So, now that OccupySF is over, area property owners are happy? Really? Mmmm.
And who was it, was it Hawaiian Airlines or Disney what was demanding the end of OccupySF? Maybe I’ll look into that and see how they feel about Occupy. [Cough, boycott, cough.]
On It Goes…
*Owner of Embarcadero Center or someplace. (Now isn’t that a great name for a San Francisco company?)
(Is there actually “Increased Violence in South of Market” these days? I don’t know.)
Anyway, here are the deets:
Community Conversation Meeting Details
Who: Concerned Neighbors in South of Market
What: A Community Conversation About The Increased Violence in South of Market.
When: Thursday, June 23rd from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Where: The Luggage Store, 1007 Market Street (at Sixth St.)
Why: To open a relevant and important dialogue about recent incidents throughout South of Market that affect us all.
See you there.
A plain-clothes cop on the beat in SoMA last year, sort of:
[UPDATE: And Janet Reilly just conceded. Read her entire statement after the jump.]
Interesting candidateMark Farrell has pulled off his upset in District 2. That means that he’ll become a San Francisco Supervisor come January 2011.
Read all about it, below.
Big Mark Farrell (in Giants Orange) y familia at Room 48 in City Hall all the way back in August 2009:
Click to expand
“As of this evening, all the votes have been counted in District 2 by the San Francisco Department of Elections and we have won the District 2 Supervisor election. With tonight’s victory, we now turn our immediate attention to preparing for office in January. Our transition team is in place, and I will be meeting with District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier tomorrow to kick-start the transition process. I will also finalize the hiring of my City Hall staff within the next week.
I would like to acknowledge and thank all of my opponents – Kat Anderson, Abraham Simmons, Barbara Berwick, Janet Reilly, and Vilma Guinto Peoro – for a very exciting and challenging campaign. They are dedicated and valued public servants who are each committed to the people and neighborhoods of District 2, and I look forward to working with all of them in the future.
While the past few weeks have been challenging as the vote count continued after Election Day, I fully recognize the need for a transparent and democratic electoral process – as such, I want to thank the leadership and staff of San Francisco’s Department of Elections for their dedication and diligence in completing this difficult task.
I would also like to personally thank all of those individuals that supported my campaign, beginning with Sheriff Michael Hennessey and in particular Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier and Supervisor Sean Elsbernd. Thank you as well to the organizations which supported my campaign along the way, including the Small Property Owners of San Francisco, Plan C, UA Local 38, BOMA, the District 2 Democratic Club, IBEW Local 1245, the San Francisco Coalition for Responsible Growth and Rescue MUNI.
Thank you to my incredible staff, including Chris Lee, Margaux Kelly, David Latterman and Mark Randolph, and in particular the hundreds of volunteers who poured their time and energy into this campaign – we would not have succeeded without your enthusiasm, and I will be eternally grateful.
Most importantly, thank you to my amazing family – from my wife Liz and our children, to my parents, in-laws and brothers and sisters – we started this journey last year together as a family, and your unconditional support truly carried this campaign across the goal line.
While it was a long campaign and ultimately a close election, I am both honored and excited to represent the residents of District 2, and look forward to working to return common sense, fiscal discipline and neighborhood leadership back to City Hall.”
And here’s what Janet has to say tonight, after the jump.
O.K. then. (Wasn’t it WB who wrote off Jerry Brown’s chances just last month? Of course, his perdictions should always be taken with a grain (or two) of salt.
2. The big news recently is that Mark Farrell got endorsed by the San Francisco Chronicle. See?
“An attorney with a BS in Labor Relations, Abraham Simmons is most concerned with the issue of jobs and fiscal discipline in San Francisco. Simmons seeks to set new priorities, ensure the City gets value for every dollar spent and look into ways to jump-start new businesses.”
O.K. then. Haven’t been in touch with Vilma Guinto Peoro or Barbara Berwick lately but Barbara, for her part, is the only candidate unafraid to give out secondary and ternary endorsements, her co-endorsements as some call them. Her second place endorsement goes to Mr. A. Simmons and her third place endorsement goes to both Ms. Kat Anderson and Ms. Janet Reiley.
And, oh yes in other news, D2 Democratic Club President Suki Kott is recruiting new members in the 94123. See?
And lastly, our Chronicle is out with candidate sketches for some others as well. Check it after the jump.
“Then came Janet Reilly, who was in the cross-hairs all night, in part because of her endorsement by ex-Supervisor Aaron Peskin,who just might be maneuvering for the city’s top job. Reilly would say only that whomever she voted for as a board member would be “a very thoughtful choice” – earning her a long round of boos.”
Truth be told, I think it’d be fair to say that only half the audience boo’ed Janet.
Now, advance your video to 25:00 to see the action.
Kat, Mark, Janet, and Abe along with Melissa Griffin at the Golden Gate Yacht Club looking north across the bay to Marin County. Can you spot the four sharks* in this shot?
Click to expand
So, here’s what I learned:
1. Aaron Peskin doesn’t seem to be popular at all up in the Marina.
2. Apparently, the bulk of the audience thinks some deal has been struck that would somehow have Janet Reilly voting in Aaron Peskin as Mayor.
3. Janet Reilly considers herself the front-runner – so much so that she’s acting like an incumbent.
But watch the whole video, it’s not all that long, and then You Make The Call.
Now, just after this forum ended, de jure Janet Reilly Campaign Manager Patrick Collum sent out a message about how Janet was the “clear winner” of this forum.
I don’t know. The Reilly supporters I’ve chatted with the past week called this forum “a disaster” and a “debacle.” Stuff like, “Why couldn’t Janet just have said she’d vote for Rosenfield or whoever as caretaker Mayor?”
To be fair, Janet stated up front how she most likely will never get the chance to vote in anybody as Mayor.
And, it’s not immediately obvious how much the evening hurt her chances, or if she would have been better off blowingoff the whole thing.
“Lots of eyes are watchingthis one. Someone spotted me having breakfast with Farrell the other day at the Hotel Vitale, and within half an hour, Clint Reilly – or Satan,as he is affectionately known by insiders – had left me a message to give him a call. I did, and got an earful for an hour about all that he and Janet had done for Alioto-Pier, including how they hosted her wedding party at their house.”
Ouch.
Let’s hear what Mark Farrell has to say – here are some of my notes of what he said after the big forum:
This debate highlighted a real problem for Janet because the person she intends to appoint as interim Mayor is one that District Two does not want. Appointing Aaron Peskin is not in line with the desires of the people in the district.The question of who gets appointed Mayor is becoming more and more a part of the dialog in all the Supervisor races. That’s what I’ve been hearing from the voters at the house parties I’ve been attending in the area. Supervisor Sean Elsbernd would be the best choice by far for interim Mayor, so he’d have my vote.
I’m in a dead heat with Janet now and this will be a true race to the finish line. I’m very excited with the way things are going. What I’m hearing from voters is that they’re looking for a candidate who’s from the neighborhood, one who has a relevant financial and business background.
I have 28 house parties scheduled before the election – I’m fortunate that people are willing to open their homes for a true grass roots campaign. That’s what will carry me over the finish line.
How can a candidate who refused to answer a simple question in a race where opinions abound, and who was “booed” by the audience, declare herself the winner? The forum was informative, as was the intent. Not a matter of winners or losers. Period.
And I think she’s doing something for the Blue Angels in the Marina Maze tomorrow Saturday. Contact her office to find out a good location to hang out and get to know her campaign.
That’s all I have for now.
(Brace yourselves for Janet’s Next Big Endorsement coming up soon.)
*The four lawyers you see pictured are all very sharp, above average. Probably, they could each qualify for Mensa by merely forwarding their LSAT scores, no additional testing required. However, and this is tough for some of the candidates to realize, winning political office is nothing but a popularity contest, right? I mean, literally, that’s what it is. You don’t need to be a genius to Supervise D2, manifestly. Anyway, it’d probably be tough for anybody to swim in this shark tank…
Who knows who will show at the last big debate in San Francisco this season. No matter, “Sweet Melissa” Griffin, the smartest lawyer in town, will be on hand to lively up the usually-somnolent Marina District on Thursday, September 30th at 6:30 PM.
She’ll be at improbably-named 1 Yacht Road along with these candidates, or some of them, anyway:
“Our September 30th meeting will begin with a District 2 candidates debate at 6:30pm at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, 1 Yacht Rd San Francisco, CA 94123.
After the debate, paid members will vote on our Club’s November 2010 endorsements. Remember to bring cash or your checkbook, since according to our treasurer, nearly everybody needs to renew their membership!
The debate will be co-sponsored by the newly formed D2 Democratic club and the SF Young Democrats, will be moderated by Melissa Griffin of the SF Examiner, and will be streamed online.
Note that some of us car free folks (basically only me) feel the meeting location falls short of full transit accessibility, requiring about a half mile walk after the end of MUNI, but despite a few off message comments, no one has written in stating they need a ride, so please speak now or forever hold your peace!”
The other news comes from the new, more Internet-friendly KQED. Here’s their take on the proposed “hotel-style lodge” (or is it a lodge-style hotel? Don’t know.):
(Oh yes, you Adobe Flash-haters / HTML 5-lovers should simply avert your gaze at that link. Sorry iPadders, email Steve Jobs or somebody if you can’t listen in…)
Can you hear all that, from area super-NIMBY David Bancroft, and from Presidio Hysterical Association President Gary Widman talking about “monster hotels,” and from Presidio Trust spokesperson Tia Lombardi talking about how quiet the place is these days and how the Main Post needs to be a “more public place?”
For the record, this is what a “monster hotel” looks like, IRL. Just to give some needed sperpective, this joint is 50 times bigger than anything proposed at the Presidio:
Und here’s what we’re talking about, more or less, again IRL and not from some fretful NIMBY’s fever dream / nightmare. The boxes on the left are what I’m guessing the nascent proposal will be like:
Oh, it’s on. It’s going to be on at our Presidio Trust‘s Board of Direcor’s meeting tonight at 6:30 PM.
Why, well it’s cause the Presidio Historical Association, area NIMBYs, and local business interests will be on hand to object to anybody competing with existing lodging and entertainment purveyors outside of the Presidio. That’s why.
Now, this was the before and after for the lodge that was proposed a couple years back:
Do you think that the proposed buildings would have interfered with the historic Great Parking Lot of Northern San Francisco? I don’t, but the motel owners of Lombard Street didn’t like the idea one bit. We’ll have to wait and see how the new proposal for a lodge fares.
Same thing with the Main Post Theatre. This shot is from while ago but I’m sure the view of the moribund lobby is the same:
There are proposals to reopen this real Presidio Theatre with fewer seats than it had back in the day. But, again, that runs up against interests of those who own theatres outside of the Presdio. Oh well.
(Man, how the NIMBYs would squeal if all those thousands of horny military mens and womens came back to the Presidio to breath the air and clog up the streets. Wouldn’t that be a nightmare scenario, having those, those people in our hair again?)
Anyway, see you after the jump, where you can see the board’s agenda, the PHA’s POV and a statement from one of the District 2 Supervisor candidates.
(Based on YouTube views, people are more interested in Mark Farrell and Janet Reilly at this point. UPDATE: Whoops, there’s been a change – see the Comments. Click on the links if you want to keep score…)
