Due do the recent smattering of murders plaguing the Mission district -- e.g., since August 22 the hood has played host to seven murders -- city supervisor Tom Ammiano "sent letters to each city department, including Police Chief Heather Fong, District Attorney Kamala Harris and Mayor Gavin Newsom," in efforts reduce the bloodshed. While Fong has deployed more fuzz to parts of the hood "known for gang presence and drug sales," Ammiano claims that most......

*FILM: The final release of Ridley Scott''s love-it-or-hate-it science fiction noir thriller Blade Runner: The Final Cut — now with added footage, re-mixed sound, and minor improvements on visual effects! — screens at the Castro. COMEDY: SF Supervisor Tom Ammiano attempts a return to stand-up comedy at the Makeout Room's "Laughing Liberally Local 415 with Will Durst" tonight. MUSIC: Indie folk/country jazz duo Dean & Britta (former Luna members) perform at Yoshi's-SF. "Mazzy Star-like"......

Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre, right, and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk's camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that '70s vibe. Rumor has it that Castro Street between 18th and 19th streets (i.e., the staphicenter) will be......

Obama '08 is coming your way. ...

Today's rally at City Hall in support of Bike Plan implementation...

Photos from the San Francisco Bike Coalition's Winterfest ...

We got word today from an anonymous source that two residents of Bernal Heights -- including a former President of Golden Gate Audubon Society -- spotted a burrowing owl a block from their house on the southeastern side of the hill. The (sub?)species was confirmed by another Audubon-er. So, why does this matter? Because at the moment there is construction going on in the same area (i.e., landscaping improvements such as steps, etcetera) where......

-- Alameda County judge tells Berkeley tree squatters, like the scrappy Ninjah and Stork here, to climb down. For good. [SFGate] -- Car crash on the 101 kills one, lands two in jail. [Examiner] -- And yet another death on the 101, this time by gunfire. Egads. [CBS5] -- Missing Sacto woman's cell traced to SF. "She drives a silver, small model Kia with the license plate 5WMU818," fyi. [KGO, via BCN] -- According......

Tom Ammiano announced a plan yesterday to give city IDs to those who don't have IDs, mainly immigrants-- legal or otherwise. The idea, pushed by immigrant advocates, will allow those without an ID to be given access to a whole range of city services they would not normally be open to, including health care, library privileges, and the ability to use municipal golf courses. Ammiano also said he's going to work with financial institutions to let people use the Ids to open accounts. ...

Oh, Michela Alioto-Pier! Our favorite absentee supervisor finally straggled on in to an actual committee meeting, only to find out that the code of conduct she's proposing for the supervisors has loopholes big enough for a Mack truck to drive though. As you may remember, Alioto-Pier (or MAP, as we like to call her) is spearheading the push to institute a code of conduct for supervisors, after the flap about Chris Daly saying that there......

Oh No, Chris Daly! We don't even know what to say right now. We'd been hearing rumors all day (thanks to those hard-working folks over at the SFist Tips line) about a fight between District 6's rebearded progressive bad boy and the more moderate and clean-shaven Bevan Dufty of District 8, but didn't get confirmation of it until the Chron went live with their story. Sigh -- we don't even want to go into this,......

Oh No, Chris Daly! We don't even know what to say right now. We'd been hearing rumors all day (thanks to those hard-working folks over at the SFist Tips line) about a fight between District 6's rebearded progressive bad boy and the more moderate and clean-shaven Bevan Dufty of District 8, but didn't get confirmation of it until the Chron went live with their story. Sigh -- we don't even want to go into this,......

Rally at St Luke's Hospital in the Mission...

--Pride was fun! (Have you noticed we always have great weather for Pride?) [Chron, ABC 7, CBS 5.] --Who were the bloggers floating the Newsom coke rumors? We don't think it was us. [Chron.] --They're trying to apply the lessons from the Kim family search in looking for the Alameda County woman and her priest friend. [KTVU.] --Cal students getting hyphy. [Clog Blog.] --Don't try and fix the worst house in San Francisco yourself......

--Gavin Newsom angrily denies Chris Daly's cocaine allegations, calls them "sleazy," and calls for everyone in the Board of Supes to condemn them. Tom Ammiano says he thought it was one of Daly's better speeches. [The Chron (and audio clip), CBS 5 (with video of Daly at the meeting and Newsom's denial), ABC 7 (also with video), Fog City, Beyond Chron, Examiner, SF Sentinel. Watch the video from SFGov here, around item 36.] --Your Two......

Nothing too new to report on the Ed Jew got arrested front this morning, but the Chron did survey all the other Board of Supervisor members for their reactions. Let's go in order! --District 1 (Jake McG): "The appearance is so bad, we don't need a trial." --District 2 (Michela Alioto-Pier): Considers Jew a friend, "Let's remember he's not been found guilty of anything." --District 3 (Aaron Peskin): "If I was in his place, I......

10:30 p.m.: We went out to dinner and missed Ed Jew's surrender to the authorities.... in Burlingame!!! Awesome. Hey, that way he could just go straight home afterwards. Jew posted bail and was released on his own recognizance. His first court appearance is scheduled for July 16. 7:42 p.m.: KCBS has an audio clip (3:53) of their interview with Bill Fazio up. Jew found out a warrant was being issued at around 4 p.m. today,......

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......

Now here's a story we haven't mentioned in awhile, the poor saga of Amy Lee. Lee, if you remember, was the former head of the Building Inspection Department who was opposed by Joe O'Donaghue and his Residential Builders Association gang. During her confirmation hearing, members of the RBA got down and dirty and criticized her for all sorts of things, including the fact that she was pregnant and had "pregnancy brain." ...

Google got a lot of press over the weekend for their big April Fools Day joke. The joke is that they're all set to announce a new Wi-Fi flan plan that "delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems" and the call the program Toilet ISP, or TiSP for short. Hardy, har, har, Google…the Onion has nothing on you. ...

Those electronic voting machines everybody loves could be coming to a voting place near you as San Francisco is looking into signing a $12.6 million four-year contract with Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. The proposed contract would give us 610 optical scan voting machines (machines that read a paper ballot) and 610 touch-screen voter machine for the disabled. ...

You think Gavin Newsom'll shave off all his hair next, just like rehabbing Britney Spears? Okay, so where were we the last time we checked in with the Ruby Rippey-Tourk sick leave investigations? So the mayor's office and the Tourk family spokesman were taking the position that Rippey-Tourk got the city to cover her salary as paid sick leave during the time she was in rehab through the city's catastrophic-leave program, where people can......

The Chron today has an interesting story about all the effects of recent laws being thrown on small business, mainly restaurants. The recent laws in question are the rise in the minimum wage, sick paid leave, and the new health care initiative. All these laws sound great, but restaurateurs are not quite thrilled about them and so they've been particularly aggressive in fighting the resolutions, even getting in Chris Daly's grill about it. Ha! We made a pun. Anyways, they've sued over the health care bill to keep it from taking effect. ...

A plan to step up street cleaning in the Mission was officially kyboshed as the Board of Supervisors agreed with Tom Ammiano's resolution to ixnay the idea. The plan called for increased street cleaning from once a week to three times a week. The reason why they wanted to step it up is well, do we even need to say why? The area in question, a two hundred-block area from Portrero to Valencia Street are considered the cities dirtiest. We can't believe they keep stats on these things but according to said stats, the amount of garbage has tripled over the past year. ...

Well, we're sorry to report that everyone's day jobs managed to succeed where Wade Crowfoot did not -- namely, in preventing anyone wearing a chicken suit from gaining access to the city's very first Question Time before the Board of Supes! What is democracy coming to? Doesn't mean the board didn't manage to thoroughly amuse itself, though -- to laughter, Board prez Aaron Peskin jocularly asked Sup. Sean Elsbernd if he'd like to stand in......

Careful readers of our daily news summary Day Around The Bay may have noticed that the Golden Gate Restaurant Association has filed a lawsuit against Gavin Newsom and Tom Ammiano's proposed citywide health insurance plan. How can people who support the health care plan show their outrage? Well, never let it be said that the progressives in town don't come up with some entertaining protest ideas! So get your top hat and/or velvet bonnet, warm......

So, everyone's been asking us (okay, only two people have asked, but still) -- SFist Rita, what will you write about now that the District 6 election is over? Is there even any doubt? We are throwing our blogger weight (such as it is) behind -- getting Gavin Newsom to show up for QUESTION TIME!!! We don't know about you, but we were totally shocked when Proposition I won at the polls -- with 56.03%......

Today, your San Francisco Board of Supervisors take up legislation both big and small. First up is a possible override of Gavin's veto of the foot patrol legislation. The board needs eight votes to override Mayor McDreamy's veto, one short of the seven they got when they passed the bill. Right now, it's not looking like it'll happen. Luke Thomas reports in Fog City that two of the seven have been flipped. The two who......

Finally, the Board of Supervisors are getting behind something we can roundly support-- decriminalizing marijuana! Not that we've ever smoked dope before, of course. ...

In honor of Labor Day, we'd like to point out that every employee, freelancer and consultant in Silicon Valley has to bargain their health benefit terms on their own or take what the company offers, and many end up one of the 46 million Americans without. So this techie is rooting for Tom Ammiano to legislate health security, at least for San Franciscans. While individual entrepreneurial successes like the Mercury News' Matt "Silicon Beat" Marshall......