By G.W. Schulz

The police department sent out a press release earlier today complaining about an Examiner article from last Friday highlighting the city's dismal homicide arrest rate. The department's press office wants you to know that the article appears to have relied exclusively on statistics from a state criminal justice Web site.

First of all, here’s what they had to say:

“The statistics as presented in the article did not include many homicide arrests. For example, they do not reflect the recently much publicized federal gang indictments for murder … The department does not believe the statistics as presented in the article were intentionally misleading, but we believe that it is important to provide accurate data to set the record straight. The department has asked the Examiner to correct these errors to ensure that the public’s perception of our efforts in violence reduction [are] not undermined.”

Well isn’t that sweet. The department just wants clean numbers. That’s all. The problem is, their numbers don’t inspire much faith.

By Steven T. Jones
Contrary to the demented hopes of conservative ideologues like the Examiner's Ken Garcia, there is no joy on the left over the sordid sex scandal that has now engulfed Mayor Gavin Newsom. Sure, it opens up this year's mayor's race and illustrates some of the character flaws of Newsom's administration, which have manifested themselves in how he conducts himself professionally, not just personally. But nobody's happy to see this, not the Guardian (which has also heard these rumors for the last six months but couldn't confirm the story enough to print it) nor the politicians and activists on the left. Several of them happened to be gathered last night when the news hit, and I can tell you there was no glee in that room. Sup. Chris Daly's public comments have been respectful and reserved and in private, he genuinely felt bad for Alex Tourk. Everybody did. Matt Gonzalez, who has been rumored to be considering a run for mayor, spent more time considering how this incident places City Hall in a bad light and in legal jeopardy than he did calculating his own prospects. And my sweetie Alix Rosenthal, who is president of the National Women's Political Caucus, and the other women in the room are bracing for attempts to inappropriately delve into Ruby Tourk's private life and are ready to fight back if Newsom's people or their proxies go that route.
In the coming days or weeks, after the shock of this wears off and it becomes acceptable to make jokes or calculate its political implications, we'll rejoin the battle for this city's soul and actively try to help point the way forward from here. But today, we're all just shaking our heads.

by Amanda Witherell

U.S. District Court Judge William H. Alsup has again denied release of Josh Wolf, the 24-year-old journalist in jail. Wolf's attorneys had filed a Grumbles motion which argued that no matter how long Wolf is in jail, he will not change his position. Therefore, his incarceration is undue punishment and illegal. Judge Alsup ruled Tuesday, Jan. 30 that it's still possible jail could have a coercive effect and Wolf is to stay put.

On February 7, if Wolf is still behind bars he'll have outlegged Houston's Vanessa Leggett as the longest journalist ever incarcerated. And journalism isn't even a crime!

Wolf was subpoenaed by a Federal grand jury for exercising his First Amendment rights and withholding raw video footage and refusing to testify about what was on the tape. It was shot during a July 2005 G-8 rally in San Francisco that turned violent: a San Francisco Police officer was seriously wounded and a cruiser destroyed and the authorities have always claimed they want to see if those acts were captured by Wolf's camera. Wolf has always maintained that they weren't, and the intimation has been that this is an attempt to coerce Wolf into identifying other protesters at the rally.

In other freedom of the press news, the subpoena for journalist Sarah Olson has been dropped. Lieutenant Ehren Watada, who was court-martialed for refusing deployment to Iraq and speaking out against the illegal war, has stated that everything he told Olson was true, so now she doesn't have to go to court and say it or go to jail for not saying it. Hooray!

By Tim Redmond

I don't care about the mayor's sex life. Frankly, I'd rather not think about it. If he had an affair with a good friend's wife, that's between them. Makes him look like a jerk, but whatever.

There is, however, a more serious issue here, which is that Ruby Tourk was Newsom's employee. An at-will employee who could be fired at any time, at the mayor's call. That's why the city may well get sued here, and why this is really kind of a problem.

It really was, to quote the mayor, a lapse in judgment for the chief executive of a major city. Big time.

It’s Getting Hot in Here
Sarah Phelan
Hours before all hell broke loose over at City hall over news that he'd been having an affair, Mayor Gavin Newsom showed up at the SFPUC's Climate Change summit to endorse long overdue efforts to combat global warming.

“God’s delays are God’s denials,” began Newsom, blissfully unaware that his former appointments secretary Roby Rippey-Tourk was about to confess to her husband Alex Tourk about the affair, and that Tourk would immediately confront the mayor--and resign from his post as Newsom's campaign manager. Ouch.

Looking chill in his trademark ice-blue tie, Newsom remarked that there had been no snow in the Alps during his recent trip to Davos, Switzerland, little suspecting that he'd be quite so red-faced by the end of the day.

In addressing climate change today, observed Newsom, “we’re burdened with mistakes from the past," adding that this past, and not just the future, must be part of “the next narrative.”
Expressing enthusiasm for tidal wave and solar power, and efforts to measure where we're at with our carbon emissions’ levels , the Gavsta wrapped up saying, “We’re willing to take great risks in San Francisco.”

And then Newsom was gone, little guessing that while water managers heard incontrovertible evidence that global temperatures and sea levels are rising, bringing a host of nasty side effects and consequences, he'd be finding himself up to his neck in political and emotional hot water as a result of his own past denials and risk takings. Double Ouch.

By Steven T. Jones
There were lots of different ways that Gavin Newsom could have reacted to news that he was having sex with an at-will employee who was also married to his close friend and top adviser, but almost all of them involved an apology. Here’s what he chose to say this morning, in its entirety, followed by why I think he has fallen short and sown the seeds for dragging out this scandal longer than necessary:

“Thank you for coming here on such short notice. I want to make it clear that everything you’ve heard and read is true and I’m deeply sorry about that. I’ve hurt someone I care deeply about, Alex Tourk and his friends and family, and that is something I have to live with and something that I’m deeply sorry for. I am also sorry that I’ve let the people of San Francisco down. They expect a lot of their mayor and my personal lapse of judgment aside, I am committed to restoring their trust and confidence and will work very hard in the coming months to make sure the business of running this city is framed appropriately. I also want to extend a personal apology to everyone in our administration, to my staff who I just met with, to my friends and my family members. I am deeply sorry and I am accountable for what has occurred and have now begun the process of reconciling it and will now begin working aggressively to advance our agenda in this city and to work hard to build again the trust, to restore the trust, that the people of San Francisco have afforded me. I appreciate everyone taking the time to be here today. Thank you very much.”

By Steven T. Jones
At the end of yesterday's sex scandal whirlwind, I finally got a chance to talk with Newsom press secretary Peter Ragone about the scandal that got pushed aside by the larger scandal: Ragone being caught using pseudonyms in online posts and then lying to cover it up. Contrary to how this has been cast by the Chronicle and KCBS, Ragone has not truly owned up to what he did or shown any signs of wanting to restore his damaged credibility -- something he'll surely need as he tries to manage the other scandal and help Newsom re-engage with the public and the Board of Supervisors.

By Sarah Phelan

"Eturb, ut te" is "Et tu, Brutus" spelled backwards.

As such it seems a fittingly ass-backwards phrase to sum up the dynamics of the Newsom affair, which is so Shakespearian in terms of the lust, the lies and the betrayals, which ultimately led to yesterday's potentially career-shattering revelations, yet seems so ass-backwards in so many ways. Very very suturbing.

By Tim Redmond

Our editorial on this whole mess is here

By Tim Redmond

Newsom backs same-wife marriage

By Tim Redmond

From the what-did-they-know-and-when-did-they-know-it department:

Fog City Journal reported friday that the folks at that online pub had asked Ruby Tourk in December about the rumors of her affair with the mayor. A short excerpt:

When we asked Ms. Tourk in early December about the deafening whispers, she denied everything and clammed up. She became incensed and told the mayor's inner circle.

That's when Luke Thomas, Editor-in-Chief of Fog City Journal, got a hostile phone call from Eric Jaye - Newsom's campaign strategist - within minutes of Thomas speaking with Ms. Tourk seeking comment on the alleged affair. Jaye threatened Thomas with a libel/slander lawsuit if he published anything on the matter. It was like begging for the term "Rubygate."

Well, that's odd: Eric Jaye is a spinmeister not above twisting the truth to protect his candidates, but he's not a fool -- and he knows as well as I do that truth is an absolute defense against libel (and that libel suits in these types of situations tend to be even messier than the original mess). So what was that all about?

I called Jaye and he told me that the FCJ report was absoutely true: He did call Thomas and threaten legal action. Why? "Because Ruby Tourk called me and told me that they were going to publish a story about her having an affair with the mayor, and that it wasn't true, and she needed my help. She's a good friend, and when people threaten my friends, I react."

So if Jaye is telling me the truth, back in early December -- remember, this is only a couple of months ago -- Ruby Tourk was still denying the affair, and Jaye, one of the more sophisticated and experienced political consultants in town, was buying her line.

By then, I can tell you from personal experience, the story was all over City Hall. I wasn't going to put it in the paper (not our kind of story anyway, and we don't print this sort of rumor), but almost everyone I talked to knew about it and they all said it was bound to come out soon.

Jaye must have heard the rumors, too, and if he didn't talk to the mayor about them (and about how to respond) he should be fired; watching the mayor's (political) ass is his job, and he gets paid quite well for it. Which suggests that either (a) Ruby Tourk was in fact still denying the affair two months ago, and so was the mayor, and Jaye and others in the inner Newsom circle really didn't think it was true, or allowed themselves to be convinced that it wasn't true -- in which case Newsom lied directly to his closest political advisors, which is pretty damn dumb, or (b) there has been a lot more spin and orchestration going on here than anyone in the press or the Mayor's Office has acknowledged.

by Amanda Witherell

Well, it's not exactly cause for celebration, but Tuesday, February 6 will be Josh Wolf's 169th day in jail and he'll now be known as the journalist with the longest record of incarceration for contempt in US history. There's a press conference at noon on the steps of City Hall and speakers include Assemblymember Mark Leno, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, journalist Sarah Olson who just shed her own prison duds, and filmmaker Kevin Epps, as well as various first amendment lawyers and media advocates.

The real party is Tuesday night at 8 pm at House of Shields at 39 New Montgomery Street. MAP It's a benny to raise funds for Wolf and it's sure to be a good time. (At the last one they gave out excellent "Journalism is not a crime!" Free Josh t-shirts when you donated $15. Totally worth it.)

By Tim Redmond

So Gavin Newsom admits he has a drinking problem and is going to get counseling. Good for him. I hope he joins AA, goes to meetings, takes it seriously and cleans himself up. If he really has an alcohol problem, it won't be easy, and he deserves all the support he can get.

But frankly, his brand of treatment sounds a bit weak. He's not going into residential rehab; he's not giving up any of his duties. He's going to get some help from Mimi Silbert at Delancey Street, and even she is a bit shakey about what's going on, according to the Chron:

"It's true,'' Silbert said. "I don't know if I would use the word 'counseling,' but I will be helping the mayor."

I wish him luck, and I really mean it. I have had plenty of alcoholic friends, one of whom died of it, and it's no joke. But if all he's going to do is quit drinking and call Mimi Silbert every now and then, well, he really didn't need to make a big deal of it, and hold a staff meeting and tell everyone. Again: He's not going into rehab and isn't planning to miss any work. And if, as his campaign consultant Eric Jaye says, Newsom isn't blaming the alcohol for his bad behavior, then why can't he just do it quietly? Why the big announcement?

Well, because claiming a drinking problem and "seeking treatment" is a great excuse for a politician who's been caught in a sex scandal.

I hate to be a cynic, but I'm reminded of Bill Clinton telling the nation that he was seeking spiritual counseling -- from Jesse Jackson -- after the Monica Lewinsky affair.

(SFist had the great line:

We also wonder if he'll do AA like Ruby did and so have to confess to everyone who he has wronged. Imagine that press conference.)

By G.W. Schulz

Welcome to another edition of "What's the cop union pissed about now?" where we summarize the open contempt and paranoia filling the POA Journal, the official publication of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, which leads each month with a generally aimless yet sometimes hilarious diatribe on somebody or something in the city from the union's outspoken president Gary Delagnes.

By Tim Redmond

I still wonder if our mayor is really an android. A Soong-type android.

I mean, Data had some problems of his own when he hit the Polywater.

By Steven T. Jones
There are lots of icky aspects to Mayor Newsom's sex scandal, most not actually involving the sex which, lets face it, involved two hot young people. No, the icky parts deal with the betrayal of a close friend, the reckless disregard for his public responsibilities, and what it says about Newsom's character. And for me, someone who first heard the rumors early last year, one of my big "what a jerk!" moments came last June when the mayor-appointed Taxi Commission sacked the mayor's hand-picked director, Heidi Machen, and the Chron asked Newsom to comment on the embarrassing political gaffe. What did he do? He actually blamed Ruby Tourk, the appointments secretary who he had been sleeping with and who was off in rehab dealing with the aftermath of the affair and her substance abuse issues. What kind of person does that? Probably someone who needs more intensive counseling than it sounds like he intends to seek as he continues to run the city and run for reelection.

By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom has refused to take any questions about his affair or drinking problem -- and we don't intend to turn to his press secretary for answers anymore -- so I called his campaign spokesperson Eric Jaye this afternoon to pose a couple questions and let him know that we expect to pose a few more directly to Newsom, whether or not he wants to answer them. Luckily, we're patient and we buy our ink by the barrel, so we're in no hurry.
Jaye said the reports that Alex Tourk is still being paid by the campaign (potentially a violation of campaign finance laws) is not accurate. And he said Ruby Tourk never received any payments either. "There have been no payments whatsoever to anyone (connected to the scandals) for anything. We won't do anything until three attorneys sign off on it," he told us. "We don't want to compound an error in judgment by making a campaign finance error." But Jaye did say the campaign feels an obligation to help Tourk make ends meet until he can find a new job, a task that he expects to have good legal advice on in the next day or two. "He's a great guy who doesn't deserve any of this...We don't right now know how to pay him or if we can through the campaign."
The other big question was how Newsom can expect to seriously deal with his alcohol and other personal problems while reengaging with his job as mayor and standing for reelection. No surprise that Jaye feels like Newsom is up to it, but he did say the campaign comes last on that list: "The priority is for Gavin Newsom to do what he has to do to be a better mayor and be a better person...In the scheme of things, the campaign comes after that."
Does that mean that the campaign could get squeezed out once Newsom learns about what kind of program he'll face at Delancey Street Foundation and if the job of being mayor is made all the tougher by his recent scandals and his handling of them? Might Newsom not run? Jaye categorically rejected the idea that Newsom might not run, noting that he might have less time to personally campaign, but the campaign will move forward anyway. "Absolutely he's running to reelection and he's going to run a successful campaign."

By Chris Albon
Mayor Gavin Newsom is still dodging questions about his affair with his campaign manager’s wife and his alcohol problem, even as masses of reporters show up at his public appearances, such as today’s event touting a PG&E program.
The small press conference at the Academy of Art University on San Francisco’s new $11.5 million Energy Watch program, sponsored primarily by PG&E, was Newsom’s first event since he announced yesterday that he was seeking treatment for alcohol abuse at Delancey Street Foundation.
Newsom was 15 minutes late and a small crowd of reporters were anxiously loitering and watcing every Lincoln Town car that crept through lunchtime traffic. When the limo finally arrived, Newsom locked in a smile, looked forward, and walked in the building to PG&E’s display table of high-tech light bulbs.
The mood was tense and the event’s organizers and the mayor’s staff seemed skeptical that the media was there to get information on the plan to distribute more energy efficient light bulbs to small businesses.
“I know many of you are here because you care so deeply about climate change,” was how Jared Blumenfeld, director of the San Francisco department of the environment, expressed his cynicism.
When Blumenfeld introduced Newsom to speak, the room was awkwardly quiet. No one applauded.
“Thank you everyone, for the applause,” Newsom said. Only then did the small crowd applaud.
After his speech on the new plan, the mayor did take questions, but he was not going to dive into the affair or his alcohol problem.
“Any more questions,” Newsom asked adding, “on this issue?” before it was too late.
As the mayor walked out, I thought it a perfectly appropriate and respectful question to ask the mayor “if there was going to be a time when he would take questions on his alcoholism or his affair,” but apparently he didn’t agree.
“You’ve taken liberty with the question,” he said.
I took that as a “no.” Maybe I should have asked why a mayor who purports to support public power was helping to prop up PG&E’s aggressive greenwashing efforts. Next time.

By Steven T. Jones
So the Examiner thinks we should all just back off of Mayor Gavin Newsom, in the process contradicting its own reporter's story a few pages earlier on how brittle and unaccountable Newsom has been behaving. If the mayor had announced he was taking some time off to deal with his problems, then the Ex editorial might have a point. After all, Newsom clearly has some problems and it can't be easy dealing with a pack of reporters who have questions that he's not willing to answer. But Newsom wants to stay on the job, and that job is a difficult one that entails dealing with the media and the Board of Supervisors. Newsom refuses to answer legitimate questions, but its the job of journalists to keep asking them until he does, and the job of supervisors to help lead this city. While the Ex editorial got it embarrassingly wrong, the Chron editorial was right on. This mayor has an obligation to engage with supervisors and the media, and his scripted and controlled town hall meetings, like the one planned for this Saturday in Bayview, don't count. We deserve an honest, engaged, and accountable mayor. He chose the job, and now he chose to remain in that job without taking any time off and to run for reelection. Newsom's problems are of his own making, and he's making them worse by behaving as if he deserves a free pass.

By Sarah Phelan

No wonder District 6 Sup. Chris Daly wants to clean up election finance dirt.
Last November, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, the Police Officers Association, the Building Owners and Managers Association and San Francisco SOS participated in massive independent expenditure campaigns in a dirty and ultimately unsuccessful effort to unseat District 6 Sup. Chris Daly.
These dirty tricks included push polls that planted nastily negative ideas about Daly, such as he hates the police--smears hat were then followed by what Daly’s aide John Avalos describes as “robocalls from Mayor Gavin Newsom,” plus mailers featuring pictures of Daly that make him look like he’s crazily shouting at the police. Nice.
These kinds of hit jobs were financed by money that originated from GGRA, POA, BOMA, and SFSOS.

By Sarah Phelan

“I thought this was going to be about Newsom resigning,” said a bicyclist, who’d screeched to a halt to see what yesterday’s noon-time commotion at City Hall was about.
No such mayoral luck (for now) and definitely no sign of the disgraced Newsom as demonstrators gathered on the steps of City Hall to protest the continuing incarceration of freelance journalist Josh Wolf.
At 169 days inside, Wolf has made it into the Guiness Book of Records as the longest-imprisoned journalist in U.S. History. It's a record that anyone who’s serious about gathering, spreading and accessing information in this age of faux news and spin control can’t help admiring and respecting the 24-year-old Wolf for setting, because handing over your notes, photos or video footage to the feds is not OK, at least not if you want your sources to take you seriously whenever you interview, tape, film them, or promise them confidentiality.
It’s a point Sup. Ross Mirkarimi evidently gets, as witnessed by the impassioned speech the Mirkster delivered at the Feb. 6 Free Josh Wolf rally. Incensed by US District Judge William Alsup, who’s holding Wolf in contempt for refusing to handover video outtakes of a July 2005 anarchist protest turned violent, and outraged by the US Attorney’s Office, who claims Wolf isn’t really a journalist, Mirkarimi encouraged the crowd to join in “loud solidarity against thuggery.”
“Judge Alsup is the ‘alleged’ judge. He should not be on the bench adjudicating,” declared Mirkarimi, flanked by Sup, Tom Ammiano and Jake McGoldrick.
As for the missing Mayor Newsom, Mirkarimi gave the Gavsta a piece of his mind, too, observing that when the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in support of Wolf and the need for federal shield laws Newsom didn’t sign the resolution. (Hiss! Boo! Buck buck buck.)
Mirkarimi spoke in equally scathing manner of District Attorney Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, neither of whom advocated for Wolf in the wake of his incarceration last fall.
“At the very least, they should use their bully pulpit, even if they don’t have the legal reach,” Mirkarimi intoned. “ It does not speak well of the city with the progressive values to stand back in this case. This is not a fringe movement. I don’t care if Josh Wolf s a journalist, a freelancer or a blogger. He’s part of the wave of the future. I’m angry as hell about this. At 169 days inside, there should be a serious outcry.”

By Tim Redmond

Randy Shaw is calling on the mayor to fire Press Secretary Peter Ragone, saying that Ragone lacks loyalty. Maybe so, although I still think there's a lot more spin going on here than meets the eye.

But the bigger issue that Shaw entirely misses is this: Peter Ragone lies to the press. Nobody is going to trust him any more, so he can't do his job. That's the problem.

By Tim Redmond

Everyone's kind of ducking around it, but according to the Ex, there's someone in San Mateo County with money who wants to see if Jackie Speier could challenger Tom Lantos for his Congressional seat. Former state Senator Speier is ambitious and out of a job; Lantos is decidedly to the right of his district and needs to retire. Hmmmm.

By Steven T. Jones
Since breaking the Newsom affair story, the Chronicle has done little to further their story, content to fill the papers with boring reaction pieces. And now, they are apparently back to Newsom cheerleading with the front page story "Newsom's reelection prospects look good," in which they interview only Newsom backers to reach their entirely unsupported conclusion. And yes, this piece of garbage was the work of the paper's most misleading political hack, Carla Marinucci (who hasn't yet answered by e-mail with questions about the story).
Meanwhile, buried in the Chron but played a bit more prominently in the Examiner is the real news of the day: Newsom will pay Alex Tourk his promised salary of $15,000 per month out of his own pocket. That's because of the questions about the legality of using regulated campaign money for such payoffs.
Question: If the guy who betrayed you and fucked your wife had to pay your salary until you found a new job, how much of a hurry would you be in to find one? Alex, you've been through a lot, it might be time for an extended vacation.

By Sarah Phelan

The Right Hand Man

If Shakespeare were alive, he’d be penning The Right Hand Man , a three-act play exploring the potent mix of narcissism, self-doubt, control freakishness and horniness that led Mayor Gavin Newsom to roundly betray himself and former campaign manager Alex Tourk, by sleeping with Tourk’s wife, Ruby Rippey Tourk.
At least that way, folks would get some kind of analysis of what Newsom was thinking during that secretive, backstabbing time, something they won’t get as long as Newsom refuses to talk to the press. Newsom's silence only makes the rumor mills spin faster, as people are reduced to browsing back copies of San Francisco magazine, in which the topic of why Gavin isn’t smiling is explored, including Newsom answers on what dating was like post-divorce. (“It’s impossible. It’s very hard. It’s awkward at best…it’s been very unsuccessful,” Newsom replies.)
Then there’s “The Right Hand Man” profile of Alex Tourk in 7x7 magazine, in which Tourk is revealed to have been on call 24/7 during his three years as Newsom’s deputy chief of staff, which was period that the affair ocurred and before Tourk raised $600, 000 for Newsom as his 2007 campaign manager. Nor should gossip mongers forget Benefit magazine ,where Tourk and former Newsom flame Brittanie Mountz now both work (Wow, wonder what people talk about in the women's bathroom there.)
Honestly, wouldn’t it be better for Newsom to come clean with the details of what was going on, why and where, so we won’t have to listen to people bitching on about whether the affair happened on tax-payers’ dollars. Speaking of which, it’ll take about three months before that $15,000 a month allowance that Newsom has agreed to pay Alex Tourk cancels out the pay rise that voters awarded Newsom last November, a vote that bumped up Newsom’s pay by about $44,000 from $188,816 to $233,000 in one fell swoop.

By Steven T. Jones
How has Mayor Gavin Newsom reacted to his press secretary being exposed as a liar who then accuses Newsom of being a liar? By promoting him to the newly created "director of communications and planning." Amazing. Simply amazing.

By Tim Redmond

There's been a lot of press on the weird turn in the trial of Lt. Ehren Watada, but this piece, (by my old friend Bill Simpich, a lawyer in the East Bay) is by far the most interesting and cogent analyis. It really leads you to wonder: What is the U.S. Army afraid of here -- and could it be that the Pentagon just wants this case to go away?

By Steven T. Jones
We warned last summer that fun in San Francisco was being threatened by NIMBYs and overzealous bureaucrats. Well, now we've just seen the sourpusses strike down one of the best street fairs in San Francisco: the How Weird Street Faire, an open air dance party that drew about 8,000 attendees last year.
Based on complaints from 10 residents (who appear to have been whipped up by one particularly vocal opponent of the fair), the city's Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation yesterday denied How Weird organizers their permits, effectively killing an event planned for May 6. Read next week's Guardian for the details, as well as ways to make public your concerns about maintaining our vibrant urban culture.

By Sarah Phelan

Residents of the Alice Griffith Housing project were a tad upset when they learned that Mayor Gavin Newsom's retooled effort to stop the 49ers from dumping San Francisco could involve their homes being demolished. A resolution that came before the Board the day before the Mayor's Sex scandal hit, included the surprising news that over the past 18 months developer Lennar, working in cooperation with the 49ers and the City, had created a preliminary plan that would provide a world-class stadium 49ers stadium and related mixed-use development. This development would consist of about 6,500 housing units, including affordable units and the replacement of the Alice Griffith Public Housing Development.
According to a letter from Newsom that was included with the Feb. 6 Board of Supes package, "The city and the Bayview in particular will benefit from extensive jobs and economic development opportunities, over one thousand units of affordable housing--including replacing the Alice Griffith housing project for the benefit of Alice Griffith residents."
The problem was that Newsom hadn't share this vision with the Alice Griffith residents and the few that showed up to the Feb. 6 Board meeting, which took place during the workday, expressed outrage at being left out of the loop.
As one lady said, waving a copy of the resolution in one hand, as she pounded the public comment lectern with the other "It's not OK to have this in here without my input."
Another, a single mother with four kids, recalled having to fight for four years to get into the project, in the first place. "I don't want you guys to knock it down," she said.
As Lavelle Shaw of the Alice Griffith Tenants Association told the Guardian, " a lot of things seem to be going in through the back door. We want to be at the table for the replacement housing. And it can't just be affordable. We want it to be low-income."
As a result of all this uproar, Sup. Sophie Maxwell demanded a hearing, during which the resolution was reworded, reports Shaw, to give AG residents greater input. That said, Shaw urges folks to show up at the Feb. 13 Board of Supervisors meeting, to express their feelings, fears and desires.

Don't know about you, but i sure wouldn't want to be roasting hot dogs when displaced folks descend

By Sarah Phelan
.
Maybe the chickens weren’t into cycling through the rain in soggy costumes. Or they figured that being hemmed in together with them for two hours at the Whitney Young Community Center on a rainy Saturday morning would have had Mayor Newsom falling off the wagon by day’s end.
Whatever the reason for the chickens chickening out, their absence didn't spare Gavin from folks protesting what he’s not doing for the Bayview, or housing advocates yelling, "We will not be moved!" just before they left the room, or a bunch of ACORN activists decrying his plans to demolish ’ the Alice Griffith Housing Project> .

Newsom didn’t have any answer for why AG residents hadn’t been consulted about this latter plan, which was kinda odd since it was part of his own last-ditch attempt to stop the 49ers from dumping San Francisco. But he was quick to point out that Board of Supervisors Chair Aaron Peskin and Sup. Sophie Maxwell have already added language to the proposal so current AG residents are guaranteed one-for-one replacement housing at their current low-income levels—housing they’ve also been promised will be built before AG is torn down. (Thanks Aaron and Sophie, and let's just make sure there's no last minute bait and switches this time around.)

By the end of the two hours, Gavin had also got beaten up for, among other things, holding the meeting at the top of a hill, referring to the community center as the Whitney Young Child Care center, never visiting the Bayview except for once when he was first elected, and not having translators and sign language interpreters.
Also beaten up was the SF Housing Authority’s Gregg Fortner, who gave out his phone number, only to have an audience members shout, “You never answer! Where ya been?”
And then there was the fact that Newsom introduced Miguel Bustos as his new appointments secretary. (Uh oh)
But no one mentioned the AFFAIR, in part because Gavin’s new flame Jennifer Siebel was very much in tow, and even offered up her chair so seniors and kids could be seated. Still, by the end of the meeting, Gavin must have beenwondering whether Question Time before the Board could have been any worse, and why he'd ever volunteered to give up Saturday mornings to get heckled and pecked, chickens not withstanding.

By Tim Redmond

I know that we're all supposed to love urban density these days, and even Sup. Chris Daly likes tall buildings, but at a certain point, you have to say:

Holy shit. This is way too much.

Check out the presentations here, from a recent SF CIty Planning Commission discussion on development around the new Transbay Terminal and Rincon Hill. Forget the early stuff; click down to around page 39 of the pdf and look at how this part of the city is going to look and feel.

I'm still one of the loney dissenters: I don't think the days of the highrise wars are over, and I don't buy the notion that we have to accept ever-higher towers that turn the city even more into a jungle of steel canyons that block out lihgt and sun. And I don't think these "slender" towers that city planners love to talk about are going to be anything but urban blight once you get too many of them in the same place.

And I wonder why we're doing all of this when the stated premise -- to create more urban density instead of sprawl -- is such a provable lie. We are building housing for people who will drive or take vanpools to big-money jobs on the Peninsula. We are encouraging car-based commuting and office-park sprawl by building an urban bedroom community for high-paid young workers who want a San Francisco lifestyle but have jobs somewhere else. That and jet-set pied-a-terres for wealthy retirees and world travelers.
We are giving up human-scale neighborhoods and views of the Bay for a a failure of a housing policy.

Hell of way to plan a city.

By Tim Redmond

Or maybe I should call it Earthgoo.

Either way, Sasha at Leftinsf has a good summary of the pros and cons of the mayor's plan. I've been following this for a while, and my analsyis (no surprise) has always been based on the notion that the city shouldn't allow a private vendor to build and control such critical infrastrucutre.

But there's another issue here. Sarah Phelan gets into it here. Sasha puts it this way:

The network will be exclusive. Although the network is not an explicit monopoly, it will essentially take up all the bandwidth at the frequency wi-fi uses, so it would be difficult or impossible to have a competing network without using a completely different (and likely more expensive) technology.

Think about this for a second. San Francisco is full of all sorts of little (and not-so-little) wi-fi networks. SFLAN, for example, is building a free wifi service with a rooftop-to-rooftop backbone. Lots of people have smaller wi-fi setups that let them, for example, sit out in their backyards with a laptop and check their email. And if Googlink puts up its private wi-fi cloud, all of those other networks will run into interference.

I'm not an expert on the technical details here, but Tim Pozar, who runs United Layer, is, and here's how he explaned it to me:

"The type of spectrum we're using is interference-prone. There's just not that much space on the spectrum. The number of access points that are required [to set up citywide wi-fi] could mean one every block. That's a lot of radio frequency energy. It will significantly impact others who are trying to use that same part of the spectrum."

If your entire wi-fi network is inside your house or business, it might be okay, since these radio signals degrade quite a bit when they pass through walls. If you use wi-fi outside, or if it connects to anyone else outside, it might not work any more. Same goes for a cordless phone.

The problem, Posar told me, is that federal law pretty much forces you to accept interference on the wi-fi spectrum; there's nothing legally you can do to stop a big operator from stepping on little guys.

the Googlink system won't be that fast -- but if anyone else wants to get into the game and offer something better, it will be nearly impossible.

If the city were controlling this, we could do something about it. But it will all be in the hands of a private corporation.

By Steven T. Jones
The city's long-awaited study of road closures in Golden Gate Park was released yesterday, offering clear evidence that closing JFK Drive to cars on weekends is extremely popular and has no significant negative impacts to attendance at the park's museums, access by those with disabilities, or traffic congestion in the intersections around the park. Mayor Gavin Newsom last summer vetoed the Healthy Saturdays six-month trial closure after a deceptive opposition campaign that was waged by De Young Museum directors and advocates of unfettered automobile access to the park. At the time, Newsom pledged to study the issue and support it if there was empirical evidence supporting closure, which there now seems to be. Asked about the report today by the Guardian, Newsom said "I haven't seen that" and ignored further questions on that and other topics. Newsom communications director Peter Ragone told us, "We're in the process of digesting it and deciding how to move forward."
Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who sponsored the legislation last spring, said he will reintroduce it at the board meeting this Tuesday and was confident that we'll see Golden Gate Park partially closed to cars this summer. "It spells out a very positive picture," McGoldrick told us. "Anecdotally, we knew all this, but now we have the empirical data laid out."

By Steven T. Jones
The Bay Guardian has learned that Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who left her job as Mayor Gavin Newsom's appointments secretary last year after having a secret affair with the mayor, received $21,755 in paid leave last year for 534 hours of work that she didn't do. That amounts to about 13.5 weeks of paid time off, well more than the 10 days vacation time and 13 days of sick leave to which she was entitled. There are provisions in city law whereby other employees may donate some of their vacation and sick time to fellow employees who go out on some form of medical leave, and Rippey-Tourk reportedly left her city job sometime before last May to enter treatment for substance abuse, although city officials may not comment on why an employee took leave for privacy reasons. But the arrangement raises questions about whether Newsom forced Rippey-Tourk from her job and/or pressured employees to give up their paid time off to help buy her silence, questions that Newsom and his administration have refused to address. In fact, they have never answered any questions about the affair or Newsom's own substance problems from any media outlet. Newsom ignored Guardian questions on the subject earlier today and his spokesperson Jennifer Petrucione told us, "The mayor has spoken on this issue and he has said what's he's going to say." The City Attorney's Office has put out a statement on the matter, saying they can't comment on the details for privacy reasons but, "With the full cooperation of the city officials involved, the City Attorney has already begun the process of reviewing the paid leave to Ms. Rippey-Tourk to assure that it was done properly under City laws and procedures."

By Steven T. Jones
New information is still coming in on the breaking news that Ruby Rippey-Tourk got an extended paid leave from the city. I just spoke with Sam Singer, a spokesperson for the Tourks, who said that it was Alex Tourk who asked the city about getting paid compensation for his wife while she was in an alcohol and drug rehab center from May through July. At the time, he didn't know that his wife had been having sexual relations with the mayor. "Several of her co-workers donated their sick time to Ruby during this time of personal crisis," Singer said. According to the Controller's Office, Rippey-Tourk's final official day of employment was Sept. 1 and it was in September that she received a check for the leave that begun in May, initially as unpaid leave. Payroll records also show that Rippey-Tourk had 7.5 weeks of unpaid leave in 2005 -- when her affair with Newsom reportedly took place -- and that also appears to be more than she was entitled to. She received $80,195 in compensation in 2005, up from $63,522 the previous year, which was her first in the Newsom Administration.
Asked why Rippey-Tourk didn't return to her good city job after leaving rehab in July, Singer said, "She just felt it was a chapter in her life that was over and she wanted to move on." Asked whether Rippey-Tourk may have felt uncomfortable returning to work for a boss who had bedded her during a time when she was having problems with alcohol, Singer refused to comment. But Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who has called for Newsom's resignation, called the entire episode unseemly and showing poor judgment by someone in a position of authority that Rippey-Tourk trusted. "I think he took advantage of someone who was in a very vulnerable position," McGoldrick said.
Newsom has refused to answer questions about anything related to the affair. I've posed questions about this latest revelation to Newsom press secretary Peter Ragone and I'm awaiting a response.

By Sarah Phelan

With the Chronicle reporters off the hook, what's going to happen to jailed freelancer Josh Wolf? News that a mediator has been brought in is a ray of hope. But people should not forget that Wolf's credentials as a journalist have been repeatedly challenged, and even mocked, by the US Attorney's Office. What's particularly disturbing is that all this is going down against a backdrop of increased media consolidation. How many journalists have full time jobs? How many photographers? How many can even afford to make journalism their full -time job? Sure, journalism is a profession for which you can get credentialed up the kazoo, but the truth is that many great reporters and videographers are self-taught, and/or are freelancers, working their craft in between another job, and rarely and barely getting paid for their labor. And what about the person who sees something going down, and picks up a notebook or camera, and faithfully records it? Many a great career started that way.
Right now, Rep. John Conyers has a bill in the works that would define a journalist as someone who is engaged in gathering and reporting on news, written, photography, video, regardless of whether the person was paid for their work or not and regardless of what media they published in. Maybe you're reading this and thinking of extra categories and definitions that need to be included in the bill. If so, great: now would be the perfect time to speak out. That way, we can get a federal shield law that will give news gatherers the strongest protections possible. The last few years has been a really dark Dark Age for the press. Let's free Josh Wolf and get a free press, while we're at it.

by Amanda Witherell

Last week we ran a story about a comic book called Addicted to War that's been donated to San Francisco high schools. The book was written by a Johns Hopkins professor named Joel Andreas, and illustrates some of the less understood international conflicts the US has perpetrated. It's completely unlike anything I studied in high school. (I went to one of the best high schools in the state of New Hampshire, was an honors history student, had 14 Bosnians as my peers when our school district offered them refuge from their war-torn country, and our approved texts barely mentioned the Cold War.)

Since Fox News ran a story about the book, the publisher, Frank Dorrel, has been getting some great mail recently, which he shared with us. One of my personal favorites: "It would [sic] a wonderful thing to see all of you Left Wing San Francisco whackos go up in one big mushroom cloud delivered by one of your terrorist friends. Hell, I would hang a medal on the terrorist bastard who nuked your ass."

Yes, maybe the kids need more vitriol in the classrooms.

Or maybe not. On Feb. 15, the Lowell High School chapter of Revolution Youth staged an anti-war rally during school hours. Fox News, which already ran a segment questioning the validity of Addicted to War as an educational tool, was there to film the rally and aired the footage while discussing the comic book, seeming to subtly suggest its content was having immediate effects even though students have yet to receive the book. Bryan Ritter, adviser to the school's newspaper The Lowell, which was also covering the rally, said one student reporter polled 74 other kids at the event on whether they'd heard about the comic book. Two had, and one had found out about it that day from Fox.

Fox's coverage of the rally is a little tamer and more balanced than the original clip they aired on Feb. 14, which suggested the comic book had "ignited a firestorm." The only evidence provided of said "firestorm" was a diatribe from Leo Lacayo, vice chair of the local Republican Party. The news anchor made mention that representatives from San Francisco's School District had declined to appear on the show, but wouldn't say why. Gentle Blythe, spokesperson for SFUSD, told us it was because "we decided we didn't want to debate in that forum."

Dorrel said he's received 20 PayPal orders for the book as well as some requests for the DVDs he also publishes.

By Tim Redmond

I've never been a big fan of legislative term limits. Sending legislators packing after a few years shifts to much power to the lobbyists and the executive branch. So I'm glad to see that labor is pushing to modify San Francisco's term-limits law. Bevan Dufty, who says he is only going to serve two terms anyway, is taking the political heat and leading the charge on this; good for him.

Who do you suppose is leading the campaign to keep the current two-term limits? It's Wade Randlett and the folks at SFSOS! No surprise: They desperately want to get rid of sups. Aaron Peskin, Chris Daly and Jake McGoldrick, and since they can't seem to do it the old-fashioned way, by winning elections, they want to make sure the progressives are termed out.

That puts them right up there with the Republicans in Sacramento.

By Steven T. Jones
Ethics watchdog Joe Lynn today continues his fine wrap-up at Fog City Journal on Newsom's vulnerabilities and shortcomings as he enters a difficult reelection year. Having reported several of the stories that Joe references, I can't help but agree that Newsom isn't the lock for reelection that many make him out to be. There are great narratives just waiting to be told by whoever decides to run against him -- and we plan to tell a few ourselves.

By Tim Redmond

Whoa.
I just read Ron Russell’s big story in the SF Weekly about former Police Chief Earl Sanders, and I’m a bit dumfounded.
The gist of the story is that Sanders – the city’s first black police chief and the author of a a new book on the Zebra killings – trumped up his record as a civil-rights leader in the department and glossed over some real problems in his tenure as a homicide cop. That may be true; I haven’t read the book, although I know that Sanders was involved in a frame-up that sent two innocent young men to prison. (I know that because A.C. Thompson, who now writes for the Weekly, wrote about it for the Guardian – a fact conveniently left out of Russell’s story.)
But what left me reeling was Russell’s use of a source named Louis Calabro.
In the story, Calabro is portrayed as an entirely credible former cop whose comments about Sanders are worth legitimate consideration. He’s quoted numerous times. High up in the piece, he’s described as the emcee of a memorial for victims of the notorious Zebra killings and as “one of Earl Sanders' staunchest critics [who] heads the European American Issues Forum, a group whose proclaimed mission is to promote the rights of persons of "European American" heritage."
Actually, there's a bit more to the story.
It’s not hard to learn about Calabro’s organization and his background. You can Google him and it comes up pretty quickly. This is a guy whose website eaif.org, has headlines like"Why the World Hates Jews Part 1" and "Why Do So Many People Hate Jews? He tried to trademark the term "white pride country wide" (the government demurred).
He has gone off on a tear, over and over again, against groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which provide anti-hate-speech materials to schools.
Calabro came by the Guardian office once to complain that I wouldn’t run his letters, and he tried to convince us that the real story about World War Two was the internment of German-Americans.
Calabro insists that his group is not racist and that it doesn't condone negative comments about any racial group. And while the white-nationalist people at Stormfront post his stuff, some of the denizens there don't particularly like him. In fact, he (properly) calls the hard-core white power people out for being racists.
Still, this is not a man who has any credibility whatsoever when it comes to criticizing the conduct of an African American cop in a complex racially charged murder case.
When I asked Russell about it, he emailed me and said: "Of course I know who he is. The story makes it abundantly clear where Mr. Calabro is coming from. I fail to see why you think quoting him was inappropriate."
Well: I don't think I've ever seen another credible media outlet refer to Calabro as anything other than someone whose opinions on race are well outside the mainstream of acceptability in a multicultural society.
Oops. I suspect that over at the Weekly, they're having what we call the Big Cringe.

By Tim Redmond

It's official: I just spoke with Assemblymember Mark Leno, and he is, indeed, running for state Senate against incumbent Carole Migden. Leno will formally announce at a March 2 campaign kickoff fundraiser at Yerba Buena Gardens. But he's in the race -- and he told me very clearly that he's in the race for good, even if the the voters overturn term limits for state legislators.

"I want to allow the voters of this senate district to have a choice," Leno said. "My record of nine years in elected office demonstrates a very different style of inclusivity and respect."

And that's really what this race is going to be about: political style. There aren't a whole lot of major issue on which Leno and Migden disagree, so while Leno told me he would "really be focussing on what I'm going to do positively," there's no doubt that the campaign will turn negative. Leno has to point to some of the problems Migden's had in Sacramento -- and Migden, who is a scrapper, will fight back.

The first big sign of how this race will play out will be who shows up to support Leno March 2. My bet: Mayor Gavin Newsom will be there (Leno is a big Newsom backer). Another guess: Sup. Chris Daly, who has been more friendly with Migden, will take a pass. So will Sup. Aaron Peskin.

In the end, this is going to be a bitter, ugly fight with San Francisco progressives on both sides (and caught in the middle). On the positive side, it's a clear sign that the days of machine politics in San Francisco are over, dead, done for. Can you imagine Willie Brown letting an actual contested election happen on his watch?

And who knows; maybe Migden will decide she'd rather run for mayor.

I haven't been able to get Migden on the phone directly, but she relayed this comment to me:

"I have not heard a credible justification for [Leno's] candidadacy other than the fact that he's out of a job."

And so it begins.

By Steven T. Jones
San Francisco officials have finally agreed to create a much-needed Early Intervention System for problem police officers – although the threats and political power of the San Francisco Police Officers Association have led to a system with serious flaws that will allow rogue cops to remain on the streets.

by Amanda Witherell

The Earth Day Network just released its Urban Environment Report ranking the environmental conditions of the top 72 cities in the US. The study takes into account 200 different factors and ranks for best conditions regarding toxics and waste, air quality, health and human services, parks and recreation, quality of life, drinking water, and global climate change. Oh boy, you're thinking. It's going to be so cool to see how San Francisco stands out, with a Mayor who brags about how clean and green the city is.

Good thing he's pledged to make it better. According to the weighted rankings, we're just above average. See for yourself.

At least we beat Detroit!

By Tim Redmond

About 20 years ago, a group of crazed anarchists put out a parody of a major national newspaper with a banner headline that read:

EASTER CANCELLED! CHRIST'S BODY FOUND!

I can't quote the exact language of the story, since that was way back when, but it read just like a standard New York Times report, except that it focused on how several major world religions had been thrown into chaos by the news that Jesus's bady had been found -- something that undermined one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity, the ressurection of Christ.

To a Catholic-school kid like me, it was funny largely because the Roman Catholic Church was, and is, so utterly paranoid about any historical evidence that might cast doubt on any of the scared rules of the church. (Most biblical historians, for example, agree that Jesus never said anything about priests being celebate or women being unable to serve as priests; that comes from medieval popes, who were not always a savory bunch.)

So I loved the Da Vinci Code, and I loved Cross Bones, just as I've always loved discussions about the historic arcania of Jesus, the Holy Family and the Popes. And now I love this.

I've already read a few books and articles that get into the Jesus Cave -- the idea that archeologists have found bodies in a cave that may be Jesus, Mary Magdelene and their son (think about it: If Jesus had a son, presumably -- immaculate-conception powers aside -- he had sex, which would means this whole celebate priest thing would be utterly bogus).

But this documentary is getting a fair amount of blog press; my fave is the argument that James Cameron wasn't satisfied with sinking the Titanic; he now wants to sink Christianity

Go team.

PS: My colleague Cheryl Eddy worries that if Easter is cancelled, she'll have to stock up quicly on Peeps.

By Tim Redmond

The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee is going to vote Feb. 28th on a resolution against the war. That shouldn't be a big deal; everyone in San Francisco is against the war, right?

But the resolution, by Rafael Mandelman, Robert Haaland, and Michael Goldstein, does more than oppose the war; it calls on the Democratic leadership in Congress -- that's our own Nancy Pelosi -- to overturn the resolution authorizing the president to use force and to cut off all funding for further hostilities, "except as necessary to provide for the safe and orderly withdrawal of all troops in Iraq."

It ought to be a slam dunk in this city, but I bet there will be some strong opposition to the resolution -- from people who fear embarassing or confronting Pelosi.

Crazy: This doesn't hurt Pelosi a bit. In fact, it gives her leverage with the moderates in her party to say that back home, her constituents are demanding action.

This ought to go to a roll-call vote; I'll keep you posted on how it comes out.

By Tim Redmond

That's the question all over San Francisco politics now that Leno has announced he's running against state Sen. Carole Migden. His campaign kickoff is at noon this Friday, at YBC, and it will be the first sign of what sort of support he's been able to line up.

The people who show up will risk infuriating Migden, which is nothing to trifle at (and will make it tougher for city officials, who have to work with her on legislation). Leno is much calmer and milder, but he'll also remember who his friends are (and aren't).

Sup. Tom Ammiano, who is running for Leno's seat (with the endorsement of both Leno and Migden) tells me he's staying neutral. It would be hard for him to do anything else at this point. But soon, lots of local politicos are going to have to take sides, then live with it for a year as the race gets hotter and hotter.

Friday is Opening Day. Let's see who comes out to play.

By Tim Redmond

A couple weeks ago, we gave Mark Leno a little slap for showing up to celebrate Pacific Gas and Electric Company's solar project at the LGBT Center. Today, Beyond Chron is whacking Carole Migden for being too frinedly with PG&E.

The nice side of all of this: It clear that both candidates consider PG&E to be politically radioactive, and simply proximity can breed political fallout. It's about time.

By Sarah Phelan

It’s hard to stay in the public eye when you’re stuck in jail and denied in-person and on-camera interviews, as freelance journalist Josh Wolf has been for the over six months. So, I have to give it to Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders for reminding everyone of Josh Wolf’s plight, even if what I really have to give Saunders is a Lemon Award.

Saunders tries to spin Wolf’s case with the old smear that Wolf isn’t really a journalist. It’s a spin that began in the SFPD and the US Attorney General’s Office, as the Bay Guardian discovered months ago, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The minute Wolf sold his footage to KRON-TV, his work qualified as news. And journalism is about gathering and spreading the news, not sitting in a corporate headquarters and drawing a pay check to write spin.

Saunders also tries to smear Wolf by belittling his efforts to tell stories compared to those of “real journalists, such as the Chronicle’s Lance Williams and Mark Fairanu-Wada.” If Saunders is going to refer to the whole “confidentiality source agreement” business, then maybe she should remind readers of the whole sordid story behind that affair.

Next, she tries to smears Wolf case by accusing the Board of Supervisors of not having done everything they could to find out who attacked Officer Peter Shields, who was out of work for a year after his skull was fractured during the protest that Wolf filmed. Too bad, she didn’t figure out that
investigators have federalized the case on bogus grounds: there was no arson of a police car, just a broken taillight. But, hey, how else were they gonna get around California’s reporter shield laws. (Other than by claiming that Wolf wasn’t a journalist.)

Finally, Saunders tries to smear Wolf with a bait and switch: apparently, this isn’t about an attack on a cop. It’s about an attack on a gay man. Last time, we checked, Wolf did not attack any cops, straight or gay. Nor did he film the attack in question. What he did film was the other officer beating up an anarchist. But who cares about the truth when you’re busy spinning?

The only thing that seems to concern Saunders about Wolf being caged is that it’s costing tax payers dollars. Yeah. Along with trying to turn Wolf into an investigative tool of the government and chill dissent in the process. But who cares about free speech?

So, thanks, Saunders, for reminding us about Wolf. Enjoy the lemonade.

By Steven T. Jones
Sup. Sean Elsbernd is the smartest conservative on the Board of Supervisors, but he may now be regretting his latest effort to challenge city spending. This afternoon, he took issue with a $642,000 budget appropriation intended to offset federal cuts in funding for AIDS programs. Given the city's commitment to provide universal health care this year, Elsbernd said, "We need to be very cognizant of how we spend Department of Public Health money." He wasn't convinced that the programs actually needed the money, a stand that drew impassioned replies from several supervisors in defense of the city's barely adequate response to this deadly epidemic. Ultimately, only newbie Sup. Ed Jew joined Elsbernd in voting against giving more money to help fight AIDS in San Francisco, a stand that probably took more balls than brains.
It wasn't a banner day for the board conservatives. Jew also lost on his effort to send back to committee a proposal by Sup. Jake McGoldrick to ask the Municipal Transportation Agency to reduce the price of MUNI Fast Passes for 18-24 year olds. On Feb. 21, Jew and McGoldrick were the only members present on the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee because Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier was absent once again. The two men deadlocked on whether to pass the measure on the full board, so McGoldrick later exercised his right to get the signatures of three other supervisors and call the measure to the full board. This prompted Jew to write a petulant commentary in today's Examiner. McGoldrick was willing to continue the matter for a week (which the board ultimately did) so there wouldn't be an appearance of trying to avoid a full public debate, but Jew and Alioto-Pier insisted on sending it back to committee. It was a fairly audacious stand for Alioto-Pier, who has by far the worst attendance record on the board, but hardly surprising. Jew, for his part, once again proved himself a quixotic and ineffective rookie. But hopefully he's learning his lessons.