District 6 Voters Won't Have Rob Black to Kick Around Anymore

Rob Black

Rob Black -- the preferred District 6 candidate of Mayor Gavin Newsom who was narrowly beaten out by Chris Daly in the 2006 supervisorial race -- told SF Weekly he has no plans to run again. In fact, if things go his way, he won't even be living in the district much longer.

"My wife and I are looking for a house and odds are we aren't going to be able to buy one in District 6," says Black, the vice president for public policy at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. "We've been renters for a long time and we'd really like to get a home of our own. ... I am not planning on running."

When asked if his '06 candidacy would mark the last time Newsom deigned to tell District 6 voters whom he cared to support -- these are, after all, people who saw fit to elect his most strident critic, Daly, to three terms of office -- Black made the argument that Gavin is actually very popular in the Tenderloin. If so, D-6 denizens have an interesting way of showing it.

In fact, Tenderloin community activist David Villa-Lobos -- who is running for supervisor this time around -- claims his outsize support for Newsom led to his being beaten and hospitalized during the last mayoral election (Villa-Lobos, who seems to have the same devotion toward Newsom that Tammy Wynette had toward her man, takes solace that Newsom deigned to phone him in the hospital).

Villa-Lobos earlier told us he doesn't expect Newsom's support -- and he's not sure that's a bad thing. Though he'd certainly appreciate a second phone call from Gavin when he's wheeled into the Intensive Care Unit.