Want to hear and participate in a thought-provoking discussion about planning regional transportation? Tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. you can head on down to SPUR's (a.k.a. the San Francisco Planning + Research Association) office at 312 Sutter St. (@ Grant), 5th floor. While open to the public, it will cost you $5 if you're not a member (membership details can be found here). The discussion will involve regional social justice, transit, walking, and bicycling advocates, and is coordinated by the Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC), in an effort to influence the next Regional Transportation Plan....

Even when Tapioca Ed's out of the country, the news keeps popping up! Here's today's latest Bobagate news. --So you know what that $40,000 would've bought the Quicklys? A letter from Ed Jew to the Planning Commission to get a business permit, the Examiner says. The Quicklys' rival bubble tea shop Wonderful got a letter from Tapioca Ed and a permit shortly afterwards -- and adding insult to injury, Wonderful didn't have to pony up......

Look at that fresh new picture of your 2007 San Francisco Board of Supervisors! Chris Daly even showed up this time! So what's the gang up to these days? (Besides Chris Daly; he's old news.) Here's an update: Bottom row, left to right: Michela Alioto-Pier: Giving medical marijuana stores more time to apply for permits. Bevan Dufty: Pleading with Chris Daly in vain about moving wi-fi forward. BoS Pres. Aaron Peskin: Making it more......

San Francisco unveiled some shiny new plan to win back the affections of the Niners yesterday. The plan includes a redevelopment of Candlestick Point and Hunters Point and features a new stadium for the Niners, lots of parks, lots of housing, office space and a new arena. Best part? Supposedly the plan means no money down for the city. So far, there is no truth to the rumors that the plan also includes lots of shiny, pretty ponies for everybody to have. ...

The latest involving the Niners is that yesterday Aaron Peskin jumped into the fray. Peskin had dinner with the accidental John York Thursday night and on Friday, he, along with Sophie Maxwell, said they'd introduce a resolution to move forward with the development at Candlestick Point and the Hunters Point shipyard. The idea being, of course, that instead of waiting for the Niners to figure out what they're doing, the city should move ahead and just do it. There's two reasons for this. One is that everyone wants to build stuff there anyways so why not just get the ball rolling. The other is that if things fall apart in Santa Clara, things will be all ready to go here. ...

While most of us were either not working or goofing off at work last week, Gavin stepped up and sent the 49ers yet another proposal to keep the team from moving. This proposal? How's about building a new stadium at the Hunters Point Naval Yard. The Niners were nonplussed....

-Majority of SF Police Commission call for investigation on why there's a high percentage of blacks arrested. -Judge says Hearst and MediaNews Group Inc deal can't go forward as of yet. ...

It's another installment of.... Who's! Attacking! Newsom! Now! Where we compile all the negative things people are saying about the San Francisco mayor and report it in bullet form! We'll run a Who's Defending Newsom Now post next, as soon as we find someone defending Newsom, besides Peter Ragone. So here's the list! --Sean Elsbernd!: Newsom's erstwhile ally on the Board of Supes in District 7, Elsbernd is irritated that Newsom's new "let's fix the......

-A mother and son who were considered missing this morning were found in Oakland early yesterday afternoon. Amber Alert cancelled. Is it totally wrong of us to really hate how they break into TV shows to broadcast an Amber Alert?...

Guess who got endorsed on the cover by last week's winner, the Bay Guardian? Where's the green beads, Chris? Letters about fixie bikes, and Tim Redmond notes that Renee Saucedo shouldn't have endorsed Prop 90 (the overbroad eminent domain one). Dan Noyes, gadfly. Also endorsed by the Guardian: Phil Angelides, Jerry Brown, Leland Yee, Barbara Lee, and Krissy Keefer. And Steven T. Jones had nothing at all to do with their endorsement of Alix Rosenthal.......

--Former HP board chair Patricia Dunn and leading Palo Alto attorney Larry Sonsini will testify before Congress about that whole leak thing. --John Karr may be a free man. --It's noisy at Stanford. --City attorney Dennis Herrera throws out a proposed ballot proposition about redevelopment in the Bayview. --Heads roll after the fights outside the Raiders game last week. --It's so crowded in the SF prison that inmates get bitten by spiders. Gavin decides to......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

--Zephyr Realty's not going to sell TICs where protected people (seniors, disabled) were Ellis Acted out anymore. --The Google CEO is joining the Apple board of directors. We'll get you, Bill and Melinda Gates! --There's a fight brewing over Bayview redevelopment. --After some contentious inside baseball, the Harvey Milk club votes no endorsement for either Dufty or Rosenthal in the District 8 race. --Leather Tongue Video on 18th and Valencia has closed. --House of Prime......

Gavin Newsom's beleaguered this week! So beleaguered we're breaking it down into two posts! Newsflash one: The Chron reports that various city supervisors are annoyed that Gavin makes no effort to communicate with them, calling him "isolated." To wit: *Chris Daly says that Newsom never bothered letting him know that the budget committee needed to approve more money for the police academy before going to the press and whine-whine-whining that Chris hates him. "Basically he's......

Sasha dishes the news about TechConnect -- RFP deadline went by without so much as a press conference. Big news is that Google and Earthlink have teamed up, and that Houston's recent WiFi RFP was made public (The City threatened to sue when theirs was leaked). Francisco De Costa claims a victory after the public forum on Bayview redevelopment. San Jose Inside's Single Gal takes a look at the six folks who want Ron......

San Francisco Japantown's seen a lot in the last 100 years -- from the influx of Japanese-American immigrants after the 1906 earthquake and the development of an ethnic community, to the forced displacement of those same immigrants to internment camps in World War II, and a controversial redevelopment scheme to welcome back San Francisco Japanese-Americans, at the expense of the African-Americans who'd moved into the area in the meantime. And now, over this backdrop of repeated economic emigration, you can get udon, a shiatsu massage, and crepes there! As J-Town's centennial celebration gets underway, a new phase of redevelopment is emerging for the 21st century -- the Osaka-based owners of the Kintetsu Mall, the centerpiece of the Japan Center complex, have announced that they've put the building on the market. They own not only the Kintetsu section of the mall (the one with Benihana in it) but also the Miyako Mall (the one with the bridge), the Radisson, and the Best Western up the street. And FYI, the Kabuki Theater is also up for sale, but in a separate transaction through AMC. The Kinokuniya building (with Sophie's Crepes and the awesome Kinokuniya stationery store is under separate ownership (by the eponymous bookstore) and is not for sale -- or at least not yet. At a community meeting last night, the local attorneys representing the Kintetsu owners pledged that they would work with Osaka HQ to ensure that any sale would be made to a buyer who would recognize the historic and cultural value of the space, and Gavin Newsom and Ross Mirkarimi promised that the city would put incentives in place to make sure that happened (because, in part, the city owns those garages underneath the mall.) However, the attorneys weren't sure how much pull they'd have, in part because the deal is almost done. Here's hoping the community can work together to make sure the sad history of redevelopments in the J-Town area don't repeat themselves this time around. ...

Rarely a day late, always a few dollars short. Michael Strickland gets the headline of the day, with "Satanic Love Cult at City Hall." Leila at Hypnagogica spends Valentine's Day beating people with pillows and thinking about love. Scott Beale was there taking photos. Jane Kim spends it worried about Eddy Zheng's deportation hearing. Lots and lots going on in urban development. A major landlord in Japantown wants to sell. Even more troubling are......

Shirley Jackson, put down that rock! At 7:30 a.m. yesterday, the SF Redevelopment Agency hosted a low-income housing lottery that attracted over 4300 applicants. The SF Redevelopment Agency, along with Centurion Real Estate, are offering 20 condos right by Pac Bell SBC AT&T Park at crazy prices -- studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms with market values between $500,000 to $1.3 mill are going for between $85-233K. They're offering 7 houses to low-income residents (about $46,500 for a single person, and $66,500 for a family of four) and 13 to moderate-income residents ($73,150 single, $104,500 family of four), with preference going to people who were previously displaced from low-income housing. There's also a cap on the equity you can build up in the house (the Redevelopment Agency will set your resale price when you move, so other low- or moderate-income families can move in). But you certainly can't beat the view in that neighborhood! 150 names were drawn, but pretty much everyone expects that the first 20 people are going to snap up their houses, if they can qualify for fixed-rate mortgages. Don't worry, though, SF expects to make more such opportunities available in the Mission Bay area, the Western Addition, and Bayview/Hunters' Point. ...

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Life sucks in Haiti. Hybrids -- they may look cute, but their silent wheels make them angels of death for visually-impaired pedestrians! Cover article: Day in the life of the Homeland Security agent patrolling the bay in a gunboat. Down In Front thought the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show blew. Yay, Green Day! Yay, Blackalicious! And Savage Love: a baaaaaad experience with a mistaken-gender date, and an invitation to send your thoughts about it to Dan. Should be an interesting column next week! And some sad news from the other New Times affiliate, the SF Weekly: we got a tip that publisher John Mecklin will be leaving, as of next week. No! Who will Mr. Brugman fight with now? Thanks for all the fun over the last eight years, Mr. Mecklin, and we wish you the best of luck for whatever you do next. Weekly: Matt Smith's hilariously bad afternoon the day the beer truck blew up, which segues only somewhat seamlessly into a discussion about how we're misusing transportation money from Congress. Awesome Ted Rall about disasters across this great land. Are you an apologist for FEMA? Cover article: the Lower Fillmore area -- in-fighting about its redevelopment. Is Little Star better than Zachary's (or is it just SF snobbery?) The lead singer from Xiu Xiu. And Mecklin loves trance music. We'll miss you, big guy! After the jump: The Bay Guardian, the Metro, and the pick of the week....

San Francisco's favorite but least read Q&A columnist, the Essefficist, answers questions about simple math, bay windows, and the Transbay Terminal....

Usually, when SFist hears that a former industrial brownfield is being cleaned up and rehabilitated, we think of that as good news. But apparently not everyone does. SIMEON real estate developers and Cherokee Investment Partners, a brownfield redevelopment group, have teamed up with the hopes of turning Campus Bay, formerly known as one of the ten most polluted sites in the Bay Area, into a 1,330 unit residential community. And how are they going to......

In the past decade, the closing of many of the small, single-screen movie theaters has been a serious blow to SF's neighborhoods--not to mention those folks who feel nauseous at the thought of the multiplex. It's not all bad news, though: In May, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to make the New Mission Theatre - once the largest movie theater on the West Coast - a city landmark; its new owner, Gus Murad & Associates, has indicated a willingness to preserve the theater as part of the redevelopment plans....