c w nevius Archives - Fran Moreland Johns

The holiday-week news in review was a doozy. Good news (to most of us) about Cuban-American relations and climate change, bad news for Sony and internet security. Plus the relentlessly ongoing bad stuff: ebola killing off entire families in Africa, terrorists killing children in Pakistan, crazies killing innocents, and a total absence of politicians able to do much besides calling other politicians names.

It was all up for discussion during a recent “Week to Week” political roundtable discussion at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Panelists included San Francisco Chronicle political reporter Joe Garofoli and columnist C.W. Nevius, and writer/attorney Melissa Griffin Caen, along with moderator John Zipperer, Vice President of Media & Entertainment for the Commonwealth Club. Despite the unfunny bad news, the group had a seriously good time dishing about Uber executive Emil Michael – and why not? Set aside the fact that his company sought to make good news (Everybody wants rides! Raise Rates!) of the hostage tragedy in Sydney, Australia, Michael first endeared himself to the fourth estate by launching a campaign to investigate unfriendly journalists. Then came the news about his suit against his landlord for sending a stranger repairman into the apartment to fix something Michael himself had complained of. Throw in Michael’s claim of being buddies with the police chief (quickly denied by the police chief,) the condo cost ($9,500 per month) and its reported amenities such as hot tub and private garden, and it’s altogether too much for any political roundtable to resist.

But the evening opened with good news. Salesforce founder/CEO Marc Benioff, the panelists say, is making news with his 1/1/1 integrated philanthropic model. One of the founding principles of Salesforce, the idea is to give 1 percent of profits, I percent of equity and 1 percent of employee hours to charity. For months, Benioff has been working to bring other tech firms into the plan, and it’s working. Often at odds with their new San Francisco community, tech firms and their employees are increasingly giving their time, talents and money back to help the less fortunate. And who knows? The bad will generated by the likes of uber-rich Uber folks could be outweighed by the goodwill of 1/1/1 programs.

Closer to home, or at least to the heart of this non-techie writer, my friend Tara Culp-Ressler over at ThinkProgress.org posted a similar good news/bad news piece about the year of reproductive justice: “Six victories for reproductive freedom you may not have realized happened this year.” At the end of a year crammed full of legislative assaults on women, with newly-empowered anti-abortion lawmakers vowing to take us back to the dark ages – here is good news worth noting.

And all tiny tidings of joy are welcome.

Booze, it seems, causes some people to do drunken things, get in trouble (i.e., do harm, at times), go off to the E.R., occasionally in an ambulance. So why not tax the booze to pay for the E.R. and ambulances? This is being proposed by San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos in one of a bunch of efforts to fill the gaping budget hole that this city, like virtually every city in the nation, is facing.

It is called a “cause for harm” fee. A fee, explains San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius, differs from a tax because it can only be spent for the specified purpose for which it was collected. We don’t like the word Tax these days.

No fair! say the bar and restaurant owners; five cents more per martini will kill the business! I doubt that. Having put in my time as a martini (among other things) drinker, I can absolutely certify that if you want a$6 cocktail you’re not going to pass it up at $6.05.

“Cause for harm” fees, in fact, seem like a pretty good idea:

Oil company digging fees (say, five cents a quart) for spills, etc.
Leaf-blower fees to mitigate noise, air and clogging-the-storm-drain pollution
A dead cell phone fee to ship dead cell phones to another planet if there’s one that wouldn’t really mind
Pigeon fees… well, just because

You can create your own list. Fees of this “cause for harm” type are collected in other states, though more often used to pay for things like treatment and education rather than transportation to the ER. In any event, they clearly make sense. And somehow the cause/effect principle seems like one that should pick up wider support.

Maybe Mr. Karzai could impose a few fees of his own, and use them to send all those troops back home.

Supervisor’s fee on alcohol a terrific idea.