Arthur J. Villasanta – Fourth Estate Contributor
San Francisco, CA, United States (4E) – San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who died of a coronary heart assault on the night of Dec. 11 whereas doing groceries for his household, leaves behind a bewildering political legacy each pro-worker and pro-business.
The metropolis’s first Asian-American mayor has been succeeded by London Breed, Board of Supervisors President. Breed turns into San Francisco’s first feminine African-American mayor in any capability.
“I don’t know San Francisco without Ed Lee,” stated former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, an in depth private pal of Lee’s.
“He was a part of everything. He was the human rights director. He was head of purchasing during my administration. He was head of public works. He became the CAO (chief administrative officer) for the city … I just can’t imagine the city without Ed Lee.”
“It is with profound sadness and terrible grief that we confirm that Mayor Edwin M. Lee passed away,” stated an announcement from town authorities. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Anita, his two daughters, Brianna and Tania, and his family.”
Lee, who was 65 on the time of his dying, grew to become town’s first Asian-American mayor when he was named to serve out the rest of Gavin Newsom’s time period in Jan. 2011.
Lee was appointed as mayor by the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 11, 2011 after Newsom resigned to change into Lieutenant Governor. He received election on Nov. eight, 2011 and was re-elected in 2015.
Lee can be remembered for main the battle to extend the minimal wage in his metropolis and within the state of California.
In December 2013, Lee known as for a rise to San Francisco’s minimal wage. Less than a 12 months later, Lee introduced that town’s minimal wage of $10.74 per hour could be adjusted to $11.05 per hour, efficient January 1, 2015.
In 2015, Lee and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf labored with the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West for a November poll initiative to regularly enhance California’s minimal wage to $15 an hour.
The California State Senate and State Assembly later permitted Senate Bill three, rising the minimal wage to $15 an hour by 2022.
Big enterprise additionally benefited from Lee’s insurance policies, a few of which stay controversial to this present day.
Less than a 12 months into his time period, Lee carried out a a lot criticized revitalization of Mid-Market, an space in San Francisco centered on Market Street beginning at Fifth Street, ending at Van Ness, and together with quite a lot of buildings all the way down to Mission Street.
This revitalization supplied firms that moved into Mid-Market with a short lived exemption from paying San Francisco’s 1.5 % payroll tax.
Twitter, which had threatened to maneuver out of San Francisco into the San Francisco Peninsula with out the tax break, moved into Mid-Market in 2011. In October 2013, Square moved its headquarters to Mid-Market adopted by Uber and Dolby Laboratories.
This exemption, which Lee’s critics known as a giveaway, saved firms $34 million.
The plan was controversial not just for the tax breaks given to firms, however for the results of gentrification on the close by Tenderloin neighborhood. It successfully creates a sub-neighborhood of the Tenderloin, SoMa and Civic Center neighborhoods for the aim of redeveloping the world.
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