"At sea" by Darwin Bell.

Brrr.

Much to our surprise, the motion that almost allowed our fair Mayor Gavin Newsom to eschew his monthly cameos Board of Supervisor meeting was tabled. That is to say, it was killed. Dead. According to Sweet Melissa recounts today's nail-biting Board of Supes meeting thusly:

Supervisor Daly spoke twice against the motion, at one point reading off a list of donors to the Let's Really Work Together coalition which opposed Prop E. Supervisor Mirkarimi also spoke against the measure, as did Supervisor Dufty who suggested the tabling of the motion (rather than voting it down) because tabling would be the "nicest thing." (Yes, he did.) The motion's sponsor, Supervisor Alioto-Pier, bewildered at the length and intensity of debate on the issue, agreed to table the motion. So, at the Board meeting every third Tuesday of the month there will continue to be an agenda item calling for the Mayor to appear. "Bueller? Bueller?..."

We feel your pain, Gavin. Still, once a month isn't all that bad, is it? Of course not.

And on a more positive, Broadway-ish note? It seems the singing guy made a return to the meetings, crooning a parody of the theme song to Supervisor Aaron Peskin. For the love of God, someone tell us they have footage of it. Please.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin has been on a bit of a roll lately. In addition to threatening to have Newsom's director of climate protection initiatives, Wade Crowfoot, canned out of mere spite, Peskin has also reportedly bullied Port of San Francisco employees for disagreeing "with him over building-height limits on the city's waterfront."

Last August, the Port Executive Director, Monique Moyer, sent a letter to both the city human resources department and Mayor Newsom. In it she claims Peskin intimidated her with job loss and funding cuts. According the Gate:

Moyer said Peskin's actions - which included a late-evening phone call to her house in which the supervisor said he would be "going after" her - violate a city law that prohibits members of the board from interfering in the business of city departments and qualify as official misconduct.

Peskin has denied this, claiming that he does "not threaten peoples' jobs." Okay?

By the way, this was the same month, if you recall, Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier accused Aaron of childishly switching his vote in order to kill "a piece of legislation she sponsored because she went public with her opposition to a Muni overhaul measure spearheaded by Peskin." Hence: "Payback is a bitch," etcetera, etcetera, and so forth. Jesus.

We thought that this issue was neatly swept under the rug. What gives? Is the neighborhood patrol still kicking it in the Western Addition? Well, time to come home, fuzz. It looks like someone in the Marina/Cow Hollow vicinity was recently attacked, and SFist won't rest until San Francisco is a solid police state.

According to Marcia Gagliardi over at the esteemed food site Tablehopper:

I don't have many details about this, but I heard there are some muggings happening in Cow Hollow and the Marina. A restaurant worker got knocked down and mugged at Green and Octavia last week—fortunately she's ok. The police want to encourage people to be vigilant, don't walk alone, and take cabs or get a ride when in doubt. I will let you know if I learn more details about this—sorry I don't have more at this time.

We called the presumably shabby-chic interiored offices of Michela Alioto-Pier about the crime in question but have yet to hear back from either her or her staff. (Although Michela's voice mail did wish us a "wonderful day." Jealous? Thought so.)

Update: We've just heard from them! They're on the case, they tell us. Whenever a incidence of violence such as this occurs, "we get right on it" Alioto-Pier's office tells us. You hear that, evil-doers? Take your assaults and theft to the other side of Market street where it belongs.

In the meantime, stay safe out there, kids.

In a Spearsian like maneuver, looking to trump both the recent storm and the Dhaliwal brothers, oil spill made a comeback this morning. It seems that a crane fell off of a san Francisco pier a little before 10 a.m. this morning, spilling "an unknown amount" of oil into the Bay. According to the Gate, "[t]he crane was on a sliding rail system at a dry dock at Pier 70 when it suddenly tilted to one side and fell into the water."

An unidentified man working on the crane also came tumbling down, but was wasn't seriously injured. He has since been taken to San Francisco General Hospital for observation.

According to CBS 5, the "Coast Guard vessel dispatched about 10 minutes after the incident was reported discovered a sheen stretching for about 100 yards on the water near the scene of the collapse." (Uh oh, seeing the word "sheen" again - and not used in relation to hair volume, shine, or bounce - unnerves us.) California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health will investigate the incident today.

Just don't call it a "plug-in hybrid" even though that's what it is. Zoom zoom.

David Bazan is traveling up the West Coast before he jumps over Europe to finish his tour. He'll be stopping in at the Bottom of the Hill, where he'll play his witty folk/rock consisting of songs off his recent EP, Fewer Moving Parts. The first words off the song "Selling Advertising" asks the music critic, "You're so creative with your reviews/Of what other people do/How satisfying that must be for you." But at the end he tells his listener, "You can always start a band with me." Now we don't think you should bring your guitar or harmonica to the gig on Wednesday night, but come prepared to listen to some creative singer/songwriter magic - he's #85 in Paste's Top 100 living singer/songwriters. Pretty damn good.

Thursday night, Popscene is in full-force with the Chicago-based pop band, Office. Now we know that you'll have to tivo The Office to go, but we think this Office is worth it. It seems that the folks over at Chicagoist and Phillyist are totally digging it and after Phillyist saw them, they were completely head-over-heels for them. We think you can trust them.

To read the full listings, take the jump...

This Friday -- Black Friday -- Michaela Alioto-Pier's little neighborhood that thrives on ridicule will become a little more ridicule-less. At 9 a.m., Pacific Standard Time, on the day of November twenty-third, two thousand and seven, the store at 2125 Chestnut will open its doors. And at that moment? Apple will welcome in its third San Francisco store, completing the trilogy started by its flagship location on Stockton Street and the other one in the Stonestown Mall.

According to Apple Insider, the new store will psychotically slash "dozens of items below retail cost." Yay. Or whatever. And other than zealous Mac fans smashing the shop's hymen with aplomb, we have no idea what to expect. Will there be middle-of-the-road entertainment, like the music heard on Mac commercials? Will Alioto-Pier roll on by to welcome the nerdy throngs? Will they convert us to using Mac? (Never!) Will they have free stuff? It's practically almost exciting!

With Chris Daly focusing on the birth of his second child (congrats, Chris and Sarah!), SF Board of Supes prez Aaron Peskin has manfully taken over the essential city function of provoking District 2's Michela Alioto-Pier: today's Matier and Ross column has MAP running crying to City Attorney Dennis Herrera and DA Kamala Harris about Aaron Peskin telling her "payback's a bitch" when she asked why he'd changed his vote on her proposed charter amendment proposal and killed it in committee.

Boo hoo hoo, now MAP won't be able to set qualifications for appointees to the city's Ethics, Elections and Sunshine commissions! MAP claims the supposed payback is because she supported a no vote on Prop A (in vain, since Prop A is currently winning with 55% of the vote). So now, with tacit endorsement by Big Daddy Newsom, MAP is asking someone to look into whether Peskin's response to her is some kind of an ethical violation. Okay, sure, if that's how you're going to play it, MAP, we get why you wrote City Attorney Dennis Herrera a letter about it, but -- why also cc: DA Kamala Harris? Do you want Peskin criminally charged for this? Doesn't Kamala have enough to do, prosecuting your buddy Ed Jew?

Anyhow, Peskin remains unrepentent, telling the Chron that MAP has always been beholden to downtown interests, and adding: "She's a whiny brat, and she has been a whiny brat ever since she arrived at the Board of Supervisors." As to allegations that Newsom's already asked people to look into whether Peskin is threatening people for votes, Peskin claimed he didn't know anything about it. That seemed a good enough response for M&R, who then seamlessly segued their column into a discussion of beavers.

But, and we hate to admit it, they sure do look pretty together. (The image above has been set as our desktop background!) But as attractive as oil and water looks on rain-soaked driveways and in Carmel-y art pieces, it's not worth it when it's in our Bay. It tends to cause inexcusable damage. (Where, like, fish and mermaids and stuff totally die, you know.) Take, for example, this morning's container ship that rammed into the Bay Bridge.

Rob Roberts, a lieutenant with the state Department of Fish and Game, claims that the a total of 140 gallons of fuel spilled from today's ship/Bay Bridge smash. It will take about a month to clean up, and by midday today, some fuel had already reached Pier One [under the Embarcadero] in San Francisco. Read more about it here.

More pictures of the oil spillage after the jump.


image credit: Bob Brigham

Mere days after the head of the environmental department broke with Aaron Peskin and other city leaders on a Public Utilities Commission policy, this week he introduced a wee bit of legislation that would obliterated said department. Yoinks.

According to Wyatt Buchanan's article in today's Chronicle, cutting the department would mean the loss of 64 jobs, save its its director, Jared Blumenfeld. Blumenfeld went on to say "I was really disturbed that someone, without even phoning me, would decide to cut all these great staff people we have in the department."

Peskin's plan to get rid of the department -- which, really, he can't do seeing as how only voters can make such a decision -- got support from Gerardo Sandoval and Sophie Maxwell, prompting Blumenfeld to (correctly) assume that this strike had more to do with supporting the status quo, not the environment.

Alioto-Pier, it seems, also got in on the fun. She questioned Peskin about the move in a closed-door meeting. And, in a stellar move, Peskin replied to her, "Payback's a bitch." (Bam!) Seems he's "punishing Alioto-Pier for giving a television interview opposing Proposition A, the Muni reform measure he sponsored on November's ballot."

Wow, never a dull moment at City Hall. Well, okay, often a dull moment at City Hall, but...not this week.