At the Excelsior Boys and Girls Club, there weren’t any signs announcing the Mayor’s Town Hall meeting.

By 2 p.m., there were lots of empty seats, more staff people than citizens and no demonstrators within sight.

When the cameras were on him, Newsom went to the children in the audience. In one instance, Hydra Mendoza was answering a question about the school district and the Mayor highfived the three children in front of her, focusing the audience’s attention on him rather than Mendoza.

To the Mayor’s credit, he did bring several of his staff members who appear sincere and weren’t playing to the audience. This gave the answers some weight. Matt Franklin, director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Margaret Brodkin, Director of Dept. of Children, Youth and Families were specifically very good about getting the facts out and trying to answer the audience member’s questions.

In the audience, were school board members Jill Wynns and Hydra Mendoza (who is also the Mayor’s Liasion to the School Board). Julio Ramos, City College Board was there along with Assemblymember Fiona Ma and her cocker spaniel. Chief Heather Fong was there along with former School Board Commissioner Eddie Chin.

As usual, the Mayor got a stack of written questions and then called out the questions that he had chosen and where resources were written on the card. So a question on parks would have the name of a staff person in the audience to get clarifying information on. At one point, he showed a card to a staffer in front of me to alert her that the question was coming her way.

1. Linda Harp asked why the restrooms at public parks and recreation areas were closed during the weekend. She also pointed out that there isn’t a restroom near the children’s playground at Crocker-Amazon. Denny Kern, operations manager for SF Recreation and Parks said that it was difficult to keep restrooms opened because Rec and Park has found that without staff on the premise, the restrooms tend to get vandalized or illegal activity can occur within the restrooms.

The Mayor was not pleased with the answer and said that his current budget for 07-08 incluedes 27 new custodians for Rec. and Park.

2. Jacquelline Philips asked why both of the recreation centers in the Bayview were closed for renovations. leaving children without options for the summer. Kern reported that the construction had been delayed by contract issues and one would be opened in the September and the other in November.

At that point, Margaret Brodkin jumped in and listed activities that had openings within the Bayview, including Tiny Tots, Bayviw Y, Rec Connect and the Beacon Center at the Gloria R. Davis site. She also noted that the Milton Meyers Playground will be open six days a week.

3. The Mayor then took a question from two girls with “Boys and Girls’ Club” t-shirts. They asked why Girls weren’t listed first in Boys and Girls Club. The Mayor milked the question by asking the girls by asking if the boys should show some “deference” to girls and listen to what girls had to say. The girls obviously were pleased with the Mayor’s response.

4. Terry Fontera, president of the Guadalupe ES’ PTA, asked why the schools in the Excelsior are the last one to get resources when the Excelsior has more children than any other neighborhood. The Mayor gave the question over to Jill Wynns and Hydra Mendoza. Wynns said that there wasn’t enough resources. Mendoza agreed that the money was scarce and the district was focused on the STAR schools.

Brodkin did a better job of answering the question. But as the former executive director of Coleman Advocates (which is in the Excelsior), she had more experience with the question. She pointed out that there weren’t as many as Community-Based Organizations in the Excelsior as there were in other neighborhoods. So DCYF has been working with CBOs to establish offices in the Excelsior-and thus provide services. She pointed out that the Family Resources Center and Rec Connect are in the Excelsior-and receiving funds to provide services to children in the Excelsior. She also pointed out that the first branch library that was renovated was the Excelsior Branch.

5. Mary Harris of the Excelsior Improvement District Association, wanted to know why the new Minnie & Lovey Recreation Center at Capitol & Montana will only have a small room for teens (”the size of recreation center bathroom”) while the gardener had the entire bottom floor. Kern, operations director for Rec and Park, stated that the Minnie & Lovey Recreation Center’s design had been forged during several years of community meetings and that the neighborhood didn’t want a shed for the gardener.

Harris then brought up the point that there wasn’t any recreation centers in the OMI for youth this summer, due to delays with the Minnie & Lovey Recreation Center. She asked Recreation and Parks what their plans were to provide services to OMI youth during the summer. Kern didn’t have an answer nor did Brodkin. Harris noted that last year, Rec and Parks Dept. had rented out Sheridan Elementary School for the summer, but Sheridan was going to have summer school this year. Kern admitted that Rec and Park hadn’t researched another option. The Mayor asked Wade Crowfoot on his staff to work out a solution.

6. Maurico Vela of Coleman Advocates asked if the Mayor supported Coleman’s platform of 3,100 affordable housing units by 2010. The Mayor would not commit to building 3,100 affordable housing units-only 1,700 in the “next several years.”

Franklin stated that the City was investing in rebuilding public housing. He stated that 50% of the residents in public housing were African Americans and 20% in public housing were families. He also noted that 40% of the City’s public housing was in the Bayview, Potrero Hill and Visitacion Valley.

Vela pushed the Mayor again by asking if the Mayor supported Coleman’s platform of 3,100 low to moderate family units by 2011. The Mayor replied, “Of course, I support the goal. But I need to be practical and rational. Building 1,700 units is a good start. And I am committed to this as a priority.”

7. The vice president of the Excelsior Improvement District Association stated that the reference to rebuilding public housing and the percentage of African American residents in public housing showed insenstivity by the Mayor and his staff. She noted that there was a flight out of the City by middle-class African American families due to the high cost of housing and lack of job opportunities. The Mayor didn’t respond and went on to the next quesiton.

8. Steve Currier of the Outer Mission Residents Association stated that the neighborhood had begun a petition protesting that SFUSD is going to close down Guadalupe Elementary School’s library or computer room to accomodate an additional classroom of kindergarteners. Currier noted that Assemblymember Ma had already signed the petition and asked if the Mayor would sign it. The Mayor referred the question to Wynns and she stated that she had only learned about the problem two hours before. (Several people noted aftewards that they had sent numerous emails to her and other Board members on the issue.)

9. Nesom introduced Norma Hotaling, director of SAGE with a flourish. He went into a prologue stating that Hotaling had taken him on a tour to see the massage parlors that employed underaged girls. Newsom said that the images from the tour seared him and that San Francisco is one of the few cities that underaged prostitute trafficing was occuring. Newsom stated that fighting underaged prostitution was one of his priorities.

But when Hotaling’s question asked the Mayor if he would commit to ensure that her program for fighting underaged prostitution, the Mayor did not respond and then went on to the next question.

10. A foster mother of six in the Western Addition asked if the school district was doing more to incorporate physical education into a student’s education. Mendoza stated that with Proposition H funding, every school was going to get a physical education teacher. Then someone whispered something to her and Mendoza corrected herself and said, “Twenty schools are going to get physical education teachers.” (The district has 73 elementary schools.)