Bay Area Reporter Weblogs

Mayoral candidate and District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty will host a City Hall meeting next week on policies surrounding the city’s famed leather events.

The public get-together will be a first for the producers of the annual street fairs and dance parties, known as Folsom Street Events. It comes at the behest of local gay blogger Michael Petrelis, who denounced the nonprofit for instituting a more stringent anti-public-sex policy this summer without first asking the community’s input. In one posting he said it would be better for fair organizers to ban children (and dogs) rather than place restrictions on open displays of gay sexuality.

As the Bay Area Reporter detailed in several stories this summer, the changes were done at the behest of police, who revealed they had received complaints about lax patrolling of lewd and illegal behavior during the 2008 Up Your Alley Fair. The smaller cousin to the larger Folsom Street Fair and known locally simply as Dore Alley, the event attracts a predominantly gay male crowd where oral sex and masturbation is not an uncommon sight within the venue’s foot print.

Even with the stricter guidelines in place – which called for people found engaging in public sex to be ejected from the fairgrounds after their second warning – organizers reported little problems with this year’s events.

The nonprofit’s board of directors and its executive director, Demetri Moshoyannis, had informed Petrelis in October they would grant his request for a public meeting. In an e-mail sent November 18, the organizers said they welcomed feedback on how to make next year’s events better.

“Folsom Street Events would like to hear from you about what makes our events so great and what would make them even better! There’s no need to RSVP. Just stop by and listen or give us a piece of your mind. We hope to see you there!” stated the e-mail.

The meeting runs from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, November 23 in Room 278 at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place in San Francisco.

Former Assistant District Attorney James Hammer, an out gay man who provides legal analysis for local Fox News affiliate KTVU Channel 2, will join the city’s Police Commission as its newest member December 2.

In a surprise turn of events, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Hammer’s appointment to the citizen led police oversight panel at its meeting Tuesday, November 17. Behind the scenes there had been some moves to block Hammer’s being given the post.

But an apparent deal was worked out as no objections were raised when Hammer’s appointment was brought forward for a vote. The board’s Rules Committee had recommended the onetime police officer and Jesuit priest for the post on a 2-1 vote.

Openly gay Supervisor David Campos had voted against Hammer’s appointment – he favored seeing an out gay Latino be given the seat – but had said during the November 5 meeting that he would not block the decision when it went before the full board.

Hammer told the Bay Area Reporter late Tuesday that he was “really excited” about being given the post. He will be the panel’s only openly LGBT member and is widely expected to use the position as a launching pad for a run for district attorney when that elective office becomes vacant.

“I think it is a really exciting time for the city with a new chief of police. It is especially important to have an LGBT representative on there,” said Hammer. “It is a big responsibility, I think.”

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday the Police Commission does not meet next week. Hammer expects to be sworn-in sometime before the panel’s first meeting in December.

Backers attempting to place an initiative to repeal Proposition 8 on the November 2010 general election ballot have announced that they’re starting gathering petition signatures today.

The state attorney general’s office approved five versions of the initiative on Friday, November 13. The initiative’s proponents selected one version.

Prop 8, which passed by 52 percent in November 2008, changed the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

The initiative approved Friday voids Prop 8, and spells out that religious entities can’t be sued or have their tax-exempt status revoked if they refuse to perform same-sex weddings.

The proponents of the ballot initiative have 150 days to gather approximately 1 million signatures. The initiative officially needs 694,354 valid to qualify for the ballot. The signatures are due on April 12, 2010.

Backers have launched a Web site – www.SignForEquality.com – to aid in their efforts.

“SignForEquality.com brings the campaign back to the people,” said John Henning, who is heading the web effort as executive director of Love Honor Cherish. “We’re going to qualify this initiative person by person, and signature by signature.”

Look for more on this story in Thursday’s Bay Area Reporter.

Fernando Ventura (right in photo) and Greg Sherrell, the out duo that used to host the morning drive time show on the now-defunct Energy 92.7 FM, will return to the local airwaves next week on Movin’ 99.7 FM.

The pair is set to join KMVQ on Thursday, November 12, from 5 to 9:30 a.m. The station is owned by CBS Radio.

Ventura and Sherrell were dropped from Energy in September, when the radio station was sold and the format was changed. At the time, both men hoped to return to broadcasting in the Bay Area.

“It is fantastic to be back on the air in th Bay Area and with Movin’ 99.7. After five years, I am excited to have the opportunity to finally get a chance on a big signal,” Sherrell said in a statement.

Energy’s signal was much weaker, meaning the station didn’t reach as many listeners.

By a 2-1 vote Thursday, November 5 the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee selected former assistant district attorney James Hammer, an out gay man, for a vacancy on the city’s Police Commission. Hammer’s nomination for the post now goes before the full board for final approval.

The vote split the committee’s two progressive members who normally side with each other: Supervisor Chris Daly backed Hammer, whom he said would provide “gravitas” to the police oversight panel and would be a “game changer” from day one of his term, while openly gay Supervisor David Campos favored giving the seat to Robert Retana, an out gay Latino who works as an attorney for the state court system.

Campos stressed his vote was not meant as a knock against Hammer, rather he felt Retana’s connections to immigrant and LGBT communities were what was needed as the city has become embroiled over police policies relating to immigrant communities.

“I think this is the right choice for where we are right now with what San Francisco is dealing with,” said Campos, who illegally entered the country as a teenager. “I really believe he is the best choice.”

Providing Hammer with the deciding vote was moderate Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, who said she liked Hammer’s history of being “very vocal for women rights” and felt his background of having worked once as a police officer and later as an attorney would provide “unique perspective” on the Police Commission.

Speaking in support of his application were Steve Adams, president of the Castro merchants group, and one of the women who witnessed De Anza College baseball players rape a woman at an off campus party and denounced how law enforcement authorities handled the case.

He told the panel that should he be selected, “I can make a difference.”

Should Hammer be approved by the full board he would be the only openly LGBT person on the Police Commission. Campos resigned last December after winning his seat to the board, and this summer, the commission’s former transgender president, Theresa Sparks, stepped down to head the city’s Human Rights Commission.

Hammer would serve the remainder of Sparks’s term, which ends April 30, 2011. A likely candidate for district attorney, should that seat open up next year if Kamala Harris is elected as the state’s attorney general and resigns from the position, Hammer said should he enter the race and felt it conflicted with his role as a police commissioner he would resign from the panel.

He said he would have no qualms about standing up to the powerful Police Officer’s Association and does not support seeing the Police Commission’s oversight of officer complaints be watered down. He also pledged to oppose any move to have police officers act as immigration officials.

“If a whiff of it gets out there then witnesses would dry up and they would run away. Then we would all be unsafe,” said Hammer, a former Fox News cable channel legal analyst who has his own private practice in the city.

A South Bay lesbian couple credited for convincing Congressman Mike Honda (D-Campbell) to add rights for binational same-sex couples to his comprehensive immigration reform bill has left the country.

San Jose resident Judy Rickard, on the right in the photo, and her European-born partner, Karin Bogliolo, will board the Queen Mary II Thursday, November 5 and set sail for England. Bogliolo’s six-month tourist visa expired this month and was forced to jump the pond again until she can re-apply for entry to the United States.

“We thought we would treat ourselves to a fashionable crossing of the Atlantic,” said Rickard in a phone interview from the Denver airport this week.

It is the first time that the couple, together four years, has left the country together for an extended period of time. In the past Rickard had remained stateside, apart from a days-long visit overseas, while awaiting Bogliolo’s return to the Bay Area.

“No law allows me to sponsor her” for American citizenship, said Rickard, who found a housemate to take care of her home and cat while she is away. “I did apply to sponsor her through Mike Honda’s office, of course it was denied when it went to the next step.”

The women, whose story was picked up by the national media this summer, have rented an apartment in the south of France for two months and then plan to travel throughout the Iberian Peninsula. Bogliolo, who was born in Germany and has British citizenship, could not say for sure if the women would return to America sometime next year.

“I don’t know if I will ever be back there. The likelihood is they will grant me a new visa but there is no guarantee,” she said. “It is hard seeing friends and family and saying goodbye. Right now I am okay today.”

The couple attended a community forum that Honda held in the South Bay and related their struggle to remain together on American soil. After pondering the women’s predicament, Honda instructed his staff to incorporate rights for binational same-sex couples into the Reuniting Families Act he is pushing through Congress.

The legislation faces an uphill battle and has been put on hold as lawmakers in Washington struggle to pass health care reform. It is unclear if Democrats will make it a priority in 2010 when House members will be up for re-election.

“I have hope, I am not sure about confidence, of seeing laws for binationals passed. We will see how things work in Washington,” said Bogliolo. “I am not sure I have real confidence but I do have real hope. I do think it will happen one of these days but not sure how quickly.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who made worldwide headlines when he ordered city officials to marry same-sex couples in 2004, abruptly bowed out of the 2010 governor’s race Friday, October 30.

“With a young family and responsibilities at City Hall, I have found it impossible to commit the time required to complete this effort the way it needs to – and should be – done,” Newsom said in a statement.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsom canceled a planned fundraiser in southern California, leading to speculation he was leaving the race.

Newsom, 42, had been lagging in public opinion polls and fundraising for months, trailing Attorney General Jerry Brown by as much as 20 points. Brown has not formally declared himself a candidate for governor – a job he held for two terms in the 1970s – but is widely expected to seek the office.

Newsom enjoyed support from many in the LGBT community because of his actions in 2004, just a few weeks after being sworn in as mayor, that allowed same-sex couples to marry. The weddings continued for a month, and the marriages were later invalidated by the state Supreme Court, setting he stage for the court’s ruling last year that legalized same-sex marriage.

However, the passage of Proposition 8 last November ended the nuptials.

[Updated: Openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty said he was "stunned" by Newsom's announcement.

"I'm really stunned," said Dufty, who this month announced he is running for mayor in 2011.

Dufty said Newsom ran a good campaign, and inspired people, despite the fact that he was unable to parlay that support into campaign contributions.

"I think he was a great candidate," Dufty said.

In his statement, Newsom said that he would "continue to fight for change and the causes for which I care deeply – universal health care, a cleaner environment and a green economy for our families, better education for our children, and, of course, equal rights under the law for all citizens."]

Thom Lynch, the former executive director of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, has stepped in as interim executive director for New Leaf: Services for Our Community, which helps LGBT people with substance abuse and mental health issues and provides senior services.

Lynch, 50, who started the job Wednesday, October 21, replaces Ann Harrison. He said that he expects to be in the position for six to nine months, as the agency goes through a strategic planning process.

New Leaf “has had tremendous success,” said Lynch, but it’s also “facing major changes in health insurance with Healthy San Francisco and whatever comes out of Congress this year, so it’s a great time for the organization to look at its strengths and challenges.”

Healthy San Francisco isn’t health insurance but was designed to make health care services accessible and affordable to uninsured San Franciscans.

Health care legislation is grinding toward the finish line in Congress.

Lynch said that insurance changes could include possible new limits on the number of times people can see a counselor.

“The organization’s in pretty good shape financially, but there are of course challenges,” said Lynch.

He said that he isn’t anticipating changes to services.

New Leaf’s not looking for a new permanent executive director right away, but the plan is to have a new head in place by the end of the planning process, said Lynch.

Lynch indicated he’s not interested in the job himself.

“That’s not part of what I’m looking at,” he said.

Since he left the LGBT Community Center in August 2007, Lynch said that he’s been consulting, and returned two months ago from Spain, where he’d been working for one company looking for venture capital and helping manage a data storage company.

Magnet, the gay men’s health center in the Castro, next week will play host to the first town hall with the major candidates running for District 8 supervisor.

All four of the well-known out candidates competing to succeed termed out Supervisor Bevan Dufty in 2010 have agreed to attend the event. Dufty, who is running for mayor in 2011, will also be on hand at the public’s first chance to meet and greet the wannabe supes contenders. The town hall will run from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, October 27.

The get together comes one night after the board of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club is set to vote on a contentious proposal to suspend its bylaws and do an early dual endorsement for D8 candidates Rebecca Prozan and Scott Wiener.

The idea to split Alice’s nod between the two former co-chairs of the club is roiling the more moderate LGBT political group and has incensed the campaign of Laura Spanjian, another past Alice co-chair.

Along with shutting Spanjian out of the competition for Alice’s endorsement, the proposal would also block former Alice board member Rafael Mandelman from the endorsement process altogether. Wiener’s and Prozan’s backers say they have the votes needed to push through the dual endorsement, but Spanjian’s supporters have been hitting the phone lines to try to stop it in its tracks.

The Alice board meets behind closed doors, so it will be interesting to see if the internal club dispute spills out into the open Tuesday night.

That same evening the more progressive Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club is set to vote on whether to give its endorsement in the D8 race to Mandelman, its current president. Considering none of the other candidates plan to be at the Milk Club meeting, which starts at the same time as the town hall, it is a safe bet that Mandelman has the endorsement locked up.

Magnet is located at 4122 18th Street, while the Milk Club meeting takes place at the Women’s Building at 3543 18th Street.

After the Bay Area Reporter’s Political Notebook reported last week that a gay man who publicly opposed a change to the city’s sanctuary city policy received a homophobic phone message, liberal San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly contacted the paper to denounce the hate speech.

The anonymous caller left the diatribe on the answering machine of Colin Gallagher, who had spoken out against legislation that would restrict city officials from reporting illegal immigrant youth who are arrested to federal immigration authorities until after they are convicted of their crimes.

The unidentified male caller contacted Gallagher at home and left him a message that both attacked Gallagher and praised Daly, who supports the policy change introduced by openly gay Supervisor David Campos.

Following the publication of the column in the October 15 edition of the B.A.R, Daly e-mailed to say he was surprised to see his name come up in the item and denounced the caller for using hate speech in a policy dispute.

“As you know, I have prided myself on my work on behalf of San Francisco’s LGBT community and immigrant communities. I truly believe that peoples’ liberation struggles are interdependent,” wrote Daly. “I also take this opportunity to denounce the homophobic comment reported in your column, as I denounce the many racist and anti-immigrant comments that I have received.”

At their meeting Tuesday, October 20 the Board of Supervisors passed Campos’ legislation by a mayoral-veto-proof majority of 8-2, with Supervisors Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd opposed. Supervisor Michela Alioto Pier was excused to attend a funeral, while openly gay Supervisor Bevan Dufty, a mayoral candidate in 2011, provided the vote needed to block Mayor Gavin Newsom’s veto threat.

But the mayor’s spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle that the policy change is unenforceable and will be ignored by the mayor.

“The Campos bill isn’t worth the paper it’s written on – it’s unenforceable and he knows that,” Ballard told the daily paper. “We are not going to put our law enforcement officers in legal jeopardy just because the Board of Supervisors wants to make a statement.”

To read the rest of the Chronicle’s coverage of the policy dispute, visit http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/10/21/MNO61A8DTN.DTL.