By Benjamin Wachs

Hey – Did the Supes pass the budget and I just didn’t notice?

They must have, because they’re taking the week off.

In a time of fiscal crisis, there’s just no way these guys would take a break before they’d solved the problem.

Right? Um … right?

There’s only one meeting this week, and that’s the Land Use and Economic Development Committee. It’s meeting Thursday at 1 p.m. to award a liquor license, talk about “tree safety,” and accept a couple of grants.

So...everything must be fine I guess. Crisis averted. Problem solved. Thanks for a job well done.

I’ll see you next week...if you’re not taking that off, too.

By Masha Rumer

What do babies, the homeless, dogs, hipsters, sports enthusiasts and garbage have in common? They all cram into Mission Dolores Park on sunny afternoons and create an overflowing salad bowl whose ingredients just don’t play well each other.

Well, score one for babies and kids. More than 60 neighborhood residents met Thursday night in Dolores Park Church to talk design of the new park’s playground, thanks to a $1.5 million grant from the Mercer Fund. The current playground, renovated more than 30 years ago, is not up to the safety standards (think arsenic) and isn’t handicap-accessible.

“It’s worn, there’s paint. It’s probably lead paint,” says Steven Koch, landscape architect, whose company was commissioned for the job. Rules for fall zones and surface types have changed, the old wood preservative may be toxic. The area floods on rainy days due to drainage problems.

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By Benjamin Wachs

We all know the real reason the San Francisco School District voted to cripple the high school’s ROTC program. But what about the fake reason? Are we all caught up on that?

According to the school district, Thursday night’s vote to strip the JROTC program of its status as a Physical Education credit has NOTHING to do with the school board’s visceral hatred of the military. No they say, they were forced to refuse to count JROTC training as a PE credit because … the JROTC training “doesn’t align with the California PE standards.”

Seriously? That’s your excuse? OK San Francisco School District, I’ll bite. How? In what way does JROTC training not conform to California’s rigorous, rigorous standards for PE?

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By Benjamin Wachs

SF’s crime cameras are back in the news: The Supes this week voted to significantly cut funding for the year old program. And why not?

Even by the standard of San Francisco’s pretty lousy records, SF’s crime cameras have a pretty lousy record. As SF Weekly has previously reported, they’ve cost nearly $1 million, led to only 1 arrest, and have provided police with virtually no useful information … and that’s when people can get to look at the things. The Supes had to specifically pass a law saying defense lawyers could have access to relevant video even though … um … wait, why did they need to do that again?

But here’s the funny thing … by which I mean sad: other municipalities have had crime camera programs that work. We’ve previously reported about the success of Washington D.C.’s crime cameras, which reduced crime by 19 percent in areas covered by cameras and helped catch suspects. (SF has also seen a drop in crime around the cameras - sort of - but preliminary evidence sugested the crime was only moving to just out of the cameras range. More critically, unlike D.C.'s cameras, ours almost never lead to arrests).

Now Rochester, New York, has shown us up too: after just 3 weeks of operation their new crime cameras have lead to 7 drug-related arrests.

How do they do it?

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The Association for Women in Communications awarded former staff writer Eliza Strickland a Clarion Award for her story, "Burnt Chefs."

Check out the story here.

And congrats to Eliza!

By Masha Rumer

Based on recent figures from the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, tourists shelled out a record $8.2 billion in the City by the Bay last year, 6.2 percent more than in 2006. Overall, tourism climbed 2.4 percent in 2007 to 16.1 million visitors.

Hotel occupancy rate alone crept up to 79 percent, according to PKF Consulting, with a daily room rate averaging $181, and the Bureau’s president and CEO Joe D’Alessandro hails tourism as “San Francisco’s most vital industry.”

Thank you, slumping dollar. Foreigners are lured here largely because their money can buy more.

Plus, the green light to same-sex nuptials last week is another blessing for the industry, at least until November.

Same-sex marriages could rake in $683.6 million in revenue for California’s economy in the next three years, according to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

The fashion news source Women’s Wear Daily chimes in: “It turns out gay marriage is good for business — especially as gas and food prices rise and credit remains tight,” reads the story headlined “The Bliss of Newlyweds: Same-Sex Marriages Boost California Stores” from June 18.

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Notes from the former Bush White House Spokesman’s appearance in San Francisco

By Benjamin Wachs

Here’s what you want to know: Scott McClellan thinks that if Bush knew then how the war would turn out, he wouldn’t have done it. He thinks that many of Bush’s senior advisors (besides, you know, him …) don’t give the cause for going to war a second thought. He’s pretty sure – though he won’t swear – that they didn’t mean to mislead the public. It just kind of happened because they were in campaign mode.

And if you want to know any more, you’ll need to buy the book.

Scott McClellan’s address to the Commonwealth Club of California was billed as a political event, but in fact it was always a book signing. Appearing in the Grand Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel his first words upon being introduced were “Thanks Bob, it’s great to be here in San Francisco” … and his demeanor was that of a game show host ready to unveil the first showcase.

Behind door #1 – Democracy undermined! Would you like to see what’s behind door #2?

Like any good PR shill, McClellan knew how to stay on message: During his 75 minutes speaking before the Commonwealth Club he mentioned the words “my book” or “the book” some 60 times (by my rough count). He didn’t mention dead American soldiers or Iraqi civilians at all.

The moral strain of all those years spent justifying so many unjustifiable corpses did not show on his face. Instead, he opened with a joke.

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By Benjamin Wachs

Budget Season in San Francisco is like Christmas for Progressives. Everyone writes a wish list, we find out who’s been naughty and nice, and we learn how much money the white-guy-with-the-forced-laugh-who-nobody-really-believes-in is willing to give out. Yes, Virginia, there is a Gavin Newsom: he’s the one cutting your daddy’s job.

Just like Christmas, Budget Season brings out the worst in people who are supposed to be thankful. And just like Christmas, Budget Season brings out a lot of buyer’s remorse. And just like Christmas, Budget Season is actually the worst possible thing we could do to our budget.

Exhibit A: in a year of massive budget deficits we’re engaging in one-shot revenue fixes and increasing the total amount we spend. We’re just like the Midwestern family with massive credit card debt that we all mock for their relentless consumerism.

But perhaps most importantly, just like Christmas, it’s easy to miss the true meaning of Budget Season. It should be a time for quiet reflection, a time when we – especially as a city that wants to save the world – ask ourselves: what are our priorities really?

Last week’s SF Government InAction got me into an argument with Gavin Newsom (through proxies – his people no longer return my calls) about whether San Francisco’s budget is completely out of whack for a city its size. I kicked his ass, of course. But now, taking a moment to pause with my candles and incense and gazing deeply into the refractions off my crystal, I’d like to reflect on the true meaning of Budget Season and restate the fundamental issue in terms that even the mayor’s hair can understand.

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If your job search has so far come up blank, cheer up. A whole new category of employment opportunity has appeared under the new rubric “Chief Sustainability Officer.” For these new positions, companies are recruiting sophisticated, idealistic, easily-co-opted SF Weekly readers like you.

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Question: Why is gay marriage legal in California? If you think it's years of hard work on the part of activists and policy makers, think again. It's all because of Tila Tequila!

She Of the Many MySpace Friends told Access Hollywood at a the Hollywood premiere of "the Love Guru" (there are so many things wrong with the beginning of this sentence) that "“It is because of me. I definitely think (my show) has helped the movement."

Her show, of course, is "A Shot at Love" on MTV where both men and women vy for a chance to date the bisexual hype machine that is Tequila.

In case you're skeptical about Ms.Tequila's claims, she elucidates her point saying,"“Before it came out, everyone was still a little apprehensive about (same sex relationships)...Then they realized, ‘Wow, everyone is really into this stuff, and it is fine.’ The next thing you know, (gay marriage) is legal.”

Tequila also built a time machine and helped get the civil rights movement off the ground. Then she threw an apple at Isaac Newton and muttered under her breath in passing, "Graaaaaaaaavity, graaaaaavity...." -Andy Wright

Notes from Gavin Newsom’s hour long interview on KQED.
By Benjamin Wachs

Gavin Newsom sat behind the mike of KQED’s “forum” for a full hour yesterday, and came through it smelling like a rose. He was enthusiastic, collected, and in control. He handled being compared to the Taliban by one listener pretty well. He was, dare I say it? Gubernatorial.

Maybe that’s because they spent most of their time talking about Gavin’s favorite issue: Gay Marriage took up nearly half the show’s time (by my admittedly rough estimates). Apparently he's in favor of it.

Several more minutes were spent on Newsom’s own upcoming nuptials, which people are bizarrely fascinated by.

But when the topic turned to city politics there were, indeed, a few jaw dropping moments: most of which raised the question “Can he really believe that? Really?”

Excerpts from those moments are below. But first: MisterMayor, KQED host Michael Krasny, and me gotta have words.

Gentlemen: For the record, I am NOT BeyondChron.

At 18 minutes and 50 seconds into the interview, Krasny compares SF’s budget to that of other cities, saying this information was “pointed out by BeyondChron.”

Uh uh. That was SF Government InAction, here on the Snitch. Krasny used the exact cities I used, with the exact numbers … numbers that never appeared on the worthy BeyondChron.

But okay, that’s an ego thing. What’s more important is Newsom’s response:

“I’m so immeasurably disappointed in what I believe are well intentioned writers and people of conscience that are completely missing the point. We are not a city exclusively as Chicago and L.A. are. You can’t compare the 3. We are a city and a county. This is of such profound consequence. Let me explain …” He goes on to explain that counties run a bunch of things that city’s don’t like welfare programs and airports.

Krasny lets him get away with that, but not me (and possibly not BeyondChron - who knows?).

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By Edward Paik

After reading last Wednesday's front page Chronicle article on Kern and Butte counties' refusal to officiate gay weddings, 62-year-old restaurant owner Russell Bass felt his blood boil.

“It was ridiculous,” he said over the phone from said restaurant, Cafe de la Paz. “It appears to me as kind of a de facto civil rights violation.”

Last Wednesday, the Chronicle reported that both Kern and Butte stopped performing wedding ceremonies in general due to a supposed lack of resources to accommodate both gay and straight couples. Mayor Newsom cried bullshit, and so did Bass.

“They basically terminated a service that they’ve probably been offering for 50 or a 100 years just in time to avoid having to provide that service to gay and lesbian couples,” Bass said.

So he put an ad up in the Bakersfield Californian this week -- offering a same-sex couple from Kern county a “gratis” marriage ceremony for 10 at Cafe de la Paz. (The top half of the ad is pictured above, the rest is below the fold.)

All you potential newly-weds stuck in bigotland have to do is write Bass
a letter telling him why you'd rather get married in Berkeley rather than Kern, in less than 200 words.

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SF's rich romance novelist secretly helps the city's homeless

In the latest issue of Newsweek, author Danielle Steel reveals for the first time that a decade ago she formed a secret 11-member outreach team called "Yo! Angel!" to help the homeless on the streets with sleeping bags, food, personal-hygiene supplies and clothing. "We drive around late into the night," Steel writes, "with four vanloads of supplies, looking for 'clients.' Recently our costs have become prohibitive, and we are seeking new sources for our supplies."

So ... Ms. Steel is coming out about her furtive philanthropy in order to bring attention to the plight of the homeless "as funds for the homeless are cut in many states and cities." While we applaud Steel's efforts, we think she doesn't have to look too far for new funding sources for Yo! Angel! If Steel just cut back on her reported $4 million a year shoe habit, she could use the extra dough to buy plenty of "personal-hygiene supplies" for street-dwellers. -- Will Harper

On Monday, SFist briefly mentioned it being rumored that a man endured a heart attack during the celebration/protest at City Hall.

We didn't hear too much more about this from the news media, but today AIDS Activist and provocateur Petrelis posts photos of the man, "Joni," (pictured) who was seen playing his guitar and leading the crowd in "All You Need is Love" before suffering cardiac arrest.

Petrelis reports that Joni's alive and well, but links to another blog post by Storm Bear, from the BilericoProject.com, which captures a sick, sad exchange with the anti-gay camp:

One of the Christian protesters was chanting at his body - "Satan Got You!" "What is the Devil whispering in your ear about now?"

I yelled at the guy, "If you are such a Christian, why aren't you praying for the guy dying on the concrete?"

The protester replied, "God killed him for loving fags!!" The cops even stepped in and told the guy to shut his mouth.

Damn. Photo of the hater at Storm Bear's blog. --Janine Kahn

By Benjamin Wachs

Matrimony sells papers. So now that City Hall’s turned into a wedding chapel the eyes of the world are watching San Francisco.

How’s that going?

Quite well, actually: For once San Francisco is looking good in the national media. A look around the ‘net shows that major media coverage of Gay Marriage Monday and Pink Tuesday was overwhelmingly positive.

Most news services are taking it at face value that “gays are people too,” and therefore treating the weddings as very joyous, and very human occasions.

Bloomberg News is a case in point. Despite some snarking at the top about “shotgun weddings” held in advance of this November’s anti-gay-marriage referendum, the bulk of their coverage was devoted to tender details like this:

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