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Tiger Woods In "Serious" Condition After Car Crash
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Photos from Black Friday
Builder of Oakland's Fox Theater Once Imprisoned For 'White Slavery'
There's an interesting little battle going on over who is going to run the Department of Building Inspectors. No wait! Don’t go! We swear this will be interesting! Trust us! Anyhoo, earlier in the week the Building Inspection Commission decided to hold off on voting in Gavin's appointment to run the Department, Assistant Director Amy Lee. Gavin wants Lee to replace the acting Director, James Hutchinson, who recently replaced outgoing Director Frank Chiu (and no, not that Frank Chu). Hutchinson, however, has friends in high places, including the powerful head of the Residential Building Association, Joe O'Donoghue, who are all fighting to save him. Gavin wants to replace Hutchinson because he says the DBI has had a reputation for favoritism and being in O'Donoghue’s pockets while O'Donoghue and his allies are claiming that Gavin is meddling in things he shouldn't and that Lee is unqualified for the job. Because she's pregnant. See, we said it was interesting.
During the hearing, O'Donoghue and his allies went out of their way to say they weren’t being sexist and that the Irish love their women, it's just that, well, Lee might have trouble doing her job because of her sex and her condition. One man said that Hutchinson couldn't be replaced by a "person who is not even going to go up a ladder with her dress down." Several others said that Lee will have to take too much time off for maternity leave and that pregnant women have their minds elsewhere. Said another: "My wife refers to it as 'pregnancy brain.' Her mind is on other things… are you going to replace this man (Hutchinson) with 'pregnancy brain'?" Afterwards, Lee said that the comments were "disgusting." In today’s Chronicle, O'Donoghue told columnist Joan Ryan that he never said those things he was being accused of and that he'll sue anyone who says differently. Memo to Joe- SFist is held together primarily by chewing gum, duck tape, and an old Commodore computer and written by illegal Canadian immigrants imprisoned against our will in Jackson's basement-otherwise known as "the SFist Cave." In other words, you got nothing to sue here.
Picture of Joe O'Donoghue at the hearing from SFGate
O'Donoghue is, or more like was, one of those super-powerful behind-the-scenes types who through organizing, campaign financing, plain ole bullying, and malicious use of poetry held a lot of sway over what got built and who built it. He was big in the dot.com days but then, for reasons still unclear, backed Gonzalez against Newsom in the Mayoral election. With Brown gone and Newsom victorious, O'Donoghue doesn't have as much power as he used to. So, in some ways, this battle is a plain ole' political fight between the down-on-his-luck O'Donoghue and the vengeful Gavin. Thus O'Donoghue's complaint that Newsom wants to replace Hutchinson only because he's trying to exert his control over the DBI. Which, of course, is the point. The DBI has had a bit of a reputation of doing O'Donoghue's dirty work, such as having mysterious inspectors showing up at the home's of political opponents (see, told you this was interesting). Newsom wants to replace one of O'Donoghue's cronies with one of his- the wonky and female Lee. If Hutchinson stays on, O'Donoghue retains some of his power. If Lee takes over, well, as Khan (Noonian Singh, not Genghis) once said, "revenge is a dish best served cold. It is very cold...in space."
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Please sue us, Joe! Pretty please!
"Pregnancy brain?" Please. How many people work in an office where discussing/watching/betting on the NCAA championship games took up about 40% of company time?
And since when does California offer maternity leave for longer than the average vacation cruise to Alaska? You pop out the baby, get thrown out of the hospital the next day, and a month later, back to work!
Up the ladder in a dress? Is this a Naked Gun reference? Was that an attempt at humor?
I'm due to give birth in 3 weeks. My mind is not totally wrapped up in All Things Baby. I find plenty of time to continue my work (teaching self defense and martial arts, no less.) My other day job (never to be named online) told me that they would not be paying for my medical maternity leave because it would "discriminate against all the people in the office who will never take maternity leave." Meaning, the men. Soooo, it's just women who want to have babies? The men would rather we kept our jobs and didn't go through the hell of gestation? Fine with me!
One last question: Would this be an issue if Lee was adopting? Would O'Donoghue still have made all the same comments? Is it really that pregnant women are stereotyped as weak and crazy?
Oh, this man pisses me off.
Umm..trying to say this politely...if you eased up on the exclamation points, like no two sentences in a row, your posts might read a little better.
Does anyone have a copy of the hearing tape online. I would love to play it in my podcast tomorrow. If you have access to the tape, let me know.
According to Joan Ryan, you can find the transcript on the SFGov Web site. I tried to find a copy of it, but was unable to. Try doing a search on the site (sfgov.org) yourself and good luck.
I think you can watch the meeting online here. (it's labeled Building Commission meeting 4/5/05; I haven't actually watched it to confirm if it's this meeting or not.)