Old Stuff

One of the things I've been doing in preparation for our move back to the Bay Area is cleaning out old files, junking magazines and journals I'll never read again (some of which go back to 1986, ferhevensake), and refiling stuff that I want to keep.  I have, for instance, the Naming Ceremony for friend W's daughter, thank you cards from nephew H (although the best one of those is the one he sent when he was about three, informing me that he liked his gift because it was new), and a bunch of the drafts of Proposition R, the rent control/affordable housing initiative in 1979.  Many of the drafts, which are really long, are undated, so I have no idea of the development.  I'm tossing them all, unless someone wants them.

I also found, in one of the campaign analyses, a really good idea--and not just because it was apparently mine.  (I honestly have no memory of it, but it was more than 30 years ago!)  What I proposed was taking all of the Community Development Block Grant money allocated to SF's Redevelopment Agency and reallocating it to affordable housing projects. The person/people who wrote the report noted that this was a really good idea, and redevelopment-hating crosses political lines--as in, everyone hates them.  I was so proud of my young self.  Hmm, maybe we could make a dent in our affordable housing deficit by taking all the redevelopment money for the purpose.  (Joke, folks.  Don't expect Jerry Brown to do any such thing.  The problem of affordable housing is always somewhere Jerry isn't.)