Hot Cop of Castro ruled to be too hot to patrol the Castro area

Remember San Francisco's Hot Cop of Castro? The adorable officer Chris Kohrs who drove the gay internet wild?

Well, it turns out, he has revealed that his superiors have told him he is officially too hot to patrol the gayborhood.

'They prefer to keep me out of the Castro area just because it gets kind of crazy sometimes when I go down there,' he has revealed in a new video.

But if you're worried he's put down his badge for good, don't fret, he's still on the eye for trouble in San Fran. He's just been moved to the slightly less gay Haight-Ashbury station.

But Kohrs doesn't mind the attention, in fact he is giving back to the community as the new face of local men's clothes shop Blade + Blue.

A portion of the proceeds from his collaboration with the clothier will benefit the Officer Down Memorial Fund.

San Francisco passes Retail Workers’ Bill of Rights

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Labor advocates cheered Tuesday when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the nation’s first Retail Workers’ Bill of Rights, which will require larger employers to give workers at least two weeks’ notice of their schedules.

As Dave Jamieson explains, the new law will also force big retailers to award supplemental pay to workers if their schedules undergo unforeseen changes or if their shifts are canceled while they’re on call. Moreover, the law stipulates that retailers offer extra hours to current employees, instead of relying on temporary or part-time labor.

The law passed over the objections of the usual suspects, including the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. But while the law imposes the new requirements on chains with at least 11 locations around the country, small businesses are exempt from its requirements.

Underscoring the reality that progressive change will occur at the state and local level amid unified GOP control of Congress and obstruction of President Obama’s initiatives on issues like the minimum wage, supervisors passed the law as similar, Democratic-backed legislation languishes in Congress.

The board’s vote comes three weeks after San Franciscans passed another measure championed by labor activists, voting to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over a three-year period. That vote came amid mounting anxiety over the tech-dominated city’s high levels of income inequality, which some measures indicate is comparable with that in developing nations.

Harvey Milk SFO Terminal Idea Remains Grounded

San Francisco International Airport was awash in rainbow lights for Pride last year; Mayor Ed Lee has yet to name people to a city panel tasked with choosing a terminal to name after slain supervisor Harvey Milk.  (Source:Courtesy SFO)

The plan to name a terminal at San Francisco International Airport in honor of the city’s first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, remains grounded a year after initially being proposed.

Last spring Mayor Ed Lee and gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos agreed to form an advisory committee that would recommend which of the airport’s four terminals should be named after Milk, who was killed inside City Hall the morning of November 27, 1978 along with then-Mayor George Moscone by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White.

The compromise came after Campos shocked the city in early 2013 with his proposal to rename the entire airport in recognition of Milk. The idea drew widespread criticism, including from within the local LGBT community, and Campos was unable to secure the six votes he needed on the Board of Supervisors to place an amendment to the city’s charter, which refers to the San Francisco Airport, before voters for approval.

Lee, who also publicly questioned the merits of designating SFO after Milk, worked with Campos to broker the deal establishing the Airport Facilities Naming Advisory Committee. The supervisors would select four members and the mayor would appoint five people to the advisory panel.

It not only would be tasked with suggesting either the airport’s international terminal or one of its three domestic terminals be named in Milk’s honor, it could also decide to recommend people to name the other three terminals after.

The supervisors and Lee, however, would have final approval as the board would first vote on naming the terminals and the mayor would sign the decisions into law.

Last May, Campos told the Bay Area Reporter that he hoped the process would be finalized "in a short period of time." Yet Campos’s office ran into problems recruiting a diverse applicant pool, and it took the supervisors nine months to approve its four people to the advisory panel.

Meanwhile, Lee has yet to fill any of his five seats on the committee.

"We are waiting for him to appoint his people," Campos told the B.A.R. during a recent editorial board meeting. "The Board of Supervisors can’t force him to do anything. The deal we struck was to create a committee; we did our part and we are waiting for him to do his part."

Tom Temprano, co-president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, expressed disappointment that the decision on a Milk terminal had yet to be finalized ahead of this year’s Harvey Milk Day, annually observed in California on May 22, which is Milk’s birthday.

"I think it is frustrating that a year out we are celebrating what would have been Milk’s 84th birthday and the mayor is continuing to drag his heels on not only this honor for Harvey but potentially for a number of San Franciscans," said Temprano. "I would love to be flying out of the Harvey Milk international terminal someday. Hopefully, by his 85th birthday, we will be able to take a flight in his honor."

Tyler Clementi's Story to Be Told by SF Gay Men's Chorus in Musical Suite

On March 25th, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus will premiere a series of songs, "Tyler's Suite," celebrating the life of Tyler Clementi (right). The college student was himself a musician before his suicide in 2010, which in turn prompted a great deal of national discussion surrounding the issue of LGBT youth and bullying.

The musical piece will be comprised of multiple movements written by some of today's great composers, including Stephen Schwartz, and is being presented as part of a larger performance titled "Luster: An American Songbook."

BroadwayWorld.com reports:

"As a soundtrack of American life during the time of the Great Depression and two world wars, the American Songbook consists of timeless music that translated positive values and an optimistic spirit," says [Artistic Director Dr. Timothy] Seelig. "The Chorus continues that tradition, presenting a new set of songs by today's premier American composers, offering hope and bringing to light the important cultural issues of today through the story of Tyler Clementi."

...

With the help of the Tyler Clementi Foundation, SFGMC commissioned a musical work that will add eight new songs to the soundtrack that is the American Songbook of the 21st century, honoring the memory of a beloved son, brother and friend. "Tyler's Suite" creates a new story of inclusion, dignity and acceptance for other youth and their families, through a musical experience that inspires community, activism and compassion. The story is one of hope and encouragement to families everywhere.

Other composers involved in the project include "John Bucchino, Ann Hampton Callaway, Craig Carnelia, John Corigliano, Nolan Gasser, Jake Heggie, Lance Horne, and Pamela Stewart." The piece will also be performed by gay men's choruses in Chicago, Los Angeles, NYC, San Diego, Dallas, and Seattle.

Visit the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus website for tickets and more information.

The story behind boy's wish to become Batkid

Absolutely Stunningly Beautiful Time Lapse Video Of Fog Coming Into San Francisco

Dr. Jeff Masters has on his blog this extraordinary and stunningly beautiful of a time lapse video of fog coming into the San Francisco area. The music is perfect and the video is breath taking. On the blog, Masters says:

Videographer Simon Christen has created a spectacular 4-minute time-lapse video of fog rushing in past the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. He writes: ""Adrift" is a love letter to the fog of the San Francisco Bay Area. I chased it for over two years to capture the magical interaction between the soft mist, the ridges of the California coast and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. This is where “Adrift” was born. The weather conditions have to be just right for the fog to glide over the hills and under the bridge. I developed a system for trying to guess when to make the drive out to shoot, which involved checking the weather forecast, satellite images and webcams multiple times a day. For about 2 years, if the weather looked promising, I would set my alarm to 5am, recheck the webcams, and then set off on the 45-minute drive to the Marin Headlands. I spent many mornings hiking in the dark to only find that the fog was too high, too low, or already gone by the time I got there. Luckily, once in a while the conditions would be perfect and I was able to capture something really special. Adrift is a collection of my favorite shots from these excursions into the ridges of the Marin Headlands."

Over One Quarter Of San Francisco's Homeless Identify As LGBT

For the first time ever, the San Francisco Human Services Agency surveyed a sample of the city's homeless population about their sexual orientation and the results are startling. Of the 1,000 surveyed, 29 percent said they were gay, bisexual or transgender, which is about twice as high as the percentage of the residents in the city overall. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The numbers suggest that more effort may need to go toward providing special services - such as beds set aside for LGBT people in shelters or social workers with special training in LGBT issues - to get gay people off the street and into temporary, and eventually permanent, housing, homeless advocates said.

"It's great to finally have these numbers. What we get from this is that homelessness is a queer issue," said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. "And when we look at our system, it's not particularly gay-friendly."

She's talked to gay and lesbian people who experienced homophobia in homeless shelters, and she said that transgender people staying in shelters experience abuse at "three times the rate" of straight people.

Friedenbach noted that the city is hoping to provide 24 new shelter beds set aside for LGBT people this year.