I am sure that I was not the only person in San Francisco who snickered at Sup. Chris Daly's calling for a standard of behavior on the part of officials on the job at City Hall. This level of decorum that Daly refers to apparently applies to public officials who might chase women staffers around the desk after having a few snootfuls down at the local gin mill. Oddly, it doesn't seem to apply, though, to casting aspersions on the mayor while railing against Newsom in the Supervisor's Chambers -- namely accusing the mayor of using illegal drugs -- and offering no foundation to the charges. In any other world, a reckless charge like this would usually be called defamation or slander, which it is. That's a code of conduct that Daly has overlooked. This shows so much chutzpah, I had to take notice. There was a flurry of media activity immediately following the accusations against Newsom. TV reporters suddenly took notice that week of the mayor's news conference on controlling the City's litter problem. No one pretended that the excursion had more to do with trash than litter, that is, Daly's trashy allegations. The mayor responded curtly. He knows by now that certain things in the ethereal constellation of San Francisco politics are here and then quickly gone. This is where the borders of what's tangible are less defined than they are in other parts of the corporeal world, and for ordinary people as I.
But Daly will likely be hoisted by his own petard. This is the hazard when playing with explosives. The bang wasn’t loud enough. That's probably why he issued an edict of conduct, an amusing concept when the source is he.
A NBC News reporter. covering the story about how Mayor Newsom is banning plastic water bottles in City Departments, repeated an old axiom, that "San Francisco is 49 square miles surrounded by reality." But this journalist had no axiom to grind. Indeed, he implied that Newsom was actually responding to the very real, and clear, and present danger of tons of plastic ending up in landfills, and choking the oceans. NBC is saying that S.F. has a mayor who can respond to things that are occurring in the real world. This represents a code of conduct that means something.
Imagine that.
A lot of people who work at City Hall don't want to drink tap water, but the mayor seems to think that City Hall is the place where good examples of environmental responsibility have to be demonstrated. I'm sure staffers at City Hall might be more comfortable now with drinking wine and beer on the job -- wine and beer from recycled containers, of course. But wait -- that would be a violation of the newly recommended codes of conduct from Chris Daly, the arbiter of decorum. What's an administrator to do? In the old days, it was down to the Rathskeller or to Stars for a long, liquid lunch -- and subsequently, the wheels of government would turn with astounding efficiency. Ah, halcyon days.
A code of conduct.
If people were drunk on their City administrative jobs, would we notice any difference? No matter. Let's just be grateful that we have a nascent morality police force at City Hall. But rules, recriminations, and righteous indignation tend to appear when there's a paucity of talent, and a lot of noise. It's evidence of that occasional off-the-wall legislation that often goes through the Board of Supervisors like a bad cold. A cold of conduct. It causes a stuffy head, and an attack of self-importance. It's a good thing that all that reality is out there somewhere.
Sometimes I think that San Francisco deserves a whole lot better than this. Other times, I believe we get exactly what we deserve.
Bruce Bellingham is the Arts & Entertainment Editor of the SF Northside & the Marina Times. He's the author of Bellingham by the Bay, and work is still underway on The Angina Dialogues, an excursion into the Heartland, both real & imagined. His e-mail is bruce@northsidesf.com
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