This morning, we dragged our flu-ridden butts all the way out to the Richmond hoping to see what had all the makings of a circus. We didn't get it. What we got, instead, was a serious policy discussion about the homeless. How do you prevent a circus from taking place? You bore the crap out of everyone.

We have to give credit to Team Gavin. They diffused any potential for the meeting getting out of hand with two brilliant gestures. The first one was to have it early in the morning all the way out in the Richmond. We expected a full-house full of the usual suspects but didn't get it, partly, we think, because saying you're going to go out to the Richmond at ten in the morning and actually getting up and going out to the Richmond on a very, very cold morning at ten in the morning is a completely different thing.

The second thing they did was just completely overwhelm everyone in the audience with boredom. This was a serious-minded townhall, full of serious discussions about serious issues by serious people using serious statistics. It was mind numbing. Anyone who wanted to be starting something lost any sort of motivation to be starting something after statistic after statistic was brought out by either Gavin or Gavin's panel (Angela Alioto, Friar John Hardin, Ron Miguel, Ken Reggio, and Trent Rohrer). And it was typical Gavin-- he threw out detail after detail of every nook and cranny of some sort of city governance that there's no other option than getting lost in it all. We have no idea if anything Gavin was saying was right or not, but gosh, doesn't he sound smart?

More details of the event and more pictures by SFist Rita after the jump