Petrelis Files

SF Weekly: Gay Pride Suffers
Wave of Resignations

Let's do the gay community a huge favor and cancel San Francisco's profit-driven and dysfunctional-in-oh-so-many-ways Pride parade and Civic Center party this year, while also dismantling the entire operation. The SF Pride organization is so corrupt and unbalanced mere reform is impossible. It should cease to function as a legal entity.

For more than a decade, SF Pride has been more about corporate sponsorships, keeping non-profits serving as fiscal partners, showcasing an endless march of just-of-the-closet military macho gays who never speak out against the American wars, the latest minor celeb who's come out and has a career to revive, promotion of mindless consumerism and Democratic Party pols and hacks, and the board of directors and staff have put insurmountable distance between them and the grassroots.

The troubles that came to a head last year when the Bay Area Reporter delved into the financial dire situation at Pride and the incompetence of the director Amy Andre, continue to plague the organization. Here's an excerpt of the latest bad news from Joe Eskenazi of the SF Weekly today:

San Francisco Pride has been hit with yet another round of resignations, just two months before the massive parade and festivities that draw hundreds of thousands of revelers to the city.

Cochair Alex Randolph resigned on Friday, and told SF Weekly that board members Belinda Ryan and Jamie Fountain have left as well. This leaves Pride with just four board members, and no executive director.

Randolph said that "the whole dynamic of the board changed" when former Pride board president Nikki Calma abruptly left the organization last month. Lisa Williams and Randolph then took the mantle of cochairs. But Randolph said he could no longer find the time to handle Pride, work, and graduate school. ...