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Vol. 52 • No. 06 • February 10-16, 2022
SF Assembly candidates lay out LGBTQ priorities by Matthew S. Bajko
Rick Gerharter
San Francisco Juvenile Probation Commissioner Andrea Shorter is fighting for her seat after the Board of Supervisors continued the matter to February 15.
SF supes delay vote on Shorter reappointment by Cynthia Laird and Matthew S. Bajko
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n the midst of Black History Month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Tuesday delayed a vote on whether to reappoint a Black lesbian to her seat on the city’s juvenile probation commission. The decision was shadowed by her role in the campaign to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin. The supervisors voted 7-3 February 8 to continue the matter of Commissioner Andrea Shorter, whom Mayor London Breed reappointed to her seat on the juvenile panel, which she has served on since last May after being appointed to fill a vacancy through January 15. The Board of Supervisors, however, has the power to reject Shorter being appointed to a new term ending January 15, 2026. It requires eight votes on the board to sink her appointment, meaning Shorter needs the backing of four supervisors to keep her commission seat. Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman was joined by Supervisors Ahsha Safaí (District 11) and Catherine Stefani (District 2) in voting against the one-week continuance to the board’s February 15 meeting. District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney was absent from the meeting. At the supervisors’ rules committee meeting January 31, chair District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, and District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan voted to forward on Shorter’s reappointment to the full board with no recommendation for a vote. Mandelman, the committee’s other member, voted against the no recommendation. Noting the lack of LGBTQ representation on city oversight panels, particularly people of color, Mandelman had argued there was no reason to reject Shorter’s being given a full term. Among Shorter’s many public policy roles in her career, she twice worked for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. In the mid1990s she directed its juvenile programs and policy then served as its deputy executive director in the early 2000s. See page 8 >>
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o matter who is elected to San Francisco’s 17th Assembly District seat, they will work to ban the use of conversion therapy on adults and end unnecessary surgeries on intersex children should the two controversial legislative proposals be revived again in the state Legislature. They are among the LGBTQ priorities backed by the quartet of candidates running in the special February 15 election for the vacant Assembly seat. The four, three of whom are straight, aim to succeed fellow Democrat David Chiu, who resigned in November when he became San Francisco’s first Asian American city attorney. Gay former District 9 supervisor David Campos and District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney are seen as the two most likely to advance to the April 19 runoff election. No candidate is expected to secure the 50%-plus-one vote needed to win the seat outright next week. But former Obama administration staffer Bilal Mahmood has flooded the screens of television viewers for weeks with campaign spots, raising his visibility among voters, and was endorsed this month by the San Francisco
Campos, Rick Gerharter; Haney, Christopher Robledo
David Campos, left, and Matt Haney are running for the 17th District Assembly seat.
Chronicle. The more memorable spot features him as a young boy dressed like Superman. Haney, endorsed by the San Francisco Examiner, and his union backers have also paid for TV ads. Financially unmatched, partly due to his self-imposed restrictions
on the contributions he will accept, Campos, endorsed by the Bay Area Reporter, has in recent weeks been able to afford pop-up ads online. See page 6 >>
SFAF restores services after being hit by supply-chain issues by Adam Echelman
T
he San Francisco AIDS Foundation runs one of the largest communitybased HIV service programs in the country, but last month, it began canceling some services and rationing testing for sexually-transmitted infections due to supply shortages at its Strut health center in the Castro. The rollback came amid a suspected rise in San Francisco’s STI cases, but as of this week SFAF began to resume normal services. “We were never in a situation of crisis until the beginning of this year,” said Jorge Roman, director of clinical services and a nurse practitioner with SFAF. Typically, SFAF sees roughly 85 patients a day and provides routine STI testing for each person because many infections like HIV, chlamydia, and syphilis can present as asymptomatic. If a patient is on PrEP, a once-a-day pill that prevents HIV, they are required to undergo testing every three months. Without the right testing tubes, SFAF was forced to scale back its syphilis testing in mid-January and postpone nonurgent medical appointments. Days after the decision to reduce syphilis testing, SFAF discovered that the tubes used for HIV testing were growing scarce too. “For a minute, even a couple of hours one day, when we finally found out a strategy
√ote by Feb. 15
Adam Echelman
These BD Vacutainer PPT Venuous Blood Collection Tubes with Separator Gel Additive are in short supply at SFAF.
that would allow us to go back to clinical operations, we were like, ‘Oh, shit, do we even have enough needles?’” said Roman. “We thought we weren’t even going to be able to draw blood.” That needle shortage never arose, but SFAF has officially altered its HIV testing
methods to keep up with supply-chain issues around tubes. Last summer, the federal Food and Drug Administration notified health care providers about a shortage of one particular brand of tube that was used to treat patients with COVID-19-related complications. In response, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization to manufacturer Becton Dickinson, which enabled the company to acquire and sell tubes from Europe that had not yet received full U.S. authorization. On January 19, the FDA amended this notice to reflect a shortage of “all blood specimen collection tubes.” (https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/letters-health-care-providers/ update-blood-specimen-collection-tubeconservation-strategies-letter-health-careand-laboratory) “From a sexual health standpoint, this is huge,” said Kathleen Jeanty, director of communications and special initiatives at the National Coalition of STD Directors. “A lot of the testing that we do is blood-based testing.” The FDA has issued guidelines instructing health care providers to conserve these tubes whenever possible. Recommendations from the FDA include reducing routine tests, extending wait times between tests, and finding alternatives to blood tests. See page 8 >>
B.A.R. election endorsements
Consolidated Special Municipal Election SF School Board Recalls Prop A – Measure to Recall Alison Collins Yes Prop B – Measure to Recall Gabriela López Yes Prop C – Measure to Recall Faauuga Moliga Yes
CA Assembly 17th District David Campos San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Joaquín Torres