SF Retains Gay Shadow
Mayor Steve Kawa

(Gay powerbroker Steve Kawa. Credit: Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal.)

Forget the state of Denmark; something is wrong in San Francisco and it's the divisive and smokey backroom deal that went down this week, producing Ed Lee as the titular mayor.

The process sucked, starting with Gavin Newsom flouting state law by refusing to be inaugurated as California's lieutenant governor because that would mean having to resign as mayor, to bare minimal public vetting of interim mayoral candidates, to the eventual victor being not only out of town but out also supposedly out of reach of dedicated phone and web service in Taiwan.

At the end of all the conniving by every faction in and out of City Hall, the political sausage-making produced the same gay shadow mayor we've had running the city for at least a solid year, Steve Kawa. He's weaved in and out of Newsom's administration, and the scuttlebutt I heard is that when the mayor decided to run for state office, the daily details of running the city were put in the hands of Kawa, presently serving as chief of staff.

This crony of Willie Brown, and his role in choosing the new mayor, sharply piqued my curiosity on Tuesday night.

When Bevan Dufty asked for a recess at the very extended Board of Supervisors meeting as names were being considered and voted on, it was because he had urgent issues to speak with Newsom about so he and fellow supervisor Sophie Maxwell went to Kawa's office. It was there that they spoke with Newsom on the phone, sealing the deal for Bevan to change his vote in favor of Ed Lee.

My skepticism says the king-maker among the four was Kawa, and the deal was signed by him then delivered by Bevan back to the full board, putting Lee in charge of Room 200, while Kawa continues serving as the shadow mayor.

Those were some of my thoughts yesterday, as I watched the old board's final meeting, the Rose Pak-led celebration in the second floor rotunda of City Hall, and when I saw Bevan in the hallway and told him to his face I didn't approve of a backroom deal and him brokering it. Many probably think my Kawa theory is heated and unlikely, and that once all the dust settles we'll have Lee running San Francisco.

Imagine my surprise this morning reading between the lies, er, lines of the SF Chronicle and this passage in their coverage of who's in charge of the levers of City Hall power:

Some Newsom critics have dismissed Lee as a political lightweight chosen because he will probably keep the mayor's team intact, including his chief of staff, Steve Kawa, who they warn would become a shadow mayor with close ties to Newsom and former Mayor Willie Brown.

The Chronicle is wrong to say "would become" when Kawa currently is the shadow mayor. Here's another nugget of news leading my thinking, from Gerry Shih of the Bay Citizen:

“This was a recruitment,” Newsom said, referring to the intense effort undertaken by his allies — especially Kawa, the chief of staff to whom Lee is highly deferential — in the past several days to convince Lee to accept a nomination.

Even Stevie Wonder can read the handwriting on the City Hall wall. Steve Kawa's tenure as San Francisco's gay shadow mayor is extended for the next eleven months.

SFBG: Chinatown Boss Heckled by Queer
Over Mayoral Backroom Deal

Two of the key players in the underhanded, to say the freaking least, process that produced Ed Lee as San Francisco's next mayor were sleazy Willie Brown, and his Chinatown counterpart in scummy practices and backroom dealing Rose Pak. Brown was not present at the Board of Supervisors' meeting on Friday as his and Pak's candidate was ratified to take over Room 200 at City Hall.

But Pak was there and she got an earful from me. Well, someone from the public had to object to the many acts of political screwing of the downtown machine bosses, in the afterglow of the vote in the rotunda, site of the Harvey Milk bust and memorial plaque. Wanna bet Milk would have raised his voice against the citizen's of San Francisco not being allowed a proper public vetting of all the candidates, through debates and hearing with the mayoral wannabees present and accounted for.

I did my part to register public disgust with what's gone down at City Hall. From Steven T. Jones over at the Bay Guardian:

Yet he also acknowledged the unseemly way in which Lee came out of nowhere to get the nomination, with little public vetting, “If Ed was out there a week earlier, it would have been a lot better. It was a flawed process,” [Gordon] Chin [of the Chinatown Community Development Center] said.

So flawed that Daly and many progressive activists are still smarting about what happened and wary of what kind of mayor Lee will be. “No more backroom deals,” queer activist and blogger Michael Petrelis repeatedly shouted at Rose Pak as she was being interviewed outside board chambers.

But [Rev. Norman] Fong just shrugged and told me, “There’s backroom deals on the left too.”

Oh, so an Asian leader acknowledges a deal went down over Ed Lee, and well, that's basically not much to worry about because the progressives cut deals also. Here's a radical notion to consider Rev. Fong, and all power-players of San Francisco: Let's diminish ALL backroom deals.

3 Corrupt Lez Pols Get Cushy
Schwarzenegger Appointments

Count me among the small minority of radical queers who is way over thinking electing Democrats who happen to be gay is a major avenue of gay liberation. Gay electeds are first and foremost about advancing their political careers first, everything else including gay community engagement and accountability come after staying in office or enjoying a patronage appointment.

Examples of recent b.s. from gay politicians giving cause to be wary of such creatures include the following.

Houston's lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, had to be pressured by me into speaking out about a gay youth suicide in her city.

Also silent until I persuaded him to open his gay mouth was former Providence, Rhode Island, mayor David Cicilline, regarding another gay kid killing himself. Cicilline is now a member of the House of Representatives. Yawn.

Down in Palm Springs the gay mayor, Steven Poegnet, steadfastly remained silent as his city's police force staged anti-gay sex stings and officers were accused of displaying disturbing homophobic leanings. Poegnet, who wanted to move up the political ladder and unseat U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, a challenge that failed, can stay in his current office or retire for all I care.

In Sacramento this week, Arnold Schwarzenegger before stepping down as governor appointed three corrupt lesbian politicians to cushy, six-figure patronage positions. One of those appointments, generated a story about her new position and how it came about in the Capitol Weekly:

But one appointment stood out. Former state Sen. Carole Migden, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, was named to the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, ...

Migden, despite repeated efforts, declined to be interviewed for this story. ...

Migden, unlike many of Schwarzenegger’s well-connected appointees, has had little interaction with Schwarzenegger and is recovering from a bout of embarrassing political controversies that landed her out of office two years ago. ...

Well then how did she get her appointment? Was it an elitist old girl network that did the trick to help Migden maintain getting a check from the taxpayers of California? Does the Pope wear a dress?

Capitol insiders say her lack of connection to Schwarzenegger wasn’t critical to her appointment, but that the driving force behind the selection was Migden’s friend Susan Kennedy, Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff and second-most powerful person in his administration. ...

For those not up on, or who have forgotten Migden's corruption, here's a reminder:

In 2007, she pled no contest to a misdemeanor reckless driving charge after she caused an accident in her state-owned SUV during a now-infamous 30-mile ride down Interstate 80.

Attempting to access funds from previous campaign accounts, Migden was slapped with a record $350,000 fine for violating campaign finance laws. ...

That old girl network takes care of itself, and Migden wasn't alone among corrupt lesbian pols making a soft landing at the end of Schwarzenegger's tenure:

Other Capitol insiders say it's a much simpler case of the governor taking care of those close to his top advisor. Some cite a long friendship between Migden and Kennedy, who came to be known as “the little governor.”

Schwarzenegger included both Kennedy and her wife, Vicki Marti, among his final appointments while still in office. ...

Isn't that so special of the "the little governor" to take care of herself, her spouse and the nightmare known as Carole Migden. Corruption, collusion and looking out for their own political careers knows no sexual orientation boundaries.

SF Supe: Inmate Ed Jew 'Gets More Black Cock'
than Gay Pol

[Oops: My original headline was incorrect and contradicted by the quote. Apologies.]

Trustafarian and outgoing San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly (pictured), was roasted last night and the SF Weekly was present for the fun and insults:

And when a slightly boozed Daly took to the stage, his unsavory antics reached a whole new level.

"The only politician who gets more black cock than Mark Leno is Ed Jew," Daly said.

And then someone struck the gong. 

Daly's attempt at political humor strikes me as offensive on several counts. First, I see nothing wrong with openly gay state senator Mark Leno supposedly having sex with black men. What's Daly's problem with gay interracial sexual relations?

Second, Daly may be implying that former Supervisor Ed Jew, a heterosexual convicted felon now serving time, is the victim of sexual assaults in prison and that this is a laughing matter. Male-on-male prison violence and rape is no joke.

Thirdly, this comment is loaded with so much racial and sexual crackpot thinking it makes me happy all over again that I never wasted a vote on Daly and that his tenure ends in a few days.

I'll be curious to see if any of Daly's progressive allies take him to task for this remark, but I won't hold my breath waiting for San Francisco progressives to hold the Bully of the Board accountable.

Hey, Chris, have you thought of applying to work for Mel Gibson as his joke writer?

SF Almost-Mayor Ed Lee:
$5K to Newsom, Also Gave to Dufty + Maxwell

The city of San Francisco is experiencing some crazier-than-usual politics, thanks to the petulance of the current mayor Gavin Newsom, who should have resigned that post and been inaugurated on Monday in Sacramento, thus allowing the Board of Supervisors and the citizens to properly engage in choosing our new mayor.

Read this SF Chronicle story for some of the background on this weird selection process and the players involved.

A top contender to become the interim mayor is Ed Lee, the City Administrator, on the right in the picture. Like many folks, when I heard the name Ed Lee my first questions were who is he and what are his political views.

I picked up a few clues searching the SF Ethics Commission web site for Lee's donations, which stretch back to the 1990s and total in the low four-figures.

Of the current Supervisors, who may vote to install him later this week, Lee has given outgoing board members Sophie Maxwell $100 and Bevan Dufty $200. Peanuts really, but still, I wonder if there is any municipal or state ethics prohibition on the Supervisors voting for a donor to become San Francisco's new mayor.

I'm not suggesting that Dufty or Maxwell may support Lee because of the small donations to their campaigns, but I do think we need to sunshine all of Lee's political giving and see where it leads, if anywhere.

At the federal level, Lee has given Oakland's Congressional rep Barbara Lee $500, Oregon House candidate David Wu $500, and the Democratic National Committee $500.

Here's the juiciest news from searching his donations' records. At the state level Lee gave Gavin Newsom $1,000 for his gubernatorial bid and $4,000 for his campaign to become California's lieutenant governor.

The potential next mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, has contributed a total of $5,000 to Newsom's statewide campaigns, and we all should be aware of his giving in this situation, and all the other thousands of dollars in contributions he's doled out.

Not sure what bearing Lee's donations may have on his tenure, if he becomes interim mayor, but the donations need more publicity and scrutiny.

[Full disclosure: I am friends with Bevan and have worked with him on many global gay political issues.]

LA Weekly:
Has EQCA Found an In-House Director?

Down at the LA Weekly, gay reporter Patrick Range McDonald has been talking with many Equality California leaders and supporters, along with the numerous critics of the group for a big piece in the paper coming out in a few days.

When I spoke with Patrick last month, he annoyed me with several questions about the good work performed either by the org or its soon-to-be-gone director. After so many years of unbridled disgust with the elitist, non-engaging ways of EQCA and its executives, I was in no mood to offer more than minimal praise. I mention Patrick's persistence that I had something nice to say because I take that as a sign he's publishing a balanced and fair piece.

While we wait for his article to come out, let's look at his blog post today for the LA Weekly about the possibility that a new leader for the org has already been selected. Even if longtime EQCA managing director is not the replacement, he is pivotal to the org and is not leaving it anytime soon, so we all need to scrutinize him:

Will officials at Equality California, the powerful gay rights lobbying group, follow through on their promises to conduct an extensive nationwide search and reach out to the gay community as they look for a new executive director?

According to gay blogger and activist Michael Petrelis, the answer looks like a big fat "no," with signs that Equality California is already preparing to promote its managing director, Jim Carroll.

If that's happening, it contradicts what outgoing executive director Geoff Kors and EQCA board members told L.A. Weekly during recent interviews.

The hiring of the new executive director of Equality California is no small thing.

That leader makes decisions that can directly affect the rights and lives of hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians in California -- whether it's fighting an anti-gay ballot measure or helping to get pro-gay legislation passed in Sacramento.

He or she will also work with other gay rights groups. It is something critics say EQCA and Geoff Kors haven't always done well, and hope the organization will correct with a new executive director who will seek to build a stronger, all-around gay rights movement in California. ...

Imagine that - a stronger gay community in the Golden State. It can happen, if EQCA's A-gay executives, board members and donors allow new voices to influence the group and they _finally_ being holding regular public forums. It's my hope that Patrick's article significantly contributes to those necessary changes. Click here to read Patrick's full blog post.

POZ's Strub: 
Death Anus Ad from NYC DOH

My friend Sean Strub, a longtime person living with AIDS and founder of POZ magazine, has extended the debate surrounding a creepy HIV prevention ad from the New York City Department of Health in a lengthy blog post. The stigmatizing video was launched in early December and my previous posts on the matter, including Larry Kramer's approval and my thumbs down, are here, here and here.

To be honest, I thought the controversy had run its course, would fade away and that there wasn't much new info to further this important debate. I was wrong and want to call attention to several points Sean makes, starting with the headline: Death Anus Ad from NYC Dept of Health.

Here's his radical notion of respecting the intelligence of the target audience of HIV negative gays, and not adding to the burdens of stigma faced by PWAs:

We can and should tell young people that HIV is very bad and they don't want to get it, but we can do that without condemning or stigmatizing people who already have HIV. And we can and should tell people with HIV that a diagnosis is not the end of their lives, that they still pursue their dreams and seek everything anyone else can extract from life without sending a message to young people that HIV is no big deal.

We need to convey both of these messages, at the same time, and not let one negate or diminish the other. That requires a more nuanced messaging, one that doesn't assume the intended audience can be manipulated by over-the-top fright messages, doesn't speak down to them and doesn't assume they are presently not caring whether or not they get HIV.

That last part is something that has long frustrated me about the fear-driven ads in San Francisco. The insulting belief that younger gays or negative gays of all ages don't give a damn about their health or that of their sexual partners, displays reckless arrogance and is not a safe building block for a discussion about gay wellness. Would it be too much trouble for the all smartypants people who create these social marketing campaigns to fully respect at-risk persons?

Also on Sean's mind relates to treatment as prevention, a topic that shouldn't be avoided as it was for years in supposedly cutting-edge San Francisco because AIDS Inc types only wanted to promote condom usage:

We also have failed in recognizing the role treatment plays in reducing risk. A person with HIV on treatment who has been undetectable for six months or more is unlikely to transmit the virus. It is not impossible, but the chance of transmission is dramatically reduced, for many that chance is reduced to the extent they are comfortable having unprotected sex with a person who is undetectable.

Our community's failure to have an honest discussion about this has resulted in people making judgments that are often poorly informed. We need to recognize the reality of how treatment does reduce transmission risk, even while also communicating that it does not eliminate such risk.

Speaking of honest discussions, I am not aware of NYC DOH holding any public forums after they dumped their creepy ad on the gays, to gauge its impact on the community and present research (if they have it) showing fearful ads work. The department's page for the ad omits info on follow-up forums. Such open meetings could further the influence of the ads objectives - reduce transmission, increase safe sex practices, drive up testing - and would bridge some of the divisions that have arisen since the ad's debut.

It seems NYC DOH followed the disgraceful example of the SF Department of Public Health unleashing stigmatizing campaigns, riling up the community and PWAs, and never coming out of their ivory tower to meet face-to-face with the community. This lack of built-in public feedback sessions is just more disrespect from the health officials.

And how does Sean tie all this in with his death anus headline reference? By articulating one of the images in the ad, with some old and always-timely wisdom from AIDS pioneer Dr. Joe Sonnabend, a true hero:

In 1983, very early in the epidemic, Joseph Sonnabend, MD, famously and courageously said, "the rectum is a sexual organ and it deserves the respect a penis gets and a vagina gets." ...

I couldn't help but think of this when I saw the close-up image of a man's anus, covered in cancerous lesions, in the NYC DOH ad. Anal cancers are preceded by genital warts, which are caused by strains of HPV, the Human Papiloma Virus. Last year, 4,000 women in the U.S. died of cervical cancer; in virtually every case the cancer was caused by HPV.

If the NYC Department of Health pursued a campaign to combat transmission of HPV, does anyone think they would, for a moment, consider using a close-up image of a horribly diseased vagina?

Two points. One, what Joe Sonnabend said about respect and the rectum is as true today as the day he wrote it back in the early days of the epidemic. Respect is a key ingredient missing from much of HIV prevention campaigns in the U.S.

Secondarily, I don't think the health department would make use of an infected vagina x-ray, just to start a discussion among at-risk women. It wouldn't be respectful of the health needs of women and would rightly be condemned, but there is little hesitation to employ such visual tactics when the issue is gay men and HIV.

If the NYC DOH wants my advice, it is that they quickly organize two town hall meetings about the current ad, any impact it may have on gay wellness, and engage in a respectful discussion about future prevention campaigns and messages.

After all, it's never just an ad, it's whole lotta other extenuating factors and emotions that arise from purposefully provocative ads. NYC DOH town hall forums when?

Secret Milk Club Chat
About New SF Mayor?

[Updates: See below.]

There's a lot of confusion over who will be the mayor of San Francisco once the current holder of that office, Gavin Newsom, resigns and moves up to Sacramento where he will serve as the state's lieutenant governor. He won't step down until the new Board of Supervisors is installed later this week.

It's expected that the incoming supervisors are going to pick a moderate to be mayor until the general election in November, and Newsom is doing everything he can to prevent the current board's progressive members from picking his replacement.

It's all quite convoluted and Tim Redmond, the editor of the liberal weekly Bay Guardian, this week opined about how Newsom should move on already and let the supervisors fulfill their replacement duties. To help sort out the confusion and players in this civic drama, Redmond wrote the following:

I'm moderating a Harvey Milk Club panel discussion Jan. 3 and all the prospective candidates are invited. The least any potential mayor can do is show up and answer questions.

Oddly, he shared no info on where and when that meeting is taking place tonight, and the Bay Guardian didn't bother to link to a site where those details could be found. I checked the Milk Club's site and found no info on the panel discussion. Is this a secret meeting?

If there's a public forum tonight about who our next mayor will be and the process employed to pick that person, the least the Bay Guardian and the Milk Club can do is inform the general public about the meeting's place and time. Is that asking too much?

UPDATE #1:


Five minutes after I blogged on the meeting, this note came my way from David Waggoner, the president of the Milk Club: "The meeting - which of course would have been open to the public- was cancelled." Thanks, David, for the correct info. 

UPDATE #2: And this reply came from Tim Redmond, and I'm happy to learn the paper did include the info on where and when for the meeting. I totally share Tim's frustration and disappointment. The citizens of SF deserve a better, more transparent and engaged process to pick an interim mayor. Tim said:

Not a secret at all, Michael, and in our alerts section we put out the exact time and place. Unfortunately, not a single candidate was willing to attend, so the event's been cancelled. I consider that pretty lame behavior by people who appear to want progressive support to take office as interim mayor. I understand that current supervisors are barred by law from attending, but there's no reason Agnos, Hennessey, Harrington et al couldn't show up and give the Milk Club and the rest of the city some idea of what they would do in room 200. So I'm disappointed.

UCLA's HIV Drug Resistance Scare

Omitted from SF Report

A top AIDS accomplishment in 2010 was the containment and neutralization of Sally Blower (picutred), the alarmist math modeler at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine who's built a troubling career peddling unfounded medical fears, most notoriously involving gay males and HIV.

Full disclosure: I was a key player in the effort against Blower, her faulty research and estimates, and latest stigmatizing math model regarding transmission of drug-resistant HIV strains. Credit also goes to Clinton Fein, Bevan Dufty, the Bay Area Reporter, SF DPH's Dr. Grant Colfax, Shane Snowden and Barbara French of UCSF, KPIX's Joe Vasquez, and others who publicly questioned Blower's computer modeling on the alleged resistance.

In January of last year, Blower and the UCLA press office stoked fears of HIV resistance among irresponsible sexually active gay men living with AIDS in San Francisco, with a release predicting global health problems in poor countries because of the gay PWAs. After months of controversy, and Blower's inability to back up her claims with independent research, UCLA apologized for offending PWAs and gay people.

Since then, Blower has published additional scary math models on other AIDS issues, and even with the David Geffen School of Medicine's p.r. machine promoting still more gloom-and-doom from Blower, albeit without the usual lab-created alarm designed to generate news clippings that help keep Blower in rolling in grants, her September alarmist paper for The Lancet never crossed over from the medical journal into the mainstream press. A good sign.

If Google news alerts and general web searches, that fail to turn up any mainstream coverage of any new scary HIV math models of Blower's since the San Francisco community collectively objected to her methodology and findings last winter, are any indication, she's seriously slipping in generating ink for her computer models.

On top of that, the newest annual HIV epidemiology report for San Francisco was recently posted to the web and the matter of drug resistance strains is omitted. I would expect the 105-page epi report, which is chock-a-block full of data and research about all manner of complexities related to HIV transmission, to say something if indeed resistance were a genuine concern for the health department and local AIDS testing agencies.

This is the apocalyptic message from Blower's 2010 math model:

"Consequently, currently circulating [HIV drug]-resistant strains in San Francisco pose a great and immediate threat to global public health."

And not a damn thing about that threat in the 2009 HIV summary for San Francisco, hopefully showing once and for all that "Chicken Little" Sally Blower was wrong and her future research should be subjected to strict scrutiny.

EQCA: Meet the New Boss;
Same as the Old Boss: Jim Carroll

(EQCA's incoming chief, Jim Carrol, left, and outgoing boss Geoff Kors, right.)

Absolutely not a goddamn thing has changed at Equality California since the joined-at-the-hip dynamic duo of A-gays Geoff Kors and Jim Carroll, his never-held-a-public-forum righthand man for the past few years. Behind closed doors, these two have run the EQCA show, which has been not much more than the duo allowing Democratic Party leaders to co-opt the group.

Come February, two years will have passed since EQCA's leader last appeared at an SF public forum, while Kors and his crew have done everything in their power to thwart any genuine grassroots voices be heard at the top level and influence direction. Same as they did before we lost Prop 8.

Kors recently announced his resignation, finally, and a press release assured the community that there would be a very smooth transition in the four months before actually stepping down. This would allow for an alleged extensive search by the board to find a replacement.

At the time of the release, I blogged on how only a miracle would produce a democratic engagement by EQCA's executives and board, with a series of open meetings. Of course, this leopard is not about to change its organizational spots any time soon, so no such forums have been organized, never mind announced.

Nope, the A-gay board and the Democratic Party operatives and candidates and gay political animals climbing up the power-ladder, who depend on a compliant and controlled gay voting and donor bloc, are not interested in giving up their self-anointed positions as community rulers.

As such, knowing this high-power clique, over-represented by lawyers, which doesn't make a big move without all the chess pieces and their moves well thought-out far in advance of the change occurring.

Just like the Santa Claus concept, there is no search underway to hire a new executive director because the decision has already been made, I believe, to move Jim Carroll to the top spot at EQCA. We're been seeing the installment of Jim for a number of weeks now.

The first sign was in the December 16 Bay Area Reporter's glowing story about EQCA hosting an elite cocktail reception for top donors. No mention of Geoff's seeming absence or reasons why Jim was the evening's host. The star of the piece was Jim, also featured in this photo, with mic, snapped by Matt Baume:

On the final day of 2010, EQCA posted a release about four bills going into effect on January 1, and the usual quote from boss Geoff is missing. Jim gets the leader's quote. That comes on top of a year-end solicitation, touting the org's great promises for the future, and it was signed by Jim.

I give him credit for being so under the radar, while serving as the executive-director-in-waiting. Many have no clue as to who he is or what he does, and it's difficult to locate much relevant info on his leadership and grassroots skills.

Frankly, I have no idea what he does or what his community leadership qualifications are, so I'm on a learning curve here. Some details emerge from a January 2009 interview he gave to Democratic GAIN:

1. Describe your job

My responsiblity [sic] is to execute the tactics necessary to implement the Executive Director's strategic vision and make that vision a reality. On a day-to-day basis, that means allocating resources to accomplish our goals, including financial resources, human resources, technical resources, etc.

2. How would you describe your career path? How did you get started in progressive politics?

I was a commercial lender at a large bank. My portfolio included many non-profits, so I was required to understand the intricacies of non-profit accounting. This led to a job offer from one of my clients to help them straighten out their books. Non-profit money management and operations, more broadly - led seamlessly to non-profit fund raising. It turns out that non-profit development was a natural fit for my skill set since selling commercial banking services is similar to acquiring donations. In both cases a conversation with the client/donor is required to convince them that investing their money with the bank or non-profit is the place where they'll find the highest return on their dollars. The combination of Development and Operation skill sets gave me a good start; from there I learned the Communications and Program/Field components on the job.

I've had fifteen years to learn: Five years at EQCA, and before that five years at the Breast Cancer Fund and five more at PFLAG.

If Jim Carroll is not the new leader of EQCA, I'll need a passport to the State of Shock.

And speaking of that new leader, and whatever the search process involves, when will EQCA start to respect the community it says it fully represents, and host a series of meetings up and down the state on what non-A-gays want from the org and its chief?

More than two long years after Jim and Geoff and the board of EQCA led us to defeat over Prop 8 and wasted $45 million doing so, it is a mark of shame, and dishonor to Harvey Milk's legacy that they supposedly embrace, that I am still screaming for EQCA to throw open the closed doors, let the gay sunshine in and engage average gays who can't afford to buy $350 tix for the group's gala in February.