The only two things Gavin Newsom is required to do as the mayor of San Francisco are 1) propose a budget and 2) give an annual speech about the State Of The City. Gay marriage, gelling and ungelling his hair, and gadding about town are all entirely optional!

Newsom fulfilled item number 2 today at Philip and Sala Burton High, in an hour-long speech (full text), where he announced, among other things: his new Hope SF program (what, no "connect" in the name?) to rebuild public housing into mixed use developments; his plan to crack down on double-parking along the route of the 1 California (what, no solar powered parking meters?); and proposals about taxi service.

There are lots of other issues that we know you readers'll want to discuss more fully in the comments (MUNI, homelessness, street repairs) -- and you should note that he didn't really get to crime until about 3/4s of the way in, and stuck with a brief "we're trying to make the police department better." We can talk about those more if you like, but we wanted to pass along these pictures first!

Our witnesses on the street report that the speech kicked off with some lovely singing by the Burton High School choir (.mp3 here) -- while outside, the SF People's Organization was giving out copies of its report (.pdf) blasting Newsom's inactions, called "Style Over Substance." We can talk about that later too.

While we're reading through this speech and SFPO report and thinking of not-very-witty things to say about them, though -- do check out, after the jump, the awesome pictures we got from a source who requested to remain anonymous, because he/she skipped work to go to the speech. (Why these speeches always in the middle of the day? What's a gainfully-employed Political Junkie to do?)

Thanks for the pictures, Anonymous Source!

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