Bay Area Observer

Cal’s Memorial Stadium money woes deepen after seat sales stall

2013-06-17T10:04:00.001-07:00

A new wrinkle in Cal’s troubles selling pricey seats to help pay the $445 million tab for renovating Memorial Stadium: not only have sales stagnated, they’re going in reverse. In more halcyon times, Cal officials assured everyone that they would sell 2,902 seats at between $40,000 and $250,000 a pop to help underpin the stadium project. Now the Chronicle says not only have seat sales stalled at

PBS NewsHour to expand with weekend broadcasts

2013-06-17T09:42:00.001-07:00

A week after announcing staff trims that include shuttering its San Francisco bureau, PBS NewsHour is announcing that it will expand its nightly news operation to weekends. Correspondent Hari Sreenivasan will anchor 30-minute Saturday and Sunday broadcasts starting Sept. 7. PBS Image: PBS

A’s smell like a rose at Coliseum despite stinky plumbing leak

2013-06-17T09:26:00.001-07:00

Nothing smelly about these AL West first place Oakland A’s—despite the plumbing overflow at the aging Coliseum during Sunday’s 10-2 drubbing of the Seattle Mariners. Too many fans using the restroom, apparently, during a sellout at the end of a six-game home stand in which the team has drawn nearly 29,000 on average. Yesterday’s SportsCenter moment: the leak, which stank up the lower levels,

State PUC stumbles again in trying to cover for PG&E

2013-06-17T09:02:00.001-07:00

The state Public Utilities Commission just can’t get out of its own way when it comes to being a PG&E lapdog. After removing its own team of lawyers from the PG&E San Bruno sanctions case at a critical moment after they apparently wouldn’t go along with a scheme to “punish” the utility in a way that would have given it a huge tax break, the PUC brass put out the story that the four lawyers had

Morning Wrap: 6/17/13

2013-06-17T07:23:00.001-07:00

Anna Bretan sets women’s record in San Francisco Marathon, putting numbers to the state budget, the B word re-emerges to describe Bay Area housing market, more. Top of the news Anna Bretan, 28, of Berkeley broke the San Francisco Marathon women’s record Sunday and Francois Lhuissier, 35, of Paris won the men’s race. Chronicle Politics and government Anne Campbell Washington,

Tim Redmond out as editor of The Bay Guadian

2013-06-15T14:28:00.001-07:00

The longtime Bay Guardian editor who’s been with the alt-weekly for 30 years says he was in discussions about personnel matters with management of the company that owns the Guardian, SF Weekly and the Examiner on Friday when he received an email informing him that his resignation had been accepted. He tells the Chronicle’s Justin Berton: “The reality is if I hadn’t been fired I would have had to

‘Naked Acrobat’ response time—it’s SFPD over BART cops by a hair

2013-06-14T10:28:00.001-07:00

The hubbub over that naked acrobat harassing passengers at the 16th Street BART station last month has inevitably invited a response-time comparison between BART police and SFPD. In defending his department’s response to the ruckus, BART police chief Ben Farrow says his guys got there in 8 minutes, despite being busy quelling a disturbance at another station. SFPD, which has a station a block

If faulty Bay Bridge east span opens Sept. 3—contractor gets big bonus

2013-06-14T10:06:00.001-07:00

Bay Bridge outrage of the day (narrowly beating out Willie Brown’s pals in Sacramento wanting to name the west span after him): the contractor on the bedeviled east span is due for a $20 million bonus if it opens to traffic Sept. 3 as planned. Lisa Vorderbrueggen at the Mercury News’ CoCo Times edition says it’s “an incentive state lawmakers fear will drive a risky rush to completion.”

Jerry Brown knuckles under to UC, Cal State; no conditions on funds

2013-06-14T09:55:00.001-07:00

That tough talk from the governor earlier about holding UC and Cal State’s feet to the fire on improving graduation rates and holding the line on tuition or get less state funding—not happening. The governor’s budget, expected to be approved today, gives each system $250 million more with no such strings attached. LA Times writes about it.

About that month-ago preservation deal the Chronicle reports on today

2013-06-14T09:39:00.001-07:00

That’s a beautiful (pay-walled) front page piece in today’s Chronicle on the acquisition of Preservation Ranch in Sonoma County as parkland—a property that’s been coveted by vintners for years. Purchase of the 19,645-acre forest by the nonprofit Conservation Fund is being called the largest land conservation deal in California history. Now, if you wondered why there was no time element in the

Friends of Willie Brown want to name the Bay Bridge’s west span after him

2013-06-14T08:55:00.001-07:00

Several state lawmakers have unveiled an effort to put the Chronicle columnist and former mayor’s name on the west span of the Bay Bridge. It’s the first such naming attempt since the plot to re-designate a few blocks of Third Street downtown as Willie Brown Boulevard went nowhere before Gavin Newsom left the mayor’s office. Just why co-sponsors of the bill to create the “Willie L. Brown Jr.

Morning Wrap: 6/14/13

2013-06-14T07:23:00.001-07:00

BART police defends response to naked acrobat incident, Joe Biden comes to town, Bay Area home prices are up and inventory is down, more. Politics and government Vice President Joe Biden will be in San Francisco today for a Democratic fundraiser at the home of beverage distribution company BinWise’s CEO Doug Hickey. KTVU 2 Further sign of the improving economy: San Francisco’s Planning

Hospital gets poor marks, announces ‘strategic relationship’ with UCSF

2013-06-13T12:23:00.001-07:00

Image makeover? A state report released yesterday gives Washington Hospital in Fremont the dubious distinction of being among only a handful of hospitals statewide with worse-than-average death rates in several categories, not just one or two. And today comes word that the hospital’s board has voted to enter into a “strategic relationship” with UCSF. Sounds like a win for Washington Hospital; not

Daniel Ellsberg on the NSA revelations: ‘turnkey away from tyranny’

2013-06-13T12:05:00.001-07:00

Nixon-era Pentagon Papers leaker and free speech elder statesman Daniel Ellsberg, 82, addressing the firestorm over the National Security Agency phone records revelations, tells a panel convened in Berkeley that we’re “a turnkey away from tyranny.” East Bay Express reports on his remarks, including this quote: “It could become a police state almost overnight. Our constitutional protections

On the horizon—middle class scholarships to UC, Cal State

2013-06-13T11:48:00.001-07:00

As part of the new state budget that lawmakers are expected to approve tomorrow comes some potentially good news for middle class families who’ve been squeezed out of help paying for college in the UC and Cal State systems. Assembly Speaker John Perez is pushing a “Middle-Class Scholarship” that would kick in on a sliding scales for families with yearly incomes between $80,000 and $150,000.

After another fail, CNN talking head says he’ll stop making predictions

2013-06-13T11:37:00.001-07:00

That would be legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who doubles as a writer for The New Yorker, after saying (on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” no less) that “very likely we’re going to get the affirmative action case” today from the Supreme Court. Didn’t happen. Shades of last year when Toobin wrongly predicted that the court would strike down Obamacare. Politico

Bill Workman, former Chronicle reporter was 77

2013-06-13T08:28:00.001-07:00

The longtime former Chronicle reporter who covered a host of big stories from Sen. Ted Kennedy’s 1969 accident at Chappaquiddick to the Patty Hearst kidnapping and who became a journalistic fixture covering the Peninsula for years, has died. Workman died Tuesday morning of prostate cancer. He was 77. Obit: San Francisco Peninsula Press Club

Morning Wrap: 6/13/13

2013-06-13T07:37:00.001-07:00

BART brass reacts to Dorothy Dugger story, a mixed report card for Bay Area hospitals, what waterfront restaurants are doing to attract the America’s Cup crowd, more. Thursday news and notes Two of the three engineering panelists commissioned by Caltrans to review the severity of the Bay Bridge’s bolt problems say the eastern span should open Labor Day weekend as planned, with or

How cool is Sergio Romo? Now he’s got his own ice cream

2013-06-12T16:03:00.001-07:00

The Giants closer, who made waves the other day by weighing into the immigration debate with a video in support of a reform group, is taking it up a notch—with ice cream. Petaluma-based Three Twins Ice Cream has inked a contract with the reliever to produce Sergio Romo’s Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream. The tag line, as you can see on the product label, posted to the company’s Facebook page: “It

Bryan Stow’s insurance says no to more rehab; he’s sent home to Santa Cruz

2013-06-12T15:50:00.001-07:00

More than two years after being beaten nearly to death by thugs outside the Giants’ season opener at Dodger Stadium, Bryan Stow is back home in Santa Cruz. But it sounds better than it is, apparently. His insurance has pulled the plug on the live-in care facility where he was being treated in Bakersfield, and in an updated entry on their blog, the family says it’s struggling mightily to care for

Lawmaker calls for expanded probe of Bay Bridge problems

2013-06-12T15:32:00.001-07:00

Harbinger of more official scrutiny of the Bay Bridge fiasco? State Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) wants to expand the scope of the expert panel assigned to look into structural stability of the eastern span’s tower foundation to include more recent problems with broken and suspect bolts and the corroded tendons on its skyway viaduct. If lawmakers approve, that should pretty much guarantee

Uh-oh, TMZ says Kamala Harris may not be hottest AG in America, after all

2013-06-12T15:07:00.001-07:00

The gossip site posts pictures of Florida attorney general Pam Bondi and California’s Kamala Harris and asks readers to weigh-in on President Obama’s calling Harris “the best looking attorney general in America.” And the Miami Herald blog says it’s Bondi by 62 percent to 38 percent among 43,553 votes cast.

Gavin Newsom’s certificate hand-out pinch hitter: Secretary of State

2013-06-12T14:57:00.001-07:00

Remember that ceremony honoring Marin County for having the state’s highest voter turnout that Gavin Newsom blew off in late April due to “pressing state business”? Secretary of State Debra Bowen did the do-over for him yesterday, presenting a certificate of commendation to the Board of Supervisors. As for Newsom’s pressing business—it went unexplained. California Forward

Morning Wrap: 6/12/13

2013-06-12T07:19:00.001-07:00

Whopping 20 percent water hike in the East Bay, big prison gang prosecution in San Jose, death halts work at 49ers’ stadium, more. Politics and Government A new Gallup poll gives former President George W. Bush his first net positive approval rating in eight years. The Hill Environmentalists are upset a provision in Jerry Brown’s budget that would borrow half a billion intended for

Feinstein takes hard line on Snowden, wants him prosecuted for ‘treason’

2013-06-11T09:07:00.001-07:00

The White House may be getting pressure from liberals and libertarians to tread easily on low-level (and now exiled) former CIA security analyst turned leaker Joseph Snowden, 29. But Senator Dianne Feinstein isn’t among them. “I don’t look at this as being a whistle-blower. I think it’s an act of treason,” the San Francisco Democrat says. The Hill