Talk:Matt Gonzalez/Archive 4

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Proposed Matt Gonzalez Article

Untitled

As regards the Clean Up notice, the sprawling, poorly written article on the Article page is filled with factual errors and is weighed down with POVs, editorializing, unneeded detail, too many footnotes, and numerous grammatical errors. Judging by the paltry number of edits to the article, we can assume nobody reads past the first paragraph or two. The article is not objective or balanced (much of the material is copied verbatum from Gonzalez campaign Web sites and the SF Bay Guardian). As the Wikipedia tag notes at the top of the article's edit page, This page is 38 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable. That tells you right away that the article needs editing.

I propose using the following article instead. It is objective and paints a thorough, concise, accurate picture of the former supervisor and mayoral candidate. I request that if you have comments about this article, you put them below the article, not between paragraphs. Thank you. Griot 21:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)Griot

Matt Gonzalez

Matt Gonzalez is a leading member of the

San Francisco, California, and was president of the board from 2003 to 2005. He narrowly lost the 2003 San Francisco mayoral election. Gonzalez now heads the law firm
Gonzalez & Leigh (pronounced LAY) in San Francisco.

Childhood and youth

Matthew Eduardo Gonzalez was born

Eagle Scout and president of his senior class. He discovered his talent for debating at Memorial High School, from which he graduated in 1983. [1]

Gonzalez said about his childhood in South Texas: "The

border area." [2]

Gonzalez's interest in politics, El Universal suggested, was hereditary. [3] From 1981 to 1983, Enfrían Martínez Rendón, his godfather and maternal uncle, was mayor of Reynosa, an industrial city across the border from McAllen in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. [4] [5] Oralia, his mother, was born in Mexico; his father Mateo was born in the United States.

Education

In 1987, Gonzalez earned a

Whitney or the Guggenheim." [6]

Gonzalez earned a

non-profit law firm that represents indigent people in death-penalty and other criminal appeals
.

San Francisco Public Defender's Office (1990–2000)

For ten years beginning in 1990, Gonzalez worked at the Public Defender's office in San Francisco as a trial lawyer. He earned a reputation for being fiercely loyal to this clients. "Most public defenders are devoted to their work," colleague (now Public Defender) Jeff Adachi said about Gonzalez. "But we don't give clients our home phone numbers or let them know where we live. Matt would bring clients home with him." [7]

Defending a

offense, an angry Gonzalez told the deputy district attorney handling the case that he would run for district attorney if his client were sent to jail on a felony conviction rather than allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge. [8] In 1999, Gonzalez ran for district attorney against incumbent Terence Hallinan. Although he came in third in the election with just 11 percent of the vote, he earned the endorsement of many Democratic clubs, and his campaign for district attorney raised his profile in San Francisco. [9]

San Francisco Board of Supervisors (2001–2005)

In

Sunset District). Between the general election and the run-off election in which he defeated school-board member Juanita Owens, Gonzalez left the Democratic Party and joined the Green Party. Gonzalez became the first Green Party member ever elected in San Francisco (although the first according to some sources, namely the San Francisco Green Party, was school-board member Mark Sanchez [10]
).

Conversion to the Green Party

Gonzalez's conversion to the Green Party occurred at the spur of the moment, without aforethought, in what he called "a political or moral epiphany." Gonzalez was attending a rally at the offices of KRON-TV in San Francisco to protest the absence of Green Party senatoral candidate Medea Benjamin at a debate between Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger Tom Campbell. Gonzalez described his conversion to the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

I wasn't anticipating anything. I certainly wasn't expecting any kind of political or moral epiphany.
But as the event wore on, what was at stake became disturbingly obvious to me: a thoughtful, intelligent, and honest
voters
and win electoral support.
I couldn't help thinking of how most of my support in last year's district attorney's race came as a result of being allowed into televised debates with my better-known opponents and how that support has eventually led to my being the frontrunner in the District 5 supervisorial race.
The more I thought about it, the more I knew I wasn't
OK with it. I didn't want to be a member of a party that was urging the exclusion of a candidate solely on the grounds that the candidate didn't have enough support, when it's precisely television coverage that could win that candidate public acceptance. [11]

In the run-off election, Gonzalez's opponent, Juanita Owens, tried to take advantage of his Green Party affiliation and capitalize on many Democrats' ill feelngs toward the Green Party in the wake of the acrimonious

municipal elections in San Francisco, elections for supervisor are nonpartisan
, but some Greens saw the election of their candidate as a significant achievement because, for the first time, a Green Party member had been elected to an important position in a major U.S. city.

Term on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Midway through Gonzalez's four-year term on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, his colleagues elected him to a two-year term as Board President. From this powerful position, he was able to push his legislative agenda. Gonzalez told the San Francisco Call about his term on the Board: "I'd rather think of the minimum wage and IRV (instant run-off voting) and the chain store legislation as my legacy." [13]

Gonzalez's crafted these ballot propositions that won election in San Francisco:

Gonzalez also wrote and pushed to pass this legislation:

  • A law subjecting illegal
    rent control
    .
  • "Tripwire" legislation requiring the city to notify residents when a big-box retail outlet or chain store applies for a business permit in their neighborhood. The legislation was aimed at Starbucks and Walgreens, which had been displacing independent retailers, and was meant to halt gentrification.

Gonzalez opposed the sale of the naming rights to

transgender health benefits for city employees [19] and the acceptance of Matrícula Consular ID cards for immigrant workers from Mexico. [20] He sponsored a resolution calling on San Francisco to develop a means of generating electrical power from tides. [21]

Gonzalez also authored these ballot initiatives that were voted down at the polls:

2003 San Francisco Mayoral Election

In 2003, Gonzalez entered the race for

not yet forty years old
.

The Gonzalez campaign benifited from anger against Mayor Brown, whose policies, many believed, encouraged gentrification in the City and who was thought to practice corrupt machine-style politics. Gonzalez presented himself as the candidate with the most personal integrity. "They're scared, not of a Green being elected mayor," Gonzalez said, "but of an honest person being elected mayor." [24]

To many voters, Gonzalez personified San Francisco's

blue-collar, liberal values (although some observers pointed out that Gonzalez came from a privileged background and went to an Ivy League university, whereas his opponent was raised by a single mother in relatively humble circumstances). [25] Perhaps because he entered the race so late, Gonzalez's positions on the issues were not as well-thought-out as Newsom's. For example, Newsom's "Care Not Cash" initiative (Measure N in 2002), [26] passed by the voters, called for specific policies for addressing San Francisco's notorious homeless problem, but Gonzalez's ideas for addressing this problem, some voters thought, were vague. [27]

Still, Gonzalez's

indie-rock Kennedy," one supporter said of Gonazlez. [28]
Said Rich DeLeon, professor of political science at San Francisco State University, "The Gonzalez campaign was truly a mobilizing campaign. It really attracted young people who had not been involved — who were perhaps cynical and apathetic — into the active electorate." [29]

Newsom outspent Gonzalez by $3 million. The national Democratic Party, fearful of losing one of its traditional liberal

2000 presidential election, when 67 percent of San Francisco voters went to the polls). [31]
Had Gonzalez won the election — had he perhaps entered the race sooner, articulated his positions more thoroughly, or not faced organized opposition from the national Democratic Party — he would have become the first Green Party mayor of a major U.S. city.

"Floppy-haired, slump-shouldered champion of the counterculture"

"Gonzo" as he was affectionately called by his supporters was an unorthodox politician. Newspaper accounts from the San Francisco mayoral election noted that Gonzalez slept on the uncushioned slats of a

public transportation. [35]

Gonzalez hosted monthly art exhibits in his

rock band (called John Heartfield after the German artist and anti-Nazi activist). Also in the band were his brother Chuck and his law partner Whitney Leigh. [36]

Gonzalez's critics considered him a stubborn and willful idealogue. He walked out of Mayor Willie Brown's State of the City address in 2002; he refused to meet with Brown during his first two years on the Board of Supervisors. When the Board put forth a

House Minority Whip and being the first woman to hold that position, Gonzalez was the only board member who voted against it. As a public defender, he was twice jailed for contempt of court
and ordered arrested a third time (the contempt findings were overturned on appeal).

At an art exhibit in his City Hall office, graffiti artist Barry McGee spray-painted "Smash the State" on the wall. [37] In March 2002, Gonzalez stunned a Golden Gate Breakfast Club audience when he allegedly told them, "Really, I am a Marxist." [38] He had earlier written in regard to why he joined the Green Party, "I read The Communist Manifesto & liked it." [39]

Retirement from public life (2005)

In early 2005, Gonzalez, arguably the highest-ranking Green Party politician in the United States, abruptly announced that he would not seek re-election as supervisor and would return to practicing law. He explained his decision to the San Francisco Examiner:

I like the whole idea of disengaging from politics for a while and looking at things from the outside. I think the world would be a better place if politicians returned to private life from time to time... Hey, you've got to follow your instincts, you know. That's how I got into politics in the first place, joined the Green Party, ran for the board presidency and later for mayor. What am I supposed to do now? Not listen to myself? [40]

He told the Golden Gate Xpress:

What you’re hearing in terms of bitterness is just someone who is angry about the state of political matters, period. I hope I stay angry, because out of that comes a willingness to do things, like getting a minimum wage passed, or changing how elections are done, or fighting chain stores, or keep zoos from having elephants or whatever the hell the issue is. That doesn’t come because I’m happy with everything; that comes because you gotta be pissed-off. You get out there, you try and change it, you expend political capital to try and make it happen. [41]

Besides his work at Gonzalez & Leigh, the former supervisor keeps busy as a frequent contributor to the publications Mesh and SF Frontlines. A return to Texas may be in Gonzalez's future. "I’m not capable of saying I won’t go home," he told Columbia College Today. "Notwithstanding the political differences of Texas, I’ve always liked where I come from, so it's always been a natural thought that I would get back there." [42]

External links

External links to articles written by Gonazlez

External links to audio and video recordings of Gonzalez

Further reading

  • Carlsson, Chris, ed. (2005) The Political Edge, City Lights Foundation Books: San Francisco, CA. ISBN: 1-93140-405-4.
  • Walter, Nicole (2004) Go Matt Go! Hats Off Books: Tucson, AZ. ISBN: 1-58736-346-1.

Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt Gonzalez, Matt

==Necessity of Keeping Alternative ARticle Let's keep the alternative article, which is superior to the old one. I propose a vote in which we decide which one to keep. ~Griot

Comparing the main and proposed articles

The proposed article's editor believes it "paints a thorough, concise, accurate picture" while the main article does not. Yet, upon further examination, the proposed article doesn't meet the editor's own expectations. It seems reasonable enough to question how the proposed article does what its proponent says when the reasons for using it don't amount to anything more than an unsupported POV. The editor states:

  • Main article is “sprawling” and is “38 kilobytes long.” Fact: the proposed article contains 2,472 words, not including subsections or citation references, and the main article has 2,098 words. As of today, the main article’s edit page states it is 31 kilobytes long, an acceptable length. Surely, the proposed article is "sprawling" given this reasoning.
  • Main article has “too many footnotes.” Fact: as of today, the proposed article has 50 source citations (18 external, 26 external links to articles written by Gonzalez, 4 external audio links, and 2 further reading links). The main article contains 57 citations. It should be noted, the number of citations in the main article are the result of that editor’s NPOV claim and to demonstrate its content is supported by a number of verifiable, secondary sources. If the editor believes 57 citations are "too many" for an article being challenged for a point of view, seven fewer citations in an unchallenged article should be held to the same level of criticism.
  • Main article is “poorly written...filled with factual errors...weighed down with POVs, editorializing, unneeded detail, too many footnotes, and numerous grammatical errors.” Fact: a POV the editor has not supported with specific examples.
  • ”...(much of the material is copied verbatum from Gonzalez campaign Web sites and the SF Bay Guardian).” Fact: no examples are cited.
  • "Eighty percent of the citations are to one place -- the SF Bay Guardian." Fact: let the article’s Works cited section show the SF Bay Guardian was cited a whopping 14 times, and San Francisco Chronicle cited 18 times. Combined, citations from both sources make up slightly more than half of the total number used - 32 of 57. Rasax 03:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
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