As we mentioned on Friday, former Castro Supervisor Bevan Dufty was brought back in to the CIty Family fold last week after Mayor Lee gave him a new post as San Francisco's Next Top Homeless Advocate "Director of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement." (It stands for "HOPE", get it?) Dufty, who will be leaving his temporary $75-per-hour gig sending out form letters to SamTrans riders, will reportedly be making a cool $156,000 yearly salary in the job that Mayor Lee just made up. more ›

When former Castro Supervisor Bevan Dufty announced he'd be working a public transit gig down in the peninsula, we guessed it wouldn't be too long before the unsuccessful candidate for mayor bounced back in to a proper city job. Just five weeks after that announcement, Mayor Lee has stepped up with a new gig for Dufty: overseer of the city's homeless policy efforts and housing issues. more ›

After an unsuccessful run at the Mayor's office, former District 8 supervisor and Willie Brown staffer Bevan Dufty has a new post with the San Mateo County Transit District. Dufty will be the new interim community relations manager for SamTrans and Caltrain. more ›

Behold Bevan Dufty, your wittiest San Francisco mayoral candidate. The openly Pisces / former District 8 supervisor devoted more than 18 years of service to San Francisco, including eight years on the Board of Supervisors. Of Mr. Dufty's many accomplishments, the most pressing and remarkable has to be the fact that his godmother was Billie Holiday. Which, jealous. We sure are. Anyway, his Twentysomething answers are as follows: more ›

After Bevan Dufty's campaign won our hearts and minds with last week's magical Muni ad, the former D8 supervisor is tugging at our heartstrings again with a new campaign video addressing the city's mass exodus of parents and families. Since we all loved the appearance Dufty's daughter Sidney the first time around, Dufty has enlisted a small army of her classmates to represent the scores of kids that have bailed on the city's public school system. Observe as this pattern of "uneven schools and uncertainty about school assignments" leads to a depressing, Cormac McCarthy-esque ending: more ›

This is how you do a mayoral campaign TV spot, people. While SFist doesn't do political endorsements -- SF politics remain far too inside-baseball to be comprehensively relevant; we trust that most of you know what to do inside a ballot box, anyway -- we do rabidly champion almost everything we like on TV. And hey, this TV ad for Bevan Dufty's 2011 mayoral bid isn't too shabby. more ›

Jeff Adachi, John Avalos, David Chiu, Bevan Dufty, Dennis Herrera, Joanna Rees, Phil Ting, and Leland Yee will all sport their finest bikinis (or not) during this Saturday's fundraiser car wash for McKinley Elementary School. No word yet if frontrunner Ed Lee will show up for some sudsy fun in the sun, but a boy can dream. Anyway, here are the rules: more ›

Arriving late to the Pier 38 offices of Automattic yesterday evening for a mayoral candidate forum on Open Government, we caught the tail end of opening remarks from a panel comprised of the nine candidates for mayor that people actually take seriously. The polite debate that followed ostensibly focused on the vague topic of technology, but actually drifted everywhere from Treasure Island development to smartphone apps for Muni Operators. Mostly it was an opportunity for these candidates to see who could toss around the most buzzwords without sounding like a complete tool while their media team set their thumbs on fire tweeting updates and pull-quotes to loyal Internet followers. more ›

John Avalos: While the progressive's top choice for mayor won't be in attendance, you can check out the first in a series of (presumably pro-Avalosian) SF Bay Guardian-sponsored mayoral forums starting tonight. "The idea is to get a discussion going on what a progressive agenda looks like, what issues the candidates ought to be talking about and how that could be implemented." This evening's gathering goes from 6-8 p.m. at the USF Lone Mountain campus, room LM 100. "[W]e'll have vans to help people with mobility issues get up the hill," notes SFBG. Details. more ›

For your wonky pleasure, we have some highs and lows today regarding two mayoral candidates. First, according to Chris Roberts at SF Appeal, City Attorney Dennis Herrera could be in tepid water for allegedly questionable funding. Roberts notes: "Lobbying clients of local political consultant Alex Tourk -- who is under investigation for potentially illegally lobbying City Attorney Dennis Herrera, whose campaign for mayor Tourk is running -- also donated to Herrera's mayoral campaign, records show." Current city law, you see, restricts campaign consultants from contacting current or former clients. This law was authored by a former supervisor who, at the time, had a beef with the Newsom Administration. more ›

Last night, Bevan Dufty came out to the Eagle Tavern to speak in front of a crowd of the bar's supporters, including a couple local musicians. Also: A stinging Giants loss to LA, Temporary Mayor Ed Lee had a laugh with Newsom's official portrait, protesting wars in San Francisco just isn't cool anymore, some guy plans to swim for 60 hours straight and a prankster superglued all the locks in the Ferry Building closed. more ›

As we mentioned earlier, last night's Board of Supervisors meeting got a little hectic. While the real news is that Ed Lee looks to be our man in the Mayor's office for the next year*, the most exciting part by far was Chris Daly's roughly two minute speech that had the rest of the SF Government TV nerds all excited last night. more ›

Yesterday's eight-and-a-half-hour meeting of the Board of Supervisors regarding the vote for interim mayor -- a drama which, as we noted, riveted at least several dozen non-blogging, non-journalist San Franciscans -- culminated in yet another delay, with the final vote happening Friday. However all signs point to Ed Lee getting the job. Who is this Ed Lee, you ask? Why he's our not-oft-spoken-about City Administrator, and he's Gavin's first choice for a "caretaker" mayor. more ›

Those rainbow flag banners that hang vertically off the tops of lampposts along Market Street in the Castro? They're apparently illegal according to historic preservationists, who say that nothing but temporary banners are allowed to be attached to the poles, which are themselves designated historic structures. The metal bands attaching these small banners tend to rust, and many of these banners — which have been hanging up there for about a decade and are not to be confused with the larger rainbow flags that are hung all the way down Market in honor of Pride Month in June — are looking kind of faded and tattered these days. As a Facebook Group devoted to the matter puts it, "They are now filthy and torn and no longer express the PRIDE that our community feels." UPDATE: It's looks like most of the banners, at least along Market between Castro and Sanchez, have already come down. more ›

Noe Valley is weird. more ›

The Board of Supervisors voted 9 to 1 yesterday to approve the $157,500 loan to the LGBT Center to address their aforementioned mortgage renegotiation issue. Supervisor Sean Elsbernd was the sole dissenting vote, but Carmen Chu also expressed her concerns during the meeting. "I think the message that we need to say today is, we want this organization to succeed, but we also want to make sure that this organization is self-sufficient," Chu said. more ›

It's not a shocker that the not-quite-vibrant LGBT Center (you'd think it would be, it has a nice building, but it's not exactly a well-frequented space) is facing some tough times eight years after opening to great fanfare. The Center, which is a city-subsidized non-profit, plays host to a variety of HIV-awareness, arts, and community meetings, but it hasn't found much income from renting out its spaces to community groups and the like. The city spent $5.7 million on the Center's building (which was also partly funded by a large donation from its namesake, Chuck Holmes, the founder of gay porn pioneers Falcon Studios). But according the Chron they are now seeking a $1M mortgage bailout, which supervisors David Campos and Bevan Dufty both support. more ›

It wouldn't be an election year in SF without perennial underdog candidate Starchild in the race. Starchild is among a gaggle of candidates vying for Bevan Defty's seat on the Board of Supervisors in District 8, which is comprised of the Castro, Duboce Triangle, Dolores Park, Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, and Glen Park. more ›

Although the election is still a couple of years away, district 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty "plans to file forms with the city's Election Department this morning announcing his intention to run [for mayor] and will immediately begin raising money and his profile," reports SFGate. more ›

SFMTA director Nathaniel Ford expressed deep sadness and frustration over yesterday's Muni crash, which injured 6 people, saying in a statement, "This accident was intolerable and deeply frustrating, I know that the riding public is concerned about Muni safety, and so am I. Our ongoing work to improve Muni safety is clearly more urgent than ever." more ›

Never one to be advantageous about a tragic situation, Supervisor Bevan Dufty put his heart on his Facebook page's sleeve following the Muni crash. Ahem: more ›

In addition to the meth cloud that hangs above Beck's Motorlodge -- we kid! sort of. but not really. -- Supervisor Bevan Dufty would like to create a pink cloud that would float over the intersection of Market and Castro streets. The idea, according to SF Chronicle, "is recycled from 2000, when artist Christian Werthmann's 'pink cloud' was one of two winning proposals for a city art piece to commemorate the late Harvey Milk, a supervisor and gay rights advocate." (Here's what it would look like.) more ›

Well, this is some surprising news. Word has it that whenever you make a Muni-related call to SF service number 311, that call costs Muni around two dollars. No, seriously. During today's Dufty-driven Muni accounting meeting, according to reports," the D8 Supe confirmed with Tom Nolan (MTA board vice-chair) that each "Municentric" call to 311 costs $1.96. That is to say, the $1.96 per call has added up to a whopping bill to MTA of $6.2 million. The 311 operators you call to simply "check nextmuni for you" cost Muni several million dollars. Jesus. 311, for those of you who don't know, is Mayor Gavin Newsom's project that "connects residents, businesses, and visitors to Customer Service Representatives ready to help with general government information and services." more ›

Have you noticed an overabundance of worried, clustered, fannypack-sporting heterosexuals roaming the Castro? Yeah, that's not the crystal talking, boys. It seems, according to C.W. Nevius, "large tour buses have begun to park in the area on Thursday and Sunday afternoons, opening their doors and sending hundreds of tourists out to gawk and snap photos of the exotic sight of two men holding hands." Gross! And the mess that spills out from inside said buses "tend to cluster together in large, nervous groups, pointing at residents and taking photos." And Castro residents are none too thrilled. District supervisor Bevan Dufty, though, has an idea: "We'll just get the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence on this .. [a] few blessings from them and those tour buses would disappear." Good call, Bev. Or, better yet, post Bambi Lake at the corner of 18th and Castro. She can have them for lunch. (SFGate, Jameth) more ›

Mr. Nevius is steaming mad at SFist's number-one fan, Chris Daly. Why? Well, it seems that the altruistic SF Supervisor - kissed by the lips of God himself! - made a civic-minded teen cry. C.W. reports that during last week's Board of Supes meeting, "Amanda Wong, a junior at Lowell High, waited two hours for her chance at the podium during the public comment period, but was so frustrated when Daly first cut her time to one minute, then got up and left when she started to speak, that she burst into tears." Aw. Wong explained her emotional outburst, saying she "didn't mean to cry...I just kind of lost it. I thought they were supposed to listen to us." (Isn't that adorable?) Later on in the meeting, Bevan Dufty made some sort of dramatic exit, storming out of the room in a fit. Fierce. Update: Nevius is wrong? Fibber! Daly responds with what really went down. more ›

(image courtesy of Dan Berkes and SFGTV2) more ›

Yesterday we mentioned the delightful work trip/vacation San Francisco supervisor Bevan Dufty and city treasurer Jose Cisneros took to Australia for Sydney's Gay Mardi Gras. Trannyshack founder Heklina was there, too. And many readers fretted about whether or not city tax dollars went to pay for this trip down under -- an excursion, it should be mentioned, that will reportedly bring in much-needed tourist dollars to SF. Anyway, according to Dufty's office: more ›

Somehow we overlooked this last week, but local porn-ish blog, the Sword, captured images of San Francisco's openly bent politicos Supervisor/personality Bevan Dufty and city treasurer Jose Cisneros kicking it together at Sydney's Gay Mardi Gras. And it looked downright outrageous. more ›

We're a little late to this story, in part because we spent all day yesterday trying to separate out the hilarious comments from the offensive ones on SFGate.com (it looks like the homophobic ones have already been taken out as of today) -- but in a nutshell, last Friday, Lance Farber, the 47-year-old boyfriend of the city's new planning director John Rahaim trashed their temporary apartment, which the city put them up in and which is located in the ceremonial fire chief's house in downtown SF. more ›