Let's look back at the week that was. -d2
Click here to go to the picture slideshow.
Every Friday, SF Weekly's news blog 'The Snitch' takes a look back at the week that was. And man, we had some dope reporting this week. -d2
--City Stiffs Chicken John $20,000--Buskers Butt Heads with Port
--Ben Wachs Rides the Rails with MUNI PD
--SFPD Opens a Cold Case Division
--SFPD: Guns Seizures Double
--Debut of RaidersSuckNinersSuck Weekly Feature on Mondays
San Francisco to Chicken John: we don’t take PayPal
By Benjamin Wachs
By the time the city’s Ethics Commission got through with the Chicken John for Mayor campaign, only $5,000 of $25,000 in donations was deemed eligible for matching funds.
“That’s gotta hurt,” the candidate acknowledged. “It turns out you can stop Rock and Roll. I had no idea.”
What went wrong for Chicken? Well, you see, apparently the city of San Francisco doesn’t accept PayPal.
That’s not an official policy, according to an employee at the Ethics Commission who would only speak on background … it’s just that all credit card contributions need to be verifiable, and the city won’t take Pay Pal’s word that contributors live in San Francisco.
To qualify for matching funds, a candidate needs to raise $25,000 from no fewer than 250 city residents, none of whom can have more than $100 counted towards the total.
The Chicken John campaign swears it has that … but can’t prove it if PayPal’s word isn’t good enough for city hall.
“(The Ethics Commission) said PayPal’s receipts are not going to cut it because on the PayPal receipt, where it lists the words name and address, above it appear the words ‘shipping address’ and for purposes of establishing residency, a shipping address is not adequate,” said Chicken John for Mayor campaign manager Lev Osherovich. “So we thought about this and went and talked to PayPal, and they said their policy is not to reveal billing addresses to anyone but the customer. But they do have a system internally for verifying that a shipping address corresponds to a credit card billing address, and they would provide that documentation to us. And we went back to the ethics commission and told them that, and they said no, that still won’t cut it.”
The fantastically ironic result: the city of e-commerce just doesn’t trust people who do business on-line.
The city has given Chicken John until Wednesday to prove that hundreds of people who paid through PayPal are in fact city residents … without using PayPal data.
A PayPal spokesman could not be reached for comment, despite almost 45 minutes on hold … after which a “Senior Customer Service” employee refused to give me a phone number for their corporate spokesman but promised that someone would get back to me. Either PayPal finds this hugely embarrassing and doesn’t want to talk about it, or they have the best protected spokesmen in America.
Chicken John said he’s willing to try and meet the city’s requests … calling them “not unreasonable” … but thinks that he should be given more time. “I’m the first candidate who’s raised funds this way. This is a situation that no candidate has ever been in before,” he said. “If it were another candidate, there would be lawyers called in at this point – I make a great test candidate.”
The debacle is also certain to make his stump speech.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about when I discuss the resistance our city has to innovative thinking. We like verifying that contributions are from San Francisco residents. The part that we don’t like is when tough rules become so unreasonable that they keep people from trying new things. I think, if they won’t accept PayPal’s reassurances, that they should give me ample time to write people letters so they can send in copies of their drivers licenses or whatever the committee wants.”
“It’s not a done deal,” he added, “but it’s not looking good.”
Every day at noon, the SF Weekly.com news blog 'The Snitch' tours its peers in the Village Voice Media chain to find cool stories. This week on ChainSmoking, Denver. -d2
-- Tag the Fag: A queer turn of events on a Colorado Springs playground.-- Michael “Heckuva Job” Brown Knows Disaster: The former FEMA head revisits his worst mistake and talks about the disaster that is the What If? Colorado campaign.
-- DIA Conspiracies Take Off: Conspiracy theorists think something's fishy at Denver International Airport.
-- The Funnies Aren't Anymore: A two-week binge on daily comic strips bored this columnist to tears.
Here's the headlines you need to know. -d2
--WSJ: Google and the Moon: Why Worry?--Snitch: Mimes Have Rights Too
--Snitch: SF Opens Cold Case Shop
--Snitch: MUNI Cop Ridealong
--Snitch: SF Gun Seizures Double
--Gate: Why My GF's Sister Is Still On ...
Performance anxiety over proposed regulations for Pier 39-area showmen
By Joe Eskenazi
When Eric Cash says something feels just like walking on broken glass, he knows of what he speaks. The 30-year-old comedian regularly shambles on the shards in his street act (he also eats fire, which, he confesses, plays hell with his liver).
So, when asked which is more difficult – walking on broken glass or working with the Port of San Francisco over rules regulating waterfront street performances – Cash lets out a hearty laugh.
“Well, I know how to walk on broken glass,” he says.
Officials at the Port don’t know from broken glass, but they hinted that they’re not having so much fun with this process, either. An attempt to ostensibly manage crowd safety and mobility and establish acceptable levels of noise – which would allow street musicians to use amplifiers without worry of arrest and confiscation – has resulted in angry recriminations, finger-pointing and internecine warfare within the ranks of the street performers.
Art meets history meets miniature golf in Hayes Valley.
By Joe Eskenazi
It’s a shame that there’s apparently never been a windmill in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley. It would have gone so well on a miniature golf course.
On Saturday afternoon you will have your last chance to play a free round of mini golf at a nine-hole course in an erstwhile vacant lot at Hayes and Octavia. Yet for those who, echoing Mark Twain, feel mini-golf is a good mini-walk spoiled, this isn’t just any putt-putt course. Each hole represents a different historical era of the neighborhood; you can’t help but learn something no matter how hard you try.
This week, SF Weekly News Blog contributor Benjamin Wachs rides along with the surge in Muni Cops, inspecting fares and providing help. Watch your ass, SF. - d2
“Fast Pass Please” gets the fast track
After nearly doubling the number of fare inspectors riding the rails, MUNI’s going to double them again this year.
By Benjamin Wachs
It’s 10:30 on a Thursday morning. At one side of the N Judah, Fare Inspector Nelson Magobet is talking to a man in his late-20s. The man is looking through his bag.
“I lost it,” he says. “But I got a transfer. I just … lost it.”
Magobet says that if he can find it ...
By Benjamin Wachs
If you got away with murder two decades ago, this may not be your year. Late last month the San Francisco Police Department created its first full time “cold case” unit.
Hey … this kinda sounds like a TV pilot.
The unit comes at a time of plunging arrest rates for new homicides and other crimes. According to a 2003 report by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), cold cases are most likely to crop up during a time of rising homicide rates (like now) and overtaxed ...
Police are redirecting manpower to seize a record number of street heat
By Benjamin Wachs
You know that old NRA talking point “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”? Well, it turns out we’ve got plenty of both. In a year of record breaking homicides, police say our streets are flooded with more guns than ever.
From January through August the police seized over 600 guns while conducting arrests – almost twice as many as this time last ...
