City gives the hard sell on safe injection sites as feds...

The drive to sell the public on city-sanctioned drug injection centers was a four-star public relations blitz — complete with guided tours, booster buttons and even T-shirts extolling the “safety, community and dignity” of the controversial program.

Upward of 1,000 people, along with reporters and film crews from about 30 news outlets, walked through the model site at Glide Memorial Church last week.

At an accompanying media event — complete with stage and seating at nearby Boeddeker Park — Mayor London Breed told 60 or so supporters that the goal of the weeklong showcase was to “reduce the stigma around these sites and show that they can be implemented in a clean, safe and effective way.”

“You could call it a sales pitch,” said Glide Harm Reduction Program Manager Paul Harkin.

“We see this as an educational opportunity for the community,” he said.

The tours and press push come just as a bill is hitting Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk to allow a four-year, safe-injection trial program in San Francisco.

“We’ve been in contact with the governor’s staff, but so far we don’t know what is going to happen,” said one source close to the talks who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. “We haven’t heard ‘yes,’ but we haven’t heard a hard ‘no’ either.”

Even the feds got into the act, with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein implying — as if on cue — in a New York Times opinion piece that city officials could be subject to civil and criminal action.

“I understand that, and that is something that we are definitely going to have to deal with,” Breed said at Boeddeker, but she added she still wants to see centers opening as soon as possible.

As for how the pitch went over?

“If you had asked me two or three years ago, I might have said ‘no,’ but these days it might help,” said Hugh Sanders, who volunteers at a local homeless program.

Addiction counselor Jose Palafox, who was on the same tour, called the center “a good start, but we have a long way to go.”

A long way, indeed. Even if the city goes ahead with the center in defiance of federal law, the question remains: What neighborhood would host the first site?

The mayor’s office said that’s yet to be determined.

Meanwhile, on streets adjacent to Glide, police were finishing up a few busy days as well. Tenderloin cops reported recently saving the lives of three opioid overdose victims who had stopped breathing — bringing the total of overdose “saves” by Tenderloin police to 34 this year.

Deadly delay: A fatal drug overdose in a BART restroom wound up shutting down Bay Fair Station in San Leandro for two hours Wednesday night.

The drama started at about 9:20 p.m., when the station agent reported a person being in the restroom for an unusually long time.

Police arrived, opened the door and found a young man on the floor — along with drug paraphernalia.

Police declared the restroom a possible crime scene and ordered the entire station closed. They also ordered all trains to pass by without stopping — even though the restroom was several feet from the nearest turnstiles and located on an entirely different floor than the platform.

The fear, according to BART spokesman Jim Allison, was that “members of the public could be exposed to the highly potent opioid fentanyl.”

So for two hours, BART patrons looking to get on or off at Bay Fair had to take a bus.

Welcome to the new world of transit.

New Newsom: Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom will be embarking on another state bus tour, this time with the goal of winning the hearts of lawmakers and voters.

“We start in Antelope Valley (Los Angeles County) on Sept. 10, then it’s off to the Inland Empire, Fresno, Sacramento, Salinas, then back down to Orange County,” Newsom campaign spokesman Nathan Click said.

In addition to bolstering Newsom’s run for governor, the six-day barnstorm is also tailored to campaign for Democratic candidates in swing congressional and legislative districts.

It’s an interesting change from Newsom’s days in San Francisco, where he made a point of distancing himself both personally and politically from his fellow members on the Board of Supervisors.

And only barely got along with the board when he was mayor.

But then, being governor is a different game, one that requires a team effort. And apparently Newsom is ready to play ball.

Name game: The San Francisco Board of Education officially renamed an elementary school in the city’s Fairmount neighborhood last week in honor of United Farm Workers icon Dolores Huerta.

And with that vote wiped away a name with more than 150 years of history.

As the board resolution itself pointed out, “Fairmount Elementary, at 65 Chenery St. (founded in 1864), is a renowned school, with a long history of providing excellent academic opportunities ... and by many accounts established the first PTA in the state of California.”

On the other hand, as the resolution points out, Huerta battled “to provide access to the disenfranchised, to the voiceless, to the hopeless, and to the oppressed.”

And now her voice will be added to an elementary school.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross