Paul Kozakiewicz: Race for mayor a royal mess

The San Francisco mayoral race came to the Richmond District Sept. 19 when several neighborhood organizations hosted a forum at the Richmond Recreation Center. It was a good opportunity to get information concerning neighborhood issues.

While many of the forums around town have been cutting out the Green Party and Independent candidates, the Richmond event featured almost all of the contenders. It was interesting to hear what Green Party candidate Terry Baum had to say; or the insightful musings of long-shot candidate Paul Currier.

Because of ranked choice voting, we will only get to choose three candidates on Nov. 8. That makes choosing among the outstanding candidates a difficult proposition.

But, there are several candidates who deserve your consideration, including:

• Joanna Rees - Rees is the only Richmond District resident in the race and has her campaign headquarters on Geary Boulevard. She is a good listener who learns from her encounters with the problems of the common man and would be a good, pragmatic leader at City Hall.

• Leland Yee - Yee has always represented the west side and has never lost an election. He has served as a city supervisor, Assemblyman and state senator. He fought with neighborhood activists during the "Central Freeway battle" and the fight to save JROTC in the high schools, and is a hard-working legislator in Sacramento.

• Jeff Adachi - The tough-as-nails public defender is honest when he says our city's pension problems are only beginning to surface and will be a major issue in the future if it is not addressed. Adachi was the primary mover behind Proposition D, which would have city employees contribute more money to their pension accounts, saving the City millions for vital services and programs.

• Tony Hall - The former city supervisor was a hard worker for the residents in District 7 when he represented them. He had a major role in the rebuilding of Laguna Honda Hospital, Lake Merced, and the juvenile detention center. He tells the brutal truth and plays second fiddle to no one.

• Phil Ting - Ting has been impressive as the city's assessor recorder, increasing revenue for the city on a yearly basis. He wants to "reset" San Francisco, which is sorely needed as our priorities have not been in the interests of families and middle class residents for many years.

• Bevan Dufty - Dufty supported Sue Lee in the last District 1 supervisor's race and has always listened to the concerns of regular citizens. He was accessible when he was Mayor Willie Brown's chief of neighborhood services and would be a good mayor. He would likely lead from the center, earning the respect of both moderate and uber-liberal groups.

Mayor doesn't deserve vote

There is one candidate I wouldn't vote for even if he was the only one on the ballot.

Mayor Ed Lee is a weak leader who would be a disaster if elected. All he's done for the past nine months in office is follow former SF Mayor Gavin Newsom's playbook. Because he said he wouldn't run, everybody played nice with him. That will change if he's re-elected.

As well, many of the good candidates running for mayor wouldn't have wasted their time, and up to $8 million in public financing, had he been truthful from the start. (An incumbent is usually hard to beat.) It also didn't help that he cloaked himself with an air of invincibility and ducked several major candidates' forums, including the big one in the Richmond District on Sept. 19. Pretty bold for a candidate who has never been elected to anything.

I heard from good sources months before he announced that he was in the race. Yet, he played it coy in the name of electoral politics and let everyone think the first elected Chinese mayor in history was going to go back to his old job.

Lee is an affable man, but I prefer to have my politicians lie to me after they're elected, not before.

Paul Kozakiewicz is editor of the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers.