President Obama Arrives in SF

  KCBS’ Chris Filippi Reports

Speaking at a pair of fundraisers for the Democratic Party and Organizing for America on Thursday, Obama urged his audiences to appreciate the complexity of the problems he said he inherited. He said he hoped the enthusiasm his candidacy engendered "was not just a fad" and that his former campaign volunteers would keep working.

The president also reminded liberal Democrats who may be disenchanted with aspects of the health care legislation in Congress that any bill that gets through will help millions of uninsured Americans.

Obama was met with both support and criticism Thursday in the first hours of his brief stay in San Francisco, his first stop in the Bay Area since becoming president.

Obama arrived at San Francisco International Airport late Thursday afternoon and was whisked off to a Democratic fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis hotel.

From the top of the staircase leading down from Air Force One, which touched down at 4:53 p.m., Obama gave a quick wave to a small crowd awaiting his arrival at the airport. The president then made his way down the stairs to an awaiting motorcade.

On its way to the hotel, the motorcade complicated traffic as it weaved through downtown, and created tensions as it crossed the intersection of Sixth and Mission streets around 6:15 p.m.

Police tried to keep people from crossing Sixth Street and many didn't know why the street was blocked off. Dozens of frustrated pedestrians waited on the corner.

One middle-aged man defied police orders and stepped off the curb only to be pushed back by an officer, causing the man to fall onto the sidewalk.

However, when the president's motorcade approached, the crowd's animosity evaporated, replaced by cheers.

A silhouette could be seen waving from inside one of the limousines.

By the time the motorcade reached Union Square, hundreds of protesters and onlookers had gathered. Obama is not conducting any public appearances during the one-day visit but many Thursday night wanted him to hear their messages on various issues, including the war in Afghanistan and health care reform.

"I'm here to save my patients and my profession," said Dr. Ali Rezapour, a physician at St. Mary's College of California in Moraga.

"The biggest barrier between a doctor and a patient ... are the insurance companies," he said.

"This white coat should never have been put in the place of discriminating between the haves and the have-nots," said Rezapour, who was wearing his white doctor's coat.

Rezapour said he was disappointed in Obama's work so far on national health care reform and urged Obama to initiate a single-payer system.

"George Bush didn't break my heart. He (Obama) can," Rezapour said. "I put my hopes in him and, unfortunately, he has disappointed me on many issues."

Jo Boatman, of San Francisco, said she also supports single-payer health care, and the removal of "every single" soldier from Afghanistan.

"I'm totally against war," she said.

Boatman said that though she did not vote for Obama, "he's reneged on almost everything" he promised in his campaign.

The group Code Pink said earlier Thursday that they would ask the president to commit to an exit strategy from Afghanistan. The group planned to create an outdoor banner display in Union Square while a Code Pink member would attempt to deliver petitions to the president inside the fundraiser.

The group Single Payer Now planned to have doctors, nurses and health care reform activists across the street from the hotel demanding national single-payer health care.

A third group, the Stop NAFTA/CAFTA Coalition said it would call on the president to end the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which the group says have increased poverty and inequality.

But the president was given at least one welcome message; the restaurant Lefty O'Doul's, located across from the St. Francis, planned to fly a 30-foot banner welcoming "the 8th lefty president of the United States."

All left-handed presidents are welcome to eat for free Thursday at the restaurant, owner Nick Bovis said.

The president is scheduled to leave Friday morning.

Until he departs, the Federal Aviation Administration is enforcing flight restrictions around San Francisco.

The restrictions are in effect between 4:50 p.m. Thursday and 10:05 a.m. Friday and affect a 30-mile radius of San Francisco International Airport, according to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor.

Private pilots will be unable to take off from or land at SFO, Oakland International Airport and Hayward Executive Airport at certain times, Gregor said.

One local flight school, Oakland Flyers, has expressed frustration of the restrictions, saying it stands to lose more than $2,500. The school said it has sent an invoice to the White House.

"Because of the no-fly zone, we can't do basic training of students, we're on hold until the President leaves town," said Jeff Reeder, an instructor at Oakland Flyers. "We can't do anything, we're effectively shut down."

Meantime, on the day that President Obama was due to visit San Francisco, a Crescent City man was in custody on federal charges of e-mailing a message threatening to kill the president and his family.

John Gimbel, 59, was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco in connection with an e-mail sent Sept. 28.

The indictment does not say to whom the e-mail was sent, but quotes profanity-laced wording threatening to kill the president and his wife and children.

Gimbel is accused of three counts of threatening the president, threatening the president's immediate family and transmitting the threats through a medium of interstate communication.

Gimbel is currently in custody on the charges, according to court documents.

U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Jack Gillund said he could not give any details about the case.

Court papers in a separate civil case show that Gimbel was arrested by the Del Norte County Sheriff's Department in 2004 on suspicion of posting a threatening message on an Internet forum after he received a $5 parking ticket.

The message asked citizens to "grab those hi-powered deer rifles" and "dust the skull" of the Crescent City police chief.

A state court conviction in that case was later overturned. Gimbel then filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state, but a federal judge in Oakland dismissed it in 2007, calling Gimbel's lawsuit "profanity-ridden drivel."