San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Newsom likely to let state reopen without fanfare
Don’t bet on Gov. Gavin Newsom ever announcing that California is reopening for business. He is just going to let the state ease back to life as quietly as possible.
The first step came last week when, after consulting with health care executives, Newsom announced that it is safe for hospitals to start doing nonemergency surgeries again.
Obviously this is good news for everyone with serious health problems that require operations. Less obvious is that it’s also good news for health care providers that need the income from such surgeries to keep the hospital doors open.
It’s also good for Newsom, who will now be spared the prospect of hospitals going broke and
laying off workers in the midst of a health crisis.
And you’ll notice, he did it without a word about needing to meet testing goals for the coronavirus first.
Look for more easing up on other business and social restrictions, as Napa and Ventura counties have recently done and San Luis Obispo County would like to do.
Construction will be the next area of movement, particularly in the Bay Area, where local building bans are stricter than those imposed by the state. Local officials and labor leaders are working to persuade county health directors to allow more building as “essential.” As Newsom said, there will be no big “flip of a switch,” but more like the turning up of a dimmer.
Sometimes by the governor, sometimes by the counties.
The last items on the reopening agenda will be the biggest, most visible social gathering events like concerts and sporting events. Those won’t happen for some time.
But then, it will probably be a while before people want to be that close to one another anyway.
Trust buster: Conservative talk radio star Michael Savage has been named to Presidio Trust’s Board of Directors by President Trump.
The White House announced Savage’s appointment under his nonstage name, Michael A. Weiner, on March 26, which happens to have been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 80th birthday.
Savage is a longtime critic of Pelosi, and you could see his appointment as a backhanded presidential present for the San Francisco Democrat, who was a leading force in transforming the former military base into a national park.
I’ve known Michael for years. He will be reflective of everything conservatives would want on that board, but he also has a conservationist streak developed in part from his years of studying and collecting plants.
Happy birthday, Nancy. This is one gift that is not returnable.
Harris hopes: Sen. Kamala Harris is getting more attention as a possible running mate for Joe Biden.
She would bring energy, youth and smarts to the ticket.
Unfortunately, she wouldn’t bring any electoral votes. California is going to go for Biden no matter who his running mate is.
Biden needs someone who can bring the swing states into the fold, and Harris was out of the presidential race well before she had a chance to prove herself in any of those.
Harris also never caught on with the second building block that Biden will need, the Bernie Sanders voters.
Aside from those two challenges, Harris would be a great pick.
My advice for Biden is to stay out of sight for as long as possible and say as little as possible, including who his vice presidential selection will be.
Let Trump do the talking.
If left unchallenged, he might just talk him
self out a job.
Then and now: It had been four weeks since I’d last walked through North Beach, and when I went there the other day, there were new signs of life.
Most of the stores and restaurants are still closed except for takeout. But there were more people and dogs at Washington Square Park enjoying the sun and a lot more cars parked along Columbus Avenue.
And in keeping with North Beach tradition, people are starting to park in red zones again when they run in to get their coffee.
“You want that order for takeout or to go?” joked Carlos the counterman at Caffe Greco. As for business? “OK, but it’s going to get better,” Carlos said.
Flower power: Thanks to Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the San Francisco Flower Mart is now considered an essential service and has partially reopened for business.
Peskin has long been a friend to the vendors and wholesalers who work the mart, and when they called to say they were going under, he took it upon himself to help out. He called the City Attorney’s Office and made the pitch that if cannabis can be deemed an essential product, so can carnations.
“They are both flowers that make people feel better,” Peskin said.
It worked. And just in time for Mother’s Day.
Stimulating thought: My friend Don Hill Jr. sent the following:
A tourist drives into town, stops at a motel and lays a $100 note on the desk, saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs before picking one for the night.
As soon as the tourist walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his feed supplier at the coop.
The guy at the coop takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local hooker, who is dealing with the same economy as everyone else and has been offering her services on credit.
The hooker rushes to the motel and pays off her room bill.
The motel owner then places the $100 back on the counter and waits for the tourist to come back from checking out the rooms.
Just then, the tourist comes down the stairs, says the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 note and leaves. No one produced anything. No one earned anything.
However, the whole town is now out of debt and can look to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, my friends, is how a stimulus package works.