Katie Worth

Family’s bronze hippo statue stolen from driveway

Both the early history and the current whereabouts of Thomus the Hippopotamus remain enshrouded in mystery, but the part of his life story that we know begins 15 years ago in Burlingame. Dannette Peltier was on a walk with her mom in the Peninsula city when they saw a sign for an auction. Never having attended an auction before, they decided to peek in — but not before promising each other they wouldn’t purchase anything. A couple hours and $1,400 later, Peltier was the proud owner of a 500-pound bronze, smiling hippopotamus statue. She had no excuse for the purchase — she had simply fallen in love with it. The hippo was so long it barely fit in her car — its...

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Transpacific rowers' long journey ends in SF

Under the glamorous, industrial flanks of the Golden Gate Bridge, unexpected November sun glinted off the russet backs of barking sea lions, a helicopter circled nervously, surfers stood atop their boards shouting, "Hip, hip, hoorah!" — and two beaming men plowed their oars through San Francisco Bay waters at last. The men had just managed to row from Japan to California. The trip across the Pacific in a 22-foot rowboat took 190 days. Mick Dawson, 45, and Chris Martin, 28, of Boston, Lincolnshire, England, hoped to become the first to row unsupported across the Pacific Ocean and finish in San Francisco. The team came mighty close to completing that goal. The...

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Plans for McLaren Park disc golf course move ahead

Anyone who has tossed a Frisbee at a small basket a hundred yards away knows that a hole in one is a rare feat. In 1997, the San Francisco Disc Golf Club failed to score one in its first attempt to put a new disc golf course in McLaren Park. Rather than the warm reception it then thought the proposed recreational area would receive, the idea was torn apart by a group of park neighbors at a public meeting. It was so heated that it took years for the organization of disc throwers to regroup and try again, said club outreach director Ross Hammond. After rethinking their strategy, the club gave it another shot. The next time, it campaigned for a course in Golden Gate Park. In 2003, the...

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Newsom dodges heavy questions at morning event

If nothing else, the mayor is brushing up on his avoidance skills these days. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who’s been steering clear of press events since he announced his withdrawal from the governor’s race two weeks ago, was spotted at the Golden Gate Yacht Club greeting two athletes who had just completed a cross-Pacific journey in a rowboat. Newsom repeatedly shunned reporters’ questions about the governor’s race, as well as about his experience with new parenthood. Ever the policy man, he did however indulge questions about negotiations between hotels and their employees and about city environmental programs. When reporters refused to give up their quest for comment...

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Hotels reject union deal; mayor ready to step in

The prolonged talks between San Francisco hotels and union workers has yet to produce a contract, and there does not seem to be an immanent deal either. On Thursday, the Grand Hyatt rejected the union’s one-year contract proposal and has not provided the union with a counterproposal, according to Local 2 spokeswoman Riddhi Mehta. A contract between hotels and their employees expired on Aug. 14, and efforts to hammer out a new contract have been unsuccessful so far. Health care is the main sticking point in contract talks, though wages and the length of the contract are also at issue. Last Thursday, members of the Unite Here! Local 2 union walked out of the Grand Hyatt Union...

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Jason Johnson to organize version of annual TED conference

The vice president of marketing for a subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories is a cofounder of TEDxSF, a local, independently organized version of the annual TED conference, which draws famous speakers from around the world. On Tuesday, TEDxSF will host “Creativity & Reinvention” at the California Academy of Sciences. What is TED? It’s a technology, entertainment [and] design conference that’s gone on for more than 20 years. What TED does each year is it gathers 1,300 of the most amazing people together to spread great ideas, which range from, of course, technology, entertainment and design to business and science and global issues. What’s so special about...

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Power restored after 6,300-customer blackout

Power was restored to some 6,300 San Francisco, Brisbane and Daly City homes and businesses by less than three hours after an electric problem in an underground vault blew out power to the region. PG&E received a call of a smoking manhole cover at Geneva Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard at 4:45 p.m., said spokesman Andrew Souvall. Full service was restored by 7:30 p.m. The power company shut off power to customers in the Excelsior district between Mission Street and the San Francisco border, and from Geneva Avenue to Whipple Street. The power is also out in northern Daly City from Crocker Avenue to Carter Street. At 6:15 p.m. Souvall said the power company hopes to have power back on...

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Art show benefits North Beach Citizens

San Francisco artist Richard L. Perri's paintings will be shown at Gallery 28, 1228 Grant Ave., throughout November. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Nov. 12. Fifty percent of proceeds from the show will benefit North Beach Citizens. What pieces will be on exhibit? They are images of San Francisco scenes — images of old waterfront dives, the java huts that dotted the waterfront. They’re basically retro images of the places that were really the heart and soul of what San Francisco used to be like. Why java huts? They were places that the blue-collar workers used to go. The blood and guts of The City. For me, art is an accelerated statement of ideas. The java...

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More whistleblowers filing City complaints

Talk about not-safe-for-work: A city employee has been fired after they were found to be watching pornography on their work computer, according to a report by The City’s Office of the Controller. That little news item was mentioned in a list of incidents reported to the city’s Whistleblower Program. The program was created by a proposition passed by voters in November 2003. The program has grown year by year. This year, Whistleblower Program received some 465 complaints – up from 347 last year. The majority of this year’s complaints – 85 percent – came in over the Web site, while just a few percent were called in, according to the Controller’s...

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Neighbors fight to keep local post offices open

Portola Auto Service owner and neighborhood resident Paul Giannini has been using the McLaren Station Post Office for 34 years, and he was dismayed to learn that the location may be slated for closure. Two and a half months after the U.S. Postal Service notified the public that three post offices in The City were being considered for closure, residents have begun campaigning to keep their doors open — or, as Giannini calls it, a "revolt." In addition to McLaren Station, which is located on San Bruno Avenue near Wayland Street, the Bernal Heights Station Post Office on Tiffany Avenue and the Federal Building post offices might also be shuttered to help close a budget gap...

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Pines losing disease fight

One by one, the great stately Monterey pines lining Sunset Boulevard have been coming down. The trees are being felled by pine pitch canker, a fungal infection that first showed up on California’s coast in 1986 and has slowly but surely infected hundreds of thousands of trees — including thousands in San Francisco. Although the disease is not new, city agencies are seeing more and more trees infected by the disease to the point where they must be cut down, said San Francisco Urban Forestry Council member Carla Short, who is also the urban forester for the San Francisco Department of Public Works. On Tuesday, the council will meet to discuss the agencies’ concerns...

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Healthy balance: New measure aims for gender equality for health insurance

It’s a gloomy picture for women trying to buy health insurance. According to a study released by the National Women’s Law Center last year, women are less likely than men to have jobs that offer group health insurance, so they are more frequently pushed to purchase an individual policy for their health care needs. At the same time, women are paid 78 cents to every dollar their male counterparts earn, according to the same study, so it’s more difficult for them to afford individual insurance. To add insult to injury, the women are charged as much as 39 percent more for the individual policy than men with a similar health profile. That last piece is about to...

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Obama gets presidential treatment in The City

Three popular bus lines will be diverted for parts of today and Friday to avoid running into the traffic caused by President Barack Obama’s brief presence in The City, according to Muni. A handful of roads will also be closed. The president is scheduled for an overnight visit to San Francisco tonight for a $500 to $1,000 per person fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. Air Force One is scheduled to land at San Francisco International Airport just after 5 p.m. and Obama will spend the evening at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in Union Square. He’ll leave for another obligation in Texas by 9:30 a.m. Friday. To reduce traffic in areas where the president may visit,...

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Newsom fans choose new logo

Gavin fans have spoken: Gavin Newsom’s name, in front of a rising yellow sun, on a white background. Give it a few months and that winning logo may well be plastered everywhere you look. The logo beat out its inverse – a white name over a yellow rising sun on a blue background – and four other multihued logos in a contest to choose the mayor’s emblem for his 2010 run for governor. Some 8,129 people voted in the contest, according to a blog posted by Theo Yedinsky, the Newsom Campaign’s New Media Director. The favorite received 2,437 votes since Wednesday, when the online logo contest began, though the logo that will be plastered on signs, billboards, TV...

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Health department makes push to curb lead-candy sales

Don’t give kids candy with lead in it: seems like a no-brainer. Nonetheless, a 10-month campaign by the San Francisco Department of Public Health convinced only about 20 percent of the 500 shops they visited to stop selling lead-laced candy. Lead can cause slowed body growth, reduced IQ, hearing problems and behavior problems in children. It is found in dozens of candies produced in Mexico, especially chili and tamarind candy. The lead contamination may come from the soil where chilies are grown or from the factories where the candy and their wrappers are made. A recent survey indicated that more than 70 percent of parents who shop at those stores unwittingly bought the...

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Trial for alleged tech tyrant delayed again

A trial-setting hearing for Terry Childs, the former San Francisco Department of Technology employee who refused to turn over passwords to The City’s network, has been pushed back yet again pending a decision by an appeals court. A hearing was scheduled Friday morning for Childs, 44, is accused of tampering with San Francisco’s main computer network and has been held in jail in lieu of a sky-high $5 million bail since July 2008. In August, an appeals judge tossed out three of four charges against Childs, leaving in place one felony charge for Childs’ refusal to hand over network passwords to his bosses. Despite the reduction in charges, San Francisco Superior Court...

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Supervisors call for charges to be dropped against 1971 killing suspect

Two San Francisco supervisors will count among protesters rallying outside the San Francisco Hall of Justice Friday morning in defense of Francisco Torres, the only remaining defendant of eight arrested in 2007 for allegedly killing a police officer nearly 40 years ago. Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos will join Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco NAACP and a former supervisor, in calling on Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop the charges against Torres in a protest scheduled an hour before Torres faces a court hearing. Torres was one of seven people charged eight people who were once members of the militant Black Liberation Army and whom prosecutors suspect of...

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Blue Angels the highlight of Fleet Week

Traveling 450 mph, the wing tips of the plane mere feet from another aircraft, a quarter-mile above an uneasy crowd, Blue Angels pilot Major Nate Miller waits for the signal for the next dramatic move. Then he hears it, crackling through his headset: “Ohhhhh-K!” Precisely on the “kuh” sound of the word — not on the “oh” or the “ay” — Miller and his fellow pilots roll the planes in unison, appearing to almost brush against each other before shooting off in opposite directions. In fact, it’s a maneuver they’ve done thousands of times — including just an hour before, during the final preshow briefing. In almost...

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Popular city icon to tie the knot in S.F. fashion

Local celebrity Tom Sweeney, doorman at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel for 33 years, has to be hands-down the most photographed person in San Francisco. That’s not all — Sweeney has also hobnobbed with presidents, saved a girl from drowning, run marathons in cities across America and appeared in the soap opera “The Young and the Restless.” He’s even told Joe Montana he was sorry but he couldn’t chat any longer because he had to get back to work. Next month, the 52-year-old San Francisco personality famous for his beefeater uniform and mustached charm will add another adventure to his list: marriage. On Nov. 21, the local icon will wed his longtime...

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Biplane pilot ready for daring feats at Fleet Week

Aviator Michael Wiskus is currently en route from Minneapolis and will arrive in San Francisco in time to participate in the San Francisco Fleet Week Air Show this weekend. What do you fly? I fly the Lucas Oil Pitts. It’s a Pitts Model 7 and it’s very rare; only three of them were ever built. It’s a high-performance biplane, built for one thing and one thing only — and that’s extreme aerobatics. When was it built? It was originally built in 1999, but when I bought it, it was wrecked. I bought it on eBay and rebuilt the airplane myself. It’s a tiny little airplane; its wingspan is just 18 feet. Do you like performing in San Francisco? First of all,...

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Blue Angels lead pilot to visit Newsom Tuesday

The lead pilot of the Navy’s Blue Angels will visit the man who sits in the equally topsy-turvy cockpit of city politics on Tuesday. The Blue Angels, the Navy’s demonstration flight team, started arriving today and the rest will arrive in the next day or so. Commander Greg McWherter, the team’s lead pilot, or “boss,” will visit City Hall and shake hands with Mayor Gavin Newsom and members of his staff at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to San Francisco Fleet Week spokeswoman Mary Hickey. Whether Newsom will pick McWherter’s brains about maneuvering delicate vehicles through finicky climate conditions while trying to please a keen audience of hundreds of...

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Old courthouse turned museum stands test of time

Shortly after the oldest courtroom in the Redwood City Courthouse was renovated and turned into a museum, a man peeked in to admire the elaborate antique stained-glass skylight, which takes up most of the ceiling. He’d been in the building before, but had never noticed the skylight — he was getting sentenced, the man told museum director Mitch Postel. Thousands came before the bench under the massive and ornate colored-glass ceiling during the years it crowned the courtroom. But after decades in the service of the law, the building is now devoted to introducing San Mateo County’s rich history to visitors. The courthouse, one of the most spectacular in the nation, will...

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Spiderman to celebrate Insect Zoo anniversary

Spiderman fans and mealworm cookie gourmands are both in luck this weekend. OK, so maybe the former group outweighs the latter by several orders of magnitude. Nonetheless, mealworm cookies will be part of the festivities – as will Marvel Comics’ Spiderman – at this weekend’s celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Insect Zoo at San Francisco Zoo. Visitors will have the chance to see the many inhabitants of the largest bug zoo west of the Mississippi, plus hear special insect presentation, sing insect songs, hang out with tarantulas, learn about spiders, and participate in insect take-home crafts. Kids who dress up as their favorite bug get a dollar off the...

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Suspect searched prior to shootings

A man police say was involved in the murder of two men in the Mission district Sunday afternoon had been searched and questioned by police just 10 minutes before the incident. Andres Siordia, 19, was charged Tuesday with murder and attempted murder for the shooting deaths of Francisco Cornejo, 26, and Francisco Pena, 41. The two men were killed around 4 p.m. Sunday at Papa Potrero’s Pizza at 24th and Potrero streets. A third man was shot, but he’s expected to survive. The crime is believed to be connected to a shooting Friday night that left 21-year-old Michael Sanchez dead and another man injured. Police have said both shootings may be gang related. The incidents have...

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Muni training coach hits building in Japantown

Muni reported its second minor accident of the day this afternoon after a Muni training coach struck a light pole and a building on Laguna between Post and Sutter. The accident, which happened at 1:26 p.m., affected overhead wires and stopped normal service on the 3 Jackson line but injured no one. Muni set up a motor coach service for 3 Jackson riders between Fillmore and Sutter and downtown, while regular bus service continued West of the accident. Earlier in the day, two people were slightly hurt after the mirror of a 71-Haight-Noriega Muni bus swiped a historic F-Market street car downtown. An injured passenger of the F-line complained of pain but declined to be taken to the...

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Redwood City’s territorial waters

In 1851, entrepreneurs new to California discovered that a little creek on the Peninsula emptied out into an exceptionally deep channel in San Francisco Bay. Before long, loggers were floating redwoods down that creek — aptly dubbed Redwood Creek — to the Bay, where they were lashed onto barges and shipped up to San Francisco, which was in the midst of the first of what would be many building booms. Nearly 160 years later, that same deep channel is being used to support construction in the Bay Area. The Port of Redwood City remains essential to the building industry, handling the importation of cement, sand and aggregate to the region, along with exports of waste...

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Education director speaks out against No Child Left Behind

Bob Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest: National Center for Fair and Open Testing, has long critiqued No Child Left Behind. What’s wrong with No Child Left Behind? Nearly everything. No Child Left Behind is an inside-the-Beltway, political mandate that has no relationships with the realities of classrooms. It uses arbitrary gains on low-quality multiple-choice tests as the sole factor for determining educational quality. But part of No Child’s goals were to equalize schools and ensure that underperforming schools received attention, correct? That is a laudable goal. However, the primary assumption No Child makes is the reason schools weren’t...

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Muni jams plague light rail system

A person was hospitalized after a Muni light-rail train stopped suddenly and the person fell, according to Muni spokesman Judson True. The accident, which clogged up outbound underground Muni service in the early afternoon, was one of three simultaneous Muni jams Friday afternoon. The person fell after a K-line Muni train stopped suddenly at the Embarcadero Station. While officials were handling the medical emergency, outbound Muni Metro service on the underground was stopped between 1:04 and 1:23 p.m. Service resumed after that but there was some residual delay, True said. Muni Metro service in the Inner Sunset district was also interrupted after a disabled 18-wheeler blocked a...

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Cow Palace gun show bill awaits signature

The governor’s signature is now all that is needed for the Cow Palace’s gun shows to be a mere memory. Wednesday evening, the state assembly voted 43-30 to pass legislation banning gun sales at Daly City’s Cow Palace. The legislation was introduced earlier this year by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who argued the gun shows that have become a regular event at Cow Palace encourage illegal gun sales and violence. Some have disputed the allegation that the gun show brings violence to the neighborhoods around Cow Palace, but the legislation has been introduced three times – once by then-state Sen. Jackie Speier and twice by Leno – and this time, saw support...

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San Mateo County ahead of the curve on exit exam

Five years ago, more high school sophomores on the Peninsula passed the English section of the state’s graduation exam on their first try than the math portion. Today, that equation has reversed. On Wednesday, the state released the results of the California High School Exit Exam, which students must pass to receive a diploma. Students first take the test in 10th grade. Those who don’t pass have up to seven opportunities to retake the test during their junior and senior years. Overall, public schools in San Mateo County have had a higher percentage of sophomores passing the two sections of the test than the entire state every year since the 2004-05 school year, according...

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Department brings in heavy-hitters for hillside clearing

No, Pan is not frolicking on San Francisco’s hillsides. That’s just one of San Francisco’s born and bred goats, working an eight hour shift on one of The City’s hillsides. For the next week or so, a herd of about 200 goats will be gnoshing on the delicious weeds on a strip of public property below Twin Peaks along Grand View Avenue. The herd, contracted through City Grazing, calls the Bayview District home, but will be eating away problem weeds from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for the next week, said Department of Public Works Deputy Director of Operations Mohammed Nuru. Hiring goats to “mow” weeds down on hilly or hard to reach public lands is not...

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Drought boosts garden workshops

Nancy Vincler has been gardening for more than 30 years, and she fondly recalled the first time she had to nurse her yard through a drought on a restricted water supply. “We would run the hoses from the rinse water from the washing machine into a spare trash container and then bucket it out to the garden,” she said. “We got a lot of exercise, but we were able to save the lawn that year.” Today, as the state enters a third drought year, Vincler hopes to be more prepared. She has already replaced many of her most thirsty plants with California natives that better handle dry times, and installed a water-conserving drip-irrigation system to part of her yard. Vincler...

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Parking fines to increase in Daly City

Daly City and Caltrain are expected to join Peninsula cities that are boosting fines for parking violations in response to a state law that went into effect Jan. 1. Senate Bill 1407 requires cities to give the state an extra $3 per parking ticket; in addition, they must contribute an additional $1.50 to the state. The fees will be used to pay for new criminal-justice facilities and courthouses. To recoup money the state is taking from parking revenue, Daly City has decided to charge an extra $5 per ticket. For a meter violation, the fee would increase from $18 to $23; for double parking, the fee would rise from $30 to $35; for parking in a bus zone, it would go from $251 to $256; and a...

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Nuzzle onboard historic WWII aircraft

This weekend, you can soak up the San Francisco skyline from an entirely new vista: seated in the noisy nose of a restored World War II-era B-17 bomber. A Georgia-based nonprofit is offering rides, for $430, in one of the world’s 14 remaining B-17s that can fly. The bombers were known for their fortresslike sturdiness, and dropped more artillery than any other aircraft in World War II. The chance to ride in the B-17, which will depart from Hayward Executive Airport, comes just months after another novelty first took to Bay Area skies. In October, local company Airship Ventures unveiled their 246-foot airship, a six-cylinder, engine-powered zeppelin, for tours over San Francisco...

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Golf champ’s name dons literacy foundation

By almost every account, George Archer was successful. He had a beautiful family he was devoted to. He was well-liked and respected. He was a pro golfer who won 38 tournaments, including the 1969 Masters — the crown jewel of golf tournaments. However, he also carried with him a failure, a shameful secret — or so he felt — that he took to his grave. Archer was illiterate. The San Francisco native graduated from San Mateo High School in the late 1950s with barely the reading capacity of an 8-year-old. For the next five decades, he tried to improve his skills with every available reading method, but with heartbreakingly little success — probably due to an undiagnosed...

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Library hours quiet down

To kindergarten teacher Gemma Glean, the public library is the ultimate resource. Glean takes her 4-year-old twins there for story time, she uses the computers to study for her online classes, she meets students there when they need tutoring, and when her brother-in-law was recently laid off he started using library resources to search for a new job. Starting Monday, however, it will be less of an available resource. Daly City’s main Serramonte Library will be open just eight hours a day, Monday through Thursday, instead of its current 11 hours a day. The Westlake Branch will also have reduced service hours. Daly City is one of several Peninsula cities trimming library hours in...

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San Mateo County stands to lose $2.5 million in mental health funds

When a family member of Sharon Ross descended into a desperate struggle with mental illness that finally became homeless, he was approached on the street by a member of San Mateo County’s outreach team, who talked him into coming in and getting help for his problems. Now, Ross is worried the funding that helps make such mental-health help possible will be taken away. The county stands to lose $2.5 million for mental-health services if voters approve Measure 1E, one of five on a May special-election ballot that aims to ease the state’s budget crisis. The measure proposes shifting a total of $227 million away from the state’s Mental Health Services Act fund, which was...

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