everything I know about women’s prisons I learned watching the Netflix hit “Orange is the New Black.” So it was tempting to ask Vicki Hennessy – a candidate for sheriff who began her career in 1975 guarding the women’s jail in San Bruno – how real the show is.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- A flood of previously unengaged residents easily connecting with City Hall through technology could transform San Francisco into a place of true progress. Yet change of that magnitude is scary for everyone invested in the current balance of power.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- If Netflix wants to produce a “House of Cards” based on San Francisco politics, the race to win Chinatown has plenty of plot points.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- For a nation that prides itself on democracy, we sure make voting inconvenient and confusing. But what if there was a promise of voting nirvana on the other side of the madness?
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Critics driven by nostalgia versus a need to plan for the future want to keep Supervisor Christensen from getting elected in November. "Change is frightening for people who cannot imagine things another way," Christensen said. "But life is not a tableau. It is a parade. We can't stand frozen and expect everything to stay frozen around us."
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Nick Josefowitz took a simple message -- Clean up BART -- and changed San Francisco politics. "We don’t have to accept that the crony insider is always going to win. We should live in a city where if we feel things aren’t working we can change them.”
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Thanks to California’s system of direct democracy, get enough signatures and voters can decide anything. But why bother electing representatives if we’re going to determine everything by popular vote?
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- My favorite Muppets are Statler and Waldorf, the cantankerous yet lovable old men shouting wisecracks and hard truths from the balcony. I get to see them regularly because I go to a lot of neighborhood meetings in San Francisco, where there’s never a lack of Statlers and Waldorfs in the audience.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- A transportation system that serves the public well doesn’t greet riders with the stench of urine or ask them to climb broken escalators short-circuited by human feces. And it doesn’t paralyze an entire region by going on strike. Will voters hold BART accountable? Meet the two BART board candidates in an epic battle to represent riders.
Read MoreJoel Engardio speech on why moderates are the true progressives in San Francisco. Engardio was the guest speaker at the Golden Gate Breakfast Club in August 2014.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- The short walk from Twitter's headquarters to Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu's office might as well be light years. Consider the 204,562 paper files that represent San Francisco's 204,562 properties. Keeping track of that many physical files means Chu never knows if the day will end in comedy, frustration or disaster.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- There must be others like me in San Francisco who embrace liberal values but also crave a city that runs on common sense. Forward-thinkers who believe in progress and aren’t afraid of change. True progressives.
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