What Does the Valencia St. Fire Have to do with Trash Pick-up and Politics?

It's been only a few weeks since a massive fire tore through a Valencia Street building, displacing dozens of residents, and the disaster is already being perverted for political purposes.  How?  By a disinformation campaign by the SF Firefighters and Recology (the city's trash-collection provider) to protect the company's 70-year-old government-granted monopoly status by painting the ballot measure as an assault on our recycling and composting laws.  How darling.

(Oh, and if you are actually interested in reading up on this, the SFBG has a shockingly reasonable analysis of the ballot measure.  You can also read the initiative itself, as well as the Chronicle's dueling opinions for the measure and against it.)

[via Generic]

Comments (3)

the proposition system is flawed. always vote not.

The fact that all the major parties are telling me to vote against this means there must be something to it.

I actually sat down and read the proposal. *ALL* of the so-called public statements against this proposal were funded by Recology. One would think that if it was really so bad for us (the taxpayers), some of them would have spoken up?

This brings me to another point. Why are the firefighters supporting Recology and asking you to vote against this? There’s a simple reason. All of them (firefighters, MUNI unions, police unions, etc.) are care about only 1 thing: fleecing the taxpayers of SF. The firefighters offer their support to Recology; in turn, the trash pickers will offer support to the firefighters when their turn comes at the trough. And so on: you scratch my balls, I scratch yours.

It is really sad that you see billboards funded by Recology (and hence, by you and me) against this proposal, but no one puts one up for the taxpayers.