Theresa Sparks

Muni "Savages" "Jihad" Etc. Battling Mideast Bus Ads Fund Pending Study

After eight years of covering contentious Mideast issues through a San Francisco lens, your humble narrator can offer you a certainty: The path to peace will be forged via the least nuanced, most belligerent, and most disingenuous members of each community taking out shrill, competing ads on Muni. T ... More >>

Muni Will Now Run Anti-Gay Ads to Accompany Anti-Islamic Ads on Buses

If you were just starting to move on from Michelle Shocked's "God Hates Fags" remark she made here in San Francisco this week, best you take a (Muni) seat to read this story. Starting next month, Muni will run six bus ads featuring Muslim leaders bagging on gays. The Examiner reported the latest c ... More >>

Larry Brinkin, S.F. Gay Rights Activist, Charged With E-Mailing Child Porn Images

Larry Brinkin, San Francisco's well-known gay rights activist, appeared in court this afternoon where he pleaded not guilty to six felony charges of sending and receiving images of child pornography.The charges came three months after Brinkin, 66, was first arrested by San Francisco police, who clai ... More >>

Larry Brinkin, S.F. Gay Rights Icon, Arrested on Child Porn Charges

(Update 3:30 p.m.): SF Weekly has obtained the search warrant, which details the items police seized from Brinkin and his husband's home. Those items include computers, videos, VHS tapes, and a floppy disc. Read details of the search warrant after the jumpOriginal story: Police say they ar ... More >>

Hate Crime Allegations Dismissed in Attack on S.F. Transgender Woman

This isn't exactly how the LGBT community imagined kicking off gay pride ​SF Weekly readers might recall the incident two months ago when two men were arrested after beating a transgender woman on the 16th Street BART plaza. Well, despite the public outcry over the incident -- which sparked a rall ... More >>

Double Drain: Program Pays Cops Pensions While Still on the Force

Theresa Sparks Honored For Election To Board of Supervisors. Problem: She Wasn't.

Ms. Sparks, we've got some news for you...​Theresa Sparks will not be a San Francisco supervisor. Yet she has been named one of the year's top politicos for winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors. Say what? Along with Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria Kolakowski, Sparks is named as ... More >>

Human Rights Campaign To Move Into Harvey Milk's Camera Store

Harvey Milk has been enlisted by the HRC​In what some grassroots gay activists are calling an "insult," the Human Rights Campaign is about to move into the location of Harvey Milk's old camera store at 575 Castro Street. It will be the new San Francisco "action center" providing information on the ... More >>

Supes Races Too Close to Call

Four supes-to-be will be 'crowned' on Friday, leading to a memorable weekend. Their identities are not so clear. ​It's going to be a hell of a weekend for a quartet of San Franciscans. While the vast majority of San Francisco votes have been counted, late absentees and others will keep the city fr ... More >>

San Francisco Besieged by Tons of Political Junk Mail

Crap​A colleague recently plopped his accumulated political mail of the last three-odd weeks down on our desk. Campaign fliers alone stacked more than an inch high and weighed around a pound. The voter information pamphlet for the city and state nearly tripled the poundage. That's a ton of politic ... More >>

The Identity Card

Voting by race has made the city's political representation more Asian. It could be what puts 33-year-old Jane Kim on the board of supervisors.

Only In SF: Theresa Sparks, Transgender Former Sex Toy Exec, 'Conservative' Candidate

​​"Only in San Francisco" is a trite and overused phrase all too often employed to belittle our city's good intentions as it establishes bond financing to pave the road to hell. And yet, sometimes, you've just got to take a step back, look at what's going on here, and shake your head: Theresa Sp ... More >>

Theresa Sparks and Jane Kim, Sisters of Secrecy

Photo of Jane Kim | Luke ThomasTheresa Sparks and Jane Kim would rather not receive your birthday greetings, it would seem​We weren't the only ones to notice something a bit odd in the most recent edition of the Central City Extra. In a two-page spread, a dozen would-be successors to District ... More >>

Target Targeted By Angry S.F. Supervisor Candidates

Everyone loves the dog. Everyone hates his employer. ​When candidates running for the Board of Supervisors were asked what they thought about Target's plans to open a pair of San Francisco outlets, their opinions were like discount footwear at the big box store: plentiful, hard to miss -- and unco ... More >>

Dispute over who gets to run city parking garages leads to allegations of a shakedown

Why the police commission doesn't discipline bad cops

No, Chris Daly Won't Endorse Theresa Sparks. She Can Live With That.

Theresa Sparks​You may recall that less than a week after the SF Weekly published a profile last fall on soon-to-be District 6 Supervisor candidate Theresa Sparks, current District 6 supervisor Chris Daly wrote his own 2,500 word diatribe railing against Sparks' "mainstream" politics and how the W ... More >>

Chris Daly In No Hurry to Handpick His Successor

Eenie Meanie Miney Mo...​Last week, SF Weekly grilled Supervisor Chris Daly's potential progressive successors in District 6 about whether they desired the mixed bag that is Daly's official blessing. Both Debra Walker and Jane Kim hemmed and hawed. "Chris' endorsement really helps and it can reall ... More >>

Theresa Sparks' Campaign Manager: That Shit's Not Mine!

That's a Snickers bar. We guarantee it. ​District 6 Supervisorial candidate Theresa Sparks may only have declared her official intention to run yesterday, but she's been publicly deliberating her run for quite some time. In fact, her unofficial -- but soon to be paid and official -- campaign manag ... More >>

What We Learned in 2009: Matier & Ross Read SF Weekly

A little while ago, Michael Petrelis and another local blogger groused about Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross not giving them credit for stories they broke. I'm sure I speak for veteran alt-weekly scribes everywhere when I say, Welcome to our world! For decades, daily newspapers have re-w ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Chris Daly May Know a Lot about a Lot -- But He Doesn't Know Jack About SF Weekly

Chris Daly​I want to thank Supervisor Chris Daly. I want to thank the man for forcing me to read through his turgid, 2,500-word polemic about supervisorial candidate Theresa Sparks and how "big money" has supposedly been showered upon this newspaper in return for a cover story. Now we know what it ... More >>

Transblazer

She just became the city's first transgender department head, but Theresa Sparks is already setting her sights on becoming the city's first transgender supervisor.

Supe Candidate Who Earlier Proposed Kickoff/Withdrawal Event Now Says He's In It To Win It

Police Chief George Gascon (left) dropped by District 6 Supe candidate David Villa-Lobos' campaign kickoff last night​District 6 Supervisorial candidate David Villa-Lobos thought we were giving him a hard time when we described him as "mercurial" last week. That wasn't our intention. But, really, ... More >>

Transgender Activists Staying Home From Obama Protests, But Waiting for President to Back Up Trans-Friendly Words

Code Pink on the left! Teabaggers on the right! Apparently, however, the transgender community still has President Obama's back.​While Michelle Obama marked an earlier San Francisco visit by getting her hands dirty volunteering at a Bayview playground, the O will be skipping a ... More >>

Theresa Sparks Moving to District 6 This Weekend, 'Leaning Very Heavily' Toward Running for Supervisor

Theresa Sparks​After weeks of speculation about whether Human Rights Commission director Theresa Sparks is about to move to District 6 and run for supervisor, Sparks tells us she signed a lease on an apartment at Turk and Van Ness last week. She says she is moving from her current ... More >>

Mercurial Supe Candidate Announces Date For Kickoff Event -- Or Will It Be His Withdrawal?

David Villa-Lobos -- now you see him, now you don't?​If you send a mixed message -- but send it consistently -- are you really sending a mixed message? That's the koan followers of local politics can ponder when it comes to longshot District 6 Supervisorial candidate David Villa-Lobos. The Tenderl ... More >>

The Outsider

George Gascon is S.F.'s first police chief in 30 years who wasn't homegrown — and he's promising big changes. Criminals and lazy cops, you have been warned.

SFPD's shadow disciplinary system wastes taxpayer money

Heads of Fire, Police Departments Frown On Proposed Budget Cuts

Last night, the Board of Supervisors proposed cuts of about $82 million to the budgets of San Francisco police, fire and sheriff's departments. Today, those departments got together and called a press conference. Police Chief Heather Fong, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, Police Co ... More >>

Police Commission Confirms Three Chief Hopefuls, Mayor Expected to Make Swift Choice

Police Commission President Theresa Sparks announced Wednesday she had forwarded to the mayor the names of three finalists in the race to replace retiring police chief Heather Fong."My perception, and this is just a guess, that the process will now move very quickly," said Sparks, following a closed ... More >>

S.F. Ticketing Program Could Open Costly Pandora's Box For City

Joe EskenaziFormer SPOT director Pat Tobin lectures a mover during a hearing. Contractors claim such hearings denied them their right to due process -- and members of the Police Commission worry this could be true.Wednesday night's hearing regarding a controversial police ticketing program was not n ... More >>

Condi Rice for Next SFPD Chief! And Other Ideas From Last Night's Tenderloin Policing Forum

Peter JamisonPolice Commission President Theresa Sparks (right) talks it outAhhhh, democracy. Try as we might, it never quite runs according to script, save in those enlightened, post-democratic nations -- such as Russia, Haiti or Uzbekistan -- that have figured out how to tame the snarling beast of ... More >>

SF's New Top Cop Won't Have Contract Protection

By John Geluardi The San Francisco Police Commission will begin the New Year by kicking off a national search for new police chief who, unfortunately, will be denied a critical tool to make improvements on one of the most dysfunctional departments in the country. Chief Heather Fong, who will step ... More >>

The Chief Is In (for Now)

With homicide cases going unsolved and morale in the police department sinking, Heather Fong's days as chief may be numbered.

To Serve & Collect

Nearly extinct and long at odds with the SFPD, the little-known San Francisco Patrol Special Police appears poised for a comeback.

Last Night: Margaret Cho Day at City Hall

Halloween in Fallujah: Timeline to Castro Meltdown

Castro Halloween: ‘100,000 People are Coming. Where Will They Urinate?’

Cops Who SPY