• Lisa Simpson
• Jan 11,2010
• In: Finance

San Francisco is Unable to Cope With Crisis

San Francisco is the worst managed city in the US. The city’s homeless problem is at an all-time high. Its capital projects are suffering. Now the city has a budget of $6.6 billion which is more than double of what Idaho has got. Yet there has been no progress on any front. No one knows the answer to this.

San Francisco’s inability to cope with the crisis is a well-known phenomenon. Urbanologist Joel Kotkin says that no one ever says that he wants to run his city like San Francisco. The city is in a state of dysfunction. The blame can be squarely put on Yomi Agunbiade. The engineer was selected by Mayor Gavin Newsom to lead the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department.
After Agunbiade took over, the recreation parks didn’t open. The staff never showed up. The department just didn’t know how to deal with the problem. The recreation centers are now slated to open. That is definitely good news but Agunbiade’s department has no idea how to recruit staff for them. Yet Agunbiade did not lose his job. In Houston, probably a person would get shot for such ludicrous behavior but nothing has happened to Agunbiade.
The budget analyst of the city has also found fiscal mismanagement in the Marina Yacht Harbor record. This is also being run by the Recreation and Parks department. The department does not have a register and has not been able to keep proper record of any transaction. Even this did not cost Agunbiade his job. There were other reports of fiscal problems but nothing happened to Agunbiade. This is like a nightmare in Franz Kafka novel.

A spokesperson for the Recreation and Parks department Rose Dennis says that Agunbiade has also been harassing her. She produced letters according to which Agunbiade asked her not to wear revealing dresses. She produced the letters in court and the outcome was definitely messy.

After this, Agunbiade resigned and Dennis received $91,000 as payment. There are others like Agunbiade and former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin couldn’t even recollect when was the last time a person was pulled up for lack of sincerity.

Hence, millions of dollars are wasted as good ideas fail to take off because of lack of spirit. No one is blamed for this. The city enters into long-term contracts with labor that they cannot afford. It is indeed a very pathetic situation.