Please continue to drop off your Easter baskets, stuffed bunnies, etc. at The Center for the fourth annual GLBT Community Children’s Easter Egg Hunt. We need around 500 baskets for children ages 1 to 12. Thank you!

In all the decades I have been traveling to New York, this trip was my worst ever. It takes, of course, five hours to fly to New York, and I arrived at 5:30 in the morning, so I told my hosts not to pick me up as it was too early. I took a shuttle van for the first time – four hours it took me to get to my hotel from JFK airport!

Among my disasters was the fact that I left my written speeches at home and had to spend a half day rewriting them. My board meetings were long and full of arguments. My clothes didn’t fit and I was so busy I couldn’t fit in one Broadway play or restaurant (well, I guess that was a good thing).

I found New York City’s newest elected Latina lesbian council member to be a very wonderful, intelligent and down-to-earth lady. I will be telling you about and showing you a picture of my meeting with a certain senator when the photos come in….

I started feeling bad, so I cancelled my trip to Washington, D.C., and flew back to San Diego as soon as possible.

Many of you have been asking me questions about my meeting with top officials from our county’s Sheriff’s Department. I found this almost three-hour meeting to be very productive, informative, and the start of a better relationship and understanding between our GLBT community and the Sheriff’s Department.

I called this meeting as chair of our city’s Human Relations Commission, with concerns about their lack of GLBT input in their diversity training and concerns about their treatment of transgender inmates after receiving numerous complaints.

Joining me was AJ Davis, public policy director of our GLBT Center and City Commissioner Joyce Abrams, a former grand jury member.

I was very encouraged by the words Sheriff Bill Kolender said to us. He made a firm commitment to improve his department’s diversity training and to establish better communication with our community.

I want to thank District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis for her strong support of this meeting and her support of our concerns.

Future meetings and a tour of the gay/transsexual detention housing unit are being planned. (There is no lesbian housing unit.)

After being with Equality California since the beginning, and being the only San Diegan ever elected as state chair, I have stepped down as a board member of their Equality California Institute because my plate is too full and my health not the best.

I strongly urge your support of Equality California, as it is our voice in the state capital. It has been an honor to have served all these years.

I am seriously sad that Update is no longer publishing, as I strongly believe in diversity of opinions and the media. Update served our community well and proudly. Yes, I didn’t always agree with some of its editorials, political stances and articles, but this is America.

I wrote a column for many years in the 1980s and became good friends with the late Don Hauck, founder of Update.

Thank you and best wishes to publisher Tom Ellerbrock, Ren Petty, Bob Fox, my Tzarina Norman and the entire Update staff. You did us proud, and we appreciated your community support.

The national Call to Duty tour, which started in February at Harvard University, will end its seven-week mission this Friday at UCSD’s Copley International Conference Center at 7:00 p.m., with a reception following at 9:00 p.m. The subject, of course, is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

This San Diego event is sponsored by the local chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. For further information, phone Sgt. Bob Lehman at (619) 850-8698 or e-mail marineguy@aol.com.

Working with City Hall staff, San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty and I have set a date for the official dedication of the first street named after an openly gay citizen, Jose Sarria. It will take place on Thursday, May 25, at 11:00 a.m.

Sarria is an 82-year-old World War II veteran and the first openly gay candidate to run for public office, in the early 1960s. He is also the founder of the International Court System of the U.S.A., Mexico and Canada, which has about 70 chapters in these three countries.

I am honored to have been asked to speak at this dedication, and a big San Diego contingent will be attending.

Bob Lehman, past member of the county’s veterans board, and I had a productive meeting with our popular Fourth District County Supervisor Ron Roberts. In his office, we discussed many local and state issues, including health issues.

Supervisor Roberts, who is running for re-election, has received widespread GLBT support from our leadership and business people. Though, in a surprise move, Councilmember Toni Atkins has endorsed Roberts’ opponent.

Current polling shows Roberts is facing another comfortable re-election.