Good reporting on Proposition C

Photo: Mark Edge

Letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:

Diligent reporting on Prop. C

Regarding “Odd logic in battling tax to aid homeless” (Oct. 28): Congratulations to Heather Knight for her early support of Proposition C and her years-long diligence in pursuing the complexities of our homeless crisis.

Knight’s recent column on the odd/puzzling logic in battling a tax to aid the homeless is insightful, revealing and cogent. It suggests the hypocrisy of our city leaders who oppose it. The elected officials and the CEOs (with the rare and extremely admirable exception of Salesforce’s Marc Benioff) whose companies would pay Prop. C’s tax are not puzzled, they are conflicted.

When voters are confused by otherwise logical people making illogical arguments, always follow the money. 

The special interests and their beneficiaries who don’t want to part with their gold rush bonanzas will often use strange and contorted reasoning rather than acknowledge the truth. Their logic is not odd or puzzling. It is simply dishonest.

Mark Leno, 

former state senator

San Francisco

Later: Benioff says SF’s ‘extremely embarrassing’ homeless problem demands business aid