San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is in Washington, D.C., today to attend President Barack Obama’s annual State of the Union address.
Lee will be seated in the viewing box of first lady Michelle Obama for the speech, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. PST.
The mayor has returned to the nation’s capital just a week after being there for the U.S. Conference of Mayors earlier this month.
Joining Lee in the viewing box will be NBA player and Stanford University graduate Jason Collins, who last year became the first male athlete in major American professional team sports to come out openly as gay.
Back in the Bay Area, State of the Union viewing parties are planned in San Francisco and Berkeley.
The Obama advocacy group Organizing for Action is hosting a watch party at 100 Connecticut St. in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood starting at 5:30 p.m.
University of California at Berkeley students and members of the public will gather at 5:30 p.m. on campus to watch the speech in the school’s Institute of Governmental Studies Library at 109 Moses Hall.
Following the State of the Union address, Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, will hold a telephone town hall meeting to discuss the speech with his constituents.
Starting at about 8 p.m., about 40,000 residents of Garamendi’s district will be selected at random to receive calls inviting them to join the telephone town hall.
A free livestream of Obama’s speech will be available this evening at www.whitehouse.gov/sotu.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
