Bay Area Reporter Weblogs

Out gay diver Matthew Mitcham of Australia won the gold medal in platform diving at the Beijing Olympics today (Saturday, August 23). The victory came as an upset in the men’s finals.

In women’s events, the handball team from Norway, which includes lesbian couple Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg, won the gold medal.

More on the Olympics will appear in next week’s Bay Area Reporter.

A design plan for new developments in the Castro expected to be heard Thursday, August 7 by the city’s Planning Commission has instead been put on the back burner. It is now not expected to come before the public body until after it returns from a summer recess in September.

The document, known as the Upper Market Community Design Plan, has been in the works since 2006 and outlines the types of developments Castro residents would like to see built in the gay neighborhood.

As the Bay Area Reporter reported last month, the plan has been met with some criticism from residents fearful the plan will “fast track” approval of new buildings and lessen their ability to give feedback on the projects.

Planning officials insist the design plan will not hamper the public’s input and will only speed up the review process for those projects that have wide support from neighborhood groups.

Until the plan is adopted, the planning department has put a hold on calendaring any new developments along the upper Market Street corridor that would be impacted by the plan’s guidelines and suggestions.

Staffers are doing some work in-house on certain projects, such as environmental work, and developers are shopping projects around to community groups in advance of getting the green light to bring their plans before the commissioners.

Due to the oversight body’s heavy workload this summer and review of a larger rezoning of the city’s eastern neighborhoods, the Castro design plan has been put on “indefinite continuance.” It has been routinely kicked back since first been agendized for the commission’s July 17 meeting.

“The calendar is still pretty crazy and busy with the eastern neighborhoods plan. We figured to let the dust settle from the eastern neighborhoods because that is taking up so much of the commission’s time. We can’t compete with that,” said Abigail Kiefer, a citywide policy planner assigned to the Castro design plan.

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin emerged the victor tonight (Wednesday, July 23) in his battle to oust Scott Wiener, the openly gay chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party.

Peskin will now oversee the Democratic County Central Committee, a little noticed panel that exerts control over which candidates receive the local party’s endorsements.

By a vote of 18-16 a majority of DCCC members voted at their meeting to replace Wiener with Peskin, who is termed off the board this year. Peskin won with help from gays on the committee. Susan Leal, former Public Utilities Commission general manager, served as proxy for Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) and voted for Peskin. Supervisor Tom Ammiano also voted for him.

Elected to the DCCC in the June primary, Peskin surged to victory with the help of a progressive majority he helped elect to the local Dem panel. He needed 17 votes to claim the chairmanship.

Supervisor Chris Daly, who also won a seat on the body last month, had threatened to campaign against any members of what was known as the “Hope slate” who did not vote for Peskin in future races.

With control of the board up for grabs this fall, progressives had made the race for DCCC chair a priority, as who the Dem panel endorses usually goes on to win their races. The supervisor races could also be key in who replaces Peskin as board chair next year, and in 2011, who opts to run to replace Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The Senate today (Wednesday, July 16) approved the repeal of a discriminatory law barring HIV-positive visitors and immigrants. Passage came on 80-16 vote reauthorizing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

The bill now moves to conference committee before being sent to President Bush.

Senators John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) secured the provision to repeal the travel ban in the Senate’s legislation to reauthorize PEPFAR.

The travel ban originated in 1987 and was codified by Congress in 1993. While immigration law currently excludes foreigners with any “communicable disease of public health significance” from entering the United States, only HIV is explicitly named in the statute. For all other illnesses, the secretary of health and human services retains the ability, with the medical expertise of his department, to determine which illnesses truly pose a risk to public health.

The Human Rights Campaign Wednesday, May 21 pledged an initial contribution of $500,000 to Equality for All, the coalition of LGBT and allied organizations leading the fight against the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.

News of the pledge comes less than a week after the California Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Even before the court issued its ruling, however, anti-gay groups, led by Protect Marriage, submitted signatures to the secretary of state’s office for the proposed “Limit on Marriage” amendment. County officials throughout the state are now in the process of verifying the signatures, but the amendment is expected to make it onto the November ballot.

“The California Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for justice and fairness,” HRC President Joe Solmonese said in a statement. “But the fight for equality has just begun. With the $500,000 commitment to Equality for All today, HRC aims to ensure that California remains a state where every person has the opportunity to realize their hopes and dreams by being able to marry the person they love.”

The latest pledge is in addition to other contributions HRC has already made to Equality for All, including six full-time staff members and $100,000.

For more information, go to www.equalityforall.com

Masen Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, will recount highlights from the recent Transgender Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. during a forum Wednesday, April 30 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street in San Francisco.

The lobby day, sponsored by the National Center for Transgender Equality, was held April 15. Members of Congress from more than 28 states received visits from transgender people and allies who talked with them about the need for employment protections, hate crime legislation, and the need for privacy and documentation rights.

Wednesday’s forum is presented by United ENDA California Coalition, which was formed last fall during the brouhaha over the stripping gender identity from the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The House passed a sexual orientation-only version of ENDA, but the issue has stalled in the Senate.

A bill that would recognize the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk’s birthday sailed through the Assembly Education Committee Wednesday, April 23. If it passes the Legislature and is signed into law, California would become the first state toe designate a day commemorating an LGBT leader.

The bill, AB 2567 by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), passed out of committee on a 7-3 vote. It would proclaim May 22 as Harvey Milk Day, recognizing the anniversary of Milk’s birth. Leno announced he was introducing the bill earlier this year, as the Gus Van Sant movie “Milk” was being filmed in the Castro.

“He was a true American hero who gave hope to a generation of gay and lesbian individuals, and this bill will help honor and preserve his legacy for years to come,” Leno said in a statement.

“Harvey Milk knowingly risked his life because he believed that by living as an openly gay man he would help achieve full equality for all people,” Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors said in a statement. EQCA is sponsoring the bill.

The bill comes at a time when there is renewed interest in Milk’s life and career. In addition to the movie, a bust of Milk is set to be unveiled in City Hall on May 22, which would have been Milk’s 78th birthday. Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in 1978 by Dan White, a former supervisor.

Should the bill become law, it would not result in a paid state holiday. Due to the state’s budget deficit, Leno crafted the bill in a way so as not to generate additional state costs or increase the number of paid state holidays.

The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club will host a land use panel at its April general membership meeting Tuesday, April 22. The panel is titled “Progressive Perspectives on Land Use in San Francisco.”

It will feature Planning Commissioner Christina Olague, Nick Pagoulatos of the Mission Anti-displacement Coalition, and longtime SF land use activists Alan Martinez and Robin Levitt.

The discussion is slated to begin at 8 p.m. The club meets at the Women’s Building at 3543 18th Street.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Donna Hitchens has joined the ranks of “Woman of the Year” honorees from the 13th Assembly District. Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) nominated Hitchens for the award in recognition of her groundbreaking work to improve the accessibility of the legal system for low-income families and children.

In a statement Monday, March 10, Leno pointed to Hitchens’s help establishing coordinated youth services and a mandatory training program for juvenile court attorneys as well as her work in helping to establish the court’s Family Law Self-Help Center. He also praised Hitchens for working closely with the Child Trauma Research Project and the University of California, San Francisco forensic psychiatry program to see that such things as neutral custody evaluations are available to families with limited means.

Curiously, the openly gay Leno failed to mention in his release that he had chosen an out lesbian for the award, or that in 1977 – fresh out of Boalt Hall School of Law – Hitchens helped co-found the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The statement does point to Hitchens working “tirelessly to improve low and moderate income people’s access to the courts and to improve services for at risk youth exposed to violence at home and in the community.”

Leno called Hitchens “one of those extraordinary individuals we rarely come across in our lifetimes,” and added that, “She has put her time and talents to use for those that need them most – foster youth, young people exposed to violence and low-income families. She has touched the lives of so many throughout the Bay Area, I was proud to honor her today.”

Since being elected to the Superior Court in 1990, Hitchens has served as presiding judge, a trial judge in the civil and criminal divisions, and as supervising judge of the Unified Family Court. She is a former member of the Judicial Council and the Advisory Committee on Access and Fairness in the Courts and currently chairs the Science & the Law Education Committee.

For the past seven years, she has chaired the San Francisco Safe Start Initiative, aimed at improving services to young children exposed to violence in the home and in the community. She received the 2001 Benjamin Aranda Access to Justice Award for her efforts to improve access to the courts for low and moderate income people and the 2002 Judicial Officer of the Year Award from the Family Law Section of the State Bar of California.

Hitchens’s partner is San Francisco Superior Court Judge Nancy Davis.

The California Association of Nutrition and Activity Programs has awarded Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager its inaugural California Advocate for Nutrition Award for his work in fighting obesity.

When Yeager served on the San Jose City Council, he convinced his colleagues to pass a measure that required the city to offer more healthy food options in its city-operated vending machines. Under the policy, vending machines in city libraries are only stocked with snacks and beverages that don’t contain trans fats and that are low in sugar, saturated fat and sodium.

Half of the food and drink choices in all other city-operated vending machines must also be healthy options.

“People regularly underestimate the number of calories they consume on a daily basis,” Yeager said in a release last week announcing he had won the award.

“Having more healthy options in vending machines helps our residents make better choices and prevent obesity, heart disease and diabetes.”

Since being elected to the county board in June 2006, Yeager has continued to battle against the bulge for his constituents. He recently ensured that the county would consider healthy eating options when drawing up new contracts for the vendors operating the county’s several cafeterias.

The cafeterias, which serve thousands of county employees, jurors from the Hall of Justice, and residents each week, are currently in the process of revising their menus.