Lee, Ammiano, and HealthySF

I am told that Mayor Ed Lee is not happy about a Chronicle oped piece by Tom Ammiano, who is now in the state Assembly but who as a San Francisco supervisor created HealthySF. In fact, Lee's chief of staff, Steve Kawa, called Ammiano's office to complain -- but Ammiano's not backing off.

Here's the deal: The Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which hates paying money for worker health care, is trying to derail HSF, arguing that the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, renders the local program superfluous. And Lee is in the middle, listening to the GGRA and thus far sending no signals that he's willing to defend the local law.

Also silent: Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, who has long claimed credit for the law (which he only supported after Ammiano pushed it). Newsom isn't saying a word about the attacks on HSF.

By the way: How, exactly, is Ed Lee "effectively defending" City College when he hasn't done a damn thing except to effectively side with the accreditors? Randy Shaw says that

  Mayor Ed Lee has no formal role in the CCSF accreditation crisis. Nor does Lee have any legal authority to impact the ACCJC. The public statement he was asked to deliver would have made it appear that San Francisco’s mayor was wrongly injecting himself in the crisis.

But what Lee, and all the other city leaders who are standing by quietly (or who are just urging City College to do what the accreditors want) are actually doing is accepting the ACCJC narrative that this is the fault of the school. Herrera has demonstrated nicely that it's a much larger issue that involves the privatization of public education. One would think the mayor of San Francisco could say something about that.