KQED anchor Joshua Johnson, an ace web surfer, pointed me to this must-have in any connoiseur of city government's collection: The complete seven-hour director's cut video of last week's Rec and Park Commission meeting.
This SF Examiner column by Melissa Griffin trumpets the event, which features a quintessentially San Franciscan public-comment period.
...during general public comment, a woman named Linda walked up to the podium and carefully placed a large reindeer made of balloons on the ledge beside her left shoulder. Did I mention she was dressed as a clown? She was. First speaking in rhyming couplets, then in word cloud, Linda explained that she has traveled the world as a street performer and was upset that recently she was prevented from plying her tumescent trade in Union Square. (Linda seemed to be operating under the misapprehension that Union Square is managed by the Recreation and Park Department. It is not.)
(To watch that bit, fast forward to 14:00 of the video.)
It's true, in some ways, the public-comment period is reminiscent of that recurring Saturday Night Live skit in which a motley assortment of lunatics interrupts the proceedings at a funeral in order to make highly inappropriate announcements: