(*Corporate Billionaires vs. Ordinary Public Employees)
In an unprecedented joint effort between San Francisco’s public safety and labor organizations, Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s would-be charter amendment to decimate your hard-earned benefits was soundly defeated by the sensible and reasonable voters of San Francisco. Self-appointed crusader of public pension reform, Jeff Adachi, was defeated not only because he is a politically driven egomaniac, but also because San Francisco voters realized that the problems we face in the areas of pension and health care reform can and should be settled at the negotiation table, not in the plush salons of millionaires’ mansions. I commend the voters of San Francisco for seeing through self-promoting politicos like Adachi, and trusting in us and in labor to work cooperatively to make the needed adjustments in a fair and open forum.
Mr. Adachi’s deep-pocket man is Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist billionaire who, along with Adachi, has decried the public employee as the fundamental problem in the American fiscal crisis. He blames middle class workers such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers for the economic melt down. While moneymen like Mr. Moritz claim to be concerned for local and state economies, their real motivation is the performance of investments in public pension funds. The greater the percentage contribution by the public employee, the more profit for the Fat Cat millionaires.
Moritz, who was one of the original investors in Google and Pay Pal, parlayed a $12 million investment into $1.6 billion playing the Wall Street game that sent this country into the worst recession in 70 years. He is listed as one of the 200 richest people in the world, and now owns a company named Sequoia Capital, which invests and leverages money in the same way the infamous Wall Street villains did. It is people like Mr. Moritz who strive to deflect the focus away from Wall Street shenanigans onto lower and middle class public workers and scapegoat them as the greedy, slovenly masses of an otherwise proper and enlightened society.
Mr. Adachi, a very handsomely paid elected official (“elected” in the context that he was unopposed and his was the only name on the ballot), is the front man, the public face of concern as sculpted by Moritz and several other millionaires throughout the state. That “working” relationship is more basely expressed, I’m sure, in the locker rooms of station houses around this city, particularly in the Tenderloin. Jeff Adachi, it’s fair to say, be out there hustlin’ for The Man.
They will come back at us. Adachi has already vowed (in the context of revenge) to return weary voters back to the ballot with a new version of Proposition B. In the mean time, we will continue to work with the city to make changes to the system that are well thought out and fair to both sides. Over the past 3 years our members have voted to give back $38 million dollars in concessions. While this is only about 1/50th of Billionaire Moritz’s net worth, we are doing the most that we can. That said, we also have mortgages, tuitions, young children, and aging parents. In other words, we’re happy to do our part, but like all working people, we have real limits.
