The State - News from Nov. 2, 1988

Mayor Art Agnos angrily rejected as “election eve blackmail” a warning that the Navy will not home-port the battleship Missouri in San Francisco if city voters reject Proposition S. “I’m saying the Navy’s coming anyway and they’re just using the Missouri as a symbol to try to get local taxpayer money as a supplement to greater taxes we already pay in this city,” Agnos said at a news conference in response to a letter from Secretary of the Navy William L. Ball III. Voters will decided on Proposition R, requiring the Navy to pay all home-porting costs, and Proposition S, requiring the city to abide by a memorandum of understanding and pay up to $2 million to dredge Hunter’s Point shipyard, where the Missouri would be anchored, and $1 million a year for maintenance. According to the Navy, the Missouri would create 5,000 jobs, provide $58 million for the struggling ship repair industry, pump $25.6 million into the economy for fuel and supplies and generate tax revenues that would more than offset the city’s dredging costs.