Newsom Back Behind Bars

Nope, not San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's favorite watering hole, Plumpjack and Balboa Cafe owned by Newsom and former socialite pal, Billy Getty.

Rather, an unusual jailhouse visit to obtain access codes to the city's computer network.

City engineer Terry Childs had been accused of withholding the access codes and has been jailed since July 13 on felony counts. Prosecutors said he was trying to block access to a vital city network.

A team of code crackers brought in from Cisco Systems had been working around the clock to try to decipher Childs' codes, but with only marginal success.

Then, Childs' lawyer, Erin Crane, called the mayor's office Monday afternoon, offering a jailhouse meeting.

"It wasn't cheap and I just couldn't see us keep spending that kind of money"

Without hesitation, the mayor acted to pay a secret visit to the jail and waled away with the codes. He was there inside of thirty minutes.

• Do not contact City Attorney, Kamila Harris.
• Do not contact Chief of Police, Heather Fong.
• Do pass go and collect the code!

The lawyer says Childs had been the victim of a plot to force him out of his job.I admire both Child's enginuity born of his necessity, not compunction, to leverage his hand to win an audiance with the mayor, attempting to navagate through the murky judicial system as well as Newsom's willingness to quickly grant it on the City's behalf - saving taxpayers money!

This is just another reason why Gavin Newsom does NOT suck indeed!

Complete Article: SF Mayor Gets Keys To City Computer by Matier & Ross

Newsom Wanted (See Photo) Posts:

• Drinker
• City Hall Sex Scandal
• Looking Down Cleavages
• Fired Tons of Appointees

Jail House Posts:

• Bum Fights
• Tent City
• No Vacancy
• Chasing the Dragon
• Newsom's Black Eye
• Tenderloin Turf War
• Sit Down, Shoot Up Cafe
• Whistle Blowing Cop Suspended
• National Guard to San Francisco

Gavin Sucks Polls:

• Vote: Do you agree with Newsom's “Services or Citation” Homeless Plan?


• Vote: Would You Dump Daly?

Newsom Stalker Crashes Car; Walks Into B.A.R.

Han Shin, the man accused last year of stalking Mayor Gavin Newsom and trying to run over his ex-boyfriend's roommate, found himself in trouble again this week after he allegedly rammed his car into the driver of another vehicle following a traffic accident. It is the second time in 18 months that Shin has been accused of trying to run someone over.

The latest incident occurred around noon Wednesday, July 9 at the intersection of 9th and Harrison streets. Police arrested Shin, 43, who was wearing sandals, yellow shorts cut above the knee, and a yellow and black patterned silk collared shirt - so sorry to say, no purple latex gloves. He was charged with aggravated assault with an automobile weapon. As of Friday, Shin remained in San Francisco County jail.

According to police, Shin and another driver were involved in a traffic accident after which Shin allegedly drove his Toyota Corolla LE into the other driver.

"There was some type of prior contact between the two. When the victim stopped at the traffic light, the suspect drove into the victim's vehicle intentionally," said police spokesman Sergeant Neville Gittens.

"then the suspect intentionally ran into the other person."

According to eyewitness accounts, soon after the accident Shin walked toward the Bay Area Reporter (B.A.R.) offices on 9th Street. Another driver warned him that he was leaving the scene of an accident. A B.A.R. staffer was later told that he'd hit both vehicles and had asked,

"Where's the Bay Area Reporter?"

According to the staff member, Shin entered the office whimpering and carrying large, rolled up pieces of paper, folders, and a bag loaded with more papers.

Not knowing about the accident, staff asked if there was something wrong, and if he wanted them to call police. Shin replied:

"I'm afraid of the police."

That's when staff members recognized him and one staffer told Shin he remembered him as the person who was found in Mayor Newsom's apartment building.

Shin adopted a somber, serious tone and asked, "What do you know about it?" After that, he started babbling incoherently.

When Shin started to open a small gate that leads past the B.A.R. 's front desk, as if he wanted to come back and talk to staff, he was told, "Just leave, just get out."

Shin got huffy, grabbed his things, and as he turned to leave yelled back:

"Fucking fags!"

Back outside, Shin, who'd been screaming during much of the accident's aftermath – at one point, a police officer tugged on his shirt in an apparent attempt to get him to calm down – eventually appeared to be in better spirits.

As he stood outside the Vagabond Inn, which is next door to the B.A.R., he raised his hands in the air, shimmied, and sang part of the Brenda Lee classic "I'm Sorry." Shin also rambled, invoking the names of Madonna and Benjamin Franklin as an officer stood a few feet across from him.

Shin, a new age author and beauty contestant organizer, didn't resist as police handcuffed him moments later and led him away.

In February 2007, Shin was caught trying to break into Newsom's Pacific Heights apartment building and was charged with stalking the debonair politician. He reportedly had been seen photographing the mayor below the waist at a public event and aggressively grabbed Newsom.

Shin denied the charges, but a San Francisco Superior Court commissioner issued a three-year restraining order against Shin, ordering him to stay at least 100 yards from Newsom.

Later that month Shin faced numerous charges in Contra Costa County, including one count of first-degree residential burglary, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count felony vandalism stemming from a February 28 incident in San Ramon.

Prosecutors alleged that Shin went to the home of his former lover to confront him, but when the man wasn't at home, Shin allegedly barged into the residence, took some money and a photograph of the former boyfriend and left. The man's roommate followed Shin outside, according to police, and Shin allegedly tried to run him over three times with his car.

Complete Article: Newsom Stalker Arrested After Car Accident by Matthew S. Bajko

Related Posts:

• I'm No 'Wacko'
• Heeee's Back!
  

The Shake Up!

• San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom continues to shake things up, ordering police investigators to put on uniforms and patrol streets at night to help combat the city's escalating violence.
  
  Police officials say an unspecified number of officers from the department's narcotics and gang task force units have been reassigned to beef up patrol units in high crime areas.
  
  The move comes after San Francisco reported 98 homicides last year, the most in a dozen years. Six people have been killed in the city so far this year.
  
  A spokesman for the mayor says, Gavin’s upset with the homicide rate and wants more done to reduce violent crime.
  
  Great news!

Related Articles:

• Mayor Newsom Says He'll Move Quickly on Big Shakeup at City Hall by Cecilia M. Vega, San Francisco Chronicle
• Newsom Sworn In for second Term by ABC 7 News.com
• Newsom Appointees Held Up by Supervisors by Joshua Sabatini, San Francisco Examiner

Related Posts:

• Gavin's Black Eye
• SFPD: Drug-Related Homicides Up 20%
• Shame of the City (Video)
• Turf war in the Tenderloin
• No Vacancy
• Bum Fights

Mentally Ill, Homeless Bad Signs Ahead

CW Nevius reports a female police officer was attacked by a mentally ill homeless man known as the "the Sign Guy," described as a disheveled, shirtless street person who had been camped out at the edge of Justin Herman Plaza for months.

"Rick," as he was known in the area, wrote oddball phrases on his bare chest and festooned the trees in front of the shops with cardboard placards with outlandish messages. Some of the signs were gibberish and some, like the message below make pedestrians nervous.

"No talking! Just give me money."

Onlookers said at first when the officer approached, the man appeared to be mellow and cooperative. But, without warning, when he reached down to get something from his bag, he came up swinging.

Police spokesman Sgt. Steve Mannina says:

"He struck her in the face. She fell, and he got on top of her and continued to strike her."

Luckily, a passer-by jumped in and pulled the man off. More police arrived and arrested Richard Jaworski, 44, who had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court. In fact, he'd recently been in jail for a six-month sentence after an incident in January. His crime that time? Punching a police officer.

While Old school Progressives would have you question our right to challenge the rights of the mentally ill street people, New School Liberals offer a solution – Laura’s Law.

Three years ago, Gov. Gray Davis signed landmark legislation to help ensure outpatient treatment for seriously mentally ill people who pose a danger to themselves or others.

Assembly Bill 1421 became known as "Laura's Law," after Laura Wilcox, a 19-year-old college student from Nevada County who was among three people shot to death on Jan. 10, 2001, by 41-year-old Scott Harlan Thorpe. He was suffering from delusional paranoia and was convinced the FBI was trying to poison his food. Thorpe had resisted his family's efforts to get him into treatment.

Wilcox, a sophomore at Haverford College, was working as a receptionist at Nevada City's public mental-health clinic during her Christmas break when Thorpe's paranoia turned homicidal. That tragedy helped prompt California legislators to finally take steps toward updating laws that had made it virtually impossible to force dangerously mental ill people into a structured outpatient treatment.

Regrettably, Laura's Law has not been given a fair chance to work.

One of the provisions of the bill, the subject of years of contention in the state Capitol, left it to the counties to see that the law was carried out. It also gave them a giant escape clause to avoid the issue in lean times: Under AB1421, a county must certify that it has not implemented Laura's Law at the expense of any voluntary mental-health services.

Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of counties have not been able to summon the money or political will to carry out the author's vision of a structured system to compel seriously mentally ill people -- after consultation with their families and medical professionals, and with court approval -- to take the medications their very condition may prevent them from knowing they need.

One notable exception is Los Angeles County, where a pilot program has helped steer patients -- many of them homeless -- into supervised outpatient treatment programs.

Asked why San Francisco has yet to act on Laura's Law, especially in view of the relation between untreated mental illness and homelessness, Mayor Gavin Newsom acknowledged that he "dropped the ball on that" amid fiscal stresses and other pressing matters. But Newsom added that it was "something I was committed to early on" and he vowed to make its implementation a City Hall priority.

Apparently, daily commuters from the ferry felt uneasy about having to walk through a gantlet of signs each morning and evening. Regulars in the area expressed an increasing anxiety over the last two weeks and a longtime tabletop jewelry salesman in the plaza Sign-Guy said the Sign Guy’s behavior was “getting really crazy."

Can anything be done?

Yes, Gavin Newsom needs to overcome the obvious "institutional resistance" challenge specific to San Francisco as well as Anytown's obsticle - money! He can start by challenging the politics-as-usual culture through educational campaigns targeting the public and cloakroom politicking private business.

Quantify the cost of the status quo, ranging from quality-of-life to life itself. Put a price tag on it and sell police, social services, etc!

The time to write your mayor is now. You want Clean, Safe sidewalks and he needs political equity that can scale over four years to win a bigger office far outside The City limits and infinitely more conservative.

In other words, Gavin's 78% approval ratings here are worthless there. Believe me, the exchange rate for "Same Sex Marriages' alone could leae him bankrupt.

Without a compelling story ala Rudy Giuliani’s 911 and crime fighting fetes, Newsom will be hard pressed to cash in as a Governor or Senator.

This is no revelation to the Newsom camp. They they know what’s at stake in four years and need your help right now, right here – write him!

Mayor Gavin Newsom
4104 24th Street #766
San Francisco, CA 94114
Email: info@actlocallysf.org
Phone: 1 (415) 351-0359

Complete Article:

• Rights of Mentally Ill Street People Thwart Efforts to Prevent Harm


• Carry Out 'Laura's Law'

Breaking News: Drug Dealers Not From the City by Examiner

Related Posts:

• Tent City


• Turf War In the Tenderloin
  
• City's New Sit Down, Shoot Up Drug Cafe


• No Vacancy!
  
• Officer Suspended for Criticizing Mayor
  
• Wait and See


• Liberals March 'Right' Over Progressives
  
• Bum Fights


• Care Not Recycle
  
• Care Not Carts
  
• Chasing The Dragon


• Mayor Closes Golden Gate Park
  
• National Guard Deployed to San Fracisco


• Escape to New York

Video:

• Night of the Living Homeless - South Park


• The Homeless Return - Stanley Roberts, KRON 4


• Shame of the City - Stanley Roberts, KRON 4
  

Gavin Sucks Polls:

• Vote: Do you agree with Newsom's “Services or Citation” Homeless Plan?


• Vote: Would You Dump Daly?


• Vote For Your Favorite Gav Girl?

SFist On Wrong Side of Warm Water Cove

SFist takes artistic license too far south to new low describing the graffiti clean-up near Potrero Hill as, “what was the south wing of the graffiti artist "gallery" at Warm Water Cove is now a pristine green monster of a wall with no tagging at all.”

A couple of responses come to mind; yet, like graffiti, neither of which is legal. Firstly, instant notoriety is cheap, so earn your initials! If anyone wants to tag a Green Monster, come see me on 'game day.' I’m an avid J.E.T.S. fan with a rigid body painting ritual. Speaking of green, how 'bout the immortal words of Peter Tosh:

“Don’t criticize it; legalize it!”

If you prefer a graffiti gallery to a dog park, then 'man up' and 'make a buck.' Charge by the cover or charge by the can. Host parties, celebrate artist and upcoming bands. Who knows? Who cares?

I don’t. Instead, I care about vandals who think they're fucking with 'the man' when they're only fucking over themseves (and us). Grow up, our youth can have a childhood. It's no fun explaining why some jackass painted penis or "N" word on a wall to impressionable young minds. Consider yourself lucky Gavin Newsom and his Graffiti Czar, Officer Putts, installed cameras, because they're the only thing protecting you from me. And, you don’t want to fuck with me.

I'LL SHOVE THAT CAN STRAIGHT UP YOUR AEROSOL!

Wake up! This is America, the home of free will and enterprise. Stop infringing on others rights and take advantage of few of your own. Start a business, you can charge assholes like me to see the shit you do!

SFist: Warm Water Cove Going To The Dogs by Jim

Photo Credit: SFist. An SFPD cruiser backs out from the cove after responding to a report of possible taggers in the area.