San Francisco: The rip-off city 2

 

The Chronicle's columnists have been on a roll. Lee Garchik in last Thursday's SF Chronicle:

Here's how a recent Saturday went for Jerry Barrish, filmmaker, artist, man around town and therefore, man in search of a parking place: He met a friend in Hayes Valley for brunch, $4 at a meter. Then he went to North Beach to do an errand, $2 at a meter. Seeing a movie at the Kabuki, his validated garage parking was $10. After that, he stopped into ArtPad at the Phoenix Hotel in the Tenderloin, and spent $20 to park at the Civic Center Garage. And then he ended the driving day at a gathering for S.F. Art Institute alums at the Old Mint, where parking at the Fifth and Mission garage set him back $10 more. "I guess I could have gone out to dinner and paid a few more dollars for valet parking," he e-mails, "but by then I was broke." The total of the day's parking fees: $46.

And Willie Brown in yesterday's Chronicle:

"Strip away the rhetoric about globalization and innovation, and it turns out they're [Silicon Valley]pretty much like the bosses of every other type of business: They want their tax loopholes. They want to bring in more foreign workers. They want the government to keep its hands off their offshore operations."