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Vote For Your Favorite Gavin Newsom Date

Who's your preferred piece of pie?

It's been almost a year since SFist zipped up their poll. So, we thought to open our Vote For Your Favorite Gavin Newsom Date election.

Brittanie as Ms. Pac-Man lying on her back eating delicious Gav Girl pie!

Of course, things have cooled considerably between the Gav and Barely-legal Brittanie Mountz ... while picking up with Jennifer Siebel's gal pal and Melrose Place star, Daphne Zuniga, sidekick Paris Hilton, and the mayor's latest squeeze the smokin' hot journalist Cecilia M. Vega. Don't forget Ruby Rippey-Tourk!

When it comes to polls, it wouldn't be a dance-off without Ruby!

Previous results are in pie graph -- but if you can't read the names and numbers in those little wedges, here they are in legible form:

• Brittanie Mountz -- 68.3%
• Sofia Milos -- 10.5%
• Erin Brodie -- 9.4%
• Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom Villency -- 6.1%
• Jennifer Siebel -- 5.6%

Gavin Sucks Poll: Vote for your favorite Gav Girl

Related Posts:

• Gavin Drops Jennifer, Picks Up Star of Melrose Place
• Cecilia M. Vega Is One Smokin' Hot Journalist
• One Night n Paris Hilton

Video: Chickography (Music)

Photo Credit: SFist

Top Five Growing Blogs

Pop the Champaign!

Inspired by the 59th Emmy Awards, we're pleased to announce Wordpress voted Gavin Newsom Sucks.com to the Top Five Growing Blogs.

We want to thank the ManUpstairs in City Hall. Without Gavin none of this would be possible.

It's not often we get to stand here next to dazzling celebrity blogger, Beth Spotswood. Doesn't she look absolutely radiant in Gucci?!

Big props to the nominees: Chris Daly Blows, SF Party Party, Laughing Squid and SF Crime as well as supporting cast members Peter Ragone, Brittanie Mountz, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, Jennifer Siebel and Chris Daly and all the other Chickens.

Of course, we want to thank GavinWatch for always believing in us. What a class act! What else can we say...

[Queue the music]

... Except, we apologize for leaving anyone out. Ooops! Our friends at SFist and Cecilia M. Vega at the Chronicle. We're just so nervous. Good night and God bless!

This one's for you Mom & Dad!

Breaking News: Congratz to Conan O’Brien for bring home another award!!!

Cecilia M Vega Is One Smoking Hot Journalist!

… Aside from Cecilia's obvious good looks, brains and cl ass, we hope she'll swing by Thursday’s Happy Hour at Balboa Café to swig Plumpjack and help us commemorate our 100th posting on Gavin Sucks.com, created in the aftermath of San Francisco’s City Sex Scandal, as well as to thank her for kickstarting our blog with her coverage in the Chronicle just six months ago.

Today's piece by Cecilia observes Gavin Newsom cautioning a crowd of cheering supporters (a thinning heard with climbing approval ratings) against prematurely celebrating his re-election victory, saying that despite the absence of a challenger who comes close to matching his campaign war chest or popularity, the race “is not over.”

"We've got work to do. Don't let anyone think this race is over. It's not over - we've got a dozen candidates."

Conspicuously, none of which include Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, or Matt Gonzalez. Each participated in the Regressive Convention (the biggest assembly of salad-eaters since the Nixon era) only to fold their cards at the sight of Newsom’s 78% approval ratings.

With nothing but static to the Left of the radio dial and lonely Conservative Tony “The Tiger” Hall to the Right, Gavin may be tempted to chase the Tiger by the tail, locking up a few taggers, pimps, hos and homeless. While effective, those tactics could wake up the sleeping "Fruit Flys" hatching two Chicken votes for each swiped from the Tiger.

November will be another story. Gavin is just four years away from a bigger office with a constituency far outside the City limits, not to mention infinitly more conservative and far less forgiving. In other words, we can finally tackle chronic Quality-of-Life issues worsening daily. Reactionaries Unite!

Sadly, Cecilia goes on to report of a Vegan victory as incumbant District Attorney Kamala Harris is also running unopposed. In my opinion, she deserves a Life Sentence for poorly defending fallen police officers including Isaac Espinosza by prosecuting without a Death Penalty. Shame.

Complete Article: Mayor Newsom Says He’s No Shoo-In: ‘It’s’ Not Over’ by Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Photo Credit: Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal

The $10,154 Question Begs for Answers

Cecilia M. Vega, San Francisco Chronicle writes:

Ruby Rippey-Tourk appears to be the only city employee ever granted catastrophic-illness pay for treatment of alcohol addiction, a decision approved by the head of the Public Health Department, the report, issued by City Attorney Dennis Herrera, showed.

City attorney's investigators interviewed at least six officials during a nearly two-month inquiry, including the mayor's current and former chiefs of staff. They did not interview Rippey-Tourk, who refused to waive her confidentiality right so investigators could discuss her treatment for substance abuse in the report, or her husband [Alex Rippey-Tourk], who refused to cooperate. Investigators also did not interview [Gavin] Newsom.

The investigation also found that while Rippey-Tourk worked in Newsom's office, several of her time sheets were signed by her husband, Alex Tourk, then the mayor's deputy chief of staff, who later became his campaign manager. Other time sheets had no approval signature, and some were signed by Rippey-Tourk herself.

No city laws or policies were broken, however, because the mayor's office did not have a policy on time sheets, the report said. But "because Mr. Tourk approved his wife's time sheets, this practice was inappropriate and at least created the appearance of impropriety," it concluded.

The main findings of San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera's report:

• No city law or policy was violated when Ruby Rippey-Tourk, former appointments secretary for Mayor Gavin Newsom, was granted $10,154 in catastrophic-illness pay to be treated for substance abuse. Rippey-Tourk, however, appears to be the only city employee ever to receive such pay to be treated for substance abuse.


• She is the only city employee ever to receive such payments after announcing her intention to quit.


• Some of Rippey-Tourk's time sheets were approved by Rippey-Tourk herself and others by her husband, then Mayor Gavin Newsom's deputy chief of staff, but no law was broken because there was no policy governing who could sign time sheets.


• Rippey-Tourk's subsequent employment at a magazine did not conflict with her receiving catastrophic-illness pay from the city.

City Supervisor Quotes:

"Anyone concerned about their tax dollars being used as hush money for Newsom's paramour should be outraged."

~ Supervisor Chris Daly

"The report is not as complete as I would have liked. The mayor was not interviewed in the report and neither were the Tourks. It raises as many questions as it answers."

~ Board President Aaron Peskin as reported by KRON 4's Tamar Sarkissian

Blog Quotes:

“Was this preferential treatment for a woman who had a sexual relationship with the Mayor? Or was it hush money to keep the Tourk’s quiet?”

~ GavinWatch

“Good for you, Dennis Herrera. Your independent “investigation” of the City’s retroactive payments to Ruby Tourk found no laws broken by Gavin Newsom. Do you think you locked in any key endorsements for your next office with this prize piece of work?”

~ SF Party Party

“The question here is – what standards did the Health Department employ for who qualifies for a catastrophic illness? If there were none, the City could get sued by disqualified applicants for an abuse of discretion.”

Paul Hogarth, Beyond Chron

Gavin Sucks.com In The Chronicle

Dedicated Newsom Bashers: Eclectic mix of bloggers, activists delights in skewering mayor

Under the sign "Photo-op mayor," Dean Barbella threw his arm over the shoulder of a cardboard cutout of Gavin Newsom and posed for the camera.

It was the closest he's ever been to the San Francisco mayor and probably will be the closest he'll ever get.

Barbella, a 37-year-old software salesman who describes himself as "not really political," runs the Internet blog gavinnewsom sucks.com, a domain name he bought one night a few years back for $7. He originally wanted donaldtrumpsucks.com, but that site was already taken. A friend suggested he try Gavin Newsom's name and it worked.

"My message isn't really anti-Gavin. It's that I want a better San Francisco," said Barbella, whose white-collared shirt had the words gavinsucks.com emblazoned on it with stick-on letters. "But Gavin Newsom does suck because San Francisco isn't what she should be."
Barbella, bourbon and Coke in hand, commiserated about life in San Francisco under Newsom at a party in the Mission District on Thursday night thrown by the League of Young Voters and another anti-Newsom blog, Gavinwatch.com.

Under the Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling at El Rio bar and to the sounds of salsa and disco beats, the 85 or so attendees relished being in the majority in their anti-Newsom stance. In San Francisco, where Newsom has enjoyed sky-high approval ratings since taking office in 2004, it's often a rarity for them.

Their frustrations with City Hall unite the eclectic mix that included everyone from software salesmen and nurses to political gadflies and activists -- that, and a growing number of anti-Newsom blogs popping up on the Internet through which information is shared and jabs taken at the 39-year-old mayor and his headline-making personal life.

But, for now, it's a movement without a leader. While Newsom's campaign for re-election in November is in full swing, the anti-Newsom crew is eagerly awaiting the emergence of a candidate to rally behind. Will it be Green Party member and former Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, who ran a tight race for mayor against Newsom in 2003? Or maybe Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi? Actor Danny Glover? For some, it doesn't really matter.

"Everybody should run. ... Whether they can win or not, someone needs to stand up and mount a credible challenge against Gavin," said San Francisco registered nurse Patrick Monk, a former Gonzalez campaign volunteer who stood near the Newsom cardboard cutout that drew a short line of people waiting to take a picture alongside it.

Yet Monk, like many others, was not overly confident about any future opponent's chances.
"You should look at my bike helmet and see the stickers all over it," the 63- or 64-year-old (he couldn't remember his exact age) Noe Valley resident said. "It's a testament to lost causes, and I believe in every single one of them."

The bash, billed as a night of partying and politics where people could learn about the "absent and ineffective mayor," was dubbed "The Real Scandal: Who Gavin is Screwing over," a reference to Newsom's recent admission of his affair with the wife of his former campaign manager and close political aide.

There were lollipops with tags attached that said "Gavin sucks" and a map on the wall showing trips Newsom has taken around the country and overseas since taking office under the sign "Travelin' Gavin." Another sign highlighted the city's homicide rate, and another questioned Newsom's environmental policies.

The list of complaints that attendees have about the mayor is long: Newsom takes credit for ideas that weren't his. He focuses too much on photo-ops and not enough on substance. The Municipal Railway doesn't run on time. He refuses to show up and answer questions at Board of Supervisors meetings, as a nonbinding measure passed last year by voters asked him to do. He vetoed legislation to close Golden Gate Park to cars on Saturdays.

The creators and identities of those paying for the gavinwatch .com Web site, one of the party's sponsors, remains a mystery. Natasha Marsh, the state director of the League of Young Voters, said her group helped throw the party to highlight Newsom's political shortcomings, rather than his personal indiscretions that have garnered so much attention.

Click here to continue reading. By Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer