Hall Monitor

Morphing measure The lingering San Francisco Board of Supervisors debate over how to handle Sup. Gavin Newsom's Care Not Cash homeless welfare plan has shown that he's willing to alter it in any way to keep it alive – even as he claims the measure is perfect as is.

For those who've lost track of the details: voters approved Care Not Cash last fall, believing it would solve the city's homeless problem by redirecting welfare dollars to pay for services. After a Superior Court judge in May said voters couldn't directly tinker with welfare payments, Newsom urged the city to appeal the decision and has said he believes that effort will prevail.

Meanwhile, he covered his bases by introducing the plan as a piece of legislation, insisting that the board pass it as is. But by July 15 it was clear that the plan no longer had the necessary six votes, and an alternative measure written by Sups. Chris Daly, Sophie Maxwell, and Fiona Ma had already won majority support. The board also unanimously passed a measure by Sup. Jake McGoldrick protecting shelter seekers from displacement, a troubling feature of Care Not Cash.

Around then Newsom suddenly became willing to negotiate and will let his measure get worked over by the board's Finance Committee, where it now sits even as the city's courtroom appeal proceeds.

The upshot: there's a lot more to come, as Newsom makes his pitch to replace Mayor Willie Brown in Room 200, using the lives of the city's most vulnerable as his campaign centerpiece. (Rachel Brahinsky)

G.G. Park victory In a move sure to stun some of the city's richest and most powerful interests, the San Francisco Planning Commission stopped the move to tear up the Music Concourse and build a massive underground parking garage between the (under-construction) new M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the California Academy of Sciences by unanimously rejecting an environmental review for the project July 17.

Commissioners objected to plans to destroy historic pedestrian tunnels currently in the area as well as plans to fell a swath of century-old trees. Now Warren Hellman, the Wells Fargo heir and financier who is raising money to build the garage, must come up with a different, more appropriate design. Activists were thrilled but say they won't stop fighting until plans to build the garage are stopped altogether (see "Hellman's Hole," 2/5/03).