Ed Lee hoping to cut some ribbons for legacy projects

If the stars line up, Mayor Ed Lee could break ground within months on the two signature projects for which he hopes to be remembered — the Warriors’ arena in Mission Bay and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on Treasure Island. The Mission Bay Alliance and other opponents who raised questions about the environmental impact of the arena could still take their challenge to the state Supreme Court, but legal experts say the 3-0 vote in favor of the project at the Court of Appeal last week pretty much seals the deal. For San Francisco, that includes ensuring that Treasure Island’s master developer — a joint venture led by Lennar Corp. and Wilson Meany Sullivan — turn over 4 acres on the southeast corner of the former naval base for the Lucas museum, accelerate work to shore up the man-made island and provide ferry service from downtown. With a usually divided Board of Supervisors already on board and no major environmental hurdles standing in the way, officials are cautiously optimistic Lucas and his museum board will pick the dramatic Treasure Island location over Los Angeles’ already crowded Exposition Park. [...] McFadden had held several long and deep conversations with the governor about being appointed attorney general and the challenge of mounting a statewide election campaign in two years. [...] another source who spoke to the governor tells us Brown had indicated as far back as August that he wanted to name a Latino to the attorney general’s job if the seat opened. The decision to appoint him had to be made more quickly than the governor expected when Becerra announced he was making a bid to become the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and Becerra felt it would be unfair to everyone for him to be seeking two jobs at the same time. Incidentally, the big loser in the play may have been state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who has already raised $3 million for a run for attorney general in two years — he now faces an uphill climb. With Donald Trump threatening to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants, the Oakland City Council doubled down Tuesday. A nice political move, but California already has the Trust Act, a bill authored in 2013 by then-San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano that prohibits local law enforcement from detaining immigrants longer than necessary for minor offenses so that federal immigration authorities can take custody of them. [...] if Trump does find a way to strip federal funds from California, lawmakers already are eyeing ways to cope, including raising state income taxes on wealthier residents, essentially offsetting the federal tax cuts the new president is pledging.