talkback...

Congratulations on your Best of the Bay 2002 issue [7/31/02]. I thought the Editors' Picks this year were great – fresh, informative, and vivacious. However, I find the Readers' Poll categories to be growing stale. How many years in a row can we pick Green Apple and City Lights as Best Bookstores, or Boulevard as Best Splurge Restaurant? There are many other categories to explore: Best Butcher Shop, Best Independently Owned Cafe, Best Pet Supply Shop, Best High School, Best Produce Market, Best Genre Bookstore, Best Art Supply Store ... All that new information would be exciting to poll and inspiring to read about next year.

P.S. My answers are: Drewes Butcher Shop, Cafe Proust, Noe Valley Pet Company, my alma mater the Urban School, Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, the Mystery Bookstore, and Arch.

Celia Sack

San Francisco

Electing women

Your article, "Where the Girls Aren't" [7/31/02], about the lack of women on the Board of Supes and in city politics in general was right on target and desperately needed. As a young woman and volunteer in one of the supervisors' offices, I have always wondered why there were so few women in City Hall – and even worse, I've wondered, why doesn't anyone talk about it? With such a "progressive" board, you'd think folks would want to address this issue.

You made another important point by clarifying that it isn't just about getting any woman or any person of color in office but getting women and people of color that are truly dedicated to the community and not to the machine.

Thank you, you rock!

Name withheld

San Francisco

Too much management

As a city employee watching the proliferation of high-paid and unnecessary management-level staff over the last six years, I have found it incredible that no one dares to ask the question that Sup. Jake McGoldrick at least articulated ["Talk Isn't Cheap," 7/3/02].

With so much "management" (often merely P.R. and lobbyists), it can be no surprise that the rank and file workers are mostly very demoralized by the lack of direction and leadership from the top, people who often know very little about what they are "managing." Usually they are so "wonderful" that rules of attendance and absence are ignored so they may enhance their income with false overtime (by various names) and take lots of vacation without using their leave. I read in the New Yorker that this management style was exactly what Enron and other corporate giants depended on, so it's no surprise that the city is so profligate.

Thanks again for your article; it's good to know there are still a few media not on the bandwagon.

Name withheld

San Francisco

Virtual slavery

Sup. Gavin Newsom's Care Not Cash campaign cites Chicago as a success story. Chicago implemented a similar program in the early '90s.

I was in Chicago in November 1999 and talked with homeless advocates. They described a picture that they said was typical in Chicago.

Many homeless shelters are located next to temporary work agencies.

Early in the morning, shelter occupants walk over to the temp agencies. The temp agencies drive them to locations throughout the city, where they work all day for far below minimum wage. In the late afternoon, they are driven back, where they turn over almost all of their day's earnings to stay another night in the shelter. In the morning the process starts over again. So although these homeless people are part of the regular workforce, they are trapped in a condition of virtual slavery, with no escape.

That is what Care Not Cash will create in San Francisco. By stripping homeless people of money, Care Not Cash will create a captive no- or low-wage work group. Right now these folks clean the streets and Muni cars and do laundry at San Francisco General Hospital, but who is to say that Newsom's corporate supporters in the Hotel Council, the Committee on Jobs, or the Chamber of Commerce won't decide they are needed to clean hotel rooms, do telemarketing, or to bus dishes?

Michael Lyon

San Francisco

For the record

There were a few errors in last week's Best of the Bay issue.

Grub, winner of the Best Pot Brownie, is now closed.

Real Goods, the winner for Best Tools for Harnessing Solar Power, has shut down its Bay Area location and has an outlet in Hopland.

The phone number for Frjtz, the Best Place for Artsy Fries and Sandwiches Named after Drips and Vandals, is (415) 864-7654.

Fantasy Studios, whose building won Best Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy, produced its gold and platinum series with associate labels Specialty and Stax.

The photograph that accompanied Jack Spicer's award for the Best Poetry by the Bay pictured lines written by Deena Metzger. Spicer's lines are located in another spot on the same sidewalk.

Tu Lan, the Readers' Poll winner for Best Vietnamese Sandwiches, does not sell sandwiches.