City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco

7. Resolving the Convention Center Deadlock

134 7 Resolving the Convention Center Deadlock *“[Burton] came to control the closest thing to an old style political machine that is possible in fluid California. His was a remarkable semi-organization that reached from the old Irish parishes to the ghettos, from Chinatown to Hunters Point, from the drawing rooms of the wealthy liberals to the union halls. It remained potent, even after the power of the unions and the old Democratic clubs dissipated in the seventies” (Rian Malan, “Boss,” California Magazine [November 1981]: 89–97, 164–65). The year 1975 marked a major transition in San Francisco politics.As noted previously, Joseph Alioto was legally unable to run for a third term. The stirrings of a movement to challenge downtown’s dominance of the city were clearly being felt.And the Redevelopment Agency’s Yerba Buena Center project was in deep trouble as a result of the various lawsuits challenging its financing. The 1975 mayoral election featured three principal candidates, who covered the range of the city’s dominant politics: on the right, realtor John Barbagelata, a six-year veteran of the Board of Supervisors, who represented the older white neighborhoods and the city’s more conservative politics ; at the center, Board of Supervisors president Dianne Feinstein, who had run against Alioto unsuccessfully in 1971 and represented moderate politics and downtown development interests; and on the left, state senator (and former supervisor) George Moscone, closely allied with “the [Congressman Phillip] Burton machine” and its supporters among working-class and minority people, the city’s gay population, and liberal trade union elements .* Convention Center Deadlock / 135 Moscone was the hope of the city’s burgeoning neighborhood movement —those who wanted to end downtown’s virtual hegemony over city hall and redirect City policies to affordable housing, preservation of neighborhood communities, blue- as well as white-collar employment, and greater access to and participation in city politics by all of the city’s subpopulations and interest groups. As described by the late journalist Randy Shilts: Moscone was part of a new breed of ethnic politicians who had been emerging in San Francisco since the late 1960s, more concerned with abortion and marijuana reform than with getting a cardinal’s cap [an acerbic reference to one of Joseph Alioto’s goals for the city]. They eschewed the Catholic conservatism of old-line ethnic politicos like Joseph Alioto and were among the first figures to reach effectively to black, Chinese, Latino, and gay voters. Once considered something of a radical, Moscone had worked his way from the Board of Supervisors [where he had served from 1963 to 1966, and where he had cast one of the two votes in 1966 against the Yerba Buena plan] to the California senate, where, after one year, he became senate majority leader. Moscone entered the campaign as the strident proponent of neighborhood power, decrying the “Manhattanization” developers had wrought with their skyscrapers and corporate headquarters. He turned his back on wellheeled campaign contributors by refusing to accept any campaign gift of more than one hundred dollars.1 In the November 1975 general election, Moscone got 45 percent of the vote, Barbagelata 28 percent, and Feinstein 27 percent. In the required December runoff (instituted by a 1973 voter-approved charter amendment), Moscone edged Barbagelata by forty-four hundred votes. Combined with liberal victories in the district attorney and sheriff races, this ending of the Alioto era and beginning of the George Moscone administration—even by so small a margin—produced a mild euphoria among liberals and neighborhood activists and not least among those desiring basic changes in the plans for Yerba Buena Center. It was the beginning of a short-lived period of changed politics in San Francisco, although less changed than many expected , hoped for, or feared. The forces that elected George Moscone were to bring into being a housing movement in San Francisco, continue and strengthen the fight against uncontrolled high-rise development, and, for a brief period, change the structure of City government.With respect to Yerba Buena Center and its continuing controversies, it was clear that the opposition to the project was in resonance with the evolving dynamics that brought Moscone to the fore. 136 / Chapter 7 The Citizens Committee on Yerba Buena Center Following the disintegration of the Redevelopment Agency’s YBC plan, it was time to regroup. In June 1975, six of the people active in the Goodman Building...