A scheduling snafu involving the big annual Oracle party and the TV show "Trauma" has wound up costing San Francisco $270,000.

The mega mix-up revolves around the party that Oracle tosses for 22,000 select clients out on Treasure Island, which this year will feature rockers Aerosmith, Who front man Roger Daltrey and Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon Jennings).

For years, Oracle has rented out a big chunk of the eastern side of the island for its party, including an old airplane hangar. That was the plan for this year's Oct. 14 bash as well.

However, the city rented out the hangar to NBC's "Trauma," which, while filming in the city, has provided a number of people with jobs - including the mayor's actress wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

Oracle - one of the biggest conventions of the year - found itself out in the cold.

Now, to keep everyone happy, the city is putting up a football-field-size tent on Treasure Island for the Oracle party. Cost: about $270,000.

Mayor Gavin Newsom's office didn't try to explain away the mix-up or defend the ensuing costs. The best the mayor's people could do was point out that the weeklong Oracle convention brings in an estimated $100 million to the city, and "Trauma" brings in about $3 million an episode.

"If Donald Trump can build a tent for Moammar Khadafy, surely our friends at Oracle deserve the same hospitality," said mayoral spokesman Nathan Ballard.

Sticker shock: One of the most popular perks in the Bay Area may be coming to an end.

State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is moving to change the regulations on the yellow "Access" stickers that have allowed 85,000 owners of small, hybrid cars - mostly Toyota Priuses - into carpool lanes even when they're not carrying passengers.

Yee's proposed regulations would increase the efficiency requirement for cars to 65 miles per gallon - about 20 mpg more than Priuses get.

Yee said the idea was to "incentivize" the auto industry to be more fuel efficient. So far, however, the only car that would qualify would be the forthcoming Chevy Volt - asking price, reportedly around $40,000 before tax breaks.

The new rules would go into effect in 2011 when the current stickers expire.

As for those hybrid owners who thought their stickers would be good forever - and whose cars would drop in value under the new rules?

"I thought a lot of things would last forever, but that doesn't appear to be the case," Yee said.

Desert debut: Our inside sources gave GOP gubernatorial hopefuls Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell mixed reviews for their appearances at last weekend's Republican convention down in Indian Wells (Riverside County).

Then there was the human bomb, a.k.a. Meg Whitman.

The former eBay CEO was dogged by questions about her not having voted for years. She didn't exactly stir the crowd with her address, either, hanging on to the teleprompter for dear life and coming off as wooden and overly dependent on her army of consultants.

Insurance commissioner and fellow millionaire Poizner, on the other hand, played the crowd like an experienced hand. It went over well with party activists, but Poizner still needs to close the "stature gap" and come across as a statewide winner on the big stage.

And for all his brain power, former Rep. Campbell is still being viewed as an also-ran.

Gone fishing: Sutter Street clothier Wilkes Bashford, whose upscale business has been struggling since the economic meltdown, abruptly closed his satellite Mill Valley store the other day - a bitter pill for even his most loyal employees.

Edward Machado, 64, who worked at the shop for 12 years, says people found out at a 10 a.m. meeting that the store was closing immediately. No one got severance pay.

There was no sign of Wilkes, either.

Bashford tells us workers may have been disappointed, but insists everything was handled "in a pretty straightforward manner."

Bottom line, Bashford said, is that "in the current business environment, we needed to concentrate on our primary stores."

And finally: This only-in-San Francisco moment captured by Joe Mac, a recycling-booth volunteer at Sunday's leather-laden Folsom Street Fair: a guy removing a horse bit from his mouth to ask if the plastic cups were compostable.

They were.

EXTRA! Catch our blog at www.sfgate.com/matierandross.