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Dan Schreiber

Election hotline jingled, but no fraud identified

A new phone hotline dedicated to election fraud in San Francisco apparently uncovered no major local malfeasance this campaign season. Read More

Election results defy neighborhood identities

With nude protests at City Hall and a steady stream of consumer-product bans, it’s not a stretch to say that San Francisco’s politics are unconventional. But this year’s supervisorial races added a new chapter — with a moderate Democrat and former Willie Brown protege winning one of The City’s most leftist districts, and a progressive candidate narrowly leading the most conservative district. London Breed pulled off a shocker last week when she beat out a cavalcade of progressives in District 5, which includes the Fillmore, Western Addition and the former hippie haven of Haight-Ashbury. In a race that pitted a bevy of left-leaning politicians against each other in a contest to determine who was a “true progressive,” none of them will end up on the 11-member board. Read More

Slocum clinches open District 4 seat on San Mateo County Board

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Many ballots still out in San Francisco as voter registration hits high numbers

Heading into the final weekend before Election Day, there are still plenty of ballots out in San Francisco. Of 260,628 mail-in ballots sent to voters, only 93,336 had been returned as of Friday. There are a total of 502,756 registered voters in San Francisco, with 234,983 permanent mail voters and 40,344 having registered under the state’s new online voter registration system. Early voting is also available on the ground floor of City Hall from now until polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Local precinct polls also will be open exclusively Tuesday until 8 p.m. Read More

Hippo sculpture improbably returned to Richmond District couple

Three years later — and piece by piece — a San Francisco couple was reunited Thursday with a stolen, 500-pound bronze sculpture that their Sutro Heights neighbors affectionately knew as Thomus T. Hippopotamus. Read More

PETA wants UCSF to refund federal grant due to poor treatment of lab monkey

Animal-rights activists are targeting UC San Francisco over testing of a lab monkey who was kept in a medical study for more than 23 months after developing complications due to a surgical procedure — in violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act. From 2008 to 2010, a female rhesus macaque named Petra was the subject of neurological studies aimed at learning more about Parkinson’s disease. But according to a federal inspection report, the primate suffered for months after hardware removal surgery failed to extract a small piece of drug-injection apparatus from inside her head. Read More

Nudists disrobe at City Hall to protest ban

Although Tuesday’s “nude-in” at City Hall involved slightly more journalists than nudists, a small band of completely disrobed people turned out to protest a proposed citywide ban on public nakedness. They held signs depicting classical paintings of naked subjects, along with disparaging remarks about Supervisor Scott Wiener, who recently proposed the ban after he said he had received too many complaints from residents in his Castro district. Read More

49ers lose shot at $34 million redevelopment cash

A bitter fight over $34 million in redevelopment funding for the new 49ers stadium in Santa Clara could end up being a moot point. While the Niners had argued that the funds were already earmarked for the $1.2 billion stadium project, some residents of the South Bay city wanted to see that money funneled instead into public schools. Read More

Mayor, DA want law keeping Sheriff Mirkarimi out of domestic violence matters

A March domestic violence conviction remains a heavy weight on reinstated Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who responded defiantly when District Attorney George Gascón recently called on him to abandon oversight of rehabilitation programs for batterers until completing his probation. On Monday, Gascón and Mayor Ed Lee proposed using legislation to force Mirkarimi to recuse himself from overseeing such programs. The two officials again contended that Mirkarimi’s conviction “sends the wrong message” to domestic violence victims about coming forward in San Francisco. Read More

Prop. F backers want foes’ Hetch Hetchy ad yanked off air

Supporters of an effort to study the removal of a San Francisco drinking water reservoir in Yosemite National Park are calling on broadcasters to remove their opponent’s ad from the airwaves. The Restore Hetch Hetchy group that’s trying to get the $8 million study approved by voters Nov. 6 is being maligned by the Save Hetch Hetchy group, which maintains that the idea is ludicrous. Restore Hetch Hetchy wants to study drinking water alternatives and the feasibility of deconstructing the O’Shaughnessy Dam that holds in the headwaters of the Tuolumne River. Read More

Mayor Ed Lee wants to know how Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi can oversee domestic violence programs

Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s reinstatement served as a dramatic conclusion to his nine-month domestic violence scandal earlier this month, and he wasted no time extending an olive branch to Mayor Ed Lee — the man who tried to remove him from office. The mayor has effectively pruned that branch. Read More

Under fire, SFPUC points to water conservation effort

Although San Francisco’s water utility has come under fire this election season for not doing more conservation, the agency is pointing to some successes in updating the faucets, shower heads and toilets for one of its biggest users. Read More

San Francisco to decide if it wants micro-apartments

The answer to ballooning housing costs and ever-shrinking vacancy rates in San Francisco might be simple: Build smaller. How small? Tiny — 160 square feet, plus a kitchen and bathroom, to be exact, for only $1,200 to $1,500 per month. That’s exactly the kind of unit Berkeley-based developer Patrick Kennedy wants to build. If the units are successful, one of the nation’s densest cities could become denser, and the stately Market Street corridor could begin to more closely resemble Tokyo. Read More

Last call for Chris Daly’s dive Buck Tavern

When notoriously brazen Supervisor Chris Daly was termed out of his seat at City Hall in 2010, he managed to find another pulpit: behind his very own bar. And thus, the Buck Tavern on Market Street became a hangout for activists, policy wonks, supervisors, journalists and, on at least one occasion, Mayor Ed Lee. But for Daly, it appears even bar ownership comes with term limits. Buck Tavern is set to close at the end of the month due to an impasse with the building owner over the cost of rent. Read More

Travelodge check-in allegedly turns nasty for Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli

The famed guitarist of New Orleans-style funk band The Meters reportedly had an unpleasant exchange with a desk clerk at a San Francisco motel Thursday night, apparently prompting police to respond to the Travelodge on Market Street. Following the band’s sound check for a show at the Brick and Mortar Music Hall in the Mission, Jason Perkins, a Bay Area nightclub manager, was trying to check in to the motel with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee Leo Nocentelli when the trouble began, according to an email Perkins sent to a friend and blogger at BoingBoing. Read More
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