Ridiculous how you don't endorse Rachel Norton for San Francisco Board of Education, just because of her stance on JROTC, but you endorse Norman Yee and Kimberly Wicoff, BOTH of whom are NOW saying that they, if elected, would vote to extend the JROTC program in SFUSD schools.

What's wrong with you guys at the Guardian these days? Have you not been following the campaigns?

I am against proposition V myself, but still urge everyone who cares about our kids in San Francisco's public schools to:

VOTE FOR RACHEL NORTON FOR SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF EDUCATION

Thanks Guardian

I was wondering what communist to vote for so that we San Franciscans can have more; crime, taxes, liberal authoritarianism, emotional blackmail, race/class/sexual identification condescending entitlement speech, self centered city board freak outs, sloven special interest pandering and morally superior breast beating.

I have a dream that the left that was in favor of freedom returns to San Francisco, I have a dream that someday the term "progressives" and the flip side of the coin born again christian go the way of the Whigs or know nothing, because the true know nothings are living in San Francisco.

You're welcome, fellow know-nothing.

You neglected to mention that Dave Ferguson in the Sunset (District 4) has long term experience of 35 years speaking out and getting things done in the district when the other two candidates were not even here. He pushed and succeeded in getting the City departments to trim back bushes and make accommodations on the multi-use path along the Great Highway and he was personally active in the Master Plan for Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach Task Force also volunteering for numerous local habitat restoration projects and clean ups around town.

He is an Owner/Occupier of his small apartment building unlike many landlords and personally conceived and created award winning Green Space in the middle of a blacktop street where he maintains native plants and wild flowers. This is now a model for citywide softening for beautiful streets.

He is the only candidate who takes a pledge to not run for any other elective office after he serves as Supervisor so that he can independently serve the district residents without pressure or personal gain.

Just thought you should know more of his story.

I hear your Markeb, its all about choice, San Francisco liberals should have the choice to deny other people's kids and their parents the ability to join ROTC, of course kids should have the choice to abort a baby without the input of a parent( which I agree with being actually about freedom for individuals as opposed to SF "progressives"), San Francisco progressives are about choice so much that the board of supes made the choice to condemn a march by a bunch of retarded pro lifers down the water front, showing us the "progressive" and open minded free speech advocates that they are.

Some progressives are so open minded that they want to get rid of the Blue Angels because it offends them but we can't have expectations of hobo's because that would offend the progressives sense of freedom to beg and live off the tax payers, we can't put illegal alien felons in jail if they pretend to be juveniles because that would take away their "choice" to be underage.

There are so many things that greatly disturb me about your District 3 endorsements. First of all this quote is based on lies that Aaron Peskin has been telling everyone: "Tony Gantner … is running well behind the others in the polls." Can you please tell me which polls you are referring to? Really, I want to know, because you mentioned them in an article for Chiu last week as well. I over heard David Chiu say that he had not done polls because “only the big money candidates can do polls” - which is strange because he did one himself. I know of two polls in D3. Claudine Cheng said that Tony Gantner got the most votes from her poll. Secondly, my good friend was called and asked who she was supporting for District 3 Supervisor. She said "Tony Gantner". The woman doing the poll, said "He is not one of your choices" and then read the four choices. My friend again said "Tony Gantner" and the woman said "he is not an option so I will put you down as an undecided voter". Many others had this exact same experience. Aaron Peskin is trying to make everyone believe that David Chiu, Denise McCarthy, and Joe Alioto are the only candidates "according to these polls" that could win. He is trying to scare all progressives into putting Chiu as their number one choice and McCarthy as number two by saying only they could beat Alioto, according to polls where Tony Gantner is not an option. Apparently that scare tactic worked well with the SFBG.

Chiu co-founded a huge company that gives political campaign advice to Republicans and PG&E and he is a progressive!? Republicans gave his company which he founded $300,000 to help the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004 and he is a progressive?!? What are you Fox News?!? At least Joe Alioto says what he means and does not hide how he makes his money. Any true progressive would have left this company long ago, instead of being paid by and helping these right wing groups. This is how Chiu makes his money and then he calls himself the clean money candidate.

Also, Tony Gantner is a more viable candidate than Denise McCarthy, but Peskin wants everyone to believe that his two candidates – Chiu and McCarthy – are in the lead. Gantner has greater ties to the community as he has lived here and served the community here his entire life. It is all hype that she is doing well with voters. She has raised a tremendous amount of money because she is funded mostly by rich right wingers who can all give the maximum amount. Please look at who has funded her. I think McCarthy is a nice lady who has done a lot for the community. However, I think Gantner knows more about the issues and has a better chance of winning. Gantner has a big base, but Aaron Peskin wants everyone to believe that Chiu and McCarthy are "winning in the polls" even though Gantner isn't even an option in their own push polls. Their goal is to minimize Gantner as a progressive candidate by not making him an option in their push polls. Please don't just refer to polls without explaining exactly how these push polls are performed. It is impossible to do well in the polls if people are not allowed to choose you. I am bothered by your lack of research into what the polls are asking and who they are pushing for.

I am obviously voting for Tony Gantner. He is a true progressive. All he wants to do with the festivals is block off streets and have the festivals on the streets instead of on the grass as it ruins Washington Square Park. This makes him an environmentalist, not a “law and order” guy. Gantner is the most progressive candidate and I am not going to let Peskin scare me by make up polling results that are inaccurate. If you have any of these polls, I would love to see them. But, I have a feeling you have never seen these polls that you are referring to, because Peskin has your ear so who needs evidence.

So, Timid,

Where's your response? What polls? You're starting to sound like Joe McCarthy: "I have a list!!". I'm certain you wouldn't reference polls that you haven't seen. Please give them to us.

h.

With due respect to the Guardian news staff, I feel compelled to comment on your '08 endorsements. Putting your surprising second and third place endorsements of Eric and Mark in D9 aside for now (I'm surprised you didn't endorse them as equals and decided to play politics), I have to comment on your dismissive rejection of Steve Ngo's candidacy for the Community College Board.

First, let me share that I could honestly care less whether Mr. Ngo wins or loses and agree with you wholeheartedly that all of the current board members should be thrown to the curb due to the lack of accountability and rampant abuse at City College. Further, I support Prop H - fatherf*ck PG&E!

I also want you to know that I have eagerly read, been educated by, and used SFBG's endorsements and political commentary as my (and my students') guide for an informed vote for over 15 years now. I deeply respect SFBG's thorough and critical analysis of the issues and the candidates. I say all that because, since I am writing for the first time after loving you all blindly for so long, I hope that you don't simply do what I have noticed becoming REAL popular recently, which is to paint ANYONE who voices any dissent as being in PG&E/developers' pockets, being self-interested, etc.

I love this City and care about the issues and the people who are elected to represent our voiceless communities just as you do and hope you will take and give respect to my comments in that light.

After listening to every single one of your endorsement interview recordings, I was shocked to read your dismissive and rather arrogant handling of Steve Ngo's candidacy. Again, please know that I could care less whether this guy ultimately gets elected or not, and that I obviously have some differences of opinion regarding important policy matters with him.

BUT, first, I have to say that I found your interview with him to be appalling! After years of cringing (or grinning) while listening to or reading you hold candidates accountable, I was disgusted by your ravenous "interview" of Mr. Ngo - I know we have become worse than the right in some ways by applying divisive litmus tests even to our fragile and disparate progressive collective, but I could not believe how rude you all were with respect to Prop H. I find it to be the highest form of hypocrisy for us who criticize the right for quelling dissent to then make wild, baseless and unnecessarily aggressive allegations toward another potentially progressive candidate ourselves.

I could not believe that you repeatedly and voraciously asked Mr. Ngo who had gotten to him at PG&E, whose pockets he was in at PG&E, why he was puppeting their lines, accusing him without any stated basis of being a Willie Brown/PG&E candidate, etc., while he calmly and respectfully, yet vehemently, denied these accusations and tried to have an honest dialogue with you about the issues. AGAIN, I disagree with Mr. Ngo on Prop H and know that his name has been used to endorse the reprehensible No on H campaign. BUT, what the HELL does the Clean Energy Act have to do with serving on the Community College Board? Even in the context of green jobs and environmental issues in general, I think that there were much more relevant and weighty questions you hyper-educated, well-read and politically savvy brothers could have asked that are much more important to the community college board. So, you gave him some hell and made some incredibly inappropriate accusations about him – why couldn’t you then use your time to get in to some more substantive issues with him? Are you really this jaded, this entrenched, and this much of a hypocrite so as to inexcusably be complicit in doing precisely what we (correctly) criticize the right for doing? And, did candidates such as Chris Jackson (who SUPPORTS H and just so happens to work at the Labor Council which was – wrongly – NEUTRAL on H) deserve the disgusting and arrogant manner in which you treated and spoke to him regarding this issue, even though you sounded like you were going to start playing pat-a-cake with him by the end of the interview, not even pretending to veil your assumptions, biases, and presumptive associations about him? I could not believe what I was hearing – are you all really this simple after all: we apply a set of litmus tests and inject wedge issues into key races when we feel like we might not be able to control a particular candidate?

The interview itself aside, my eyes almost popped out of my head when I read your one-line, "we weren't impressed by his candidacy" comment/"analysis". Excuse me, but who the hell are you?! I mean, really! "Not impressed"?! Anyone who listens to the tape will note that for about 80% of the dialogue, you all were salivating over Mr. Ngo’s educated and reasoned answers, and literally stated that he is "saying all the right things." Just as is noted in your endorsement article, it seems as simple as coming down to just one difference on an issue that (although admittedly important) has nothing to do with serving on the community college board.

Listening to the interviews, you were quite impressed by Mr. Ngo’s idea for an inspector general, which it seemed you even began injecting into your follow-up questions with the other candidates. It seemed that you were impressed as I was with his ideas for bringing accountability to the Board, his ideas for increasing funding, his key programmatic initiatives, etc. Then, where the hell did, "we weren’t impressed by his candidacy," come from?!

As usual, your great interviews with some of the candidates caused me to read up more on each of them, including Mr. Ngo. From my understanding, he comes from a refugee family, where his late mother worked as a nail salon technician after taking community college classes, which seems to serve as some of Mr. Ngo’s motivation for running for community college board. It looks like he is a civil rights lawyer and shares surprisingly broard support (his endorsements range from Assemblymen Warren Furutani to Gavi, Kamala Harris, Jeff Adachi, Eric Mar, Aaron Peskin, Tom Ammiano, David Campos, and David Chiu, to the San Francisco Democratic Party, SEIU and the Tenant Associations Coalition PAC). It also seems that he has raised an impressive amount of money (more than all the other candidates for the community college seats combined) through new sources of funding – I don’t recognize his contributions as coming from entrenched interests on the left or the right, which I find to be refreshing and indicative of someone who might just represent change that the Board desperately needs. He seems on the right side of most issues and has important fiscal oversight and management experience as a former state budget consultant. So, again, I’m left wondering, where the hell did you come up with, "we weren't impressed by his candidacy". I’m so happy I don’t know this guy personally so I can finally ask you without a care in the world what happens to him: in what way imaginable can you legitimately claim his candidacy is unimpressive? To the contrary, it seems like his candidacy defines impressiveness for a first-time candidate. Now, I would be TOTALLY fine with you not endorsing him and explaining fair and logical reasons why, but I just can’t and won’t accept your unacceptable one-liner that his candidacy is unimpressive, especially after having spent more than a half-hour of my life listening to the three of you fall in love with him and then turning into sworn enemies as soon as the issue of H was brought up. So, that makes me wonder whether all your critics are right when they say that SFBG is just as bad as everyone else it criticizes in injecting issues such as H into campaigns every election cycle to impact the campaign and, in my opinion, attempt to thereby control the candidates running.

I have to call you out for one other MAJOR shortcoming in your analysis of the community college board race: the ONE issue that was very real and important relating to the Board was the Chinatown campus. You discussed it at length with all the candidates and again had a very unnecessarily confrontational and paternalistic conversation with Mr. Ngo about this issue. However, there is not ONE WORD mentioned in your endorsement article regarding the campus. Now, how is that, and WHY is that? Again, are you really as bad as everyone else on the right who is so divisive in that you couldn’t possibly see past H? Doesn’t this really confirm the ridiculous criticisms of the Guardian as a rag that uses its incredibly powerful and vital forum to select wedge issues to exercise its control over SF’s political landscape instead of truly representing "the people"?

And, that brings me to my final point and the one I decided to write in for the very first time because of: your total disregard for the racial dynamics at SFBG and how your perspective and advocacy is framed because of it. (1) After listening to you sh!t all over Mr. Ngo, I decided to look up your pictures to put a face next to the violent and vitriolic words I was hearing. I could not believe my eyes when I saw that all three of you are white men (who aren’t necessarily in your teens anymore) scolding a young, brown man who grew up on welfare in the New Orleans projects! (2) So, when you say "the people", who the hell could you be representing when you didn’t have ONE person of color interviewing Mr. Ngo or the other candidates? Noting, for the first time, that sense of entitlement and elitism at an institution I genuinely respect so much floored me. (3) Don’t you think that your personal background and reference point colors and might have impacted your not writing one word about the Chinatown campus, not asking about key issues that affect people of color at SF’s community college campuses, and furthermore allowed you to speak to Mr. Ngo, Mr. Jackson and others the way you allow yourself to without regard for the racial dynamics of the room? And, if such a voice was represented in the room, isn’t it possible that they may have had the capacity to see beyond our mutually shared disagreement with Mr. Ngo regarding Prop H? (4) Might having a person of color in the room also make you give consideration to facts such as the difficulty of running for citywide office in San Francisco as a Southeast Asian man and not ever being quite good enough for either the left or the right, when, in fact, you might fit into the "new" category instead as a young, smart, Vietnamese progressive candidate? So, is the fact that he’s confusing for you sufficient rationale for you to simply say you’re not impressed by his candidacy?

My brothers, after years of silence, I felt like I HAD TO write in out of love because I feel like you are doing serious damage to your institutional legitimacy by taking the approach you did this year with respect to managing the endorsement process. Your management of this endorsement cycle and Mr. Ngo’s candidacy in particular comes off as a highly respected and important institution that has begun to become increasingly irrelevant, but which is attempting to force itself back into play by injecting unnecessarily divisive wedge issues into campaigns they don’t belong in ostensibly for the purpose of being able to control the candidates once they are in.

Now, no one else dares say that to you – hearing you speak on the endorsement recordings, I am sure you put the fear of God and the Devil himself in anyone who ever dares voice dissent, so I know you won’t hear much more of what I’m writing, BUT I feel obliged to share this with you because I genuinely care. I also know that because of what you represent and because I and many others respect you so deeply and agree with you 99.9% of the time that no one else will ever voice real (familial) critiques with you. You should also think about (and not be proud of) the fact that those who actually care and know enough to provide you with this type of feedback in fact more often than not DO have personal interests and would either not voice their discontent with you for fear of retribution or because they need you in an environment where there are very few truly progressive outlets for them to communicate their message.

I REALLY THINK THAT ONCE THIS ELECTION CYCLE IS OVER, IT IS TIME FOR THE GUARDIAN STAFF TO DO SOME REAL SELF-REFLECTION AND ASSESS WHETHER YOU HAVEN’T GOTTEN A LITTLE TOO UNNECESSARILY CONFIDENT IN YOUR SENSE OF PRIVILEGE AND ENTITLEMENT, AND WHETHER YOUR CURRENT APPROACH BEST SERVES OUR COLLECTIVE INTERESTS.

It’s sad, as I type this, I feel that you are already so riled up and negative that you won’t even be able to read what I am saying or to give it the real thought it deserves. Further, I am sure you are wondering who I am, how you could smear me or delegitimize my words.

BUT, my brothers, what you should think about is that it isn’t about me: f*ck me. I’m admittedly an awful person and not very intelligent at that. It’s also not at all about Mr. Ngo. But, it’s also NOT about you! It IS about our communities, our people, the issues that plague us, and this wonderful City we have the responsibility to collectively improve through organized struggle!

I care and am vocalizing my thoughts for the first time because I think the times demand it: we are under an unrelenting attack and have shed generational blood to establish an extremely fragile and splintered progressive coalition. We all should give some serious thought to whether the type of actions we are taking continue to divide those of us who agree 99.9% of the time and who we should be helping build up, not destroy – we should give thought to the costs to our communities, our immigrants, our poor, our people of color, our tenants, our organized workers, etc. and assess whether we can afford the privilege we have afforded ourselves to be so divisive, so unnecessarily political, and so hypocritical.

I hope you will take this opportunity to breathe, reflect at least for a second and then share with us whether people like myself who love you sharing our hearts with you even matters to you anymore and whether any of this means anything to you anymore – or whether all you can see is Prop H and that Mr. Ngo was against it. I hope you can see past Prop H, past Mr. Ngo, and remember why it is that you do what you do and why so many of us who are always so quiet (either because of fearing you or because we are not generally so appalled so as to ignite us in this way) want to build you up by pointing out uninterested, personal and painful observations with you based purely out of respect and love.

In peace and solidarity.

It is a good competition but Chiu takes the cake. SFBG tells us he did $143K of astroturf for PG&E. Now someone else informs me Condi Rice is/was on the Board of his "Grassroots" company (a Google search confirms). What a joke and it is on us true progressives! :-)

It is a good competition but Chiu takes the cake. SFBG tells us he did $143K of astroturf for PG&E. Now someone else informs me Condi Rice is/was on the Board of his "Grassroots" company (a Google search confirms). What a joke and it is on us true progressives! :-)

Can we have a 500 limit on comments or anonymityplease should start his own blog.

District 5: Crime is down because of gentrification. What's the plan to maintain racial diversity in SF, to stop"Black flight"?

I am so glad that the SFBG endorsed David Campos for D9, because it is a priority of mine to demolish open government notification laws so that our bureaucrats can do their jobs and be rewarded lavishly for organizing against elected leaders!

Arelene Ackerman deserved her golden parachute that was ratified by a lame duck SFUSD Board with legal cover provided by David Campos, inviting a lawsuit. And those pesky students who dared to challenge the autocrat deserved to be shut down by David Campos when they tried to weigh in on that travesty because they might expose the SFUSD to a lawsuit:

The Guardian gave the #1 nod in D9 to the guy who perpetrated this travesty: [link]

If Campos is good enough for Louise Renne, as he was her and Ackerman's hand picked candidate for SFUSD counsel, then he's good enough for me, because I trust the judgement of the former City Attorney for Pacific Gas and Electric.

But not to worry, because Campos ended up fucking over Renne at the Police Commission--was that staged or what--in order for him to tread over her political corpse to further his political ambitions.

He also fucked over Mark Leno in order to prove his progressive credentials. The only question, SFBG editorial staff, is when will David fuck over you in order to make the next leap? Shall I wait until then to say "I told you so," or should I say it now because its going to happen?

And what of the Police Commission and Campos role in it? Sure, we were all happy when Theresa Sparks won the presidency, because progressive politics in some quarters begins and ends with transgender issues. But in the past two years of Sparks' presidency, have any of you seen any significant improvement in the always deteriorating situation?

Did Sparks or Campos stand up to the massive give away POA raise? Of course not, as that might have alienated their friends. When we passed Prop H in 2003, opponents claimed that progressive pols would use public safety as a fig leaf for political hopscotch and they were correct, that's exactly what is happening. All we have on the Police Commission are seat warmers, perched on the dais as paroxyms of violence wrack our community. And the SFBG sees that record as deserving of a promotion.

To quote the Germans in the Simpsons episode "Burns verkauft der kraftwerk," when on the Police Commission, "David Campos, what new initiatives have you spearheaded?" I'm sure that David would parrot Homer Simpson and answer "all of them."

It is always wonderful to see the SFBG sticking to principle and not taking the bait and going opportunistic.

The truth is that the second and third place candidates have more progressive accomplishments as residue on the soles of their shoes than David Campos has in his resume, misleading literature aside. Apparently, the "civil rights lawyer" sees his own political ambition as a civil right, one that is worth fighting for no matter whose civil rights he fucks over in the process, no matter what violence he does to the truth as relates to his record and his self-packaging de jour.

And what are we to make of the fact that the Guardian went with the choice of the relatively somnolent Ammiano--he who has been absentee on critical land use issues in the Mission as displacement raged, did nothing to secure 3400 Cesar Chavez for affordable housing--Peskin, Dufty and McGoldrick--he who screwed the Mission on 3400 Cesar Chavez at the behest of developers while ignoring the lead of true progressive supervisors like Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi?

Jake McGoldrick cannot be termed out fast enough. Why invite a sequel?

Why is the Guardian settling for much less, the only leading candidate with zero experience in land use issues, when they could have advanced progressives with varying degrees of land use experience for the most progressive distirct in the City?

Just like Nixon had a "secret plan" to end the Viet Nam conflict, how exactly does David Campos expect to derive 50% inclusionary housing from the Eastern Neighborhoods plan? Where has David been over the past, oh, 8 years, with suggestions on this? David just wants to get elected and will say or do whatever it takes, including making shit up.

There is something to be said about Steven T. Jones' mantra of "politics is ALL about relationships." This is not a fucking social club, real politics is not the DCCC. One would hope that for once we would be playing for keeps in politics in a city that is under continuing siege by corporate greed which IS playing for keeps and beating us more often that not. If Campos is willing to screw his friends to advance politically, then that legitimates screwing allies when they leave the reservation on critical policy issues. But that would mean standing on principle rather than risk violating table manners amongst the courtiers.

The hypocrisy we see here is legion. Jones prioritized his friendship with members of the Hayes Valley neighborhood assn in touting the victory of the Market Octavia Plan, a plan which calls for 4 400' luxury condo towers at Market and Van Ness even though SFBG editorial policy--and correct me if I'm wrong--denounces such gentrifying entitlements. To what extent is the Guardian going to speak with a coherent voice on these issues rather than using ink as a salve for one writer's friends?

If the Guardian has its way, and we see moderates like David Campos, Debra Walker and then Robert Haaland elected in the next four years, then the City will be for sale, only this time by compromised ex-progressives whose alliances are personal, friendly and not based on the policies, the issues.

For shame that the SFBG is rewarding a political chameleon and punishing long-standing records of progressive effort and accomplishment in the progressive district most at risk.

And the band played on.

-marc

You should give school board candidate Rachel Norton's position on JROTC another look. She has a thoughtful discussion of the issue on her website: [link] Also, one of the candidates you endorsed, Norman Yee, told the Chronicle that he would vote to restore JROTC, contrary to what you reported. It's in print in today's Chronicle! How about instead endorsing Ms. Norton, who you all but said you would have supported except for her stand on this issue? The school board has too many important decisions to make to rule out a candidate based on a single issue that is a distraction from larger issues such as the budget and the achievement gap.

Yes, SFBG, do the right thing and admit you were wrong to use the JROTC as a litmus test and change your endorsement in your "just before the election issue" to include your endorsement for Rachel Norton for SF School Board!

Would it help if I said PLEASE?

I live in District 11, have done so for 28 years, and you are wrong about Ahsha Safai. Ahsha is the ONLY candidate in D11 who has been working widely with community groups well BEFORE the current election cycle. I had never heard of ANY of the other candidates (except Ramos who is on City College Board) before campaigning started ramping up. Ahsha, on the other had, was critical in getting resolution on the redevelopment of the Woolworth Building site on Mission Street, getting the voice of the residents heard in the struggle to keep St Luke's critical services available south of Market Street, and has successfully raised money for a variety of parks and other neighborhood issues. AHSHA ACTUALLY GETS THINGS DONE. AND he comes to community meetings and sits through the whole meeting, and knows peoples names. Imagine that! We like him. So don't be surprised if residents in District 11 ignore the stupid politics of MAYOR = BAD, BD OF SUPES = GOOD, and vote for the candidate who is the best person to give a voice to the residents and bring services to this underserved district.

Another really bad endorsement SFBG made:

Kimberly Wicoff, who is running for SF school board, is Communities of Opportunity's deputy director, isn't she?



S.F.'s $3.9 million wasted opportunity

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

Monday, October 20, 2008

Despite sinking $4 million in mostly private foundation money into trying to turn around some of San Francisco's poorest neighborhoods, Mayor Gavin Newsom's Communities of Opportunity program has largely been a bust, according to a new city audit.



The program, patterned after an effort in New York's Harlem, was intended to help families living in the city's public-housing projects with everything from after-school tutoring and job placement to health care and addiction treatment.

Story continues at:

[link]

I agree with moggything. But, hey, what can you expect from the SFBG? Do any staff members actually have their kids in the SF public schools or even have kids for that matter? Rachel Norton has done an amazing amount of work on behalf of the parents for public schools (PPS) and in particular is an advocate for children with special needs. Too bad so many are more concerned with a supposed "progressive" agenda rather than the needs of actual families who live here. GO RACHEL! [link]

Why is Denise McCarthy a pick for district 3 with her support of propositions opposed to decriminalize prostitution, Prop K while supporting military recruitment of kids by supporting JROTC, Prop V in our high schools? I don't get it. With David Chiu's documented business dealings with GOP lobby groups that's another head scratcher. In district 3 Tony Gantner is the only candidate who has credibility and hits all the right notes.

I wanted to indicate that David Chiu has been very active in community organizing - VERY active with Lower Polk Neighborhood Association and very helpful in helping to establish Middle Polk Neighborhood Association.

Actually, sf2mom, I have two kids in the public schools. My son and daughter attend McKinley Elementary. I'm very active in the school, as is my partner.

You may not agree with our endorsements, but this kind of personal insult doesn't help anyone. If Rachel Norton wins, we will work with her for the improvement of the schools, and I will try very hard to convince her not to bring up JROTC again. I don't want military training and culture in the public schools; that's a legitimate point of view whether you agree with it or not.

When people talk about offering students "choices," I think: I have two kids. I know kids who are in high school. If you asked my kids, or most high school kids, whether they would like soda machines in the schools and at lunch to offer a "choice" of high-fructose beverages instead of, say, milk, the vast majority would want the soda. I have immense respect for the judgment of our local youth, but at times parents and elected adults have to say: No, that's not good for you.

That's what I think about JROTC. No, it's not good for you. Any of you. And it doesn't belong in the schools.

So why no consideration for BART District 8? It makes up almost the entire west side of town, but it's totally ignored in the endorsements. As my girlfriend uses BART to get to work in Oakland daily and an advocate of transit improvement (though let's face it, BART is practically manna compared to Muni) it's fairly important, but a major district is totally ignored.

"No, it's not good for you. Any of you. And it doesn't belong in the schools."

That sounds EXACTLY like the arguments I'm hearing from Prop 8 supporters. Can't you see the inherent hypocrisy in that?

You admit "That's what I think about JROTC". That's what YOU think. That's your opinion. That does not give you the right to deny other people the choice.

And saying "Yes, but what I think is right" is not a valid argument because that's exactly what the Yes on 8 people are saying.

No one's forcing your kids to join the JROTC. But not having a JROTC forces other kids not to join. That's wrong.