Phil Ting Upstaged by Lenny the Service Dog

Nobody's foreclosing on Lenny...

​When Phil Ting, the city's assessor-recorder, mounted the City Hall steps today, he faced two obstacles. One was getting the general public to comprehend a complex and disturbing situation involving foreclosures that he'd like to remedy. The other was getting the general public to do so when one of his fellow speakers was toting an adorable service pooch -- a hairless Chinese Crested like the ones that win the ugliest dog contest year in and year out.

Well, first the serious stuff. Ting has partnered with Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) to introduce Assembly Bill 1321. This bill would require mortgages to be recorded by counties within 30 days of a deed transfer -- allowing homeowners to actually know what entity owns their mortgages. 

Okay, now the dog.

Lenny, aged one and a half, is the companion of Mary Tucker, an SEIU member who runs a school kitchen here in San Francisco. Tucker tells SF Weekly her daughter is training Lenny to respond to Tucker's medical condition; she declined to state what the condition is, but said it's not seizures.

Lenny has already done so once instinctively, Tucker says. 

While she says she was once rudely booted from a restaurant in Crescent City, San Francisco business owners and public institutions have been accommodating, she notes.

They should be. After all, it is the law.

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