Over the past few months, U.S. troops, planes, and warships marched, soared, and sailed toward seemingly inevitable war. President Bush proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts. The state faced a budget deficit of $34 billion; San Francisco stared at a $200 million fiscal hole of its own.
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The San Francisco Chronicle, meanwhile, used the power of its 500,000-plus circulation to get government agencies to repair escalators, replace damaged street signs, and paint over graffiti on a jungle gym. The paper was less successful in its attempts to have the government regulate sand blowing off Ocean Beach.
OK, I admit it: I'm being snide in the face of success. If you read the local papers, you cannot deny having read ChronicleWatch, the shaded box, usually found on the front of the local news section, that highlights minor problems government bureaucrats worth their salt should fix, pronto.
The ChronicleWatch format has a certain irresistibility to it, a multiple-points-of-entry, Internet-generation, Maxim-magazine-without-breasts kind of feel. It's a box, with two boxes inside: a picture of the public problem in question, and a mug shot of the public official who, in the eyes of ChronicleWatch, could fix the situation. The text is nothing if not succinct: a few sentences describing the problem (for example, both escalators at a subway station out of order); a couple of sentences on the Status of the problem; a Person to contact, along with phone number and e-mail address; and then a standing question -- Is there something broken in your neighborhood? -- followed by the ChronicleWatch phone number and e-mail address.
I suppose part of my fascination with the feature, which debuted in October and generally runs a couple of times a week, lies in its extortionate nature. When the Status of a problem doesn't change -- and quickly! -- another ChronicleWatch box runs, saying the problem's still not fixed. And then another. And sometimes another -- until the problem finally is addressed to CW's satisfaction. At which point the Status is changed to "fixed," and (amid the overwhelming impression that ChronicleWatch has successfully put the screws to another dithering bureaucrat), a public servant is honored as the person Who got it done.
Most government types who deal with ChronicleWatch seem wary of its power. "I don't think it'd be prudent for me to comment," was one for-the-record reply. But off the record, the bureaucrats are downright dismissive, with the word "bullshit," derisive laughter, and audible snorting common reactions to the mere mention of the feature's name.
Government officials who did speak for attribution often seemed to be splitting the difference. Fred Hamdun, executive director of the city's Parking and Traffic Department, said ChronicleWatch "has the potential to be a good thing; however, what I've noticed recently is that they've focused on less-than-deserving-type issues."
Particularly, Hamdun was bothered by a ChronicleWatch item on 17 parking-meter poles on Clement Street; the poles lacked meters. Hamdun said his department is in the process of replacing 23,000 parking meters across the city with electronic devices, and the meter-replacement contract is designed to ensure the project gets done on time. To have changed the schedule to fit the needs of ChronicleWatch would have been bad policy, Hamdun said. "They kept it in there [in the paper] for a week; it gives the citizens the impression we're not responding. ... That's just not fair," Hamdun said. "On that issue we stuck to our guns."
Alex Mamak, director of communications for the city Department of Public Works, agreed to discuss ChronicleWatch, but only if it were made clear that he was expressing his own personal opinion, rather than department policy. He too seemed to take a good-idea/less-than-perfect-execution approach. "It does provide a voice to the citizenry; in that way it's one more channel of communication," Mamak said. "But I have some reservations about the way they promote it."
Perhaps the most widely derided ChronicleWatch was published in mid-October and called on DPW to remove sand blown onto a promenade along Ocean Beach. "That was one that was particularly irksome," Mamak said. "The sand always comes back; it's a force of nature." Even if there were a reasonable way to block sand from blowing onto the promenade, Mamak said, it would need to be approved by the federal government, which controls Ocean Beach.
Even so, after the sandy promenade made a repeat appearance in ChronicleWatch, DPW caved and swept. ChronicleWatch declared victory, announcing that DPW Director Ed Lee had got it done. Lee apparently was not soothed.
A little more than a month later, the Chroniclepublished a story on the closing of the Great Highway because of flooding and sand deposited on it by harsh winter storms; the story prominently cited complaints by neighbors about the closing, which, they said, filled side streets with traffic diverted from the highway.
Lee took the occasion to write a blistering letter to the editor that noted closure of the highway had been requested by the San Francisco Police Department as a matter of public safety. The final two sentences of Lee's letter, which the Chronicle did not publish, seem particularly heartfelt: "Your paper continues its arrogant attitude to have us sweep sand off the beach, and now water off the highway when it rains. Your paper does not deserve the fish bones that I wrap in it. "
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