Good news: Scott Wiener is leaving town

SFBC photo, Dyami Serna

2016 has been a terrible year, but out of the mud grows the lotus: at least Scott Wiener is leaving town now that he's been elected to the State Senate.

Clearly unfamiliar with Wiener's record as a supervisor, Hoodline's interviewer lobbed him some softball questions (Scott Wiener, Departing District 8, Talks Housing, Nudity, Political Ambition, & More).

Wiener is asked, "What's your biggest regret?" He answers with a long riff on the nudity issue, including this:

So, I pursued legislation. To this day, I hate that I was in a position where I felt the need to do it. I stand by my decision, but that was not what I ran for office to do, it was not in any way what I wanted to do. I personally don’t have an issue with public nudity, but unfortunately, in some ways that is the legislation that I’m best remembered for. I do all this other work, but that will be on my tombstone. That’s frustrating for me.

The problem was Wiener botched the issue in the first place with a half-measure that pleased no one.

There are other, more important, issues Wiener botched: he tried to dilute the initiative rights of the people of San Francisco, which was overwhelmingly rejected by city voters.

He lied about how CEQA supposedly delayed the Bicycle Plan, and his attempt to "reform" CEQA was rejected by the Planning Commission (see George Wooding's analysis of Wiener's bogus reform. See also this.)

Several years later, Wiener's understanding of the planning process was still defective.

No surprise that, along with the rest of the Democratic Party lemmings, Wiener supports the high-speed rail boondoggle.

Wiener supports high-rises on the city's Waterfront, and he's just nutty about the idea of building subways in San Francisco.