Are they kidding? Apparently not. Here are some arguments in favor and a Chronicle editorial against. And here is the whole list of issues and candidates running, including City Atty. Dennis Herrera (unopposed).

Go to the SF Dept of Elections for results tonight.

 
Flickr photo of Times Square by Scott Beale at Laughing Squid.

The New York Times today has a feature on Google’s Marissa Mayer, “employee number 20″ and first female engineer at the software candyland. Oh wait, it’s just another corporation, I keep forgetting.

A Chronicle editorial says one out of three “massage” establishments is a brothel. Really? Only one out of three? Geez, I’ll bet it’s a pain in the ass to work at the other two-thirds and have men coming in all the time with the wrong idea. Shouldn’t they have some sort of identifying sign that means “Not that kind of massage place, really”?

When I was in Bangalore in 2007, I was struck by the utility of the ubiquitous motorized rickshaws, known locally as autocabs or just autos:

Any visitor to Asia has seen these things, since they’re in every Asian city. And they are cheap and they are everywhere. When I mentioned them to one of the panjandrums of the Bay Area public transportation scene, the executive director of one of the NGOs that lobbies for transportation policy, he was dismissive. “Oh, the tuk-tuks,” he said. “They clog up the streets, and they pollute. That’s not what we need. We need commuter rail that goes everywhere.”

Oh, fine, Mr. Bay Area Transit Boss! So I’m on my way to work in the morning. Never mind how I get to the BART station; I take a train across the bay to, say, Ashby. Now that I have alighted at your gigantor 1970s-era concrete monster BART station, I need to get to work, 2.3 miles away. It’s too far to walk. I could wait 20 minutes for a bus, and then that bus would take 20 minutes to poke along for the two miles, making my trip to work take over an hour… And that’s why I drive every day instead.

 
Yes, we need rail. It would be great, for example, if there were another BART line running through Oakland and Berkeley, with stops at the Grand Lake cinema, College and Telegraph, Sather Gate, North Gate, and the Gourmet Ghetto — call it the Yuppie line, and color it pink. It will be great when we have electrified CalTrain (target: 2015), and a bullet train from L.A. to downtown S.F. (target: 2018), and the Central Subway (target: 2016).

But then what do you do when you get to your stop? What if you have three heavy bags of groceries and live eight blocks up a hill? What if you just live three blocks from a bus line and you’re old, or injured — how do you shop? Sure, you could call a taxicab, and wait for twenty minutes, spend five dollars, and have to deal with a pissed-off driver who is mad at you because the short trip hardly registers on the meter and he’s having enough trouble today making his gate fee — if he shows up at all — and who, because he’s pissed off, won’t help you with your bags.

And why does it take twenty minutes? Because we’ll never have enough taxicabs in San Francisco — the whole issue is too political, and no mayor or public transportation commission has had the political will to fix the broken system. We have to have an alternative that works, goes door-to-door (or door-to-transit hub), won’t take two decades to put in place, and — extra benefit! — employs hundreds or thousands of people.

Take the worst part of autorickshaws: they’re smelly and noisy. Get rid of the smoky two-stroke engine, and electrify the things. On a battery, they’ve got enough juice to go 35 mph, and that’s more than enough for city driving. Maybe the driver will have to switch out the batteries once or twice during the day — fine, put battery switch-out stations all around the city in any of the hundreds of parking lots and vacant storefronts. (You’ll need the infrastructure eventually for the day when cars have the same system.)

Now, the other objection: that by being small enough to squeeze between larger vehicles, the autorickshaws contribute to traffic congestion rather than solve it. No — they’re going to be replacing cars on the road. Have you ever been to Rainbow Grocery on a busy day or evening? There are cars stretching in a line out of the parking lot, down 13th St., and sometimes around the corner onto Folsom. Since most of the people who shop at Rainbow are hippies or former hippies who would like nothing better than to grasp a green alternative, I’m betting they’d jump at the chance to take a less-polluting form of transport to shop. Multiply that by the thousands of shopping trips city residents take every day. Shit, just two days ago I drove one mile from my house in Bernal Heights to 23rd and Mission to pick up fish tacos at La Corneta. I was extremely lucky to find a parking place within a hundred yards, but if I take an autocab, there’s no need to find a parking place, no need to run my car for the two-mile trip, and now the Mission St. buses can get on their way without my car in the way. Yes, the thousands of autorickshaws would take up space on the roads. But a lot less than the taxis we have now, and a lot less than the cars they’d replace.

They’d also get cars off the road by increasing the attractiveness of large public transit systems like BART, because they allow me to get to and from transit hubs easily.

Oh, yes — I could ride a bicycle to and from BART too. But BART famously hates bicycles, banning them from the system during commute hours. I mean, hello!? CalTrain is better; they devote a car to bicycles on many trains, though the car often fills up. And I did ride a bike when I worked at that company 2.3 miles from Ashby BART — ten years ago. I’m now 52 years old; frankly, a bicycle is no longer an option for my commute.

So — I wish we had autorickshaws.

Scene Outside City Hall during last Minutemen protest on 7/31/08 ( pic by Bill Hackwell of IndyBay.org )

I imagine an afternoon filled with local news camera crews capturing loud & pointless shouting matches between the Minutemen and left wing activists and Mission District “community organizers” ( insert hearty Giuliani-esque guffaw here). Could be fun for people watchers & those with an interest in colorful signs, chanting & loud bullhorns.

The last time the Minutemen assembled here in July, there were far more counter demonstrators than the dozen-ish flag waving border sealing patriots. To see photos of the mob from IndyBay.org, click here.

I’m sure Mayor Newsom will make a point of not being there…
but for everyone else, the fun starts circa 11 am for the amusement of bureaucrats on break and those forced to come to City Hall to plead for a permit or tithe more taxes to the city.

The theme of the two hour Minutemen photo op is

“Protesting innocent American Victims of Illegal Aliens in Illegal Sanctuary Cities!”

Huh? Why are they protesting the innocent victims? What did they do?

This just went up the other day on the outer wall of the Shooting Gallery, on Larkin facing Myrtle Street. (It’s half a block south of Geary.) Mr. English is a Popagandist, as it were.

Related: the Shooting Gallery has a Shepard Fairey show coming up soon. I’ll keep you posted as I find out more.

[Via Juxtapoz, as usual.]

For over 25 years, dedicated family farmers and independent food purveyors from all over California have arrived at SF’s UN Plaza at dawn on Wednesdays & Sundays, setting up their temporary tents & tables to sell their produce and sundry products til about 5pm. Whether you like the wide array of greens or roasted nuts, dried fruits, dates, baked goods, cheeses, olive oils or even fresh fish & fowl, there’s something for everyone. Unlike the more pretentious and prosperous scene at the fashionable Ferry Building, this inauspicious & authentic farmer’s market is frequented by the denizens of the neighborhood, office workers on lunch break, old Chinese folks and some occasional tourists that find it upon emerging from BART. The prices are often half of what the other fancy farmer’s market might charge, and the scene about as bucolic and community orientated as one can get in “The Heart Of The City”.

If it wasn’t for the farmers & vendors who twice a week make the United Nations Plaza a lively civic gathering spot, the place is generally a desolate, if not dangerous empty expanse populated by sleepy doped up miscreants, drug dealers, ne’er do ‘ells, tweakers, stolen property salesmen and a spectacular variety of shady criminal thugs. The same city and it’s bloated bureaucracy, which had a big hand in letting the UN plaza slip into a symbolic cesspool of urban decay in the first place, now wants to manage the sole successful independently operated revitalizing factor in the area ? How uh, original…

The “Heart Of The City Farmer’s Market” at UN Plaza has long been organized and managed by an independent non-profit that was formed in 1981 starting with just 12 farmers, and some of the same vendors have been there since the inception. John Fernandez and his mother Christine Adams help manage the market that the city now has plans to “take over” after two+ decades, and they are not amused. Neither were at least a half dozen stall operators that I spoke to in an informal survey today, some who’ve been at UN Plaza since the very early days. They already dealt with this threat back in 1995, and here we go again, with a basically bankrupt bureaucracy that’s trying to dip it’s incompetent tentacles into something that isn’t broke, so why bother to fix it?

As I left the market circa 4 pm today, rumor had it that Adams & Fernandez were already in a meeting at City Hall with Aaron Peskin and presenting hundreds of signatures of supporters they’d gathered in just the first few hours of the day this morning.

Watch a five minute YouTube overview on the history of the market presented by the folks who founded & now run it, and will likely be squeezed out of their role if the city has it’s way…

The market operators pride themselves on serving the low income community in the area, and that the market serves authentic vegetables and fish that their large Asian customer base crave including various melons, sugarcane, pea shoots and even seafood & live fowl. Amongst the regular vendors you’ll find at Civic Center are small farmers who fight the growing spectre of sprawl all around them from Sonoma, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno etc. Amongst my faves are the plentiful purveyors of citrus, or try the apples & ciders from Sebastopol via MacDonald’s Organic Farm, one of the area’s last Sonoma orchards that hasn’t gone over to the more profitable wine grapes. John Garrone of Far West Funghi in Moss Landing has great deals on many types of mushrooms including $2 baskets of fresh Shitakes. The Phan Farm of Elk Grove has wonderful fresh organic produce and vegetables of all sorts. Prepared foods include Spring Hill cheeses from Petaluma, raw & vegan options from Alive!, a rotisserie chicken truck, samosas and sauces from Sukhi’s of Fremont and delicious tamales from a Contra Costa county based truck. There’s even the option of getting the Filipino “delicacy” of fermented embryonic egg Balut for a quarter ( keep in mind duck egg Balut is .60 cents for you big spenders) …

Regular vendors at UN Plaza didn’t seem pleased to hear of the changes the city has planned for their longtime market, as many of these folks are small family farmers who have received little encouragement or help from the numerous large gov’t bureaucracies that engage in meddling in their fields of endeavor. Some of the changes the city will make are no doubt wrapping more red tape on farmers, including having them fill out more applications and forms, adding additional fees, taxes, permits and restrictions on vending, as well as enforcing additional codes and adding complexities that only bored bureaucrats can dream up.

The city already runs the bleak Alemany Flea & Farmer’s Market out by the 280 interchange since WWII and had to be forced by popular vote at the time to take responsibility for it, why would they want another one to mess up?

The guys that run the almond & pistachio stand were unabashed in their disapproval, and basically said Nuts! to the idea that the city start running the market. The “Chocolate Nut Man” was particularly vociferous in his disapproval at this idea being sprung on vendors, but was willing to pose for a late afternoon for photo the SF Metroblog none the less. His partner shook his head in dismay when the subject was broached and warned that there would certainly have to be a price raise coming if the city intends to double the rentals on the spaces, which he said already costs him $35,000 a year.

The farmer’s and vendors suggest anyone interested in supporting them stop by at their twice weekly market and sign their petition on Weds & Sun and also to contact the City, the Board of Supervisors and Mayor’s Office, and tell them they’d all be better off getting back to doing whatever it is we pay them handsomely to actually do, and leave the farmers downtown well enough alone.

Chris.Daly@SFgov.org – District 6 Supervisor
Aaron.Peskin@SFgov.org – Prez of Board of Supes
Ed.Lee@SFgov.org – City’s Chief Administrative Officer
Gavin.Newsom@SFgov.org – Mayor and aspiring Governor
Gary.Gentry@sfgov.org – SF Real Estate Division Market Manager

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Smith’s successors are Joel Baker and Yanni Kehagiaras (pictured above), a couple of local comptetion-winning bartenders (or as B&B calls them, “Bar Chefs”), both who have been working at B&B for a while now.

As mentioned previously, Smith remains connected with Bourbon and Branch’s Beverage Academy, participating in upcoming classes Cocktails 101 and A Taste of Absinthe.

Rumor has it that Bourbon and Branch is polishing up a new “secret” room dubbed “Russell’s Room”, occupying a space that was formerly J.J. Russell’s cigar shop during prohibition in the 1920’s. Hm, how many secret rooms can a speakeasy have?

Photo courtesy of Bourbon and Branch

Librarians are the new nurses and it’s time to break out your bookish booties for the sake of something hot: reading!

Dress as a sexy schoolmarm, a libidinous librarian or prurient professor and meet up at 2 p.m. Saturday for prim and proper cocktails at the Ha Ra club in the Tenderloin.

From there we’ll head to the San Francisco Main Public Library to put our hot nerdy mojo to work.

Hosted by Princess Honeybee. Sponsored by the Hoover Institution, the Mitchell Brothers, Focus on the Family and Good Vibrations.

Let them know your coming on Upcoming, http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/449103/?ps=6

By way of Laughing Squid >>> Cheesebikini.

For an update of local small biz happenings around the bay read on…

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Richmond residents and small biz owners are up in arms about an end run around the planning & permit process that Starbucks has made in the neighborhood recently. Back in September, after much neighborhood outcry, a 10-1 Board of Supes vote ended the massive coffee chain’s plans for it’s 81st SF location at 4th and Geary. Now the Seattle based formula retailer has tried to slip in unnoticed & unpermitted inside the local neighborhood Safeway at 7th & Cabrillo. Neighbors alerted city officials when they noticed a stealth Starbucks’ kiosk that was constructed but left covered up when the grocer opened in December. One neighborhood activist is irked that he carefully examined the Planning Department’s approved Safeway floor plan and there was no mention of any coffee kiosk, no floor drains or sinks, not even any electrical outlets in the floor listed. Safeway and Starbucks corporate representatives are tight-lipped and have delayed meeting with those that are concerned about this Prop G violation.

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Another Prop G related anti-formula retail fight is brewing in North Beach. It appears that an LA based yogurt chain called Red Mango, is planning to open where the late Gold Spike restaurant once was at 527 Columbus. Neighborhood organizers are already gearing up for a fight, as the Planning Commission has yet to approve the joint’s conditional use permit. Red Mango started in the US in 2002, but has over 130 locations in South Korea, and plans for dozens more in the US. The U.S company headed by Daniel Kim, a graduate of Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, currently has 15 US locations. Their formula is manufactured by mega dairy dessert concern YoCream, and Red Mango bills themselves as “The Original Healthy Frozen Yogurt” while toppings for their treats curiously include such healthy dietary supplements as Fruity Pebbles and Cap’n Crunch. With one of the local investors supposedly being a former winning contestant from Survivor, look for a feisty prolonged battle.

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Saturday is the “grand re-opening” party of the Three Dollar Bill Cafe.

Located in the lower level of the LGBT Center at Market & Octavia, the Cafe’s owners Vince & Pete invite folks to come down and check out their new remodeling. In addition the food, the guys are also now serving Soju cocktails. The Cafe is a great community resource and holds many interesting art exhibits and gatherings including a weekly Deaf Coffee Social, Knitting, Movie and Open Mic nights. Check out more info at http://www.threedollarbill.com
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RubyDolls, an exotique boutique at 1318 Grant Ave in North Beach is having a storewide sale starting this weekend. Local designer Ruby has items from her sexy RubyGirl line, as well as a wide ranging assortment of remarkably affordable skirts, coats, tops, jeans, outfits, accessories and much more going out the door at way below the neighborhood’s average prices. The place is open daily from 12-8pm and seem’s to be getting some rave reviews from fashion savvy ladies on Yelp!

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At 7:00 pm tonight, Friday Jan 18th the independent Booksmith store up on Haight St hosts an event for the release of “Busted: True Stories of Getting Caught in the Act”. The event will be emceed by Fray Editor and Publisher Derek Powazek who will be bringing along guest readers like Jack Boulware, Steve Silberman, Kevin Smokler, Joe Loya, and Kate Kotler. The Booksmith has been supporting local authors since 1976, and owner Gary Frank is a proud member of the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchant’s Alliance. The Booksmith also has regular signings and readings, and maintains a great website that even the old Gray Lady, the NY Times has saluted at http://www.booksmith.com

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Before becoming the Rockit Room, the Richmond venue at 406 Clement was for many years the Last Day Saloon, and a slew of greats played the stage including Dr. John, The Meters, Ike Turner, Allman Brothers, John Lee Hooker, Etta James, Moby Grape, Country Joe & the Fish, Supersuckers and many, many more.

On Tuesday, January 22 any musician that cares to can join that historic legacy by climbing the stairs and simply signing up. The club has an Open Stage policy, where a drum kit and amps are provided for any solo cats or bands that want to jump up and do their thing. A soundman is present to finetune the chaos, and admission is totally free. Musicians can sign up for the random rotating slots starting at 8:30.

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The owners of Morty’s Deli used to work at Saint Anthony’s and after tiring of soup kitchen fare, decided to create a business on the rather sketchy corner of Hyde & Golden Gate. Morty’s Deli at 280 Golden Gate has since been a popular Civic Center lunch spot for the past year for a growing number of loyal neighborhood dwellers, workers & students. The concept of their fare is simple but satisfying, and despite claims of being just an East Coast Deli, owner Tim’s training at the Culinary Academy, as well as stints at upscale Andalu and as Executive Chef at the Last Supper Club do tend to bleed through. Popular regular menu items include a Big Easy muffaletta, a fresh Meatball Sub slathered in a tasty marinara and even a Soy Reuben on Rye for yer vegetarian pals. Just recently the place started opening on Saturdays and was approved to serve beer so their taps are flowing. Stop in for a brew and one of the yummy specials if yer hungry and in the area at lunchtime. In a hurry? Check out the menu online, and call ahead at 567 – DELI.

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New to the city’s caffeine scene is Coffee Bar, at 1890 Bryant Street near Mariposa and 17th in the industrial-esque zone of the Mission. Run by two dudes named Luigi and Jason , they are offering the ‘hood tasty espresso, free wifi of course, plus an assortment of snacks,salads, sandwiches and even some vino in their courtyard.

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While some places open, others shutter. The New Year saw the surprise shut downs of two local, already reincarnated dining institutions. They say it’s not a good idea to wake the dead, but that didn’t stop the recent owner’s of Trader Vic’s & The Washington Square Bar & Grill. Both joints were venerable longtime local hangouts that had closed, but attempted to reopen.

The Washbag, as it was affectionately known was locked up after it’s New Year’s Eve Party and never reopened. Upscale local barflys and gadflys are still in shock. Originally opened by Ed Moose in the early 1970’s, it became an omnipresent fixture in the old Herb Caen columns, but never regained it’s former 80’s celeb-filled glory after a late 1990’s ownership switch. Add a stupid shut down period to become the ill-fated Cobalt Tavern & eventual repopening as the Washbag a few years ago, and it just wasn’t the same.

Trader Vic’s, after years in it’s original SF location on Cosmo Place had disappeared for a spell and tried to reinvigorate at the former Stars’ space on a lonely stretch of Golden Gate near Civic Center. They apparently couldn’t move enough Mai Tai’s to keep the doors open either .

The Emeryville location on Anchor Drive remains open though.

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Plans are afoot to turn the city’s last remaining little Zao Noodle House up on California @ Filmore into a Pizzeria Delfina. Zao started their mini-chain of Pan-Asian light fare here in 1999 up on 16th near Market, and also at one time operated a spot on Chestnut and another in the Sunset. They’ve since expanded to suburban areas and apparenty blame their exodus on the high cost of doing business in San Francisco. After Zao splits in early February, Pizzeria Delfina is expected to open by early summer.

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The Mission recently received the arrival of the Bollyhood Cafe at 3372 19th St next to the Little Baobob. Serving Indian tapas, Red Stripe Beer? and featuring bollywood flicks on a big screen, it intends to spice up the area’s already burgeoning nitelife. Mr. Good Ginger Marco Senghor of the neighborhood’s successful Baobob spots is behind this latest venture into Mission nitelife.

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Fans of the almost always busy Burma Super Star on Clement might want to check out Bagan, their new sister restaurant at 1345 Park Street in Alameda. Serving essentially the same menu as Burma Super Star, the line is non-existent but the food is just as good. Try dishes like oddly satisfying Samosa Soup, or the Tea Leaf Salad which is mixed at your table featuring fermented tea leaves, peanuts, pine nuts, sesame seeds, with ground dried shrimp and lemon juice.
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Local business travelers may want to know about the addition of Oakland Airport to the “Clear” airport security checkpoint system. Enrollment begins in February for pre-screening travelers that want to save time in TSA security lines. A Verified Identity Pass costs about $100 and has to be renewed annually if you wish to stay part of the express service program. The pass is lalready in use @ SFO, as well as other cities like San Jose, New York, Orlando etc. It’s a little money gouge to make you a special elite participant in the joyous warm & fuzzy federal realm of Homeland Security.

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Speaking of Warm & Fuzzy:

one local high school student is organizing a scarf drive in the city. She’s reaching out to her fellow knitters & crocheters to make scarves until Valentine’s Day and donate them to those who are homeless and could really use some additional homemade warmth this chilly time of year. The student has arranged with local businesses as drop off locations ( see below) for the scarves which will be routed to the homeless recipients via the Bay Area Rescue Mission. For more info the young lad has set up a Warm And Fuzzy MySpace page with additional info

Imagiknit
3897 18th St (at Sanchez)
www.imagiknit.com

Greenwich Yarn
2073 Greenwich St (at Webster)
www.greenwichyarn.com

Atelier Yarns
1945 Divisadero St (between Pine and California)
www.atelieryarns.com

Mendels/Far-Out Fabrics
1556 Haight St (between Clayton and Ashbury)
www.mendels.com

The Gables
5636 Geary Blvd (at 21st Ave)
(415)751-8152

Wishbone
601 Irving St (at 7th Ave)
www.wishbonesf.com

Pitched to the public as a possible solution to solving the spiraling street crimes & homeless situation downtown, I get the feeling no one left anymore reassured that it will actually work, including the organizers sitting on the dais.

For more on the public reaction to the Mayor’s not so “original”, or well thought out concept for community justice, read on…

About 100 citizens seemed intrigued, or at least curious enough to turn out, and wanted tidbits of information on the program and what it will entail. Despite a brief infomercial that told the story of a similar court in Brooklyn, no real solid information came forth.

Newsom apparently launched his plan with typical aplomb last year after seeing NYC’s version, and the Mayor in awe of his own political momentum as usual, acted as if this was a revolutionary concept.

This news particularly confused those volunteers who already participate in SF’s pre-established “Community Courts“. In fact SF was a groundbreaker in this field, and has been since November of 1998, when the SF District Attorney’s Office initiated it’s Community Courts, a neighborhood-based mini-court staffed by volunteers as a U.S. Justice Department pilot project.

Currently, SF’s pre-existent “Community Courts” operate in Bayview-Hunter’s Point, Outer Mission, Western Addition, Inner Mission, South of Market, Tenderloin, Excelsior, and Polk Street. These bodies are comprised generally of an informal panel of 3 neighborhood residents who act as judge and jury, and mete out punishments to “low-level” crimes the DA typically does not have time to prosecute.

The Mayor and his “people” basically did an end run around this existing framework to create their own “official” duplicate body who will perform essentially a lot of the same type of work, including similar calls for community service & referrals to non-profits. Why Gavin & Co. sought no input from those who’d already invested years in this more informal but at least already established community justice process is a mystery that he and his political aides of course refuse to answer at his typically scripted “town hall” meetings.

It turns out the Mayor, without first conferring with legal experts, discovered that California law doesn’t allow police to arrest and immediately bring before a judge people who are committing so-called “quality of life” crimes. In California, it turns out that offenses such as disorderly conduct and blocking sidewalks are considered merely “infractions”, for which people are ticketed and are allowed to appear in court in 45 days. Unless the legislature wishes to change that law, offenses the mayor actually wanted addressed with the CJC are not headed to his new CJCs anyhow. Hey, way to research that key factoid Gavin & crew !!!!

Despite a panel of seemingly well intentioned & educated individuals, including law enforcement reps, city mental health pros, and folks from the DA & PD office, the meat we were served by them all last night was old, cold, thin, and without much seasoning.

While Commissioner Ron Albers, the pointman for the project, went on & on like some sort of “New Agey” Chertoff character, it became hard for the Tenderloin Police Capt. Jimenez to even stay awake during much of the proceedings. While most on the panel did at least manage to keep their eyes open, no one else there on the city payroll seemed all that eager to speak up, or explain much either. There was a lot of nervous smiling, blank staring, watch checking, text messaging, whispering and general sitting still up there.

So we all learned very little that we didn’t already know, other than that they were seeking “input” and applications for potential candidates to sit on their advisory board.

So let’s review: We’ve at least come to understand that they’ve had to retool the concept here and there and that the Mayor has convened his handpicked bunch of experts to do something that’s more or less already being done.

Albers said CJC would not handle violent felonies, nor infactions, and apparently he had not drawn up a specific list of crimes or punishments the court would adjudicate. When pressed by citizens, the terms “misdemeanors & felonies” were thrown out, but any assurance that any of those cited for these would voluntarily show up at the CJC’s Polk St HQ for their hearings was vague at best. So far the CJC sounded like another social services intake center and less a “justice” center.

Tenderloin Station’s Capt. Jimenez managed to speak up and make prescient comments, once dramatically terming the CJC as merely a “hope”, and then he sorta fell in and out of consciousness while the usual cast of SF crazies grabbed the mic for the city’s frustratingly famous let’s give anyone 5 minutes of random ranting about whatever occurs to them.

Indeed, once it was time to open the mic, a few folks at least had enouraging words to add. These included a few residents of Rincon Hill & near the ballpark who wanted the borders to include their newer neighborhoods. One woman brought up her frustration of living in a neighborhood where her 14 year old must stay home or wade through a sea of sickos each 1st & 15th of the month.

Of course, many also apparently just wanted to talk & look at people looking at them while they had a chance to hear their own voice amplified via a microphone.

Then there were the generic professional “angry agitator” types.

Here in San Francisco, we all know that the 1st group of people who show up for these “public welcome” type forums are people who don’t want to listen to any information at a forum at all.

There is a whole subset in S.F of meeting & hearing junkies who actually hate meetings and hearings, but hope to get a chance to shout out their own most awesome opinions for as long as feasible back at those that rented the room.

Tonight that obnoxious role was filled by two employees of Randy Shaw’s “SRO Collaborative”. These two 20 something know it all guys did the usual “collaborative” mic hogging technique, and took their time lambasting every possible positive outcome that could possibly arise from the CJC.

I immediately knew we were all in trouble and going to get a tantrum like scolding for being there when the first of Shaw’s warriors, the chubbier of the two intoned ” I really tried to come here with an open mind”… which we all know means exactly the opposite.

They ripped into a litany of cliche’d complaints & asinine analysis of a program that doesn’t even exist yet. It didn’t take long for the CJC to be called a “War On The Poor” and then the THC employees complained that beer in a bar costs $5 which is apparently way too much. They loudly & belligerently bemoaned & bellowed out loud at their own preconceptions without anyone else allowed to speak but them.

While I may have occasionally agreed with some of his points, and appreciated his passionate beliefs in the THC’s vested interests, these paid reps likely did more in actuality to harm their cause than they ever will do to assist people. Amongst the couple dozen people they thoroughly alienated tonight might have been some future allies, and instead of being articulate spokespeople for an under represented population, they only managed to present a disgraceful and arrogant display of ball hogging that any sports fan might find offensive.

Taking from the public speaking school of pointless blowhardiness, the SRO Collaborative duo took a generally quiet room of reasonable neutral adults and within minutes were able to create lifelong enemies, and degenerate the situation into a veritable shouting match. As many people began muttering under their breaths, a few left and others even resorted to telling the two guys to sit down & stop disturbing the proceedings. Shaw’s mighty minions eventually sat down, and seemed quite pleased with themselves, while dozens glanced over at them warily as if to wonder what the hell they really were trying to accomplish.

At one point, near the end of the meeting, an elder black woman turned around to look at the smug gentlemen from the THC’s “SRO Collaborative” and asked them a series of pointed rhetorical questions. She mentioned living in the neighborhood for years, and wanted to know why if they say they “work” here, and are “helping” people in the ‘hood, why wouldn’t they even want to to help out with this project?

It was a question that made all in the room think, and most, if not all clapped… and with time up, we more or less left it at that…