This week's new articles from the alternative weeklies...
- Brokeback Festival: How Financial Mismanagement Marched Pride to Brink of Disaster (SF Weekly)
...Throwing spectacular, well-attended events — and losing money prodigiously — has become a recurring Pride motif. By the end of last year, the nonprofit that runs San Francisco's massive yearly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender parade and festival was deeply broke. Worse yet, it didn't even know it was broke — while comatose at the fiscal wheel, its board and staff didn't realize they'd veered sharply into the red until the organization outspent its revenue by nearly 25 percent. Pride spent at levels far exceeding the prior year. The organization then blithely doubled its paid staff, right as revenue slowed to a trickle. Full article
- Canine Conflict (SF Bay Guardian)
...While the city is notoriously difficult to raise human children in, four-legged friends flourish in an environment that celebrates their existence. With a multitude of dog-friendly parks, pet hotels, and ubiquitous doggie boutiques to accommodate the estimated 120,000 dogs that call San Francisco home, the canines and their companions form their own political constituency. So it's only natural that GGNRA's Draft Dog Management Plan, which restricts dog walking in the park, has the pet set howling. The plan would limit off-leash dogs to 21 different areas of the park, including some of the most popular places such as Crissy Field, Fort Funston, and Ocean Beach, and ban dogs from some areas, like Muir Beach, where they have long been welcome. Full article
- Organic Co-op Lowers Standards (East Bay Express)
For the past decade, Organic Valley cooperative has played a major role in the rebirth of small, sustainable dairy farms, particularly in Northern California. By purchasing organic milk produced from cows that spend their days grazing on grass pastureland, rather than in feedlots eating corn, Organic Valley has provided a guaranteed market that small farmers need to flourish. But now, the co-op is under fire because it has lowered its standards for California eggs. Instead of working with small farmers whose hens graze on pastureland, too, Organic Valley has an exclusive deal with a large, factory-farm-like egg producer in Petaluma whose chickens are not allowed to roam free. Full article