Recently announced mayoral candidate, activist Josh Wolf, began his quest for enough signatures to get on the ballot fee at the Noe Valley Farmers' Market on Saturday. It wasn't a great day for it weather-wise, but he was meeting and greeting nonetheless.

We chit-chatted with him a bit, and he committed to doing an "official" interview with us in the near future. Highlights of our conversation included both mild criticism of the last piece we wrote about him -- "when you reduce the 10 items down to just descriptions, they have no real substance" -- which is probably fair, though he did understand our position that we couldn't reprint them wholly (we did link to the original list for readers interested in the whole plan). He indicated appreciation for the reader feedback that was left as well.

While his idea to video-stream his life on the job would indeed shed sunshine on mayoral activities, we posited that the constituency could be better served by an open, valid forum for feedback (one that's actually easily accessible, read by mayoral staff, and taken seriously). Mr. Wolf had a good idea about promoting that sort of interactivity: an online forum with ranked commentary, so folks could "vote" good ideas to the top of the page, and thus the city's attention.

Mr. Wolf did not specifically make this point to us -- it just came up in conversation -- but we thought it would be important to note to our readership: he, indeed, has a day job. (Much of the negative response to him has been in the spirit of "get a job"). He works at a community college television station as its outreach director. Any campaigning he does is strictly around that schedule; whatever else you may think, his activities candidacy-wise are purely a spare-time effort. He's no trustafarian or professional politician; he needs to pay the rent like the rest of us. For that, he's got our respect. For more specific details on his ideas, to help you make up your minds about the validity of his candidacy, keep your eyes peeled to SFist (and, yes, we'll be approaching Chicken John, Tony Hall, Gavin, and anyone else that officially declares for mayor as well).

sans