A Legacy of Choosing Service Over Politics in San Francisco City Hall | Tony Hall

Once you're in office, and I can say this out of experience, you are hit with enormous opportunities to cheat, to steal, and to get corrupt. You're in a very, very tempting position. That's why we have so much corruption. You have to have a strong, very strong ethics. Those are values that affect all of us. It affects the whole world. Working for the public and producing a product that benefited the public, that was the big thing. When you actually worked on different projects like I did, and you saw it through, it was extremely rewarding, and you thought, I am affecting change. I am making it better for the community. When you use your innate abilities to contribute to the welfare of everything, there's nothing more rewarding than that. Tony, it's great to have you back on. Welcome back. Great to be back here again. Thank you. Appreciate it. You know, Tony, you have been a public servant your whole career, and you've served seven departments in San Francisco. Can you tell us about it? I went to UCLA down here. I grew up down here in Southern Cal, and graduated from UCLA with a degree in public administration and economics. I only did that because it was the quickest way to get out of school. I was an athlete. I wanted to get out and live life. Those two majors I could handle and get out. I left UCLA, graduated, and then worked my way around the world for about a year and a half, different jobs. I was born into a typical blue-collar, middle-class family, and you had to kind of work your way. That was the ethic I grew up with. You work for something if you want it. You get it. So I took on a number of different jobs and worked around the world doing everything, anything and everything. And I remember in that year and a half, looking at cities. You pass through cities. I was hitchhiking in any way I could get around, and somehow the administration of cities became interesting to me. Why do certain cities operate a certain way? Certain countries operate a certain way? Why are certain cultures different? I went all around the world. So when I came back, I was back in Los Angeles. I got offered a position as an investigator for the retirement system up in San Francisco, basically investigating what we call broken-back cops, cops and firemen that were trying to game the system, get out on disability without actually having being injured. That was a big thing in the 60s. You got very lucrative retirements if you were disabled. So my job was to go out and find out if they were disabled or not. And you actually did sleuth work and interviewed them, stuff like that. And then Aliotto became mayor, Joe Aliotto, and somehow he took notice of some of the work I was doing and asked me to be on his staff, one of his aides, doing special projects. So I worked for him for about almost two years, about a year and a half, then went back into the civil service commission. So the retirement system, mayor's office, executive branch, back into the civil service system after a couple of years with the mayor. And I specialized in hiring people as the merit system, civil service merit system was in play then, not the patronage system that we have today. Now, Tony, before we get into that, you said somehow Aliotto noticed you. What did you do there that made him notice you? Well, when I left the investigator spot in the retirement system, I worked for a short time in civil service before going to the mayor's office. And I was recruiting different people for different positions. And at that time, they had the war on poverty. Part of the thing was to recruit minorities to work for the city. And the whole liberal way of thinking came in, you needed quotas. So many blacks, so many Asians, so many Hispanics. And so I went out and recruited them and actually placed them in positions that they were qualified for, that they were called, no gift giving here, and put them in the right position so they could succeed and get a career with the city, eventually leading to their benefit with the retirement system. So Aliotto liked the work I was doing and asked me to join his staff. That's what happened. That was a big thing in the 60s. And it wasn't giving jobs to minorities because of the color of their skin or anything. My job, and what I created, was almost a department within civil service to place people into a job that they could actually handle and do well in. So you found people that were qualified? Yes, yeah. We set up testing, competitive testing, it was all based on the merit system. So we found, we got a lot of good people. Civil service was happy, the mayor looked good, so he asked me to be on his staff. And then I worked on special projects, whatever he wanted, development in a neighborhood. I mean in the 60s it was pretty wild, it was a different era, and you had the war on poverty and with that came all of these programs, some of them very good, some of them not too good. And I worked on all of them. Now what was it like for you? Why did you continue doing public service? It was extremely boring, to be honest with you. It was like, I don't know, I was a typical kid growing up in L.A. where the world was my oyster and involved in anything and everything and always looking for excitement. It was boring, so I went in and became a nightclub singer at night, just to have a different way of life, a release. So you could only work with a community as I was doing it in so many different facets for so long before it became routine, and I thought, boy, am I going to wind up one of these civil servants that just goes off in the sunset, or am I going to enjoy life a little bit? So I put together a band and became a nightclub singer, and I was doing that five, six, seven nights a week. And that's how I was able to do what I did good during the day and at night too. So you said it was boring, but why did you continue doing that work? I think because of politics at the time. I had an aversion to political people who really set policy for the city. I had an aversion to those who were into politics, setting policies that were not good for the people. I remember I had a very, very strong opinion about when we recruit people, you don't recruit them because of the color of their skin. You don't recruit them because of their particular thing. You place them in a position that they can benefit from and that the city can benefit from. And I had a lot of run-ins with that, with the director of civil service, because he had quotas to me. And I didn't believe in quotas. Okay, if you need so many African Americans in this segment, fine, we'll get the right ones. If you need so many Hispanics, so many Asians, so many intelligent white guys coming out of Berkeley or out of USF, we're going to get the right people for the right job. So the job gets done properly. The politicians, they're not interested in how the job gets done properly. They're only interested in quotas. So I went about it a whole different way as an administrator. And you know, you ran and you crossed paths with the politicians a lot. You decided to stay in this role, to do the public administration. Did you feel like you have to stay there because different people could get hired if you didn't do that role? No, I did what my assignments and when I accomplished a certain role, it was time to move on. I wasn't going to stay in a certain capacity for the rest of my life. You know, I just wasn't built that way. So I would move or I'd be asked to go to this department and look, maybe help them out. And eventually it led to seven different departments, which I enjoyed the diversity of it. When the state gave up the waterfront, it became part of the city. I worked on the conversion of that, reclassifying the people from the state to get them integrated into the city workforce. Worked on the leases at the wharf, 66-year leases the mayor wanted, put that together. So as long as the project was challenging, I was up for it. And that's the way I was built. I did eventually wind up in the DA's office as the administrator in the DA's office. And that was interesting for about four or five years. And then the person I was working for didn't run for re-election and I didn't like the person that was coming in. I didn't like his take on the function of the DA's office. So I decided to leave and I went into singing full-time. So I actually left the city civil service for about 10 years and had a band and then basically specialized in the nightclubs in San Francisco, hotel openings, conventions, parties, and went around the world. Went to Ireland, went to Europe, met my lovely wife in Ireland. She's Irish, obviously Catholic, born Irish, half Italian, started having children. We have seven children, but after so many, I figured I'd better change my way of life and get back to something more stable. So a lot of the earlier people I met in prior years were now lawyers and judges and a couple of the guys said we have an opening as the executive officer for the municipal court. So I applied for that and I got it. So I was with the courts 15 years. That was the judicial branch of the government now. So we went between the legislative to the executive, now I'm in the judicial. And that was interesting for about 15 years. I left that to be run for supervisor and that basically was because I didn't like the people that were running it. It's not that I didn't like them personally, I didn't like their politics. This is when San Francisco was really moving to the left, if you will, rather than the traditional, I don't know what you'd call it in San Francisco, the traditional moderate point of view that was being abandoned towards out-of-towners coming in who wanted to utilize the town for political expediency. So I decided to throw my hat in the ring. They moved from elections at large to district elections and fortunately I got that after a real fight. So what was it like when you were in the courts? How was it? What was the difference between these branches? You see a different side to how the courts function. You see how judges are appointed. You see very rapidly who the good judges are and very rapidly who the bad judges are. And that's what was interesting about that. And I can tell you, the good ones are outnumbered two to one. So how would you see that? Is it based on the effort you put? Based upon who appoints them and what their marching orders are. And how they got to be appointed judge. That's the truth. Judges are not always appointed because of their ability or their wanting to serve the public. Most judges I think today have been appointed because of their political allegiance. And so that's disheartening. And after 15 years, I wasn't, you know, you could see through it. You knew who the good guys were, you knew who the bad guys are. You mentioned the city was going through this change. What was some of the signs? What was happening in the city? Because it's always, San Francisco was always a Democrat, right? Or no? Well, no, no. It was Republican run up until the 50s. As well when Christopher, he was the last Republican mayor and he was, I think, 58 to 62 or possibly, no, he was a double term mayor. So he went up to 64. He was the last Republican, but it was always Republican run, but moderate Republican. The Republican party, it was a city that was run by business people. The board of supervisors at that time had 23 members on it from every walk of life. And so, but the mayor was the big galuna, he was the big power. But there was 23 members and most of them represented one facet of the business community. The bakers, the unions, the shoemakers, you know, it was whatever you wanted, but they were business people. And this is pre-social work mentality. This is, I'm going into the 50s, 40s, 30s, 40s, 50s, up into the 60s. So it was a different city. It was a city of tolerance. We've talked about this before. Great tolerance and a happy city. Everybody got along, regardless of race, color, creed, go to San Francisco, have a good time, live the good life. And that's what attracted me. That's when you started, right? In San Francisco? In 65. Yeah. So you saw that business community on the board. Oh yeah. Yeah. I moved there from LA, from Hollywood. I grew up here in LA and was influenced by Hollywood, learned how to sing, learned how to act, learned how to dance and all that malarkey. But when you move to San Francisco, it's like a different experience. This is the real city compared to LA. And I'm not knocking LA. I'm an LA boy at heart, but when you move to San Francisco, it was a functioning city. And it was a good type city. You had a good time. You got along with people because you had to. You were in a small environment. You had to learn how to compromise, get along with people. And if you really wanted to enjoy yourself, you had to be part of it. You had to contribute. You had to work at it. So that's pretty much changed now. So when you ran for supervisor, did you see, at what point did you see this city run by businesses? Before I ran. Long before that. I saw this happen at least 10, 15 years before I ran. How did that change happen? Because outsiders came in and utilized this small, functioning, well-funded city to elevate themselves up the political ladder to assemblymen. San Francisco is a power base, as we've talked about before, for the whole state, actually for the country. It's very political. So the outsiders came in with a lot of money and ran for office and won. And then started a political machine, if you will, that ran the city, that has run the city for the last 50 years. How did you stay motivated in the middle of all of this? First of all, you don't go into public service unless you're going to serve the public. And that's what I was raised under. When I went to San Francisco and I first worked for the civil service commissioner, you had to wear a suit, maybe a sport jacket. You had no telephone. You had no computer. You worked. You were on the job at 8 o'clock in the morning. You got a 10-minute break, one hour for lunch, another 10-minute break, and you were out the door at 5. And your boss was standing right there. And they drilled it in your head, you're working for the public. You are working for the public. And if you worked for yourself or you did things that weren't beneficial to the mission of the department, you were looked down upon. That was San Francisco. People didn't take to selfishness, and they didn't tolerate that. And I remember sitting in a room with 30 or 40 guys working, and I thought, jeez, I'm a machiner. But you didn't step out of line. Those were the city bosses at the time made sure the workforce actually did the work. So I was educated under that, and some fantastic public administrators ran that city. The mayor was kind of the focal point, but the administrators of that city were old-school guys that believe in working for the public and producing a product that benefited the That was the big thing. So it's rewarding. When you actually worked on different projects like I did and you saw it through, it was extremely rewarding. And you thought, I am affecting change. I am making it better for the community, and that's rewarding. That keeps you going. That's the incentive to stay in public service. The only reason I think I moved on so many times is because of the political interference. I actually saw people come in that would lean on the department head to do certain things to satisfy a piece of legislation that they were trying to get through that you knew wasn't going to benefit the public. It was only designed to benefit them so they could run to their next rung on the ladder. That's what really turned me on. When San Francisco became so political in the 60s, I got disheartened. And I decided, OK, I'm not going to complain about it. I'm here, I'm raising my family, love the city, I'll get in and run for office. That's what I did. And when I got elected, I was the last conservative elected in that city. And at that time, it was 35 years. Now it's 50 years. There hasn't been another. So I was one on a board of supervisors that was... When was that? In 2006? That was 2000. 2000, OK. And the board of supervisors was all to the left and allowed lefties. Although I made some very good friends, I still have a very, very close friend who you know has been on your show, Matt Gonzalez. He was the... We were able to get him chairman of the board. And I learned how to compromise to get what I wanted to get through, how to work with him and the board. Matt was a terrific guy to work with. Even though we're politically coming from different ends, we worked together. We'd get together and talk, OK, how do you say it? How do you say it? And we became great friends that way. We learned to compromise to reach the final product that was good for the people we're elected to represent. I couldn't do that with nine of the supervisors on the board. Matt was the only one that had the intelligence and the goodness of heart to sit down and work that way. I learned from him. Hopefully, he learned from me. But we got a lot done together. Those were good years because that's the essence of not only good core values that you represent and have come through in your show, truthfulness, you can't do anything without honesty. You just can't. If you're any kind of a thinking person, compassion. You have to have compassion to listen to somebody on the other side of the political spectrum and get things done. And you have to have forbearance, patience. You have to have patience. So those are values that affect all of us, not just who you represent or people who represent. It affects the whole world. The sooner people realize that core values are really important for progress and for the culture that we all want, the sooner people realize those core values. And I think people are beginning to understand this, the better off we're going to be. Do you see a change coming to people in the public service? I see a change coming in the fact that the people who elect our representatives are beginning to figure this out. Not necessarily in the people that are going in public service. You see, the stage is set by the people we elect. They affect the administrators and the departments and how our government is run. I see a change coming. The people are now beginning to demand more honesty. They're beginning to demand, wait a minute, my beautiful way of life here in America and in California is being threatened. Let's get back to the basics, reinvent the wheel, if you will, and make things work again. That hasn't been the case for a long, long time. I think people are getting to that point. In California, I sense it. I think the day of the egotistical, narcissistic, I'm in politics for exposure type of guy, or because I want to be president of the United States or ruler of the world, I think that's coming to an end. And thank God it is. Because that is what has led to our problems. Our problems are big, but they're not insurmountable. We have some very serious problems in this state because we've elected people who are not working for us. They're only working for themselves, and they're very good at it. But now I think the day is coming to an end. I think people are demanding, which will affect the type of person going in public service, hopefully. And that's, I think, one of the reasons we're talking here today. It's extremely important for young people who are coming from a philosophy of wanting to make things better, not solve the world's problems, but wanting to make things better. The Jesuit philosophy of education up at USF and the high schools they run is service others, helping others. Well, if you really want to do that, you've got to do it the right way. You don't go in the public service to elevate yourself. You go in the public service to make the benefit the people you represent. That's not always easy to do. And it's very easy to get your ego out there once you're elected, very easy to start thinking that you have all the answers and you're the last word on everything. That's not what public service is about. So public service is about going in to service the public. It's not glorifying, it's not full of glory. It's rewarding when it works and you're doing it the right way. And that should be enough incentive for people to go in. The reward that comes from it, from the job, is enough to get you motivated. Absolutely. To get people motivated. If you're in public service and you've instituted a program or you're working on a program under someone else's leadership and you see the fruits of your labor, that's enough to make you want to stay in it. How many people get that wonderful thing in life? Because it has a big impact, right? It has impact on other people. And other walks of life out there. I'm not knocking truck drivers. My father was a truck driver, candlestick makers or shoemakers. It's all rewarding. What you create with your own ability, what you contribute with your own ability, I should say, not what you create, but when you use your innate abilities to contribute to the welfare of everything, there's nothing more rewarding than that. And that's where all men are created equal. All men are created equal, not by their athletic ability or their brains. Everybody's unique. Everybody's got unique qualities to bring to the party. And if you're able to develop those things for the benefit of others, you've got it made That's tremendously rewarding. Based on your experience, is it worth it to get into public service knowing that... Absolutely. The problem is there's not enough good people going in it. What's happened, and I've said this before, in the last 30 or 40 years, the private enterprise has been so attractive, so rewarding because of the money. The pay is a lot higher, right? The pay is a lot higher. I mean, that's why I became a singer. While I was working as a public servant, I couldn't make ends meet when I was having children, kids. The only way I could do it was to sing at night, which I really enjoyed, and I made sure I did that the right way because I wanted to get another job singing. You have to do things the right way. But anyway, getting back to the point, private enterprise was so lucrative that the brains all went into that. I want to make money. I want the good life. I want to experience the best of what life has to offer. There was a vacuum created in the public arena, and it became more and more consolidated in the hands of the elected, who we elected. They would dictate what the departments were. They were dictating who got the jobs. The patronage system replaced the merit system that was all over California. In every jurisdiction, you had a civil service system that worked on the merit system. They got rid of that. Now it's patronage. I get 20 jobs here. I get 40 jobs in this department. I became mayor. Well, we had a mayor there that took our workforce from 27,000 people in 1978 to almost 43,000 today. All those jobs were fat, created, patronage. People that worked not only at the city, but worked to get him reelected. That's what's happened to government. It's gotten bloated. That's why you've got a guy like Elon Musk out there doing it, being as successful as he is, looking into the fat. The guy's doing a great job, and people should be thankful that someone like this is spending his own money to help us make government more efficient, more lean, and more working for us. Tony, what you're saying now, do you think we've become more materially focused on the money side of things compared to your generation when you guys were starting then? Yes, yes. I think we have, in the last 40 years, become very materialistic and less spiritual. I think you need a spiritual component for human health. I really do. But in the last 40 years, everything's been materialism. Acquire as much as you can, start up companies, blah, blah, blah, all money, money, money. That's what's happened. Government has been ignored, except by those who get elected, and they're usually people, when you look at them, that have never done a thing in their life. They've never experienced hardship. Some of them grew up poor. A lot of them will tell you they grew up poor, a lot of them didn't. They never learned the art of sacrifice. They never learned the art of working for others because they had to. They don't know that. A lot of guys have gone into politics because it's like if they didn't go make it in acting in Hollywood, they went into politics, and they became politicians. Once you're in office, and I can say this out of experience, you are hit with enormous opportunities to cheat, to steal, and to get corrupt. The opportunities hit you like mad. Do people come to you with ideas? You're signing million-dollar contracts every week. You're voting on it. You're creating legislation that deals with money, with development, with you name it. You're in a very, very tempting position, and if you don't do it the right way, you're going to make a mistake, and you're going to get caught, and you won't go anywhere. So the thing is, you have to have a strong, very strong ethics to not be... It's unbelievable. People don't realize how when you're in office, what comes at you, and how you can manipulate things if you're crooked. That's why we have so much corruption, and that's why we have so many dummies being corrupt. It's easy to do. It's very easy to... Do you have any examples to tell us from people coming up to you or others? Yeah. I'll give you an example. I was going to run for mayor. I'm not going to name any names because that's not fair, but I had an offer that my personal mortgage would be taken care of, that my children... If I had four kids in private school, their tuition would be taken care of, that I would get as many singing jobs as I wanted, wherever I wanted, that all that would be taken care of if I didn't run. That's just one small example. That's personal, and of course I didn't take it, but that comes your way. Why didn't you take it? Because that's not me. First of all, that's probably why I'm not in office now. I can't be bought. I wasn't raised that way. My father, my mother, as I mentioned, they were good, blue-class working people, religious people, but you weren't second to anyone. You certainly weren't superior to anyone, but being bought wasn't part of our DNA. That's the problem. When you're in politics, it's easy to get bought, and it's the quickest way up the political ladder when you have to raise $10 or $20 million to become mayor of San Francisco, and you're not wealthy, you're not a millionaire. You have to sell part of your existence to get that money, and that's one of the good things about the mayor we have in there now, Dan Lurie, who I think is very well-intentioned. He didn't have to do that. He had his own money, and I give him credit for that. He spent his own money, and a lot of it, to become mayor, so he owns himself. So he's got to make the right move now. He's not owned. He may be owned to some degree by the PACs that put up money for him. They put up, I think, another $8 million or something like that. He spent a lot of money to become mayor, but it was his own money, so I give him credit for that. Someone like myself, I'm not a wealthy guy. I've never been wealthy. I'd have to go out and raise money, and with big money, you're talking big money to become, to run for mayor. You almost become the other, you know, the slave of the person that, or the group of people that funds you. Do you think this money part, the campaign money, has, it's kind of conflicting with the public service? Absolutely. With public service, no. Public service is public service. You go into public service, if you're qualified enough to get a job, to work for the government in one capacity or another, that's, if you can handle the politics that's running that department, and you do a good job, that's one thing. The money is what gets the electeds in power. That's, I don't know how to solve that. Does it take people's focus, the elected people's focus, away from doing their job and serving the public? It takes elected people's focus away from doing what has to be done, because they are at the beck and call of the lobbyists and the powers that be. The donors. Yes. And so, what they're proposing through legislation, when you're on the board of supervisors, you're proposing legislation, you're dealing with legislation that affects the operations of government. And so, when outsiders come to you with proposals, you have to be smart enough to analyze those proposals. How do they affect the constituents, the people that live in the city? Someone wants to start a non-profit in social services, and they're looking for 50 million. From the city. From the city, for the year. Okay, how much of that is on administration? How much of that is on supplies? How much of that goes into the pockets of the people running the organization? How much of that money gets down to the person that they're going to serve? That's the question. Very little. And that's the problem. We have become so corrupt that contracts are awarded through lobbying, through weak politicians that are owned by lobbying groups and special interest groups, that they give out these contracts. They're actually working for them. So it takes a very strong person in office, ethics, morals. I'm not saying I'm that, I'm just saying that's what it takes. Now, Tony, when you started your career in this public service, the politicians were raising money too, right? Did anything change in this process of the last 50 years? Yeah, San Francisco became machine run. The machine became so powerful through special interest groups that they dictated a person's ability to run for office. You can't just go out and run in District 7, a neighborhood, anymore with $150,000. You get blown away. Negative campaigning seems to work in a city like anywhere. Negative campaigning, it's a horrible thing. It's not in our world at all, your world, my world. Blasting someone, the people like that, people listen to that. That takes money, brochures, exposure, all this stuff costs money and you can't do it anymore on $150,000, $200,000. Now it's- You have to get a lot of money. You've got to get a lot of money. And that's what's happened to San Francisco. Do you have any thoughts for younger people that want to do something about challenges California's facing, the country's facing right now? Absolutely. That's always been one of the things I've worked at, even when I was on the board. I started a young people's program, a mentorship program to try to encourage young people to go into public service because our culture in public service has to change. You can define a society's culture by the people that work for it. And there's a lot of opportunity for young people out there today in government work, in public service. A heck of a lot of opportunity in private enterprise. But if you're interested at all in how things work and why cities are the way they are, then go in and try to make it better. And don't sell your soul in the meantime, but try to make it better by using your brain. You want to be discriminatory against what is bad and work towards what is good. And you don't want to be afraid to stand up and say so. That's where the big challenge is out there, guys. It's not in a startup company and, you know, I've got a hedge company and I know people that are going to make my hedge company. And now I'm successful. That's easy to do. And it's very easy if you go in public service to go into politics. Separate politics from public service. Public service is working in the government for the government. Politics is getting elected. And it's very easy if you go the political route to sell out. You go up the political ladder much quicker than if you're hard working and doing it the right way. You'll last longer if you're doing it the right way. If you want to be a flake and out there and running the world, that's an easy thing to do. That's really easy. I mean, that's why Matt and I come on your show to try and talk about what is good, you know, what is good in a society, how to go about it the right way. You have to have values. But it's so easy, CIMAC, to get on the wrong track when you're an elected official. It's so tempting. You look at the next higher office, and then you devise a program that the people like, that no one's analyzed how it's going to affect the people, but it gives you something to put on your quiver to say, I did this, and then you run on that for the next office. And you get the lobbyists to help you. You get the right people, the right special interests behind you, you're on your way, baby. Do you have any thoughts for people that are already right now in the office? The day's coming very quickly when the people are going to look at you and call you a hypocrite or a phony unless you start working for the people. And you have no future. You may think you do. It's changing. And Donald Trump had a lot to do with this. He really did. He's changed the culture out there. Americans can only be abused for so long. Americans love the underdog, always have. That's one of the things where we're different than other cultures. We've always loved the underdog. Donald Trump was an underdog in his last four or five years. I mean, he took every hit that was coming his way. You know, last administration crucified this guy in ways that were unfair, and the American public saw it. That's why he got elected. His policies are good, but that's why he got elected. He got elected because the American public said, wait a minute, this guy can't be as bad as what we're being told. What he's saying makes sense, common sense. Let's give him a break. That's where Americans are beautiful. So do I have advice for the guys in office? Yeah, grow up real quick-like because it's changing now. Now people are demanding that you work for us. People are demanding that you be honest with us. If you have political aspirations to a higher office, admit it, but don't play with us in the meantime and make our lifestyle worse. Don't exploit us because our quality of life is getting worse, and we don't like that. So the day is changing. I think the inland counties in California are really expressing this sentiment a lot more than we are on the coast. They're fed up. I mean, I've toured all over California. They're fed up. They're fed up with being lied to. They're fed up with being exploited. They're fed up with being abused and having to pay for things that they get no benefit from and having to pay for things that the people who are supposed to benefit get no benefit from. So they're fed up with that. It's changing, and that's good. San Francisco is going to become, hopefully, better. It's on the road to be better. This young fellow in there, Dan Lurie, is well-meaning, as I said. He's green. He's really green. And one of the things of being elected, every politician goes through it. It takes you a year to find out who the good guys are and the bad guys. Takes you a year, sometimes two years. My case, I'm a little slow that way, so it took me about two years to find out who the good guys are versus the bad guys. People come to you with ideas and advice. Yeah, and you can be fooled real easy. And I think Dan Lurie's on the right track. He's certainly a step over the last administration. The last administration was part of a dying machine that had a lot to do with ruining San Francisco. So thank God they're gone. This guy's got an opportunity to do things. Six months from now, I'll know more whether he's successful or not. He is keeping a low profile. He's got the ear of a state senator who I don't respect, or should I say the state senator has got his ear, and that could hurt him. He's got to be careful. He's listening to some people out there that are one-trick ponies, all about themselves, trying to move up the political ladder. One particular state senator has got the ear of the mayor, so the mayor's got to be careful. This isn't right or left. This is just, that guy's not working for San Francisco. The mayor wants to make San Francisco better. Listen to the people. People are going to tell you what they want. Not Tony Hall. Not Matt Gonzalez. We know what has to be done. We're hoping he does the right thing, but if you really want the answers, listen to the people. They're going to tell you what they want. And so I hope this guy does well. I really do. The other thing, I think we're going to hopefully see the emergence of a two-party system, because what we've had for 40 years is one party ruling San Francisco, and they've taken it to excesses. They're false. People are tired of it. And that's what's happened with the country. You've got one party now that's completely fallen apart, and whether the Republican Party steps up and does it the right way, it's going to remain to be seen. If they back the president that's in there, they have the patience to follow up on his policies and also ensure that they're being done the right way, then we're going to be fine. But you need a two-party system. San Francisco hasn't had that. California certainly hasn't had it. It's run by one party, and they've shot their best shot. And it's not doing any good. As you know, there's an exodus in California because of certain very real reasons people are leaving here. People are fed up with life in the Golden Gate because it's not rewarding for them anymore. And this is due to the people that are running the show. This is directly due to the people that are running the show. We had this tragedy in L.A. which broke my heart. I had two relatives lose their houses or close to losing their properties. That was avoidable. You have to have politicians that are working for the people. Make sure the reservoirs are full. Make sure the water from the reservoir gets to the hydrants. A, B, C, D. Real simple. That if you're going to divert that, divert the water to other sources, or the money behind the water to other sources, this is what happens. And that's what happened with these fires. And it's destroyed a lot of people's lives and that can't go on. So yeah, are things changing? Yeah, they're going to change. People are going to demand change and that's coming. So the phonies, we're going to find out how good they are, how long they can stand on their feet because they're going to start dropping off. Tony Hall, former county supervisor from San Francisco, it was great to have you in California Insider. Well, it's always great to be with you. And I want to say this. One of the reasons that I enjoy being on your show is because of the platform. It's a platform that, it's based on values. We know the common values that truthfulness, honesty, compassion, perseverance or tolerance or forbearance, which is a tough one to define for some people. But I add to another thing, I have my own, it encompasses that, but honesty, integrity, loyalty and pride. You have to have pride in what you're doing to make things better. Not a false pride, not a sense of braggadociousness, not at all. You have to be proud of what you're doing. You have to see the fruits of your labor to keep going. And your show is doing that. Your show is growing. You are a platform for values. And the reason your show is growing is other platforms, other hosts, media outlets don't have basic principles that they're operating on. And those basic principles are common to everybody, not just the obvious group or the fallen gong. Those basic principles are common to the universal man. He just has to wake up and realize that. And that's what's happening. So that, keep doing what you're doing. And perseverance, forbearance, you're going to be under the gun because a lot of people don't want that. They don't want those values. They don't want those values because they don't know the value of those values. And that's where I run out of patience. So I'm not perfect, but I run out of patience for those type of people. I say, okay, we've had enough patience with you, we're going to have consequences now. We have to, we're going to fight back. We want our values to survive because we know how they contribute to a better society, a better culture. If you don't know that, and you're not loyal to that, and you're not willing to fight for that, and by that I don't mean, I mean if you're not willing to stand up, then you don't deserve it. And so I appreciate your format and you as a host exemplifying those values throughout your work. Thank you, Tony. Appreciate it.