cross-posted from Beyond Chron.

On June 3, San Francisco voters will decide the future of the largest remaining undeveloped acreage remaining in the City. Although its location at the Hunters Point shipyard and alongside Bayview’s low-income minority community has long kept it out of sight and mind, this land is our last opportunity to remake the City’s waterfront a striking community that continues to meet our city’s needs.

Remarkably, almost all the information sent to voters has come from political consultants hired to sell this proposal. It comes in brochures with attractive drawings but very little else, with campaign costs already over $2 million and likely to set an all-time record for a San Francisco ballot measure.

San Francisco, the leader in so many areas, appears to be on the verge of giving birth to yet another first-of-a-kind: the stealth campaign to write public policy out of public view, through a ballot measure exclusively funded by the corporation anxious to seize a billion-dollar prize, and offered in language that wriggles, weasels, and walks away from all the promises it boasts.

You know, some people need to be kicked in the head before they realize they are being abused. Such is the case of our mayor, Gavin Newsom. Despite the way she used the City of San Francisco as a foil against Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, he will still go to INDIANA, of all places, to campaign for her, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco's Progressive Talk Station, Green960, will begin airing "The Gavin Newsom Show" starting May 3rd.

on his own, no rules, his passions and his interests. He'll be doing interviews from across the country (when he's traveling) as well.

Full press release after the fold...

SF Kossacks may remember my diary of two days ago where I was calling on turning Hillary's SF baiting against her by sending messages to Mayor Newsom.
Well it seems either that or the math may have done some subtle political damage with our ambitious mayor.

http://www.sfbg.com/...

This morning I attended the grand opening ceremony of the pretty incredible-looking Hotel Essex, an 84-unit rehab completed by Community Housing Partnership and Mercy Housing that now houses 84 formerly homeless people in their own apartments (complete with kitchenettes!), with on-site counselling, recovery, and job-training services available.

OK gals, guys and anybody in between.

This diary shall be short for now but I hope you can help me thicken it with information, links to what I am referring to and ideas.

Let me get to it

As you know, Hillary Clinton has jumped on Obama's comments at a recent SF fundraiser to bash him and try to tarnish him what we will call blue-collar small town whites. Among the offensive ways she has taken to using it against him (Annie Oakley, elitist), one stings me personally: she has been dropping San Francisco at every turn, fully knowing the bait effect the name of our good town has on certain demographics.

Majora Carter is a hero. She is part of the growing movement that is integrating social and environmental justice and sustainability. Read this great diary about her work around green jobs and Sustainable South Bronx.

Yesterday, in San Francisco, Majora Carter was one of the Olympic Torch Bearers. She pulled out a hidden Tibetan flag and held both the torch and the flag as she ran. How was she rewarded? The flag was ripped from her hand by other runners. The torch pulled from her hand. Then police took her from the procession and shoved her into the crowd.

Majora Carter is a hero.

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Gavin Newsom failed to uphold the spirit of democracy yesterday.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and other city officials have been working closely with the Chinese Government to subvert free speech in the heart of San Francisco.  This is being reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Olympic Torch is coming to San Francisco on April 9th.  This will be the torch's one and only appearance in an American city.  In order to prevent the Chinese Government from being "embarrassed", the Mayor and his staff are complying with requests to setup "free speech" zones, ala George W. Bush.  In addition, they are keeping secret the route that the torch & runner will take in order to prevent protests from being effectively organized.  

As if that wasn't enough, they are also creating multiple alternate routes so that if protesters manage to discover the route, they can quickly switch routes to avoid any offensive free speech from being displayed on international television.

Four years ago, when Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon and more than 4,000 other couples said "I Do" this country took an irrevocable step toward securing equality for every American.

While many feel what we did was too much, too fast, too soon – we stand firm in the belief that our actions were not only just, but legal and constitutional. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the pursuit of happiness.

Today, the California Supreme Court is hearing arguments on whether excluding gay couples from marriage violates the state constitution. Today, these Justices have a unique chance to follow in the proud tradition of California's high court, which took a courageous stand on marriage equality in 1948 when it ruled that the state's ban on inter-racial marriage was unconstitutional.

HOUSTON--Maybe he threw in the phrase to show some good old fashion Texas courtesy, but San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s comments about Barack Obama yesterday, didn’t exactly ring with high esteem.

In fact, after talking with the mayor for ten minutes before his appearance at the Stonewall Democrats rally for Clinton yesterday, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that "respect" isn’t exactly what Newsom feels towards the senator.

In the excitement of the presidential race, I overlooked some big news here in The City. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has endorsed State Assemblyman Mark Leno over incumbent Carole Migden for the California State Senate in the Third District that covers the eastern half of San Francisco and part of Marin County.

Let me be perfectly clear: I want Obama on the Democratic ticket this fall.  I want him in the White House for sixteen straight years, eight as VP and eight more as President.  So I don’t want to bash him in a way that would damage that possibility.  What I do want to do is raise questions about whether he actually is as liberal as some of his supporters think.  For example, a lot of his supporters tell me they are voting for him because he is more liberal than Hillary, and refer to the recent National Journal ranking as proof.  So let’s start by discussing that.

I remember reading a diary about this topic in the late morning.  I didn't make much of it because it had no link and it claimed that Hillary Clinton was attempting to smear Obama.  After I got back home from work, I decided to google: Obama, Gavin Newsom.  And as plain as the nose on my face, I read that Obama refused to have his picture taken with San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom because the good mayor was in favor of gay marriage:

"I think he has harbored this resentment for years," Brown said of Newsom, adding that Obama was reluctant to be seen appearing in San Francisco altogether, much less side by side with the gay-marriage mayor. "I would guess that is part of the rejection of the Obama campaign."

Unfortunately for the Illinois Senator, this isn't the first time he has raised doubts about his support to the gay community:

For what it's worth: SFGate is reporting a multiple-sourced story that Obama refused to have his picture taken with San Francisco Mayor Newsom back in 2004 after Newsom aggressively advocated for gay marriage.

In all fairness, the piece also says then-presidential candidate John Kerry also avoided San Francisco.

Though same-sex marriage is still a hot-button issue in 2008, it is no longer the shocker that had the country in an uproar four and five years ago. Until you go back and look at the news stories from those days, it is easy to forget how radical and unpopular Newsom's stand was.

And, no, it wasn't just the right-wingers who were upset. It was Democrats, too, particularly those running in the presidential primary. John Kerry, for example, was careful to stage his Bay Area appearances in Oakland, not San Francisco, after the controversy hit.

Today an 11th hour story is being circulated that in 2002 Barack Obama refused to be photographed with SF Mayor Newsom, allegedly because he didn't want flak associated with Newsom's stand for gay marriage.  If the implication was Obama lacked the political courage to be associated with support for LGBT issues in 2002, it is obviously false.  Consider this interview Obama did with the Windy City Times, an Chicago LGBT weekly, in February 2002, while running in Chicago.

(I would appreciate it if Obama supporters would pass this around.)

As noted by Ben Smith in the Politico this morning, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle that Obama refused to have his picture taken with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom four years ago at a fundraiser:

...Just four years ago, current Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is said to have declined to have his picture taken in San Francisco with Newsom, who was then at the center of a national uproar over his decision to allow same-sex marriage in San Francisco.

"I gave a fundraiser, at his (Obama's) request at the Waterfront restaurant," said former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. "And he said to me, he would really appreciate it if he didn't get his photo taken with my mayor. He said he would really not like to have his picture taken with Gavin."

So Obama refused four years ago to have his picture taken, just as he was getting ready to run for Senate.  So much for the candidate of change.

To say San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom stands out in a crowd is an understatement. It is hard to describe the impact he makes, like there is a personal spotlight following him, and he is in Technicolor.

Star quality. Physically beautiful, he draws the eye.

But that’s not enough. A model could be drop-dead gorgeous, but empty as a human being. One of the Republican Presidential candidates is movie star handsome, but I wouldn’t trust him to lead a trip to the restroom.

The Governor and Assembly Speaker have emerged from negotiations with a healthcare plan that needs to be sent back for major reconstructive surgery.

The plan has some very good elements – such as preventing insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, a long-overdue expansion of children’s healthcare coverage and, potentially, the creation of the largest purchasing pool in the health insurance market outside of the federal government.

But the proposal has major flaws that must be fixed before it has a chance of final approval by California voters.