2600890936_324499e7ae_z-300x199The following comes from an April 21 posting on SFGate.com.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is famous for passing legislation that sounds sweeping and significant, but really does nothing.

Tuesday’s example was a unanimous vote proclaiming 2013 the Year of the Child in San Francisco. It seemed a bit ironic considering San Francisco is plagued by family flight and counts just 13.5 percent of its residents as younger than 18, the smallest percentage of children of any city in the country, according to the 2010 census.

Wouldn’t that be like Miami proclaiming it Year of the Snowman? Or Washington, D.C. proclaiming it Year of Decorum and Compromise?

But to be fair, it’s not like a San Francisco supervisor could vote no on the grounds that 2013 — like every other year — should really be Year of the Adult.

The resolution was the brainchild of Supervisor Eric Mar who modeled it on legislation being promoted in counties around California to highlight the work of the state’s First 5 Commission, preschools and Head Start programs.

Initially, it seemed Mar’s office had gone a long way toward solving the city’s family flight problem when the original legislation stated that children in San Francisco make up “over 18 percent of the city’s population” — 4.5 percentage points higher than the real figure.

Were all those tykes just engaged in a really long session of hide-and-seek? Sadly, not.

“I’m not sure where my staff got that,” Mar said — we’re sure not for the first time.

Alerted by City Insider to the fact he was off, Mar amended the legislation just before the vote.

To read entire story, click here.

 

 

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