PETA pans S.F. plan on panhandlers, pups

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Animal rights activists are offering San Francisco $10,000 to halt its plan to pay panhandlers to take care of unwanted pups, saying the city's idea is tantamount to playing "Russian roulette" with the pets.

In a sharply worded letter to Mayor Ed Lee, PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - called the paid-pet partner idea "a disastrous plan that will come back to haunt the city."

Former San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, now the mayor's homelessness chief, recently announced the pilot program - dubbed Wonderful Opportunities for Occupants and Fidos, or WOOF - to have panhandlers living in city-funded supportive housing give up begging. In exchange, they would get $50- to $75-a-week stipends to become foster parents for puppies that might otherwise be euthanized at the city's animal shelter.

"Ultimately we want to see people live purposeful and full lives, and this is a step in the right direction," Dufty said.

Teresa Chagrin, a rep for PETA's cruelty investigations department in Norfolk, Va., called the plan "slapdash" and "ill-conceived."

"Most former panhandlers are financially destitute because of struggles with substance abuse and mental-health issues," Chagrin wrote to the mayor. "Placing any animal with them is risky at best, (and) it should be out of the question to play Russian roulette with these animals, allowing them to be used as lures or pawns."

Rather than have San Francisco risk the dogs' injury or even death by handing them to "troubled people," Chagrin said, "PETA is willing to put up $10,000" - equal to the private grant being used to launch the effort - if the city will instead institute a program for the down-and-outers that is "100 percent animal-free."

From the looks of things, however, PETA is barking up the wrong tree.

Dufty says the city is committed to the two-month pilot, which is scheduled to start early next month, using five dogs and 10 caregivers who have gone through screening.

If it works as he expects, says Dufty, he'll have proved "it's great to give both dogs and people a second chance."

Judged: That convicted car burglar who blew his probation by walking out of Judge Lillian Sing's neighborhood court last month in San Francisco and breaking into her car has been slapped with the maximum three-year jail sentence.

Under state sentencing guidelines, Phillip Bernard, 32, will actually serve only eight months, according to prosecutor Omid Talai.

After Bernard pleaded guilty Friday in Superior Court, visiting Santa Clara County Judge Leslie Nichols revoked his probation from a previous car burglary and handed down the new sentence.

Besides the jail term, Bernard - who is homeless - was ordered to pay $250 in restitution for smashing Sing's car window.

After he was arrested, Bernard allegedly told officers, "I will keep breaking into cars and houses. I will keep doing it and doing it and doing it."

Not for a while at least.

Hybrid vote: Ranked-choice voting takes another turn at the table Tuesday when San Francisco supervisors decide what changes, if any, they want to put before voters this fall.

The only race under consideration is the mayoral sweepstakes.

Supervisor Mark Farrell is proposing a straight-up September primary, followed by a November runoff.

Board President David Chiu is countering with a hybrid of a ranked-choice primary that would whittle the field down to two - followed by a runoff.

Port play: With the threat of a recall behind her, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is making her move on the city's Port Commission - bouncing one of the members whose threatened removal had prompted African American activists to start one of the recall efforts.

On Tuesday, the City Council will be asked to replace commission member Margaret Gordon with health care executive Bryan Parker. Gordon's backers were among those who failed to get a Quan recall on the ballot.

At the same meeting, Quan will also ask that businessman Ces Butner replace Port Commission President Pamela Calloway.

As for the politics: "What you have is two African American men replacing two African American women," said council President Larry Reid.

And finally: After a contentious meeting with San Francisco officials, Graffeo Coffee owner Luciano Repetto pretty well summed up the reaction of fellow merchants to that plan to tear up a North Beach intersection for a temporary drilling shaft as part of the construction of the Central Subway to Chinatown:

"North Beach gets the shaft - and Chinatown gets the benefits."