Petrelis Files

Avalos & Herrera 
Hold Summit at Delessio Cafe

We're into the home stretch of San Francisco's mayoral race, with six days to go before election day and all of the candidates are prowling the city looking for votes, but two of them were caught by my camera trying to have semi-private conversation at the Delessio Cafe and they weren't pestering folks over the election.

Before sitting down for lunch, I saw John Avalos and Dennis Herrera at an outside table engaged in chat and no handlers or supporters around. Playing the role of Paparazzo from Fellini's "La Dolce Vita", with camera ready for shooting, I approached John and Dennis and ribbed them for being caught holding a "Delessio summit".

What could they do but smile for the birdie, laugh at my comment and worry that I might sit down at the table next to theirs and listen in on their campaign talk. Frankly, I was more interested having lunch and reading the NY Times inside the cafe, so I left them alone - for a short while.

After eating, I stopped again at their table, this time sitting next to them and peppering them with questions about their summit.

Dennis went first and said, "We're just talking about baseball." My face registered a "yeah, sure" look. Avalos then piped up saying, "The San Francisco Giants were all we spoke about."

Not being much of an athletic supporter, but an admirer of some beefcake dudes who play professional sports especially when sporting jockstraps in locker room pix, even I knew the season was over.

A word of advice to fellow activists and voters of San Francisco. Don't leave home without a camera in the coming days. Be ready to capture images on still or video cameras of candidates campaigning or hanging out, or election-related activities. There can't be too many cameras watchdogging the candidates and their surrogates.

(Disclosure: Avalos gets my first choice vote and I'm considering Herrera as my second or third option.)