A few comments:

1. I think your endorsement of Reilly will hurt her given your description of her. I was considering voting for Reilly, but it sounds like she's flip-flopped on her supposed fiscal positions just to get elected. D2 wants someone with some fiscal/budgetary common sense on the Board. (Reilly was also kind of weak at the D2 debate.)

2. The SFBG staff may be the only voters in the City who vote against Prop G (muni).

3. It's a shame, though predicable, that SFBG wouldn't endorse Prop B. The SFBG just wants to ignore the impact that employee pensions and benefits are having on the the general fund--yet the SFBG always claims the need for more taxes in light of the structural deficit. What do you think is causing that structural deficit?

4. The fact the SFBG is against state Prop 20 and for state Prop 27 make these endorsements lack all credibility in my view. So state legislators should pick the contours and make-up of their own districts to stay elected? That position is silly.

Hey guys,

Thanks for the interview last Friday. Tony and I enjoyed it and since you didn't post your audio version I'd like to give your readers a chance to see the full video here. Again, thanks for the access. As I said, running for office is all about influencing Public Policy for me and getting one's own ideas across to as many people as possible.

Here's our conversation:

http://blip.tv/file/4194624

Thanks again,

h. brown

While I personally like Debra, Rafi, and Tony (and am supporting Rafi), I certainly hope you don't use that picture on tomorrow's cover. The implications of endorsing all white candidates as your 1st choices for Supervisor in a City that is half people of color are scary.

If I were downtown, I wouldn't even have to make an edit. "The San Francisco Bay Guardian is out of touch with San Francisco, and district elections disenfranchises communities of color." They made that argument in 2000. After that, progressive got smarter and more disciplined and empowered strong, progressive candidates from communities of color.

But now we seem to have reverted. If the Bay Guardian endorsed candidates are successful, there will be no African-Americans on the Board of Supervisors for the first time since before Ella Hill Hutch!

And on the subject of District 6, I fear that the Guardian has made a grave mistake leaving out James Keys. The Keys campaign is the only candidate who was aggressively pursuing an RCV strategy with the 3 strongest progressives, even though it was not in his campaign's interest. Keys has strong progressive positions, an identified base and legitimacy in the Tenderloin, a big-name endorsement that he's using effectively, access to resources with public financing, a serious mail program, and 4000 ID's.

Where does the SF Bay Guardian think those votes are going. With a strategy that included our 3 strongest candidates, I think a chunk of those votes to could have gone to Walker or Kim or vice-versa. Now, I think it is a tougher sell.

An anecdote from this morning-- an African-American Tenderloin resident dropped by the Keys office to tell us they had voted for James Keys, 3 times! Either James Keys wins this, or, unfortunately, that's an exhausted ballot. These are the realities in the TL -- it's unfortunate, but I'm actually not surprised that the Guardian doesn't get it.

While I personally like Debra, Rafi, and Tony (and am supporting Rafi), I certainly hope you don't use that picture on tomorrow's cover. The implications of endorsing all white candidates as your 1st choices for Supervisor in a City that is half people of color are scary.

If I were downtown, I wouldn't even have to make an edit. "The San Francisco Bay Guardian is out of touch with San Francisco, and district elections disenfranchises communities of color." They made that argument in 2000. After that, progressive got smarter and more disciplined and empowered strong, progressive candidates from communities of color.

But now we seem to have reverted. If the Bay Guardian endorsed candidates are successful, there will be no African-Americans on the Board of Supervisors for the first time since before Ella Hill Hutch!

And on the subject of District 6, I fear that the Guardian has made a grave mistake leaving out James Keys. The Keys campaign is the only candidate who was aggressively pursuing an RCV strategy with the 3 strongest progressives, even though it was not in his campaign's interest. Keys has strong progressive positions, an identified base and legitimacy in the Tenderloin, a big-name endorsement that he's using effectively, access to resources with public financing, a serious mail program, and 4000 ID's.

Where does the SF Bay Guardian think those votes are going. With a strategy that included our 3 strongest candidates, I think a chunk of those votes to could have gone to Walker or Kim or vice-versa. Now, I think it is a tougher sell.

An anecdote from this morning-- an African-American Tenderloin resident dropped by the Keys office to tell us they had voted for James Keys, 3 times! Either James Keys wins this, or, unfortunately, that's an exhausted ballot. These are the realities in the TL -- it's unfortunate, but I'm actually not surprised that the Guardian doesn't get it.

Just for the record, Chris, I don't think we could have done any endorsements in D6 without someone telling me we made a grave mistake. I respect your opinion, as I respect the opinions of others who would have been just as disturbed if we had made other decisions.

But we don't base our endorsements on what will make people happy; we do our best to recommend the people we think will best carry forward the progressive agenda.

Did you remove my comment? Why?

A rare day that SFBG and Salomon agree on a D6 slate.

A major endorsing authority like the SFBG should rank the candidates in order of strength while a minor endorsing authority, as if, like me should endorse in reverse order of strength.

Meko needed to be crankier about getting rolled by the Planning Department, effectively wasting tens of thousands of volunteer hours from me and others if he wanted to be taken seriously as a candidate. And his hiring of Jamie Whittaker for the campaign, a poor man's rookie Ryan Chamberlain, indicates an utter lack of judgment that scotches any claims of progressive or even liberal legitimacy on Meko's part. Meko is the moderate in this race, and the only thing in the middle of the road around these parts are yellow stripes and the occasional, rarely sighted, nearly extinct San Francisco armadillo.

That said, Steven T. Jones and the comfortably housed crackers over at the SFBG never got over Meko's legitimate objections to Club Six's very inappropriate impacts on the very dense, very low income, very racially diverse, very residential Sixth Street community.

-marc

Timid,

Where's your correction on Meko and Sit/Lie? You print a lie and leave it out there. In our meeting last week (which you're too chickenshit to post) Brugmann said that I should call him or you before writing anything negative about them. Well, you wrote that Meko favors Sit/Lie which is ... a lie! Did you phone Meko before you printed that? No, because you're hypocrites.

Your attacking him for his work with the Entertainment Commission is also petty bullshit. He helped found the commission and has served as the Citizen Representative since its inception. The club owners tried to force him out a couple of years ago his support at the Board's Rules Committee was so broad that Tom Ammiano changed his vote. Don't you think the average citizens deserve a voice on the Entertainment Commission? No, unlike the clubs, they don't buy ads from you.

Meko is a man of integrity. He's not a spoiled whining child like Salomon and Steven T. Jones. Your magazine used to be the lefty gold standard. Now you're an on-the-skids rag sucking up to out-of-touch carpetbaggers like Jane Kim and selfish political hacks like Debra Walker.

Meko in D-6!

And, print that friggin' retraction!

go Giants!

h.

Just for reference, Jim Meko has not changed any of his positions since the June 23rd SF Young Democrats D6 candidate forum where this photograph hosted at Fog City Journal snapped Jim's and other candidates' positions on controversial measures .... including Jim's OPPOSITION to Prop. L/sit/lie

http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/2010/06/dsc_7...

Hoping the online article can be corrected to reflect TRUTH.

I received a campaign flier in the mail from the Coalition for Sensible Government. Not to be confused with the Civil Sidewalks Coalition, not that there's much difference between the two. Very likely the same people (since the real estate industry is one of the major financial backers of sit-lie). My radar goes off when people use words such as sensible, common sense and reasonable in campaign literature. Those words can be code for something else and something is usually up with that and that was the case with this flier which was an endorsement of Scott Wiener. They spelled Wiener's name wrong on the third page. They have the e before the i in big letters at the bottom. It's not on recycled paper and there's no little recycling symbol on it to suggest that one should recycle it. On the back it reads >>>...This mailing is not authorized or approved by any candidate for City & County office, a committee controlled by a candidate, or by any election official. It is paid for by the Coalition for Sensible Government with major funding by the San Francisco Association of REALTORS...the total cost of this mailing is $11,527.<<< What a waste of money and precious resources such as virgin paper.

One of the San Francisco non-progressive gay papers (it's really an outdated rag which shall remain nameless) has endorsed Wiener and sit-lie. They oppose Prop M in their endorsements. Their second choice for D8 was Prozan and they endorsed Sparks for D6, Carmen Chu for D4 because "She has proven to be a strong advocate of the LGBT community and our issues." (That's sufficient for an endorsement?....only LGBT issues.) They also endorsed Lynette Sweet in D10. I am well aware of the politics of this rag and I am not surprised by their endorsements. I expected them. The police used the 1970s version of sit-lie to go after gay people in The Castro but I guess this unmentioned rag didn't research that at all. For Prop L they wrote this paragraph which I find rather foolish, naïve and gullible...."We would be reluctant to support such a measure if it were in another community than San Francisco. However, we have confidence in Police Chief George Gascón, who strongly supports this measure, as well as the officers on the street who have undergone intensive sensitivity training to respect the diversity of cultures and lifestyles that thrive in San Francisco." How trusting of them to have confidence in the police chief and officers. Their fawning endorsement of Wiener was difficult for me to read as it consisted of the usual slogans and cliches such as "track record of getting things done at the local level" and "hit the ground running." I don't know how many people read this particular publication considering it publishes online only once a week and in our 24 hours society most of what they publish is usually old news by the time it's published on Wednesday night. They publish a small number of Letters to the Editor and they have no online forum. I often get the impression that the people who operate this unnamed publication are living in a time in the past. I think mainly people who are not on the Internet like this paper and read it and the paper has published some letters to that effect praising the publication.

Why no explanation here? I live in her district and would like to know why the SFBG just skipped it (it is a non-trivial portion of the city). Did she screw up (more than the average Congress-critter) or what?

The San Francisco Guardian has chosen to endorse Rafael Mandleman and Debra Walker. That is unfortunately. I guess they weren’t around when they both tore apart the Milk Club and the queer community to fulfill their own political ambitions. When I ran for D6 this last time against Chris Daly, no one abused the political process and civility to the extent that these two have done.

Back in 2007, prior to their candidacies, I had the pleasure of representing a victim of Rafael and Debra when they led a troubling, self-serving witch hunt within the Milk Club regarding a specious accusation leveled at my former client that he used "sexist" language. For that, they attempted to get him off the board and take over the leadership to advance their own political ambitions. Rafael Mandelman should have recused himself, because of actual conflicts and the appearance of impropriety. But, he did not. He is unethical. He being an attorney should have known better.

My former client had given over twenty years of service to the Harvey Milk club. He had served on its board in various executive positions. He has actively advocated for progressive causes, feminist issues and community involvement. The allegations proffered by Debra Walker during her self-interested campaign of slander were particularly specious in that my client had s served as an officer in the local chapter of the National Organization for Women.

The persecution of my former client was initiated for purely political reasons – i.e. to benefit Debra and Rafael in taking over the Milk Club. The purported “victim” was in a relationship with Gabriel Haaland, who supports both candidates. Said victims own statements at the time were enlightening, "I believe there are some extremely strong leaders in the club who believe in women being leaders in politics and in the progressive community. Because of that conviction, yes, the club can move forward and people care enough about the club to maintain the integrity of promoting women's leadership." What did "women being leaders in politics" and "promoting women's leadership," have to do with the complaint? Nothing. Prior to her official candidacy for D6, Debra Walker filed the complaint as a power move. It was Debra Walker who attempted to push my former client off the board. Debra Walker was among the group that rejected the executive board's finding that the allegations were unprovable. It was Debra Walker, among others, who violated the club's own disciplinary process and, contrary to the club's own bylaws, intimidated the membership into "approving a motion calling for [my client] to immediately resign his board position and be placed on six-months probation." It was Debra Walker who attempted to scapegoat [my client] for her own personal political gain.

The Harvey Milk Club was pushed away from the very important business of its mission to fulfill Debra and Rafael’s own agenda. That, in sum and substance, is the only story here.

Dear SFBG: I hope you actually read these rather than just posting them automatically and forgetting them.

I have been using your endorsements as my main guide to voting for over 30 years. In those early days, after reading your endorsements I felt fully confident that I had all the information I needed. You carefully discussed all the even vaguely progressive candidates on the ballot. You explained which races were safe enough for protest votes and which ones really close. You thoughtfully interviewed the Peace and Freedom candidates. You often gave second choices, along the lines of "if you really can't stomach Joe Democrat, we recommend Sally Third-Party."

Today your endorsements are written as if nobody were on the ballot except the Democrat and the Republican. Why bother? Why not just say "vote Democrat" and leave it at that? Anybody who comes to the SFBG for advice is unlikely to vote Republican anyway.

(Your endorsements on ballot propositions remain truly valuable, explaining the arguments on each side as well as the realpolitik behind them. Whoever writes those should be put in charge of the candidate endorsements!)

My second, less global request is that you be more complete about East Bay endorsements. (It didn't matter so much back when the East Bay Express was a progressive paper.) I'm in the dark about Superior Court Judge, Office #9; Albany City Council; AC Transit Director At-Large; and EBMUD Director, Ward 4.

Also, I know you always say to vote yes on all the judges because you don't like the idea of elected judges, but this time, the Governator is putting up for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court someone who isn't already on that court. I'd really like to know more about this mystery candidate.

Dear SFBG:
Did you forget Congressional District 12 (Speier), or is the omission a statement in itself? Also, there's nothing on the Chief and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, or the Court of Appeal Associate Justices—all of which require a yes or no vote. Are these confirmation votes necessary, and are these judges worthy? A little insight here would be nice....

Please print something for these, I depend on the SFBG so I can make an informed decision. This is the first omission this large that I've seen in years.