Go
back to front pageSAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 4, 1994 --The San Francisco newspaper strike, the first in more than a quarter of a century, cost the city nearly $100,000 in police overtime on the first day alone, the mayor's office said Wednesday.
And word is, that may be only the tip of the iceberg.
Wednesday's chunk of overtime went toward planting as many as 100 cops around the clock at the Chronicle/Examiner main offices at Fifth and Mission streets and at the paper's Army Street printing plant.
Now, police leaves are being canceled left and right to beef up the strike force going into the weekend. That already has City Hall nervous about more spending.
"We can't afford to continue doing this," said Deputy Mayor Jim Wunderman.
Supervisor Kevin Shelley, campaigning for re-election, left no doubt where he stood. "This is an outrageous abuse of resources," he said. He added he plans to ask for an immediate audit "of police resources that are arbitrarily being directed to go hang out and protect scab entries across a union picket line."
Upshot: The cops may go -- leaving only the barricades behind. Whatever the case, Examiner publisher Will Hearst III personally called the mayor's office Wednesday to thank the city for providing a peacekeeping force.
Conroy Calling: It seems you can never get enough when it comes to money and politics. San Francisco's lone Republican supervisor, Annemarie Conroy, is hitting the phones hard this week to raise some last-minute cash to propel her into first place in Tuesday's supervisors race.
It was only two months ago that Conroy, the goddaughter of Mayor Frank Jordan, thought she'd be fighting just to win another term as a supervisor.
Super Sports: San Francisco's winning of Super Bowl XXXIII brings a happy ending to the tensions that have been growing between the San Francisco 49ers and the San Francisco Giants. Word is, the two teams have been quietly smoldering for months over what they think is the city's favoritism for the other team. The 49ers feel the Giants are getting all the breaks and bringing in none of the big bucks, and the Giants feel the Niners are the city's sweethearts.
Things got particularly tense when it looked like there would be a showdown over improvements at Candlestick Park. The Giants also said they might need to extend their play at Candlestick through October, when baseball was considering changing its league schedule. That would have possibly forced the Niners to play four extra away games.
But the Giants acquiesced, and now all the tension appears to have passed with the uncorking of the Super Bowl.
Baggin' Votes: Former mayoral aide and supervisorial candidate Josh Newman has got to have the most clever campaign signs going this election season. They're white paper bags he's been putting over parking meters. The bags carry the inscription: "This meter is not broken, but The City is."
An eye-catcher for sure but unfortunately, some folks aren't bothering to remove the bags. And now they've been calling the Department of Public Traffic to complain when they get hit with a hefty parking ticket.
Go
back to front page