A little night schmoozing

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July 16, 6:42 AM

by Tony Long, North Beach Examiner

 

 

On Saturday, Claudine Cheng opened her campaign headquarters in a storefront on Powell Street, between Vallejo and Broadway. The choice of this location is strategic as well as symbolic, since it straddles the border of Cheng's primary constituency (Chinatown) and one she'd dearly love to have (North Beach). Gavin Newsom turned up for this one, towering over the largely Asian crowd, his hair product glistening unbearably bright in the late-morning sun.

Tuesday night it was Tony Gantner's turn to step out and he did it where you'd expect a candidate with deep North Beach roots to do it: in a bar. In this case, it was Capp's Corner, the venerable restaurant/bar at the corner of Powell and Green. Poet-publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Capp's owner Tom Ginella co-hosted Gantner's coming out wing-ding, a congenial affair aimed at his core supporters.

In a horse race that has gotten off to a sluggish start, Gantner, one of its earliest entrants, has been among the more active campaigners. For the past few months he's been publishing the District 3 Herald, a district-wide, quasi-monthly newspaper that enlists local journalists (including this one) to report in a nonpartisan way on some of the issues facing voters in the northeast corner of town.

Since he was preaching to the choir on Tuesday, Gantner kept the politicking brief (although he did pledge to improve the city's work-force performance by cutting costly management paper pushers and hiring people who actually work). Instead, he used the opportunity to thank his campaign co-chairs (Al Baccari Jr. and Arthur Chang) and talk up the Piazza St. Francis project, which he and Ferlinghetti are helping to shepherd through the city's planning labyrinth. The project, which would close Vallejo Street between Columbus and Grant in order to create a European-style plaza in front of the Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, enjoys broad support in the neighborhood.

Gantner also introduced the crowd to Bruce Hasson, a North Beach sculptor who makes the casting of bells a centerpiece of his work. Hasson's U.N. Bell, which he cast for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, has been rung by notables ranging from Mikhail Gorbachev to Peter Yarrow. The U.N. Bell is currently on loan to the city of Assisi, Italy, where it stands outside the Basilica of St. Francis. Hasson would like to return the bell to San Francisco and display it at the Piazza St. Francis.

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