Four Steps to Success for Gavin Newsom

Federal officials are tabulating the results of a series of inspections conducted last year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). A previous inspection revealed the city's public housing to be so dilapidated and dangerous that the Housing Authority was labeled a "troubled agency." There has been no meaningful improvement. HUD rules say that if the agency fails the latest inspection and receives another "troubled" rating, it will be taken over by a federal receiver.

Newsom's inaugural address referred to long-ago-drafted plans to overhaul the worst of San Francisco's housing projects, the Hunters View project just north of the Bayview. It's now a shooting gallery, where about a third of the apartments are boarded up; others are leaking or otherwise damaged. There are plans to tear down Hunters View and create a larger housing development, including market-rate apartments whose rental or sale would subsidize the reconstruction of units for needy residents.

The project is short of tens of millions of dollars needed to break ground. Redesigning it to accommodate taller, denser apartment buildings with more market-rate units could generate enough revenue to close that gap. Such a move would enhance Newsom's status as an environmental steward, because it could place thousands of new residents near the Third Street light rail line and potentially reduce commuting by car.

But San Francisco activists have made a holy war of blocking apartment construction during the last four years. A modest mixed-use development at the former SF State campus at Market and Alamo has been held up by grandstanding Newsom opponents. And Supervisor Daly is bound to win left-wing points for backing a proposed ballot initiative opposing the Newsom-backed housing development at Candlestick.

These know-nothings would demonize any effort to increase the amount of housing built at Hunters View. To succeed, Saez needs Newsom behind her, expending his supposed political capital.

"We've waited almost 50 years to fulfill the promise of safe and decent public housing," he said during his inaugural address. "We will wait no longer." For the past four years Newsom has uttered a version of this every couple of months without producing results. Call me a patsy, but I pray this time will be different.

2.) 2008 is a great year to fast-track dormant green transportation projects with practical rather than rhetorical effects.

The recent appointment of government affairs director Wade Crowfoot to the newly created position of "director of climate protection initiatives" carried with it a whiff of bogusness.

Crowfoot was previously assigned the humiliating task of making presentations about a "climate protection initiative" that consisted of the fact that the mayor had ordered staff to stop drinking bottled water. However, Crowfoot has the potential to make a huge difference if he focuses on jump-starting plans to help city residents get out of their cars and move around San Francisco without polluting, taking up street space with parking spots, or running over pedestrians.

Andy Thornley, program director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, says Crowfoot promised to work on reigniting efforts to complete San Francisco's patchwork network of bike lanes.

The bike network is stymied by a lawsuit that claims it didn't undergo sufficient environmental review; a judge has ordered the city to conduct new studies to demonstrate that bike lanes don't harm Mother Nature. The review process is hampered by a California Environmental Quality Act that maddeningly considers the swift flow of traffic to be in the best interests of the environment. As a result, improvements that hasten the movement of pedestrians, cyclists, buses, and trolley cars, yet possibly slow down cars, are ludicrously considered ecologically damaging.

It so happens that Crowfoot is the right man to help untangle this environmental dilemma, while uniting the various city departments that need to ensure the new environmental studies get written and the bike lanes get built. Before Crowfoot took on his new role, he earned a master's in public and environmental policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science; before that, he was chief troubleshooter for Newsom rival Aaron Peskin. Could the mayor's heart be in the right place after all?

3.) Replace the city's automobile fleet with car sharing.

While Crowfoot is banging heads over bike lanes, he might consider reviving another dormant, yet potentially significant measure that could make a real environmental difference.

Four years ago, the Newsom administration entertained the idea of swapping some of the city's fleet of automobiles for a car-sharing service. In San Francisco, the publicly subsidized nonprofit City CarShare competes for customers with the private companies Flexcar and Zipcar, with services offering rentals by the hour. I've used City CarShare for seven years now, and can attest that it's wonderful driving always-new cars with always-functioning radios, and never having to look for a parking space.

Replacing the city's fleet with car-sharing services is also a great idea from an environmental and quality of life perspective. Berkeley has replaced 10 city fleet vehicles with 5 cars managed by City CarShare. During evenings, the extra cars are available for rent by the hour. The switch to sharing allows the city to precisely measure car use by employees, ensuring that managers don't hoard vehicles. "We feel like we're sharing more efficiently during the day with our fleet users," says Matt Nichols, who manages the Berkeley plan, and tells me New York City is considering making a switch.