San Francisco News Blog

Anna McCarthy

No more seaside views for this Mission Bay resident.

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One of the Port's workers told SF Weekly that the resident had been escorted from the encampment yesterday and taken to a homeless shelter. "We're just cleaning up what's left," he said. He didn't cite any particular reasoning for the demolition, just that the Port was doing its job. A call to the Port confirmed that they mostly work with the city's Homeless Outreach Team.

Anna McCarthy

​SF Weekly has a call in to the Outreach Team to ascertain the former resident's whereabouts.

Menlo Park's Paul McAdoo turned up safe and sound -- but no one really knows how

​Yesterday we urged readers to call the cops if they saw 86-year-old Paul McAdoo of Menlo Park, a dementia patient with a yen for hopping on buses or trains and taking them to parts unknown.

Since McAdoo went missing from his Menlo Park home on Oct. 16, we weren't expecting a happy ending to this story. Elderly dementia patients who require a cane to ambulate don't fare well on the streets. So we were thrilled -- and puzzled -- when McAdoo turned up safe and sound in a Daly City convalescent home.

Details on what McAdoo has been up to for better than two weeks are sketchy; he is, after all, a dementia patient and hasn't been able to recount his travails to authorities with a high degre of coherence. But Detective Tim Brackett of the Menlo Park Police Department told SF Weekly everything he's been able to gather so far.

Paul McAdoo

​Paul McAdoo sounds like an interesting guy -- and if you see him, be sure to stop and have a chat. Then call the Menlo Park Police Department, as McAdoo has been missing since mid-October.

The 86-year-old dementia patient has taken off for spells at times in the past; his family told police he's "a drifter" and a fan of public transportation -- which helps explain why he's often found hanging out at BART and bus stations. San Franciscans are advised to keep an eye out for McAdoo at the Transbay Terminal and any BART station. But, truly, McAdoo is a connoisseur of Bay Area public transit. In previous walkabouts, the Menlo Park man has turned up in Daly City, San Francisco, Pittsburg, and other East Bay transit hubs. 

McAdoo is a 5-foot-7, 135-pound black man who walks with a cane. Should you see him or know someone who has, The Menlo Park Police request you phone immediately: (650) 330-6300.

So, for what it's worth, Ketchum said he will unhesitatingly drive his car across the jury-rigged Bay Bridge -- though he's a regular BART commuter now rejoicing he can get a seat once again. Still, when asked what questions he had about the alarming failure of the bridge's Labor Day repairs, he answered "all of them."

"There's really no data out there on what broke, why it broke, how they tested the design and the new fabrication," said the engineer. "I think all bridge engineering professionals would be well-advised to be interested in that." Still, with the incredible scrutiny Caltrans was facing as a result of the internationally reported bridge failure, he's confident the bridge is as safe as the organization says it is: "In the light of this break and the copious quantities of egg everyone has to deal with -- I believe they really pulled out the stops on a conservative approach to the second round of repairs."

Oh, something else -- maybe we should get used to this. When Cassandras wail about America's crumbling infrastructure -- this is what they're talking about.

Not being frequent San Francisco cab passengers, we had no idea how much of the fare 10 bucks represented. But reader Drew Bader quickly nailed the alleged miscreant as a jerk and a cheapskate. Based on the addresses we reported in the article, he thinks the fare was at least 20 or 30 bucks -- and that's without the customary 10 percent tip. And Bader ought to know -- he's a cabbie.

We got a hold of Bader, a 29-year-old San Francisco native (Mission/Potrero Hill) who drives for Luxor. We asked him if he'd help compile an etiquette guide for San Francisco taxi passengers, and he was game:

Don't whistle -- "You wouldn't whistle at a waiter or a counter person at a taqueria. It's pretty simple; extend your arm at around 45 degrees." Do cabbies drive past people who whistle? "I have."

Don't ever, ever say "I'll tell you when we get there" -- At the best, vague descriptions like this irk cabbies, because it often doesn't let them know what side of the street they're supposed to be on and can necessitate cutting across traffic. At worst, it's the type of language that precedes a robbery attempt. "Cabdrivers have some of the highest incidences of workplace death and violence, right up there with coal miners and cops."

Don't assume your cab driver is a monosyllabic simpleton -- Bader was a radio producer before our wondrous economy decided to call him a cab. He has a collegiate degree, and more of his colleagues do than you'd think. "I know a fair amount of drivers that aren't from the U.S. -- but they have four-year degrees from where they're from. It's not like we're stupid." Repeating directions excessively can cheese off a driver -- especially when he or she has a GPS (which, Bader estimates, 75 percent of drivers too young to remember where they were when John F. Kennedy died now possess). 

Joe Eskenazi

Chris "Jump Man" "Wilson

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Wilson is a tall, whippet-thin man of 42 -- though he looks far younger, largely because he's so incredibly fit. And he's so incredibly fit because of just what it is he's doing five days a week for an hour at a spell -- jumping.

While jumping rope is, for most folks, a sepia-toned memory of simpler days or something you see boxers doing in old Cassius Clay-era footage, it's very much Wilson's present. Just about every working day of the week, he whips up and down with remarkable speed and agility in one of AT&T Park's overflow parking lots while using an exaggeratedly long rope.

Today, our lunch break began with a terrifying encounter with a Specialty's delivery guy, Robert, who appeared to have sustained some serious injuries. That, or he bought fake scars and glued them to his face and caked it with make-up. "I'm just dead," he explained.

Robert, who called in dead for work

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Robert is not the first and certainly not the last to don costume a full 24 hours before the average trick-or-treater. In fact, our lunch break yielded a healthy numbers of early Halloween celebrators (and more than a few pre-ejack-o-lanterns).

​Around 12:30 p.m., this slightly lacking game of beer pong was on the move in front of the baseball stadium. (Ed.: Looks like the gent on the right toting the cane is dressed as Dr. House).

 

Following a shooting that left nine people wounded in 2006, the city curtailed the massive Castro Halloween (and shooting and pissing) celebration for '07. While many would-be revelers predicted that there was no way to keep San Franciscans from enjoying their God-given right to party on the streets -- there was. That year more than 600 cops lined the streets of the Castro, Muni service was largely curtailed, and businesses shut their doors early. The scene felt eerily like a costume party in the midst of a heavily guarded prison yard; it was that saturated with armed authority figures. It was not sexy. In any event, it was proof positive that when the city puts its mind to killing a party, it'll do it. And locals will not risk arrest or even confrontation to exert their "right" to party on the streets.

Any thoughts of re-invigorating the Castro Halloween tradition in '08 were quashed when it rained heavily that night. The events of the last two years make it difficult to believe that scores of thousands of San Franciscans will defy police threats to set up some drunken Bacchanalia anywhere in the city. But, if you do, you won't get rained on:
 

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As noted earlier, the man who threatened to leap off the Crown Hotel at 528 Valencia was talked down by police and fire fighters at shortly after midnight this morning.

The San Francisco Police Department was loath to release many details surrounding the event, but Officer Boaz Mariles did tell us this: Following yesterday's initial 5 p.m. call reporting a man standing on the ledge of the five-story building, two different negotiation teams were eventually required to engage the man and gradually talk him back from the brink.

In an odd touch of life imitating art imitating life, some passers-by told SF Weekly they mistook the police barricades for a Trauma scene. In actuality, the doomed San Francisco-based show was shooting only blocks away.

"I am gratified that Judge Busch clearly recognized the significant threat to public safety Pink Diamonds posed," Herrera said in a statement. The judge also imposed fines of at least $690,000 on the club's owners.

The strip club at 220 Jones Street has been linked to numerous shootings in the Tenderloin, including a June incident when a patron was killed on the sidewalk outside the venue. According to the complaint filed with the court by Herrera's office, Pink Diamonds has also been the site of illicit drug deals, prostitution, and extended-hours permit violations. The city attorney's office says it has required more than 230 service calls by police in the past six months alone.

Daniel C. Britt

Drool Brittania: British cougars Rita Sangha (left), 39, and Bea Cameron, 45, make nice to the camera during August's "National Cougar Convention"

​Do people complain to Rich Gosse about the use of the term "cougar" -- previously applied to a 1970s-era muscle car and, of course, a beast -- for older women with a yen for younger men? Yes. Yes they do. All the time. But he doesn't care.

"We used to have cougar parties in San Francisco before the term 'cougar' was invented," says Gosse, proprietor of the non-profit (!) Society for Single Professionals, which he runs out of his San Rafael home. "We called them 'Younger Men Older Women Parties.' No one knew we were alive. Now we do 'Cougar Parties' and we're famous. I love the term cougar."

Indeed, Rich Gosse is a cougar impresario. Readers may recall his "National Cougar Convention" held down the road in Palo Alto (SF Weekly's summary: "More cleavage than a butcher shop run by Eldridge Cleaver"). Now, searching for a new wrinkle in the "older women-younger men" mileu, he's struck on a novel concept: The nation's initial Cougar Sadie Hawkins Dance, set for San Francisco on Nov. 14.

Uhhh, Rich? Will twentysomething men who don't understand the meaning of the term "don't touch that dial" or even "shake it like a Polaroid picture" really comprehend a 70-year-old Lil' Abner reference? "They will have no idea," he concurs.

Daniel C. Britt

Reloading for battle...

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A neat trick

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The SPCA is seeking a major gifts manager as well as a communications associate and development assistant to aid with PR matters among other tasks. Spokeswoman Tina Ahn said the SPCA is short on money -- and these positions will "allow us to do our work and drive critical donations to help support our efforts."

Former SPCA volunteers and employees, however, cried foul. In dismissing employees who worked with animals and seeking those who work with donors or PR, SPCA critics claimed the organization was, once again, valuing the amassing of capital over the aiding animals -- and pointed, once again, to the SPCA's money-hemorrhaging hospital as driving the organization to behave this way. "Clearly the hospital is costing them money and they're having to focus on paying for it as opposed to quality care going to animals," said former longtime volunteer turned outspoken critic Hope Johnson.

Everyone knows ex-boxer Tony Danza played an ex-boxer namd Tony on Taxi. Not everyone knows that lawyer William Berg's tipsy taxi promotion won't allow you to go from San Francisco to the East Bay

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We'll get you all the details, but we'll also do what most news providers do not -- and that is spell out, explicitly, that you cannot take a cab from San Francisco to the East Bay on Bill Berg's dime. So if you're hoping to drink like Peter O'Toole in the city and then glide home, gratis, in a cab -- you'll have to come up with some other ingenious plan.

"In San Francisco you can go from any bar or restaurant to your own residence within city limts," says Berg. "You cannot go to another party or bar. And, unfortunately, our budget doesn't allow you to travel outside of San Francisco."

Of course, interestingly, if San Franciscans want to booze it up in the East Bay and then take a cab home courtesy of Berg -- he says you can do that.

Larry Halprin

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I wandered over to Halprin's Levi Plaza office back in 2005; as I later put it in print "Walking past the fountain he designed, skipping across the stepping stones he designed, strolling across the courtyard in the plaza he designed, we come to his office, located in the city -- that he designed." San Franciscans may not have even known Halprin was alive up until Sunday, but they do know his work: Much of Market Street downtown was his, as was Civic Center Plaza, Justin Herman Plaza, Stern Grove, Levi Plaza, Ghrardelli Square, etc.

Halprin's subterranean San Francisco office was stuffed with scores, if not hundreds, of tiny models of the monuments, plazas, and community centers he and his staff were in the midst of designing; I imagined that this was what Industrial Light and Magic's special effects shop must have looked like in the pre-CGI days. Halprin -- who was still coming into the office at age 89 -- immediately insisted on being called "Larry." While most interviews don't go longer than an hour, tops -- especially with the extremely aged -- Halprin was happy to give me a high-energy one-on-one tutorial of his life and profession; if memory serves I spent the whole afternoon there (and my editor was pissed). But it hardly felt like any time had passed at all. Halprin was so good at what he did -- and so very good at explaining it to a layman -- that the hours just melted away. You don't get one interview every three or four years as fulfilling as that. 

Around 100 cyclists donned snorkels and other water-themed costumes to show that a warming, rising sea would inundate downtown.

Protest coordinator Chris Carlsson explained which parts of downtown the bicyclists would traverse during their 15-minute ride. Along Market Street, through the Financial District, back along the Embarcadero to Justin Herman Plaza.

Captain Gary Jimenez

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Jimenez announced the move via a terse paragraph in his latest community newsletter. He said he will be taking on a new job as a "night supervising captain" in the operations bureau. He offered no explanation for the move, although it is common knowledge that the newly arrived Gascon is in the middle of a shakeup of the SFPD brass.

As captain of the Tenderloin station, Jimenez was well-liked by residents of the beleaguered district and developed a reputation for candor with neighborhood leaders and the press. But he was unable to staunch the rampant drug dealing and violence that consumes the Tenderloin. One of Gascon's first publicity stunts during his tenure as SFPD chief was to conduct a high-profile sweep of Jimenez's district that netted hundreds of low-level drug arrests.

Intimidating.

​John Brown is the only one of the seven men who has been formally charged since the arrests took place on Oct. 6. DA office spokesman Brian Buckelew said that prosecutors will soon decide whether to press charges against the other men, who have all been released. Brown remains in custody, according to his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Michael Fox.

Brown and six others stood up in court when a witness in a murder trial was asked to identify the alleged shooter, defendant Charles Heard, who has been accused of killing a man over a medallion depicting The Flintstones character Bamm-Bamm. Assistant DA Michael Swart immediately called the move "out-and-out intimidation of a witness" and ordered them arrested. Eric Safire, Heard's defense attorney, said he had asked the men to stand to ensure a more fair identification process for his client, who was seated at the defense table in jail-issue orange clothes.

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And then there were none...

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Back in August, a group of more than 100 unruly sea lions swarmed the Hyde Street Pier, claimed it for themselves, and seriously pissed off nearby boat owners, fishermen, swimmers, and especially Port of San Francisco wharfinger Hedley Prince. (Here's our cover story documenting the adorable infestation).  

Part of Prince's job involves maintaining the Hyde Street Pier. So when it's covered in smelly, sharp-toothed, 800-pound wild animals, that's kind of stressful. Prince looked into a variety of ways he could deter and banish sea lions, which included exploding seal bombs and shooting rubber bullets at them. But in the end, the port went with the slightly friendlier option of installing barricades.

Turns out, even those may not be necessary. As of Monday morning, the Hyde Street Pier sea lions are no more. They simply vanished, leaving Prince mystified and The CBS Evening News with a non-starter of a story. (CBS was only the latest in a media dogpile regarding the record number of sea lions hanging out in the Bay).  

Prince says a CBS producer had been calling, e-mailing, and interviewing him for a week, and that a crew had come to film the installation of the barricades on Monday. "We go down there," Prince says, "and not a single freaking sea lion was on the docks."

Long weekends are less fun when taken because the state's dead broke and run like a banana republic

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So SFSU personnel enjoy four-day furlough weekends like the one commencing today -- who doesn't like time off? But it really puts the damper on it when you're taking time off not because you want to -- but because you have to.

"I would guess most students enjoy the time off. But at the same time, it's taking them longer to get through and graduate," said Erica Thomas, an SFSU history grad student and an office coordinator in the geography department.

Over the past year, we've documented the jarringly dire conditions at SFSU. With state-mandated four-day weekends, SFSU students are now getting a triple-whammy: Their tuition has increased, classes were slashed -- leading to persisting enrollment chaos -- and now the number of times classes meet has been reduced as well. The governor of our great state once made a movie about this; it was called Raw Deal.

Terrance Alan, friend to himself

​The commission's foes have picked up steam, and now have the ear of Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, whose district is home to some of the city's most crime-plagued nightclubs. Chiu has amended a piece of legislation in order to establish stricter oversight of the Entertainment Commission, and establish limits on the number of permits it can dole out. Reacting to this onslaught, politically connected nightclub-industry advocates have launched their own propaganda campaign, declaring that Chiu's efforts are part of a "War on Fun."

One of the outlets peddling this line is the Web site www.supportentertainment.com. At the top of the site's heading is the line, "Friends of the San Francisco Entertainment Commission." It features a rallying cry for nightlife supporters to lobby supervisors to kill some of Chiu's amendments, as well as "suggested points to make" during public comment at upcoming meetings on the legislation. In other words, the site is indeed friendly to the Entertainment Commission -- in the way most of us are inclined to be friendly toward ourselves. Because it turns out the site is being administered by a media company run by Entertainment Commissioner Terrance Alan.
 

You can still get LPs at the Main Library -- you hear that?

​"I think," said San Francisco Public Library music program manager Jason Gibbs, "that Charlie Brown has gotten access to many of our records."

If ever you were hoping to not be bothered for a few hours at a stretch, loitering in the Main Library's LP record section wouldn't be the worst thing to do. Between July of last year and this year, library records were checked out only 1,614 times -- including a mere 68 times in July of '08. That's only 0.06 percent of the Main Library's transactions for that yearlong period. In any event, only around four or five of the roughly 4,000 records are checked out each day. You'd think LPs had gone out of style or something.

Gibbs notes that the library has adamantly refused to restock its record collection for the last 20 years -- which brings up an interesting conundrum. Since the number of records can never grow higher, and every klutz or thief brings about a reduction, the collection will eventually dwindle to zero. But, if records aren't checked out and played -- and many of them are not -- they can last until Doomsday.

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Budget cuts mean that over the fall and spring semesters, every department on campus is required to cut back its classes by 8 percent, according to Marks. That means axing roughly 800 classes total -- 270 in fall and more than 500 in spring. Marks added that he ran with the garage sale idea after someone mentioned it in an offhand way back in June. He later learned that other Bay Area community colleges have been doing the same thing for ages to raise extra cash.

Chabot College has been hosting regular garage sales for roughly 18 years, and DeAnza for roughly 30, according to City College's Dean of Public Information, Martha Lucey. Marks says he heard the schools can amass as much as $300,000 per year from the sales. He hopes to bring in a more modest $25,000, which would save about four classes total ($6,000 saves one class). Although Marks said the school has no plans to host regularly scheduled garage sales at this time, he's not ruling it out as a possibility either.

Can the SFPD saved by the miracle of computers?

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Gascon intends to bring Godown onto his command staff to run CompStat, a part-management plan, part data-keeping system that will purportedly help the SFPD spot crime trends. Once a month, the 10 district station captains will report to Gascon and Godown and be held accountable for recognizing and understanding fluctuations in crimes reported, arrests, and instances of officers using force.

Compstat, while widely viewed as an effective law enforcement tool, has also been criticized for incentivizing the underreporting of crime. Police union members in both New York City and in Miami have been vocal about this, and Gascon and Godown are aware of the problem.

"Don't try to BS me," Gascon told the captains straight away.

Fork over the money for the permit, water dude

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San Franciscans hoping to install such a system don't have to pay any state or city permitting fees -- for now. In August, the state loosened their regulations to facilitate greywater use by allowing the systems without permitting. The state ruling specified that local agencies may pass tighter constraints on greywater rules if they so choose. Looks like San Francisco might so choose.

San Francisco Plumbing Inspector Steven Panelli proposed that greywater systems should be inspected by city employees -- and called for the aforementioned permitting fees. The Building Inspection Commission punted on the matter today, leaving the door open for such fees to be implemented in the future.

Joe Eskenazi

Yep, it's the only working fireplace in the San Francisco library system. Sadly, hot toddies are not permitted.

​Make of this what you will: The Harvey Milk Memorial Library in Upper Market, which will reopen on Saturday after a 20-month retrofitting and renovation, looks as good as it possibly can.

The wood paneling on the ceiling and abundant natural light combine to make the library's smallish interior look much larger than it really is. The children's section is utterly adorable.

Joe Eskenazi

The interior of the Milk Memorial library no longer looks like a teacher's lounge

​And there's even an adult's section -- sort of. A working fireplace adorns the library's entrance, sandwiched in-between long, rectangular counters that all but cry out for a row of mini-skirted platinum blondes fronted by a leering Hugh Hefner in a silk smoking jacket. It's a shame you can't puff away on your Cavendish blend and sip a fine single-malt scotch in the library anymore.

Finally, thanks to the retrofitting that went along with the renovations (total cost: $5.5 million), the building is no longer so nondescript and pedestrian that it'd be a shame to be crushed by falling debris within it. Now it'd be a perfectly acceptable building to expire in, but, odds are, you won't.

Jim Herd

​The San Francisco Medical Examiner's office moments ago told SF Weekly that the autopsy for the man discovered dead on a bus in a Muni yard is scheduled for today or tomorrow.

Christopher Feasel, a 37-year-old San Franciscan with no fixed address, was found lifeless in the back of a No. 5 bus at 12:45 a.m. on Saturday morning at the Muni yard at 949 Presidio. There were no signs of any foul play.

KTVU-TV reported that it is unclear whether Feasel expired on the bus during its run or wandered into the Muni yard, entered the bus, and then died. If it's the former, that would mean the Muni driver didn't do a very competent job while giving his or her bus the mandated final once-over before retiring for the night.

The Medical Examiner's office expects it will be several weeks before the cause of death is determined.

Not over yet

​This just in: Discussion of a proposed overhaul of laws regulating city nightclubs due to take place at a Monday Board of Supervisors' meeting has been postponed.

The suggested revisions to the police code were originally scheduled to be taken up at Monday's meeting of the City Operations and Neighborhood Services committee, but were ultimately left off the agenda at the direction of committee chairman Bevan Dufty, according to committee clerk Victor Young. No word yet on why.

The legislation concerns the Entertainment Commission, a board of political appointees tasked with regulating city nightclubs. The commission has come under heavy fire recently for not cracking down on violent clubs; the legislation being debated would both give it stronger enforcement powers and subject it to stricter oversight.

​The moment was at hand. The honor guard was assembling. Our first World Series game was about to start. It was a nice fall evening, and we had good seats along the third base line. But something vital was missing: a hot dog and beer.

Four of us had flown in from Salt Lake City, where we worked in television and radio news. This was to be a much-needed break from deadline pressure to see the A's take on the Giants at home and maybe do a little carousing around San Francisco.

Having lost the coin flip, I went with a co-worker in search of the concession area. Emerging onto the outside ring of Candlestick, we ran into Lea, a friend from Utah who was now working for a satellite company in San Francisco.

Lea was an attractive woman, and when we hugged, the earth moved. Literally.

​Stop the presses!!! Do not click 'save' on that blog entry!!! Drop everything you are doing RIGHT NOW (fact: The kids will still be at school, they don't die if you're late) and listen up. The Employment Development Department has issued September's unemployment statistics.

When last we visited them, the San Francisco metro area's unemployment rate was hovering around the nine-point-sumthin' range, and IT STILL IS. In August, 9.6 percent of you San Francisco/Redwood City/San Mateo dwellers were sitting at home, twiddling your thumbs, and swearing that you were going to get a volunteer job or something. In September, it was only 9.2 percent. Good for you, 0.4 percent that no longer lives in fear!