By Steven T. Jones
The next Board of Supervisors race would appear to be only a faint blip on the horizon -- coming as it does after this year's mayor's race, the presidential primary a year from now, and the state primary fight in June '08 that will feature the Leno-Migden battle royale -- but contenders are already starting to position themselves. Nowhere is that happening quicker than in District 9, where Tom Ammiano will vacate his seat and try to smoothly hand it over to the man he considers his heir apparent, David Campos, who has been quietly lining up support all over town. Police reform advocates were happy to see Police Commissioner Campos hold out for a tougher early intervention system, a bold move that showed he's not as afraid of the Police Officers Association as too many pols are here in town. And Campos is likely to have the queer community solidly behind him. But the heart of Dist. 9 is in the Mission and Campos is likely to face a strong challenger from longtime Mission activist Eric Quezada, and maybe day laborer advocate Renee Saucedo, who ran against Ammiano last time. And from the more conservative side of the equation, Miguel Bustos will also likely throw his hat into the ring, although this is one of the city's most lefty districts. So, almost two years early, this is already looking like it's going to be a Campos-Quezada slugfest. Dontcha just love politics?

By Steven T. Jones
After an uncomfortable exchange with Mayor Gavin Newsom at the Project Homeless Connect event earlier in the day, Alex Tourk was out with friends (including a long list of prominent people, many still in Newsom's camp) at Finnegan's Wake last night celebrating his birthday and I happened to run into him. This guy's a class act, standing tall and trying to do what's right even after being so viciously betrayed by Newsom. We chatted a bit and he said that he appreciated how the Guardian has covered this episode. I asked how his job search was going and I emphasized my earlier published point that I hope he's taking his sweet time given the fact that Newsom is paying his high salary until he finds one. But rather than soaking Newsom, Tourk said he was actively looking for work and eager to sever ties with his former mentor. I had just come from a dinner party where it was only half-jokingly suggested that Tourk run for mayor and I passed that along. And you know what? I sensed a twinkle in his eye and an openness to the idea. Wouldn't that be something? Tourk was the guy who actually executed the things that Newsom will be claiming credit for this year, a genuine policy pro who has a sterling reputation and increasing name recognition to boot, not to mention the beautifully poetic narrative. If Jack Davis or any other political consultants are reading this, please, give Tourk a call.

By Tim Redmond

Good article in the Boston Phoenix on the fallout from the New Times-Village Voice merger. The basic point that writer Adam Reilly makes:

The core of the old New Times chain was Southwestern and Southern. And those regions of the country have a different political culture — more socially conservative, more reflexively anti-government — than coastal markets like Los Angeles and New York, or progressive Midwestern enclaves like the Twin Cities. “Phoenix, Denver, Miami — there’s something about the culture of those cities that’s similar,” says Robson. “There’s a frontier mentality that New Times’ libertarian nihilism matches up with.”

None of the old VVM papers fits this description, but New York fits it the least.

Considering that New Times (Now Village Voice Media) owns the SF Weekly and East Bay Express, the article is well worth a read.

By Steven T. Jones
Invoking the spirit of George Moscone and Harvey Milk "so that we may be worthy of their powerful legacy," Assembly member Mark Leno today announced his candidacy for the Senate seat now held by Carole Migden, setting off a high-profile fight between the two for the Democratic Party nomination next year. "Welcome to democracy in action. Welcome to people power," Leno told the large crowd that gathered under the warm noontime sun at Yerba Buena Gardens, adjacent to the Martin Luther King Memorial and Moscone Center, with its rooftop array of solar panels that Leno said he will work to bring to more buildings. MCing the event was Assessor Phil Ting, who introduced District Attorney Kamala Harris, who told the crowd, "I stand here in strong and unequivocal support for Mark Leno." Among the other local notables on hand to support Leno were Fiona Ma, Susan Leal, Laura Spanjian, Julian Davis, Kim-Shree Maufis, Hydra Mendoza, Norman Yee, Lawrence Wong, Donna Sachet, Theresa Sparks, James Hormel, Natalie Berg, Randy Shaw, Bob Twomey, Jose Medina, August Longo, Linda Richardson, Calvin Welch, Jordanna Thigpen, Leah Shahum, Tom Radulovich, Melissa Dodd, David Wall, Tim Gaskin, Esperanza Macias, and Espanola Jackson. Notably absent were any members of the Board of Supervisors, but it's still very early in a campaign that is bound to get heated.

By Tim Redmond

Already, I'm hearing whistpers from both sides of the Leno-Migden contest, and already, they're getting nasty. Mark Leno told me this week that he will run an upbeat campaign, and that any negative attacks on Midgen "won't come from me." I suspect I will hear the same from Migden. But it's common in campaigns for elected officials to try to take the high road and let others -- their allies and suppoerters -- do the dirty work.

So queer/labor activist Robert Haaland is asking not only the candidates, but their supporters in the queer and progressive communities, to pledge to keep this fight out of the gutter. Here's a piece he sent me; I think everyone ought to read it, take it seriously, and sign on.

Our community was divided. Our LGBT clubs were separated. The streets of the Castro were full of opposing forces and consternation. During the 2001-2002 campaign for the 13th Assembly District seat, we were split and it was a difficult time.

By Tim Redmond

Isn't this special? All of these liberal politicians in San Francisco happily sucking up to the chief hired gun for Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

For the record, Don Solem has made gobs of money over the years defeating public-power initiatives in San Francisco. That's not something I really want to celebrate.

By Tim Redmond

The shit is already flying in the Migden-Leno race. Check out this nice piece of sleaze attacking Mark Leno as "the Kiddie Porn King."

No kidding.

That's why Leno and Migden both have to tell their supporters to knock it off.

Tim Redmond

I'm glad to see the Mayor Newsom is looking into free bus service. It's a great idea, even if, as Leftinsfnotes, it's probably just a political ploy in an election year. And even if the Chron is already already trying to shoot it down.

When I first saw the headlines, I had one of those flashback moments; I realized that we'd already done this story, a long time ago. In fact, it was December, 1993 when the Guardian ran a cover story on the case for Free Muni. I dug it up from our archives; you can read it here.

Back then, the local economy was kind of a wreck, and beyond the environmental arguments, we wanted to make the case that eliminating bus fares would give the mostly working-class folks who ride the buses more moneny in their pockets, which would be a nice economic boost. The way to pay for it, of course, would be to tax downtown (making this a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, one of my favorite things in the world).

I don't think Newsom is even looking at the economic arguments, but he should.

He also isn't calling for a downtown transit tax increase to pay for this, either -- but that's the way to do it. Put the whole thing on the ballot -- free Muni, paid for by, say, a $150 million annual assessment on downtown buildings. That might even win. Would Newsom support it?

By Steven T. Jones
How desperate is the pro-car crowd to kill Healthy Saturdays? Sources tell us that De Young Museum matriarch Dede Wilsey and other allies talked rookie Assembly member Fiona Ma into writing state legislation that would have required voter approval for creating car-free spaces in San Francisco parks, and that she was talked out of doing so by financier and backer Warren Hellman -- a supporter of Healthy Saturdays -- just before the Feb. 23 deadline for introducing bills. Contacted by the Guardian, Hellman confirmed the basic story, telling us, "We talked and she had an idea of proposing something, but I thought it was unnecessary.” He thinks the issue is likely to end up before voters either way, either through a referendum on the passage of Healthy Saturdays or a measure placed on the ballot by four supervisors if it fails. Ma's office refused to comment on whether she pursued legislation to prevent Healthy Saturdays -- which she opposed last year as a member of the Board of Supervisors -- and would say only, “I do not discuss private conversations with constituents in the media.”
Saturday closure is an emotion-packed issue for both sides, which may be why Newsom decided to announce his opposition fairly early, just to avoid the acrimony. But that left Sup. Bevan Dufty (who voted against it last year) as the swing vote and someone who admits that his phone has been ringing off the hook lately. But he's pledged to stay engaged and try to do the right thing: "I'm trying to stay refreshingly open on the issue of Healthy Saturdays and consider different viewpoints."

By Steven T. Jones
Good for Nancy Pelosi! It's great to see her finally get serious about ending this disastrous war and to start being a long overdue check on this out-of-control imperial presidency. Win or lose, it's the right thing to do and a move that makes me proud to be from San Francisco. And if Bush indeeds vetoes this thing, maybe she'll reconsider her opposition to impeachment. After all, the Constitution vests Congress with the power to start and end wars, not the president.

By Tim Redmond

Lotsa fun talk about the new editor at the Village Voice. That would be editor number five since the boys from Phoenix took the place over.

Apparently the new guy isn't so fond of literary language. But it looks like the boss likes him.

And these guys are having a good time with Mike Lacey's inability to spell the names of dead Soviet generals.

By Tim Redmond

I'm still waiting to hear something from Carole Migden about this truly offensive blog post by her former aide, Michael Colbruno.

For the record, this attack on Mark Leno started when right-wingers went after him for opposing Proposition 83. We opposed Prop. 83, too. So did San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey. So, I'm told by Migden's office, did Migden.

I left word for Migden two days ago. She ought ot come out and say that this is bullshit and that she won't have her supporters pulling this stuff. (And if any of Leno's people try to do the same kind os smear-stuff, I hope he smacks them down as well.)

By Tim Redmond

Or so says the person who took it.

Remember: I was given a print of the photo of Newsom in a pink kimono with alleged stalker Han Shin from someone who says he got if directly from Shin. I had no idea who took it. But the photographer just came forward and called me. I can't use his name, but here's the story he tells (and it rings true).

The photo was taken at Sup. Bevan Dufty's campaign kickoff. Newsom was there, wearing a Dufty t-shirt over his dress shirt. Han Shin showed up and presented Dufty with the kimono. Dufty tried it on, then Shin took it over to Newsom and draped it over the mayor's shoulders. Then Shin handed his little camera to a person on the scene -- the one who just called me -- and that person snapped the pic.

It wasn't a high-quality camera and there were lots of sources of light on the scene, which explans the weird shadow patterns.

For the record, the person who called me has a history in local politics and no reason to make this up.

By Steven T. Jones
steve@sfbg.com
Sources at the San Francisco Chronicle say that Editor Phil Bronstein and Hearst Corp. executives yesterday convened an hour-long emergency meeting at the paper to warn that more layoffs and other cost-cutting measures are on the way. They provided Chronicle staffers with few details, except to say that all temporary employees would be terminated at the end of the current pay period. Employees were simply told that the paper would be getting smaller and that more details on what that means would be coming in the near future.
Employee morale at the paper isn't high right now, with this new round of cutbacks following a major staff reduction in 2005 (done primary through optional buyouts), new labor union contracts approved last year that significantly eroded employee rights and essentially broke the Pressman's Union, an unseemly partnership between Hearst Corp. and competitor MediaNews, and the Chronicle's recent decision to include advertising on the front of its Bay Area section and occasionally even on its front page.
We'll have more on this unfolding story as it develops.

By Steven T. Jones
Omigod. Like, omigod. Where do I even begin to dissect the comments by Gavin girlfriend Jennifer Siebel in today's Chronicle Style section profile ? Let's start with the money quote: "the woman is the culprit," which she spoke in reference Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who had sexual relations with the mayor even though she was his employee and the wife of his right hand man. To be fair, maybe Siebel didn't realize that she is the first Newsom proxy to attack Rippey-Tourk in print, something many journalists and women's groups feared might happen in the election year. Because in reading this profile, she seems to be perfect for Newsom in several key ways: she's gullible, good-looking, well-born, and not terribly smart. But that isn't even the most interesting revelation in this article, which is that this relationship (which she claims is already "love" after six months) was arranged by Newsom's political advisors ("after running a background check, one of the mayor's staffers invited her") and the Wilsey family (who is leading the oppositon to Healthy Saturdays and has convinced Newsom to oppose it) just as the news of Newsom dating a 20-year-old hostess broke and when the Rippey-Tourk affair was heading in that direction.

By JB Powell

Tomorrow could be ‘show me the money’ day for the SF Port Commission. Commissioners there will vote on the Trans Bay Cable, a privately financed, $300 million power cord that would run underwater from Pittsburg. For weeks, staff members from the port as well as various other city agencies have been hammering out the details of a community benefits package with the cable’s developer, Australian financial firm, Babcock and Brown. The Guardian has obtained a staff report with details of the proposed benefits package. Several officials had already told us it was “significant” and they were right. If the deal goes through, the port will reap millions in rent and licensing fees, a needed cash-infusion for the strapped agency. The package also includes hefty sums for waterfront open space and, in perhaps the biggest news for the city, millions of dollars for the SF Public Utilities Commission. The SFPUC plans to use the funds to bankroll sustainable energy projects, including solar, wind, and tidal initiatives.
Why the largesse? Many of the cable’s shore-side facilities would be on port land. That means Babcock and Brown needs port commission approval before the project can move on to the last local regulatory step, the Board of Supervisors. If the cable goes through, it would plug the city’s electrical grid into 400 megawatts of power from plants in and around Pittsburg. But green power advocates claim the “59 mile extension cord” would be a “waste of resources.” Their biggest fear is that bringing all those relatively cheap megawatts into the city from fossil-fuel burning plants across the bay will derail the city’s plans to rely on more eco-friendly energy.
But the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) insists the city needs the cable or it will see blackouts in the future. Cal-ISO is the “public benefit corporation” in charge of the state’s grid. Sources in and around city hall have described the bind local leaders are in: they would rather look to greener power projects to solve the city’s energy needs, but electricity can be the third rail of California politics. Just ask Gray Davis. So, in an attempt to have their megawatts and eat them too, staff from the mayor’s office and several supervisors, as well as the port and SFPUC, pushed hard for the best “benefits package” they could get from the developer. It remains to be seen if the money for renewable energy projects will placate the activist community. Stay tuned to the Guardian for more coverage on the issue in the coming weeks.

By Steven T. Jones
As if Gavin girlfriend Jennifer Siebel's woman-blaming comments in the Sunday Chronicle weren't bad enough, you ought to check out her comment (assuming it is her, that is) to the SFist. It's downright batty, not to mention even more vicious in its attack on Ruby Rippey-Tourk. My favorite part: "i am not going to blindly support a woman who has cheated on her husband multiple times and watch while my boyfriend is the only one who gets punished..and, what, for something a long time ago when the man was going through a crises- divorce, the loss of his mother, the pressures of being mayor, etc. and he was vulnerable and lonely? and, what's your definition of affair? he's been so hurt by this all -- personally and professionally- and it was a few nothing incidents when she showed up passed out outside of his door. come on guys, have a heart. I have tried to see Ruby's side of the story but unfortunately everyone near to her has stories and says she is bad news."
Just think about the many, many implications of that one for a second. The mind reels.

By Tim Redmond

I really, really wish I didn't have to write about this. But here we go.

I've spent far too much of the past few days researching a 2006 bill by Mark Leno that has led a local blogger to dub him a "Kiddie Porn King." I now understand exactly where this came from, and I've talked to all sides, and I can fairly conclude that it's a stupid, vicious, shitty little allegation that doesn't belong in San Francisco politics.

The guy responsible for this is Michael Colbruno, a former aide to Migden who now works for Clear Channel Oudoor. I finaly got a comment from Migden's campaign today; spokesman Paul Hefner told me Migden "does not approve of this" and "wants her supporters to run a positive campaign." Which is nice, but I think she should go a step further: If the senator called Mr. Colbruno and told him to take that shit down, now, I suspect he'd comply.

Anyway, let me lay out the background here, since it’s a case study in how political smears are created.

By Tim Redmond

Carole Migden has finally done the right thing: She has requested Michael Colbruno take down his nasty posts about Mark Leno, and Colbruno just called to tell me he is going to do it.

So this is a victory for the collective efforts of many on the left to prevene mud-slinging, and let's hope we can keep things (somewhat) civil going forward.

By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom is the culprit. He’s the elected official, the boss, the guardian of the public treasury, the guy asking for our continued trust, the only reason why anyone cares who Ruby Rippey-Tourk fucked.
Amid all the chatter about Newsom girlfriend Jennifer Siebel’s nasty comments about Rippey-Tourk, few people have keyed in to what strikes me as the most important revelation in all of this: Newsom appears to have lied when, upon admitting the affair, he proclaimed, “I am accountable for what has occurred.”
Newsom has proven himself anything but accountable since then. He has refused to answer questions about the incident or the alleged alcohol abuse treatment he’s chosen to seek, even as there have been new revelations about improper payoffs to Rippey-Tourk using public funds and ethical questions raised about his rehab.
Except for one softball television interview, Newsom has refused to field any questions on the subject from the public or media, acting like a wounded victim or a blind and deaf man whenever I or anyone else has tried to press the issue at public events (something we’re forced to do by Newsom’s refusal to hold regular press conferences). Absent that accountability, we’re left to sift through the tea leaves of his girlfriend’s extensive comments – which, it seems clear, are based on what Newsom has told her-- to learn how Newsom really feels about Rippey-Tourk and his own culpability in the affair.
In other words, this is closest thing we’ve seen to Newsom’s true feelings about what happened (an account that Newsom has yet to disavow, going on three days later). And the results are not pretty, revealing Newsom to be a dishonest and dishonorable cad who still doesn’t have a clue as to what he did wrong.

By Tim Redmond

Kim Knox at leftinsf has posted the minutes of the Community Advisory Committee looking for a new SF school superintendent. Mostly pretty predictable stuff -- except for a poll commissioned by a business group that has some really scary results:

To the question, is SF Unified School District going in the right direction or the wrong track:
Right Direction-22%
Wrong Track-54%

To the question, how well do you think SFUSD manage its funds:
Excellent 20%
Not So Good to Poor 53%

One leftinsf commenter, Nakayama, concluded:

What ignorance. Anybody keeping a close eye on our public schools in SF –whether parent, student or administrator–can readily see that the schools are much better now than they were five or 10 years ago.

Because very few San Franciscans have children, and they have no idea what is happening in our schools.

I agree with the first part -- I have a kid in the public schools, I'm really happy about his school (McKinley) and I think the public schools have improved dramatically in the past few years. But I don't think the misconception is entirely due to the fact that most people in SF don't have kids.

Let's remember: Of the two superintendents who have been in charge since the 1990s, one ran an administration riddled with corruption; the other, while a talented educator, was arrogant, vindictive and disdainful of the community. That sort of thing doesn't help with the perception of the district.

The second problem is that the district has spent a lot of money on a public-relations office whose chief job in the past has been to protect and promote the superintendent -- so not a lot of effort has gone into promoting the schools in general. That's changing now, under Acting Superintendent Gwen Chan, who seems to be doing a great job so far -- and with a little effort, SFUSD could (and should) organize a major advertising and public-relations campaign to promote the quality and importance of public education in the city. That would help a lot.

Because those numbers really suck. And we all have to work to change them.

By Sarah Phelan
You gotta give it up to snarky SFist for snagging the longest comment thread on any -ist site around the world (take that, London, Paris, Rome!).
This achievement occurred as part of the ongoing eruptions around the comments that Mayor Gavin Newsom's girlfriend, Jennifer Siebel, made after she labeled Ruby Rippey Tourk as "the culprit" in the Chronicle. (Last time, we checked, the comments were up to 429 and people were still posting.)
You also gotta give it up to Jennifer Siebel for opening the gates on what was clearly a repressed longing in this city to find out and vent about a) WTF happened between the Mayor and Ruby, b)why and c) on whose dime.
All with JS starring as a pleasant-to-look-at, bee-saving punch bag who is pitted against Gavin's former flame, Ruby, thereby creating a cyber cat fight, in which the Mayor comes out looking like a royal jerk.So, as the mayor winds up his trip in NYC, you can imagine how cranky his PR machine is sounding:
"Best to say nothing, Gav."
"But if I don't, people will think that what Jen said is what I said."
"Well, wasn't it?"
"And that makes me look blamey and pathetic."
"Er..."
"And If I say nothing it looks as if I'm hanging Jen out to dry."
"Er..."
"So what am I gonna say?"
See the problem? Especially if the mayor is gonna stay true to his promise to be honest and sober etc.
Maybe the Mayor and JS should model "SFist is the Culprit" T-shirts. As should all you folks who spent the last few days posting/reading at SFist instead of spinning your hamster wheels at work. (What, moi?)

by Sarah Phelan

In case you missed it, March 14 was International Day of Action for Rivers, those beautiful silvery slivers of water that feed salmon fingerlings into the world wide mobius of oceans, then draw the adult salmon back to the headwaters where they were spawned, like pods beamed back up to the mother ship.

Only in the case of salmon, who jump six feet on average, returning is impossible if there’s a big fat dam in their way.

Such is the case on the Klamath River in Oregon. Once the third most productive salmon fishery in America, the river is encumbered by four power dams, which were built 80 years ago, average 84 ft in height and stand between the threatened salmon and over 350 miles of historic spawning grounds.

By Sarah Phelan

Nothing draws attention to the beauty of an oak tree better than a bunch of nudes draped across its naked branches, their soft curves pressed into the tree’s whorly bark. And trees are, to quote famed nature photographer Jack Gescheidt, “a beautiful miracle that provides shade but that we take for granted.”

Famous for his portraits of nudes
on and among trees, Gescheidt has decided to step into the midst of the debacle surrounding the threatened Memorial Oak Grove at UC Berkeley by taking a photograph using a bunch of nude volunteer models. And by bunch, he means hundreds and hundreds of people.

“I can accommodate 400 to 500 people,” says Gescheidt, noting that this is the first time he’s had advance press for a nude photo, but this time it’s inevitable since this in an existing situation full of tree sitters, university officials, athletes and of course, the trees.

“The trees will help remind me to stay grounded, that there is no rush, and that this is an opportunity for meditation,” says Gescheidt. “I’m a simple guy, but the reason I’m getting involved is that it’s clear there is an alternative to cutting the trees down.”

Save the Oaks organizer Doug Buckwald says people are staying in the trees, even though there is a temporary injunction against removing the trees, “because UC Berkeley has announced that it still plans to cut down the trees and build a stadium.”

“They must have sat in a room and said, what’s the one thing we could do to anger everyone in Berkeley,” says Buckwald of the decision to cut down this grove of 38 mature coast live oaks, which is home to countless squirrels, birds and insects, and frequented by a “wonderfully playful pair of red foxes.”

As for UC Berkeley 3 for I promise to plant three trees for every one axed, Buckwald is unimpressed.

There is no comparison between young sapling s with about 100 leaves and mature trees with 10,000 to 100,000 leaves,” he says. ‘What matters is biomess, which creates more niches and more space for organisms. If you cut down a wonderful old tree, there’s no way you can replace that by planting 3 saplings, or even 10 for that matter, since they take 80-200 years to grow.”

To take part in Gesheidt’s naked photo, meet at the Memorial Oak Grove at 8:30 am.
For instructions to the Grove
go to www. savetheoaks.com and click on the “Find the Grove” button.

By Tim Redmond

The letters go out today assigning kids to SF public schools, and often there is wailing and gnashing of teeth when parents don't get their very first choice. I agree, the system isn't perfect, but my advice, as someone who went through it and though he'd been utterly screwed, is: relax. There are a lot of good schools in SF; you don't have to be in Rooftop or Clarendon.

We visited all the supposedly top schools, applied for seven of them, and got none of our choices. Then on the second round, we discovered McKinley -- and we couldn't be happier.

So don't freak if you don't get Clarendon. I complain about the administration all the time (well, not so much now that Arlene Ackerman is gone), but the truth is, the district has come a long way, is improving, and there are lots of great places to send your kid.

So don't panic.

By Sarah Phelan

Pardon my French, but the hazy memories excuse that White House spokesperson Tony snow trotted out today is one of the most lame-ass explanations that the Bush administration has trotted out to date.
Ask yourself this: if you were running this country, would you expect anyone to believe that you could not remember who came up with the radical notion to fire ALL 93 federal prosecutors?
Course not.
And if they really can't remember, they should not be running a country, least of all the United States. Look what happened the last time they couldn't "remember" who leaked Valerie Plame's name.

Sarah Phelan reports from Saturday's Obama lovefest in Oakland

Barack Obama has the cutest, toothy, crinkly-at-the-edges smile. Yeah, he's the Democratic Presidential candidate with the dangerously high level of charisma and everyone knows it. (A recent poll, taken the same week as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill giving California an early Feb. 5 2008 presidential primary, placed him only a few points behind Sen. Hillary Clinton, with Sen. John Edwards trailing in third place.)

(pic by Khalil Abusaba)

That's why folks during Obama's St Patrick's Day appearance in Oakland were wielding a "You're Barackin' Me Crazy" sign, and Double Funk Crunch, the band chosen to serenade this youthful presidential hopeful, warmed up the crowd by singing "Crazy."

Not that the crowd needed any warming. Oakland crowds are hot. And the minute the youthful Senator from Illinois stepped onto the stage, things got even hotter.

"How's it going, Oakland? I'm fired up! This is a good-looking crowd," Obama told the 10,000 + people crammed into Oakland's Frank H. Ogawa Plaza outside City Hall.

(pic by Khalil Abusaba)

By Tim Redmond

That's the question ABC news is asking It's always annoying when this sort of stuff comes from the mainstream media, which always tend to downplay the size of protests. (Note that the Chronicle ran a big story about pro-war demonstrators on Saturday).

But it's absolutely true that there were fewer people on the streets this weekend than we saw four years ago, and that the crowd was mostly controlled and orderly. Even the die-in was fairly orderly, and the arrests went without incident.

I know there's a lot of protest burnout going on, and people don't feel like the White House cares. Which is absolutely true. But there's also been a shift here: The battle has moved to Congress, and activists are putting pressure on everyone from Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership to the likes of Ellen Tauscher in the East Bay, who is almost certainly going to face a primary challenge over the war.

Remember: We have won the debate. Almost everyone agrees now that the war was a bad idea and has to end. Don't get discouraged; keep up the pressure.

By Tim Redmond

... Even Donald Trump . He says Bush is a liar, the war is a disaster and the U.S. should immediately withdraw. He's ahead of Nancy Pelosi!

G.W.: You're fired

Glenn Dickey has an interesting hit on the 49ers stadium problem: The hell with it, he says; let 'em go.

I still like the idea of a San Francisco football team, but then, I also like Candlestick Park, and I always have. I even liked it when the Giants played there. But I have to say, Dickey's got the economics right. He's horribly harsh about the neighborhood ("There's nothing at Candlestick Park; Hunters Point ... is no better.") That's not true -- and in theory, if the city could find land at the shipyard, the presence of the stadium would spur local restaurants, bars etc. But in practice, it probably won't: Most football fans don't contribute much to local business. They pack in food, tailgate and then split.
The downtown Giants stadium did wonders for either economic revitalization or gentrification, depending on how you define it. The niner games at Candlestick have done nothing for Third Street. From that perspective, a new niners stadium would be a waste of public money.

Intern Sam Devine reports from Monday morning's Chevron protest

At approximately 6:30 a.m. on March 19, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War, nine activists locked themselves in a human chain across the main entrance to Chevron-Texaco’s corporate headquarters. They tied ropes and carabineers to their wrists. The carabineers where then attached to metal rods concealed inside empty oil drums and large red pipes, both covered with slogans. By 8:30, five more people had willingly joined the chain. They were all ready to get busted.

This was the third protest at Chevron’s San Ramon since talk of Iraq began a little over 4 years ago. The demonstration, which forced employees to use a side entrance and fouled up traffic on Bollinger Canyon Road, was organized to protest of the new Iraqi Oil Law.

By Tim Redmond

Gavin Newsom has a slick new website, which his campaign team has decided to call actlocallysf.org, I guess to give the impression that it's more than flackery for the mayor. The lead item on it is, in fact, a nice piece by the head of the Business Alliance for Living Local Economies, talking about how to create an economically sustainable city.

But that's actually a serious policy challenge that involves taking on big, powerful international interests -- and Newsom isn't doing any of that. In fact, if you scroll down the page, you find an article on why San Francisco should turn over the future of its electronic communications infrastructure to a couple of giant corporations.

A real sustainable city would look at creating the network locally, using city funds and local nonprofits and small businesses, and keeping control of it in the public sector. Gavin: get with the program.

PS: BeyondChron has a nice takeout on the new website.

PS2: The Bay Guardian and Beyond Chron both have links on the site, under the category "mean but interesting." Mean? To the poor little mayor who can't take any criticism? Jesus. At least we're interesting.

By Tim Redmond

The City of Santa Clara has a lot that the San Francisco 49ers find attractive: A nice site for a stadium, a local fan base -- and, it turns out, $200 million in cash. That money, which the team has its eyes on, is sitting in the bank -- it's the surplus from the city's municipal electric utility.

Isn't it funny: San Francisco may lose a football team in part because our competing city did what we should have done many years ago, and created a public-power agency. Now it's got some money to spare.

This all came up at Mayor Gavin Newsom's weekly department heads meeting March 18. when a mayoral staffer gave a briefing on the Santa Clara 49ers situation, including an explanation of how the Niners want that $200 mill (which the Santa Clara power agency is reluctant to part with). In the middle of the briefing, Sheriff Mike Hennessey dared to interrupt with the obvious question:

"Are you saying," he asked, "that a city can make a profit from public power?"

The staffer's response: "No comment."

By Tim Redmond

The CoCo Times has this beauty of a report on the missing records from the mayoral administration of Jerry Brown. This kind of crap has been commonplace in San Francisco -- exiting officials grab anything that might be negative or incriminating and flee with it -- but I didn't expect that from Jerry, who is not the state's attorney general. Bad news.

By Tim Redmond

The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club may wind up endorsing Mark Leno for state Senate next month without even hearing from his opponent, Carole Migden.

The club voted March 12 to go ahead and suspend the normal rules to allow an early endorsement of Leno, who is challenging Migden for state Senate. Frankly, it's not a big surprise -- everyone knew that Alice would wind up backing Leno. That club is very much his political base.

Still, some club members thought that there ought to at least be a candidate's forum before the final vote, where Migden would have a chance to show up and make her case. A motion to make the early endorsement contingent on that was handily defeated.

Now, club president Rebecca Prozan is scrambling to pull a forum together before the final endorement vote in April -- but there's guarantee it will happen. Prozan told me she thinks Migden should have been invited to speak before the final vote, "but the membership rejected that position."

This strikes me as a bit unfair -- and not a terribly productive way to go about local politics right now. Sure, Leno's the club favorite, and that's fine -- but Migden is also a legitmate LGBT community leader with a credible record and constituency, and a queer San Francisco political organization in a potentially divisive race like this ought to go out of its way to be fair to all involved and not to leave anyone with bitter feelings.

By Sarah Phelan

By now, everyone knows that all the presidential candidates have posted their profiles at MySpace (Current most popular: Barack Obama with 75754 friends. Poor Hillary: 3355 friends -- Ed.)

But did you know that Rudy Giuliani’s MySpace profile is set to private—meaning you have to be one of his “friends” before you can read all about him.
Fellow SFBG staffer, Paula, was totally unimpressed and zinged him an email to say, "You're a public official. How dare you set your profile to private!"

We’ll let you know if she ever gets a response.

Seems to us that if you're running for president, you'd want people to know about you. D'oh. Unless of course you have some deep dark agenda that only your political "friends" get to hear about in advance.

By Tim Redmond

This is big news.

Marc Salomon, a local activist, has done something that the City Planning Department should have done years ago: He's carefully tracked who's moving into new housing in San Francisco, using voter registration data. His conclusion: Fully two-thirds of the people moving into the new market-rate units are from out of town. That is, the vast majoirty of the new housing the city is allowing developers to build does nothing for the San Francisco renters who want to buy homes, the familes who are being driven out of town .... and nothing for the local housing market.

We are building housing for very rich people who don't live here. That's exactly the opposite of what the city's official policy is and what any sane housing policy would do.

Click here to see Salomon's study (Word doc).

SAVE OAKS
by Sarah Phelan

Photographer Jack Gesheidt (he of rollerblading naked through San Francisco fame) just called to alert me that the website for the group organizing the ongoing efforts to save the beautiful mature Coast Live Oaks is http://www.saveoaks.com.

I mistakenly posted http://www.savetheoaks.com link in our print version this week, thereby misdirecting readers to a site about the Bacterial Leaf Scorch plague in the Delaware Valley. Oops.

What I meant to do was send readers to http://saveoaks.com a site which educates people about UC Berkeley’s plans to make a bunch of squirrels, birds and beetles homeless so they can build a stadium on a fault line.

By Sarah Phelan

Earlier today, I got a call from San Francisco Chronicle reporter Rob Selna alerting me that Lennar’s Kofi Bonner has submitted a letter to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, alleging that recent stories in the Chronicle and the Bay Guardian concerning Lennar, “contain a number of errors, inaccuracies and misinformation.”

View the letter here (PDF file)

That’s funny, because the Bay Guardian hasn’t received any communications from Lennar or Bonner concerning our coverage of Lennar's failures to monitor and control asbestos dust at the Hunters Point Shipyard, which we documented in our cover story, last week. Nor have we received letters regarding SFBG's coverage of the lawsuit that three Lennar employees have brought against the mega developer.

In that suit, the trio allege that Lennar retaliated against them for questioning construction dust, imposed a code of silence and targeted them and other African Americans in the workplace with racial discrimination and harassment.

As author of both pieces in the Bay Guardian, I challenge Bonner to “delve” into my alleged errors, inaccuracies and misinformation, and explain exactly he is referring to, or write a retraction.

Meanwhile, members of the BVHP community are holding a press conference today at 5pm at Alex Pitcher Community Room, Southeast Community College, 1800 Oakdale Avenue. Stay tuned…

by Amanda Witherell

thanks for the photo, from "brighter than sunshine" on flickr

How awesome would it be if every time the Mayor's office violated the Sunshine Ordinance, which it's doing now, they got slapped with a fine or jail time like they do down in Florida. That's right: if San Francisco amended the ordinance and granted its governing task force the right to levy fines and penalties, Gavin would have to shift some of the coin from his personal bank account into the City's general fund for every day he continues to ignore citizen requests for information from his office. At the rate he's going, maybe we'd have enough to fund that free MUNI he's proposed!

By Tim Redmond

We still have no idea who killed a transgender woman whose body was found on Cesar Chavez and Indiana March 19. But these deaths are far too common, and the community is coming together to hold a memorial Friday night. Keep checking Leftinsf for more details.

By Steven T. Jones
Charlie Goodyear, a veteran political reporter for the Chronicle and my colleague on the City Desk NewsHour, has resigned from his journalism jobs to work for high powered flack Sam Singer, whose clients include Lennar Corp., the 49ers, and former Newsom consorts Alex and Ruby Tourk. I like Charlie and have respected his work, so it's sad to see yet another experienced journalist leave the business. Like most who have done so, Charlie was pushed out by the increasingly unhappy environment at the Chronicle, which is pursuing yet another round of staff reductions, and pulled by the lure of big money offered by the public relations industry.

By Tim Redmond

I didn't say anything when David Lazarus first created a modest stir by suggesting that newspapers should charge money for online content. I figured the world of bloggers would have a field day with this, and I didn't want to pile on. They did; I can't fit links to all of them, but Lazarus quotes the most savage in his column today. Even Jon Carroll weighed in, suggesting that journalism schools begin teaching porn reporting because that's where the money is.

But I think all of them are missing the point.

By G.W. Schulz

So what’s going on with the Bay Area’s favorite media love affair these days? You know the one. Hearst and MediaNews met first in Houston two decades ago and engaged in a nefarious entanglement that made one of the nation's largest cities a single-daily town.

Since then, Hearst and MediaNews just can’t keep their hands off each other. They’re like that nerdy couple at the mall, both looking hopelessly vanilla in matching Banana Republic sweatshirts as they tear into one of those wax paper-wrapped turkey legs, grease dripping from their third chins.

By G.W. Schulz

Thanks to Guardian friend Lauren De Vine for catching this utterly hilarious photo of a cop van parked illegally in front of a hydrant near Atlas coffehouse in the Mission on Friday afternoon. No emergency, she told us. They were just gettin' some coffee, and perhaps a pastry or two. We considered calling John Hanley, president of the San Francisco Firefighters Union, to see if we could stoke the still-flaming embers from last November's District 6 board race when the union enraged the San Francisco Police Officers Association by endorsing Chris Daly. Maybe next time.

By G.W. Schulz

Friday vigil for Ruby Ordenana, aka Ruby Rodriguez

Supporters of the strangulated Nicaraguan immigrant and transgendered sex worker Ruby Ordenana held a candlelight vigil for her on Friday at Indiana and Cesar Chavez streets in Potrero Hill where her body was found stripped of clothing March 16.

Police were finally able to identify her last Thursday and are still trying to figure out what happened. Another transgendered sex worker was found beaten and raped in the same area last summer, so people are reasonably enough a little freaked out. Just 27 years old, Ordenana faced all manner of obstacles already, even in San Francisco, without having to face the threat of a violent assault.

We haven't found any updates on the investigation so far, but good sam bloggers should keep posting the SFPD's homicide division phone number for witnesses to call with information: 415-553-1145.

Some clown called into the Chronicle complaining about the paper's respect for Ordenana's MTF gender identity. What's it to you, pal? Your crime blotter has to be politically sterilized, too? He even suggested such reporting was to blame for the Chron's declining circulation. Uh, yeah. And by extension, perhaps, the city's homicide rate could somehow be directly linked to the Chron's declining circulation. That probably has more to do with industry factors and the Chron's dorky lifestyle coverage, e.g. the lackluster sex column. Just my guess, goober.

By G.W. Schulz

The mayor has threatened a few times now to do something about the city’s aging public housing stock, mostly via press release. He’s at it again, via press release, of course.

We wrote two weeks ago that due to federal funding cuts, public housing residents are already experiencing increased security risks like robbery and assault at some of the developments around town. At this point, much has been said about the otherwise deplorable living conditions public housing residents already face here, from mildew to perpetually broken appliances, without having to worry about robbers armed with hammers and knives.

Plaza East development before 2001 reconstruction

By Sarah Phelan
Josh Wolf wasn’t the only person to film the July 8, 2005 G-8 protest. Nor was he the only person to be interviewed by the FBI. But he is the only person to be incarcerated for refusing to give up his video outtakes of the protest. This latter reality lends weight to Wolf’s suspicion that the reason the federal government jumped on the case is connected to the Bush administration's obsession with anarchists. The truth is that there is no footage of the attack om the police officer on Wolf's tapes, but there is footage of Black Bloc anarchists talking into his camera.

Transgender videographer Dina Boyer, who works for AccesSF Channel 29 and is not an anarchist told the Guardian that about three weeks after she filmed the July 8, 2005 protest—and posted outtakes of it online under an assumed alias—FBI officials showed up at her home.

By Tim Redmond

I know, I know: everyone is obsessed with Elizabeth Edwards's cancer. But should that really be the lead of the Chronicle's story about a presidential candidate's visit to the Bay Area -- or might John Edwards actually have some policy positions to talk about?

By Sarah Phelan
When a friend gave me a Bush countdown clock, it was registering 1,111 days until Bush will be gone.
At first, I was excited. (You can see the seconds hand ticking away.)
The next day, I was pissed off. (There were still 1,110 days of Bush and Cheney to go.)
434 days later, and a Justice Department official has just taken the Fifth in the firing of the US Attorneys scandal.
The House has set a date for withdrawal from Iraq.
The Senate is debating the same.
Climate change is no longer in doubt, but it's clear that the Bush admin worked hard to cloud the issue.
It's also clear that Cheney had a hand in the leaking of Valerie Plame's name and the falsification of prewar intelligence that led the US to invade Iraq, kill thousands, maim thousands more and spend billions.
666 days is a spooky length of time for this nation to continue to be misled, misinformed--and mistrusted.
Impeach Bush and Cheney now.

By Sarah Phelan

"Congress could try to force Monica Lewinsk--or Monica Goodling, rather--to testify...." NBC's Pete Williams tagging the Alberto Gonzales interview.
(You can't make this shit up.)

By Steven T. Jones
Nobody seems to be buying Gavin Newsom's line that the taxpayer-funded campaign events that he calls town hall meetings are actually a "substantive dialogue" with the community. And it's downright funny to suggest that these ridiculous events are comparable to the policy discussions that voters asked Newsom to engage in with the Board of Supervisors, something he's refused to do. But it appears that the Newsom campaign plan is to just keep their heads down, plow forward, and hope they can convince half the city's voters they're honestly and effectively doing the city's business.

The plan might just work, but there's a huge downside that I don't think he's taken into account.

By Tim Redmond

Now THIS is really scary.

By Tim Redmond

Yeah, so the SF Weekly is taking a swipe at Kimo Crossman (and, naturally, at us) this week. Will Harper's item isn't terribly insightful or funny, and just plays into the Phoenix-based paper's general distaste for unconventional activists.

But Harper (and a lof ot the others who think it's fun and easy to whack away at the likes of Crossman and his over-the-top battles for open government) forget where all of this came from. Kimo Crossman got obsessed with government secrecy because he had such a bad experience trying to get public records. He wanted to find out about the Newsom wi-fi deal (which, true to form, the Weekly also loves). And he kept running into brick walls.

I understand. I find the same thing at City Hall, all the time. Under City Attorney Dennis Herrera (and his excellent and principled press aide, Matt Dorsey), it's gotten a lot better, but overall, most city departments still make it far too difficult for the average citizen to get basic information about what's going on.

If anyone is to blame for Crossman's somewhat unwieldy campaign, it's Mayor Newsom, who insisted that Google and Earthlink had the right to keep their wi-fi proposals mostly secret.

There has always been an easy solution to people like Crossman: Just give them the damn records. Nothing bad will happen. Really.

PS: Someday soon, when metadata is regularly released as part of public-records requests, Will Harper or someone else at the Weekly will use that info to write a really good story about City Hall. You suppose they'll thank that crazy Kimo Crossman?

By G.W. Schulz

Word arrived today that Transcontinental, the Canadian company hired by the San Francisco Chronicle to build a shiny, new billion-dollar press, has been scouting locations in the East Bay city of Fremont for the facility. The Chronicle signed a 15-year outsourcing contract with Transcontinental, which also publishes La Presse, the Globe and Mail and the New York Times in Canada, last November.

Fremont development manager Lori Taylor confirmed they’d received calls from the company, but they haven’t heard from Transcontinental since last month. She said Newark was also a rumored location for the plant.

The Chronicle's deal with Transcontinental served a crushing blow to the Web Pressmen and Prepress Workers’ Union Local 4, one of the nation’s oldest such unions. Local 4’s current contract with the Chronicle, reluctantly signed by the rank-and-file last year, expires in three years and there are no assurances Transcontinental will hire any of the union’s over 200 workers meaning a possible end to its tumultuous relationship with the Chronicle and its parent, the Hearst Corp.

By G.W. Schulz

Just caught up with the scoop that young MediaNews executive Eric J. Grilly has resigned from the company to take over online operations for Philadelphia's two largest newspapers. The papers were purchased by a group of investors calling themselves Philadelphia Media Holdings last year for well over half-a-billion dollars from the Sacramento-based McClatchy Company.

Grilly made good money at MediaNews and it's difficult to imagine that his $350,000 annual salary could be topped to run some Web sites, but maybe he was simply looking for fresh air and, you know, esteem. As far as journalistic reputation goes, the Philadelphia Inquirer, included in last year's purchases, had a stellar reputation for tough investigations under Knight-Ridder, though it did suffer layoffs and bleeding.

Grilly became a MediaNews exec first in 2000 and only just last year ascended to the post of MediaNews senior vice president. His dad retired from a MediaNews corner office around the same time.

By Steven T. Jones
Environmentalists and alternative transportation activists are winning some key endorsements in the run up to next month's second annual Healthy Saturdays showdown. Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Golden Gate Park road closure to cars last year and doesn't seem interested is pushing for a compromise on a measure he criticizes as too polarizing (ironically, his detachment from the issue is precisely what's feeding the polarization). But last year's swing vote on overrriding the veto, Sup. Bevan Dufty, has indicated an openness to supporting it this year. And that became all the more likely last night when the San Francisco Democratic Party County Central Committee (DCCC) endorsed the measure. They join other key Dufty allies in endorsing the measure, including the Harvey Milk Democratic Club and Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, as well as the Young Democrats club and both Senate contenders: Mark Leno and Carole Migden. The first committee hearing on the measure is April 9.