Jim Herd

Will Muni finally get to keep some damn ad money?

After eight years of covering contentious Mideast issues through a San Francisco lens, your humble narrator can offer you a certainty: The path to peace will be forged via the least nuanced, most belligerent, and most disingenuous members of each community taking out shrill, competing ads on Muni.

The latest salvo has been fired by a group called the American Muslims for Palestine; featuring a silhouette of an Israeli soldier leveling a machine gun at a child, it urges "End Apartheid Now!"

This follows a tit-for-tat of warring bus ads. A stroll down memory lane of recent vitriolic public advertising on Muni includes placements that compared Palestinians to savages; ads quoting the goals of Muslim terrorists subtitled "That's his Jihad. What's yours?"; and charming bits highlighting the treatment of LGBT people under Sharia law. There were also touchy-feely, positive ads placed by the Council for American-Islamic Relations prior to the current campaign declaring Israeli Apartheid.

The First Amendment doesn't just protect popular speech, and Muni was duty-bound to accept these ads. In fact, the first three ad campaigns noted above offered the rare win-win-win for all involved: City politicos enjoyed the risk-free opportunity to righteously decry "hate speech"; the group placing the ads basked in the publicity it sought to obtain; and the city's Human Rights Commission got all the money to fund a study on the effects of Islamophobia.  

Muni, of course, was left holding the bag. But that's Muni's lot in life. SF Weekly queried the Human Rights Commission about how that study is doing.

See Also: "Islamophobic" Muni Ads Return

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Problems beneath the city?

The notions of luxury condos and torrents of raw sewage do not exactly jibe. Nor does the idea of the residents of those condos -- and the city -- being on the hook for said fetid rivers.

But that was the picture painted by Supervisor David Chiu today during a provocative hearing regarding the 8 Washington condo tower's proposed construction just a yard from a sewer line pumping 20 million gallons of waste daily.  That effluent is generated by 375,000 city residents and represents about a quarter of the city's sewage. You do not want that coming out of the pipe.

Chiu -- an outspoken opponent of the development -- alleged that he and his colleagues on the board were willfully kept in the dark about engineering concerns regarding the proximity of the proposed structure to the century-old sewage line. This, he says, was the case even as the supes were deliberating -- and ultimately approving -- the project.

"I do not have faith in the departments involved there has been an adequate investigation here," Chiu said. "I think there was information that people knew that should have been disclosed. I have e-mails and letters to show that. Staffers were either told or decided to keep that information to themselves at great risk to the public. I have a problem with that." 

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Abilene Christian U.

Voter pamplet's here!

Update: Supervisors David Chiu and Scott Wiener introduce dueling ballot pamphlet measures.

Can a book topping 500 pages still be labeled a "pamphlet"? That's the situation San Francisco may be facing, as the gargantuan legal text of the referendum targeting the 8 Washington development portends a voter pamphlet of Tolstoy-like proportions.

Supervisor Scott Wiener will today introduce a measure to prevent gargantuan legal texts from weighing down voter pamphlets. Under current city rules, every last word -- all 500 pages worth, perhaps -- is mandated to be included in those voter guides. Wiener's ordinance would provide the option of cutting them off at 20 pages, with the full text readable online, in public libraries, or available to be mailed to voters free of charge. Considering the Department of Elections estimates that each printed page in the pamphlet corresponds to a $3,500 outlay, eliminating 500-odd pages from the booklet would save around $1.75 million.  

"This makes a lot of sense," Wiener says. "You'll save a lot of money and a lot of trees."

Wiener noted that this is how they do it across the bay in Alameda County. This came as a surprise, however, to personnel at the Alameda County registrar of voters.

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A day late. A dollar short, too?

If the city intended to give Jon Golinger a heart attack, it came ever so close. More »

City Attorney Dennis Herrera

To many Californians, perhaps the only thing more outrageous than the idea of Nevada dumping hundreds of mentally ill patients into the Golden State is the idea that Nevada's Governor would have the audacity to deny it.

But last week, Gov. Brian Sandoval did just that, acknowledging no more than one instance of the state-run Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital improperly discharging a patient. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, though, is not buying it -- his office launched an investigation into the matter.

And now he may have some of the documents necessary to prove his case.

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Jason Collins in action

"Who's Jason Collins?"

For many, that was the predictable retort to the headline news -- and Sports Illustrated rollout -- of the announcement that Jason Collins is gay.

Locals may remember Collins from his days at Stanford, where he and his brother, Jarron, formed the first -- and lesser -- set of 7-foot twins on the Cardinal basketball squads. A hardworking veteran of six teams in 12 years, Jason Collins wasn't a household name yesterday. And while he may be tomorrow, he apparently isn't yet today.

When SF Weekly phoned SF Pride today and asked if it planned to pivot out of the self-inflicted mess of inviting and summarily disinviting accused Wikileaker Bradley Manning to be its parade Grand Marshal by extending an invitation to Collins, we were met with silence.

And then: "Who's Jason Collins?"

See Also: Bradley Manning Pride Parade Snafu Leads to Protest

Jason Collins Comes Out

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In politics, as in professional sports, you've gotta keep composed and quoting platitudes in front of the media after a tough loss.

So, who better to fly to Baltimore and greet the Super Bowl-winning powers that be upon bended knee than Mayor Ed Lee, -- a man well-versed in smiling at the cameras while eating crow.

Our fellow reporters at the Baltimore Sun kindly shared a snapshot of Lee's trip to Charm City, where he obviously had a lot of fun -- too much fun if you ask us -- eating crab, painting the police station, and reading to Baltimore's youngsters.

The Baltimore Sun

This is our mayor, paying off his Super Bowl bet

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Misunderstandings abound...

Andrea Shorter, the longtime city commissioner who spearheaded a group of well-funded domestic violence activists that drove Supervisor Christina Olague from office, has been fined for failing to report her own sources of funding.

The Fair Political Practices Commission yesterday approved an $800 fine for Shorter, a member of the city's Commission on the Status of Women, for neglecting to report sources of outside income while serving as a city commissioner in 2008, '09, '10, and '11.

Shorter told SF Weekly "I've amended the forms and there was a misunderstanding in terms of what was instructed. I've gone on with my life." Former Board president Aaron Peskin, who filed the complaint with the FPPC earlier this year, reiterated earlier claims that "anybody with a basic junior high school education can figure out these rules.

"It's very clear. You don't need a lawyer. It's like it says: If you make more than however many dollars, you have to report the source of income."

Shorter's filings with the city's Ethics Commission were not flagged in those four offending years.

Also, in a coordinated effort, near-identical complaints were filed against Shorter with both the state FPPC and the city's Ethics Commission -- on the same day. Calls to Ethics have thus far gone unreturned, but it appears that no action has been taken against Shorter.

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Joe Eskenazi

Many, many thank-you cards to write...

Politicians receive some odd gifts. Not as odd as the stuff thrusted Queen Elizabeth's way -- but odd nevertheless.

San Francisco public officials must report as a gift "Any source of income aggregating $500 or more invalue, or any source of gifts of $420 or more in value, provided to, received by, or
promised to the public official within 12 months prior to the time the decision is
made. ..."

As such, ertwhile Mayor Gavin Newsom was made to report his wedding haul, which included not one but two coffee pots priced at more than $1,000.

It's uncertain how useful a pair of such pots are. But if you're seeking a man who received truly useful gifts, look no further than Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. The man Mayor Ed Lee attempted to boot from office is still there with a little help from his friends -- $28,117 worth of help from 156 friends.

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said no more than one patient was dumped

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval says indeed his state did improperly discharge one mentally ill patient from a state-run hospital, but no more than that -- and it was accidental.

According to Reuters, the republican governor defended his state, and denied accusations that Nevada had been busing hundreds of mentally ill patients to California, including San Francisco, a practice known as "patient dumping."

Sandoval admitted that the state-run Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital "improperly discharged" at least one mentally ill man, but said that a new discharge policy was enacted recently to prevent these kinds of missteps.

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