The compromise brokered by Supervisor David Campos and Mayor Ed Lee to name a single terminal at San Francisco International Airport instead of the entire airport after slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk is a good solution that should please almost everyone. LGBTs will be proud for a terminal named after a gay rights icon; city residents will be spared a costly and potentially divisive ballot fight; and it will cost less money to make the changes to signage and affected material.
When we editorialized against Campos's plan back in January, it was because we feared that the airport renaming would be an unnecessary fight that potentially could pit residents against one another. In fact, not only did polls show that a majority of San Franciscans was against the idea, but that opinions even in the LGBT community were mixed. Faced with underwhelming momentum for an airport name change, those supervisors who had not announced support for Campos's plan stayed on the sidelines because he did not have a sixth vote on the board to allow his proposal to proceed to the ballot for a public vote in November.
To Campos's credit, however, rather than let the idea fade away, he began working with Lee to craft a compromise. As we reported online Tuesday, a committee will be appointed to recommend which of the airport's terminals should be named after Milk, the city's first gay elected official. The supervisors will name four individuals to the panel and the mayor will name five. It will have three months to present its recommendation. According to a statement from Campos, the committee will have a few more months to make further recommendations for names for the other terminals (there are three domestic and one international), towers, or boarding areas.
Once a terminal is selected for Milk, the committee's decision will be voted on by the board and signed into law by the mayor. Campos told us that according to the city charter, the San Francisco Airport Commission does not have the authority to name any facilities. However, an airport spokesman said this week that the commission will go ahead with its own committee, which will review naming its facilities. Perhaps that panel can provide some feedback to the committee created by the board and mayor.
There was broad agreement among city residents that Milk was deserving of some honor. The problem was that most people felt that SFO should retain its name and not be named after anyone. That was also our position.
"Everyone does agree that we need to honor Harvey Milk," Campos told us this week. "It is an important legacy that should be recognized."
More importantly, Campos said, "many people believe that in the process of honoring Harvey Milk we need to make sure we do it in a way that brings the entire city together."
As we approach the 35th anniversary of Milk and then-Mayor George Moscone's assassination on November 27 by ex-Supervisor Dan White inside City Hall, it would be a fitting tribute indeed, if the Harvey Milk Terminal could be approved in time for the ceremony that usually is held to commemorate their deaths.
Compromise is not a dirty word. Just compare Campos's actions to forge a positive solution with San Francisco Pride's board of directors, which has sunk to new lows in its determination to keep Bradley Manning, a gay soldier and WikiLeaks whistle-blower, from being recognized as a community grand marshal. Rather than heed the advice of many (including us) to reinstate Manning as a grand marshal, the Pride board this week doubled down on its decision to rescind the honor over some obscure rule that no one's ever heard of: that community grand marshals selected by Pride's electoral college (former grand marshals) must be local residents.
SF Pride CEO Earl Plante and board President Lisa Williams could benefit from a crash course in diplomacy as the Manning issue continues to spin out of control.