SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE -- Corey Cook taught political science at the University of San Francisco for nine years and San Francisco State University for three years. Today, he is the dean of the School of Public Service at Boise State University. In this op-ed piece, he discusses the legacy of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who died December 12.
“Lee’s legacy on public policy was both considerable and contentious: He presided over a prolonged tech boom that shifted the fulcrum of Silicon Valley north, which resulted in an affordable housing and homelessness crisis,” Cook writes. “He brokered a standard redevelopment tool to revitalize a barren stretch of Market Street — a payroll tax exemption that became known as the ‘Twitter tax break’ — that became a political controversy wielded against him.
“The city today looks very different from the one when Lee took the helm. Lee presided over the city’s changing skyline and a substantial evolution of the very essence of San Francisco. Those changes will be debated for years to come.”