San Francisco names Monster Defense Coordinator

As part of his continuing quest to protect San Francisco from real, imagined, and existential threats, Mayor Gavin Newsome created a $160,000-a-year job to have a cabinet-level aide with the title Director of Monster Defense.

The position will be filled by E. Roderick “Willy” Wilson, who has been service as a consultant for the city for the past four years. The mayor said in a press conference that Wilson will “provide for the defense of every San Franciscan against the most serious threat facing us today: that a hundred-meter tall monster will rise up from the bay, snap the Golden Gate Bridge in half, fill Alcatraz with radioactive feces, and disrupt kayaking in McCovey Cove.”

Some local residents wondered how a city budget already $233 million overbudget would pay for the new initiatives, with some even suggesting drastic measures might be necessary.

Local business owner Carlee Simons asked if “cutting back on the Gay Days parade and reducing hobo removal in Haight-Ashbury is really worth having one more person telling us how likely we are to be eaten by mutated shark-men from the bay? I’d rather have a Dirty Harry museum, personally.”

But other residents were happy. “I don’t care if we have a hundred coordinators to help stave off death by these real-life Cloverfields,” said Gabrielle Mebcull of COMA, the Californians Opposed to Monster Attack. “There is no single more pressing issue facing us today than GMA. Maybe if some Washington politicians were interested in saving the world instead of scoring cheap rhetorical points, we wouldn’t need to bankrupt San Francisco solving the problem.”

Walter K. Mondale, who was in nearby Los Angeles to receive the Oscar for “Best Behind-the-scenes Movie” for his film The Making of An Uninvited Guest, Producer’s Cut, applauded the move. “I know that many people will look at the salary and think it’s a lot, but personally, I make ten times that annually warning about the coming monster apocalypse. So there’s still plenty of room to grow this important activity in San Francisco.”