S.F. Mayor Gavin Newsom on the City Hall steps before election day: transcript

Key points

• Newsom jokes that his mother nearly named him Angus, after AC/DC guitarist Angus Young.
• He says campaign calls draw complaints, and that he preferred a call from Clinton.
• Newsom says Rob Black will fight for tenants, public health funding and neighborhood safety, and he rejects the idea that Black favors gentrification.
• He says the incumbent supervisor has not reached out to build partnerships, including with the last two mayoral administrations.
• Newsom says Black supports medical cannabis but wanted neighbors' views heard on one dispensary near many children.
• He says San Francisco has more dispensaries per capita than any American city and that he supports common sense regulation.

Chapters

1. 0:12AC/DC banter and campaign phone calls
2. 1:40Rob Black on tenants' rights and the incumbent
3. 2:45Medical cannabis and dispensary regulations

Full transcript

0:12Hi, Mary Newsome. Are you a big fan of ACDC? ACDC? Are you kidding? Don't they have one of the drummers named Gavin or something? What is it? No, Angus Young. No, that's the guitar player. My mother was going to call me Angus. Your mother was going to call you Angus. I always had this connection even though I became Gavin. This guy, Angus. I don't know if I could have been named Angus to make sense. Do you play guitar? in my mind in your mind okay how about air guitar that's it that's it sit back in black that's a private because I keep getting phone calls from you oh only one call and by the way oh no no I get a lot of calls really yeah you've called me three or four times oh that was on recycling that was oh that was recycling for Shona in particular only one campaign call I got I got 60 calls complaining.

1:08Yeah, I bet. People don't like those. People don't like ACDC or they don't like Rob Black? No, they don't like campaign calls. That's true. Then I got a call from Clinton and I liked that one. Yeah, what did he have to say to you? He's called me personally. He was telling me to support other initiatives. Yeah, other things that are probably... A little bit more sweeping. That's where rubber hits the road. That's the most meaningful thing. Someone is going to respond to your call even if you didn't support them. Some of the big supporters are Rob Blackson.

1:40What do you think Rob's going to do for tenants' rights in District 6? I think he'll be spectacular. You don't think he has a lot of gentrification in mind? No, I don't think he does at all. I think he has enormous respect for tenants. He's expressed that not only in everything he's said, but in his career, in everything he's done. He's been a lifelong Democrat, cares deeply about democratic values, he's going to fight for tenants with no suggestion or inclination to do otherwise. It's not just tenants, he's going to fight for everything. He's a guy who's going to get his hands dirty, he's going to get that stop sign so that our kids are safe in the district.

2:13He's going to make sure that there's money for public health. And you don't think Chris is doing a good job at that? I think Chris has done nothing to demonstrate a capacity to reach and cross the divide. He's done nothing to reach out and try to build partnerships. He's a very divisive person, and a consequence the district is not well suited for that kind of divisiveness. He's done nothing to reach out to the last two mayoral administrations. You may not like Willie Brown, you may not like me, but I think we all know better off if we work together. I work with a lot of folks that disagree with me. Sure, well, coalition building is a part of politics, right?

2:45Well, it's a part of good public policy. So, I got a question for you just about the community that I work in, which is obviously the medical cannabis community. Yeah, he's a big supporter of medical. Really? Well, you know, he came out, one of the first things that I saw about him, he was supported by a neighborhood group called SOS, and he was actually targeting Chris's support of medical cannabis in South of Market. No, there was one. I'm glad we have this opportunity. The facts speak very differently. He's very strong in the support of medicinal marijuana.

3:18He also believes that there's a process that was unanimously supported by the Board of Supervisors, including the incumbent supervisor, but he believes that process did not take place with one particular dispensary on one particular street right around a community with a lot of kids, and there was self-determination by the neighbors that he felt needed to be listened to, which I thought was right under the circumstances, the Clementina neighbors. And, you know, I support medical cannabis.

3:48But don't you feel that the needs of patients with mobility concerns also should weigh in in the fact that we should have dispensaries in every neighborhood? Well, I think we have more dispensaries per capita than any city of America. Well, thank God, right? No, but I'm just saying, there's the reason the Board of Supervisors unanimously, including the supervisor I believe you're supporting, supported restrictions. It's because common sense prevails. So the answer to your question is... Sure. I mean, obviously, I supported regulations and people in my community didn't.

4:20Some people were very against the idea. I'm with you. You're with me? Uh-oh, Gavin. Now you're getting yourself in trouble. Common sense. Just common sense regulations and self-determination by community. A lot of good people that just didn't even have... The incumbent supervisor refused to even return their call. That's what I'm talking about. But, you know, that's a hard call because a lot of times, you know, when you call your supervisor about issues it takes a long time to get in to speak with them so you know i mean i've called your office several times this is the first time we're speaking so i was a district supervisor very different very different representing a small district Well, yeah, but he was...

5:00Okay, thanks, hon. It's not black.

Source and licence

Recording: File:S.F. Mayor Gavin Newsom on the City Hall Steps.webm by freemansullivan (2006-11-08), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.