Her legendary leadership will not find an equal in my lifetime. There were times when I disagreed with some of her policy leanings, especially in her last years. At a time of utter chaos and tragedy, and without a script, she announced to the Bay Area and the world that the City had lost two prominent figures -- the Mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone, and the figurative "Mayor Of Castro Street", Harvey Milk -- both murdered at City Hall. Her poise while she was delivering a horrific message and then taking the helm as Mayor is what catapulted her into a lifetime of political service that never rested. She was incredibly intelligent, and when faced with an unknown subject that required a position and action, she studied the matter from all sides before coming to a (usually) qualified decision. No, she was not perfect. Nobody is. But I firmly believe that no one will ever be able to fill her shoes.

I greatly admired Senator Dianne Feinstein. She leaves a tremendous legacy of achievement and honor, especially in the U.S. Senate.

Before the Oakland Firestorm, if you lost everything in a disaster, you had to replace your residence within 2 years or insurance proceeds were taxed as ordinary income. Think about that. It’s not unusual for only 10-15% of homes to be replaced within 2 years, and insurers can drag settlements out so long, many people haven’t settled by then. If you are then taxed as if those funds are income, you lose much of it all over again.

You also had to account for every fork and spoon you lost, calculate the “adjusted basis” and pay tax for the difference between it and insurance proceeds. For every last thing. The capper is that this resulted in such complicated returns it frequently put already exhausted disaster survivors through tax audits.

Oakland survivors listened to survivors from prior disasters who warned them it would happen. Dianne Feinstein in turn listened to them and her office, along with Pete Stark’s, crafted legislation to change IRS tax law so that:
1) survivors who lost everything in federally declared disasters had 4 years to replace homes without tax consequences
2) any insurance proceeds on personal property had no tax consequences, which is important since insurance usually only pays on a dwelling after people put up the deductible themselves (they can’t just replace a cheaper home to avoid it)—thus it gives people some funds to use as they need for recovery
3) ditto on scheduled property

I’m sure hardly anyone nationally who’s gone through a disaster since 1991, appreciates what a major thing Feinstein (and the two other sponsors, their staff, and the fire victims who worked on getting it passed) did to change federal tax law to allow them to recover better from a major loss. Few probably appreciate how difficult it can be to pass any law, much less such a specific tax code change.

When the neighbors thanked her, Feinstein told them “THIS is why I do this!”

She did WAY more for this country than these memorial articles say.

She was a class act. I enjoyed chatting with her in the streets of SF. Rest in peace Ms. Feinstein.

1. She dated my dad twice at Stanford. Perhaps he was the one that got away... she loved to match make, hence forth.

2. Her mayoral on boarding in SF, unfolding of a severely dark, deadly epidemic of Aides/HIV . Bath house closures a major decision city wide. Epicenter to a global deadly health crisis.

Her legacy, in my mind, is handling the Aides crisis in our city by the bay. A deadly health crash by this disease infecting, killing so many of our residents. . Her backbone of a city, on the rise from a WWII economy to tourism. And confronting a unknown sudden deadly, horrific disease .

It was a scary, awful, dark time for the Bay Area and thus Globally. Seriously, toilet seat sheet covers was her doing!!