The Chamber of Commerce scorecard: You gotta be kidding

04.13.10 - 10:38 am | Tim Redmond |

(4)

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has released a voting scorecard on the supervisors -- and it's a bad joke. The Chamber says the scorecard shows who are top opponents of business in the city, the ones who don't support "job creation and government efficiency" -- two poll-tested buzzwords the Chamber will try to use in supervisorial campaigns this fall.

But there are only ten votes on the scorecard -- and they don't even remotely represents the most important jobs, business or economic issues the board has addressed in the past year.

Seriously: Does anyone think that naming rights for Candlestick Park has had a huge impact on the ability of businesses to create jobs in the city? How about a resolution supporting a proposed Contemporary Art Museum?

And since small, locally owned independent businesses are the single largest private-sector job generators, how does the Recurrent Energy deal -- a giveaway to a big power company -- help create jobs?

Of course, that's not what this is about. The scorecard issues were carefully chosen to make the progressives look bad. And, as always, the Chamber has completely ignored the fact that the largest employers in San Francisco are public-sector agencies, and that cutting government programs and blocking new sources of revenue are the real "job killers."

We're putting together our own scorecard, measuring a wider range of votes on key issues in the past year. What were the most important? What really mattered to San Franciscans? The comment lines are open.

Comments

Largest Employers are Public Sector Agencies

Largest Employers are Public Sector Agencies, that is not a good sign, to generate taxes we need full employment (that does not equal 100% employment) in the private sector.
To encourage the private sector to locate here and create new jobs, SF needs to remove barriers like the many anti-development policies. For too long SF has had a "Stuckiest" Board Of Supervisors, we need some visionaries who can embrace progress rather than our current leaders who are proud of their opposition to progress.
I agree Chamber of Commerce criteria was a bit odd, but I suspect with the reputation of SF Guardian that it will do just the opposite and use a criteria where not building in SF is good for job creation or some such nonsense.
To generate Taxes in SF we need new revenue from new sources i.e. taxing Rents or a local income tax. There are plenty of wealthy people Renting in this city and owning elsewhere who do not contribute their fair share.

Posted by Chris Pratt on Apr. 13, 2010 @ 12:26 pm

Oh the irony

Everyone knows it's the bankers--with their unquenchable greed--at the likes of Wells Fargo and Bank of America (both members of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce) who are the ones responsible for the devastation of our nation's economy and for immeasurable hardship and misery in communities everywhere.

Yet the Chamber of Commerce would have you believe that out city's unemployment and economic woes are due to a handful of progressive supervisors and their votes on issues such as the selling of naming rights to Candlestick Park?! This would be hilarious if the plans behind their absurd propaganda weren't so nefarious. This is the same Chamber of Commerce who is pulling out all the stops and committing half-a-million dollars (so far) to purge our public spaces of all culture and poor people with their draconian, sit-lie law.

The Chamber wants a pro-big-business, pro-development Board of Supes and Mayor who will green light their dream of turning San Francisco into a cultural void of chain stores, corporate HQs, and high-rise luxury condominiums.

The Chamber is no friend to the people of this city and they're no friend to homegrown, community businesses. They're trying to exploit a crisis that their own members created, to impose policies on our city that will hurt regular working people and destroy what makes this city special, but make themselves far richer.

Don't stand for it San Francisco.

Posted by Andy Blue on Apr. 13, 2010 @ 6:02 pm

So the information is wrong,

So the information is wrong, explain...........

Posted by Who is right... on Apr. 13, 2010 @ 6:35 pm

No Joke

Underestimate your opponents at your peril, Tim. These guys didn't get rich because they're stupid. Propaganda works, that's why there are big, rich PR companies.

Posted by Jeff Hoffman on Apr. 17, 2010 @ 3:37 pm