FeedI’m running for mayor
Looking Serious
Originally uploaded by Insurgent
Last month I attended the San Francisco Progressive Convention which was put together by Chris Daly in hopes of finding a progressive candidate for mayor of San Francisco. Unfortunately no viable candidates came out of the convention and both Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly both announced in the days that followed that they will not be running.
As of today, I have filed my declaration of intent to run for Mayor of San Francisco. I will be filing my paperwork with the ethics office tomorrow and will begin raising the signatures and funds needed for my campaign. More to come soon, but for now, I leave you with a rough draft of my platform as mayor of the city and county of San Francisco.
1) Open Government: As mayor I will wear a mounted streaming camera while working on all official business so that the public can take part in a truly open and transparent government. It may be possible that city codes dictate that certain meetings be confidential, in which case I will have a notice posted explaining why I am offline.
2) Crime: The homicide rate in San Francisco is out of control, and the Board’s plan for neighborhood policing is vital towards staving off this deplorable trend. I would like to adopt the Board’s plan and will work to expand it further to make foot patrols the dominant form of policing in the city and county of San Francisco.
3) Homelessness: There are far too many people in this city living without permanent shelter and something must be done to support these residents as they struggle to put their lives back together. As mayor I will work to develop a series of city beautification and beatification programs which will provide employment for those able to work. Unfortunately some significant portion of the homeless population is not physically or psychologically fit to join the work force, and I will be calling for the scores of homeless support organizations in San Francisco to join me and The City for a caucus to discuss how we can best work together to solve homelessness in San Francisco.
4) Public Transportation: Muni needs to be free for city residents, and I would like to see it free for visitors as well. I will look into passing on the additional cost to downtown business interests as well as exploring possible approaches towards taxing those who elect to use automobiles in The City. This could be done by establishing a fee for driving into the city or perhaps attaching fees to all vehicles registered within San Francisco.
5) Federal Funding: I will work to establish a ten-year plan to sever all federal funding from the city budget. While this is obviously an economically uncertain approach, the federal government’s money creates an unfortunate means for the Feds to intervene in all sorts of city business. My own incarceration is one such example, but far more pressing concerns include the mandates established under No Child Left Behind.
6) Gay Marriage: It is a shame that San Francisco is no longer offering marriage license’s to gay and lesbian couples. I propose that San Francisco look into offering a county marriage license to supplement the state documents The City now provides. Although the state of California refuses to support and honor gay marriage, the city and county of San Francisco should provide a way for people who love each other to formalize that love through marriage.
7) Medicinal Marijuana: The people of San Francisco have come out in support of medicinal marijuana in previous elections and it is of critical importance that The City continue to respect the voters’ wishes. San Francisco must make every effort to prevent Federal Law enforcement from interfering with state and local law and work to stop the harassment and intimidation of patients, their caregivers, and the dispensaries that serve our community.
Biking: I will partner with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to see that bike lanes are constructed on all major traffic thoroughfares.
9) Halloween: The annual Castro celebration has grown too large to safely accommodate the partygoers who gather each year. I will propose a plan to encourage every neighborhood that’s interested to host their own Halloween celebration. Doing so will decrease the massive crowds in the Castro and allow each neighborhood to develop an event that fits its own character. While this approach will certainly increase the demand on police resources I am convinced that it will actually result in safer and more enjoyable revelry for all.
10) Independence: As an avid supporter of a free and independent San Francisco, I will introduce a city ballot measure to provide an opportunity for the people of San Francisco to attain city sovereignty which I hope to derive from the ballot measure I helped draft three years ago. The residents of our city have united around at least three issues that are in direct contradiction with US policy (Iraq, gay marriage, and medical marijuana) and we should be given the opportunity to divorce ourselves from federal intervention on these and other issues of vital importance to our community.
Josh,
This is the greatest news I’ve read in a very long time. I can definitely get behind it.. Where do I sign?
Please tell me what I can do to make this happen.
-Alice
[...] Yesterday, on the 4th of July, controversal independent media journalist Josh Wolf decared that he was going to run for Mayor of San Francisco and posted a draft of his platform on his blog. As of today, I have filed my declaration of intent to run for Mayor of San Francisco. I will be filing my paperwork with the ethics office tomorrow and will begin raising the signatures and funds needed for my campaign. More to come soon, but for now, I leave you with a rough draft of my platform as mayor of the city and county of San Francisco. [...]
[...] Yesterday, on the 4th of July, controversal independent media journalist Josh Wolf decared that he was going to run for Mayor of San Francisco and posted a draft of his platform on his blog. As of today, I have filed my declaration of intent to run for Mayor of San Francisco. I will be filing my paperwork with the ethics office tomorrow and will begin raising the signatures and funds needed for my campaign. More to come soon, but for now, I leave you with a rough draft of my platform as mayor of the city and county of San Francisco. [...]
Wow! Your 15 minutes of fame has really gone to your head!
[...] Independent journalist Josh Wolf just announced he’s running for mayor of San Francisco. I caught up with him a few days ago to talk about the media, jail time, and Stephen Colbert in this 8-minute video interview. [...]
I couldn’t figure out which was my favorite out of your platform promises: having homeless people clean up their own shit or wearing a justin.tv-like camera, except when you’re taking a dump in the mayorial washroom. I wonder what the grand jury would have to say about that.
HEY josh! Im am going to try to get a bunch of public health nurses to sign your petition. They’re going to ask me about your stance in health care. What is your stance? We have a lack of Public health Nurses because there is not enough funding for more nurses. The gov. is actually planning to cut more nurses too.
Let me know! Sharon
I don’t know what to make of those who think this is so damn funny. I don’t think it’s funny. Josh just moved to the top of my IRV list.
If anyone thinks we’re gonna get anything but democratic spam and cheese whiz freedom, at best, in a nation state spending $500 billion/yr. on nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons alone, then I’d like to sell them some Iraqi Freedom and Iraqi Democracy.
Maybe some think it’s silly to imagine there’s any way out and it very well may be very silly, but I wish posters would be a little more precise. I think it’s a helluva lot sillier to imagine that we’re gonna vote our way outa this in some federal election.
Support for Vermont’s independence movement is now at 12% of the state’s population, for whatever it’s worth.
My greatest reservation about Josh’s proposals is the techno-fix. I think it’s kinda cute, but also think there are too many computers, too much paper, too many records, too much concrete, too many cars, and not enough gardening and clowning.
There are a jillion other insourmantable, it would seem, problems, San Francisco is a city of 773,776 or thereabouts, with vastly differeing resources and possibilites, non-resident property owners, currently getting 23% of its power from PG&E’s nuclear power plant in Diably canyon, and many layers of city, state, federal and regional bureaucracy regarding transportation, communication, schooling, health, power, regulatory agencies, etc., not to mention big finance, plus big police and big prisons. Some sort of modern tribalism organized around mutual survival, mutual on a small scale, may be the best we can possibly hope for here, but I’m down with Josh for putting first things first. First we need to do whatever we can to get out from within the highly armed military spy state with the $500 billion/yr. budget for nuclear weapons alone.
La vidéoblogueur activiste Josh Wolf candidat à la mairie de San Francisco…
Josh Wolf, le vidéoblogueur qui avait de la prison en refusant de collaborer avec la police, avant de passer un accord avec la justice, annonce, sur son blog, qu’il figure parmi la vingtaine de candidats au poste de maire de……
You’ll make a damn fine mayor … Dude.
Great news Josh!
LDF recipient Wolf to run for SF mayor…
Josh Wolf, the recipient of the largest Legal Defense Fund grant in history, has announced he is……
Thanks for the laugh Josh! Now go get a real job and shutup.
Hey Jake, I actually already have a “real” job working as the Outreach Director for a community college television station and also earn money writing for my blog at cnet Mediasphere. Prior to my incarceration I was also teaching SAT prep for Kaplan, and could likely return to that as well in the fall.
I am serious about my candidacy and am convinced that the platform I’ve outlined is a start towards creating a solid plan for the future of San Francisco. The City needs a visible candidate for mayor that represents the progressives, and thus far no readily established candidates have surfaced; so I figured why not me?
If nothing else, my campaign has already helped educate me about the city and the people that call it home, and I anticipate this will continue to be true.
My response isn’t trying to be snarky, but as a homeowner and longtime city resident, I definitely have seen things change for the worse since progressives have taken over the Board of Supervisors.
2) Crime: The homicide rate in San Francisco is out of control, and the Board’s plan for neighborhood policing is vital towards staving off this deplorable trend.
What about PUNISHMENT? It seems people in certain neighborhoods pretty much kill other with impunity. Few cases are even prosecuted. How are foot patrols going to get people to accept some responsibility for their own communities? Why are people caught with illegal guns never punished?
3) … beautifcation and beatification programs? …
What does this mean? “Beatify” means “to make blissfully happy”. The people spoke when they overwhelmingly supported Care Not Cash. Why does the right of a homeless person to follow me down the street and harass me (luckily I’m a big guy, but female friends have felt quite threatened when it happened to them) supercede my right (and my friends’ rights) to walk down the street in peace? Why is nothing done when the same guy shits on my porch time after time?
4) Public Transportation: Muni needs to be free for city residents, and I would like to see it free for visitors as well.
When BART became free for Spare the Air days, crime on BART skyrocketed to the point where they now only offer free morning commutes on Spare the Air days. How would you prevent this?
… perhaps attaching fees to all vehicles registered within San Francisco.
These fees are set at the State level. As a relative newcomer, where would you find the political capital to do this. Also don’t forget, many of the City residents who own cars live in the far outlying neighborhoods. For example, where I live, Crocker Amazon (most politicians probably don’t even know or care where this *IS*), it takes 60-90 minutes to get across town by Muni and about 20-30 by car. As a working guy, I don’t want to spend two extra hours a day away from my family, and to be honest I don’t want my kids riding on a lot of the bus lines in the City because they are not safe.
5) Federal Funding: I will work to establish a ten-year plan to sever all federal funding from the city budget.
Even if you don’t take Federal money, the City still has to follow Federal law (not saying I agree with all Federal law, the opposite is probably true, but just stating it as a legal fact).
6) Gay Marriage: It is a shame that San Francisco is no longer offering marriage license’s to gay and lesbian couples. I propose that San Francisco look into offering a county marriage license to supplement the state documents.
Good idea, if this would actually carry some weight and not just be symbolic.
7) Medicinal Marijuana: The people of San Francisco have come out in support of medicinal marijuana in previous elections and it is of critical importance that The City continue to respect the voters’ wishes.
I voted for medical marijuana expecting people to help each other, and to grow and/or give it away free or low cost. Unfortunately, big drug dealers have moved in and pretty much taken over most of the medical marijuana clubs. Seriously, why do I have to get a permit from the city for hundreds of dollars just to put a water heater in my house when someone can just open a pot club with no regulation whatsoever? Also, the amount of crime around the clubs is a concern.
The goal of a citywide biking network is good, but it seems a lot of the bike paths were picked just to piss off motorists rather than based on routes actually travelled by cyclists. For example, the Alemany Boulevard bike path. Most bikers ride on Cayuga, one block over, because traffic is much calmer and it’s a lot safer. Maybe 3-4 people a DAY use the Alemany path. Is this really the best use of City money, especially when it will have to go so much further if you succeed in eliminating Federal monies?
9) Halloween: The annual Castro celebration has grown too large to safely accommodate the partygoers who gather each year.
This is a cop out by a politician trying to be politically correct. Everyone knows who the troublemakers at the Halloween party were. The people shooting each other were kids from bad neighborhoods in the City. Why not just require that people have to be over 21 to get into the Castro party?
10) Independence: As an avid supporter of a free and independent San Francisco, I will introduce a city ballot measure to provide an opportunity for the people of San Francisco to attain city sovereignty…
This would just be another symbolic measure that wastes time and money that should be spent on City problems.
Other things I’d like to see you address:
Graffiti–what is your plan to stop the spread of graffiti (I don’t mean artistic graffiti, I mean the scratches and scrawls on people’s homes that cost us a lot of money to fix). Why are homeowners in marginal neighborhoods fined when someone tags our homes, but nothing happens to those DOING the tagging? My neighborhood had no graffiti when I moved in and now is covered with it, and the people doing it just laugh at us when we tell them to stop (or threaten us).
Sorry for the long response, but those are the kinds of issues that family people in S.F. care about (even if we’re in the minority now).
GREAT NEWS KID! Thought of you on July 4th. I’m not in San Francisco, but would be curious to hear your views on immigration.
Peace,
marcos
John, I think you bring up some very valid concerns. Josh and I have had some of these discussions, at least about cars. We all know San Francisco uses parking tickets as a fund raiser. What if that money and some or all of the parking money went to help pay for Muni (maybe it already does). Muni in LA just had a huge increase, really bad. I think San Francisco is doing pretty well at keeping costs down. I would hate to see San Francisco split politically between “homeowners” and “renters” and “car owners” and “non-car owners”.
As to the Federal issues, as a teacher I know you can opt out of the No Child Left Behind requirements if you don’t take federal money. Those requirements are what mandates letting military recruiters into the schools, also. I don’t remember which state right now, but I think one small state did choose to opt out of federal education money to get rid of NCLB.
You gotta be kidding. This sophomoric campaign makes a mockery of everything you claimed you were defending by your incarceration
At least you’ve proven one thing: You are certainly not a serious journalist. You’re not really a serious anything.