Retired hospital administrator is Lee’s only challenger in race

There will be no Mark Leno, Tom Ammiano, Dennis Herrera, Art Agnos or even Chicken John or Naked Man running against San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in November.

With the deadline for entering the race Tuesday, the only candidate signed up to challenge Lee is Kent Graham, 67, a retired hospital administrator who thinks the city has had enough of politicians.

“San Francisco should be for San Franciscans,’’ Graham said. “I don’t agree with spending city money on things like the America’s Cup when we have a plethora of other problems from the streets to the homeless that are not being managed well.”

And while Graham’s thinking may mirror what a lot of voters feel, the fact is most politicos feel that going up against former City Administrator Lee would be futile.

“Overall, the public feels that Ed is doing a good job. They might not like the city’s traffic problems or rents, but it’s not aggregating into something big,” said political consultant Eric Jaye, who has worked on several mayoral campaigns over the years.

Plus, as Jaye points out, Lee is a likable guy — who also has the Chinese American vote in his back pocket, which gives him a 15- to 20-point edge over any challenger.

And the economy is booming, which is always good for an incumbent.

Former Mayor Agnos, who has butted heads with Lee over development issues, notes another factor — money.

“The high-tech moguls like Ron Conway who are backing Lee have shown they are willing to spend millions in independent expenditure money on the people they are backing,” Agnos said.

“I think that has intimidated a lot of people, who figure why not wait and run in four years.”

Whatever the case, as it stands — it’s Lee vs. Graham.

“OK by me,” Graham said. “That means voters will have a clear choice.”

On wheels: San Francisco taxpayers just sent Supervisor Jane Kim and five representatives from the Municipal Transportation Agency — including agency board member Gwyneth Borden — on a fun-filled, fact-finding bike tour of Denmark and the Netherlands.

The trip’s organizers, PeopleForBikes, called it a “rolling five-day facilitated conversation about transforming U.S. streets.’’

And roll they did, through the streets of Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden, with Kim tweeting home scenic pictures of the touring brigade.

My first time on electric bike + I love it!!’’ Kim wrote on May 22. “Great way to see Copenhagen. Would be amazing on SF hills.’’

Trip’s cost: $24,000 for the five hotel nights, meals and extras — plus $11,087 in airfare, according to MTA spokesman Robert Lyles.

According to a PeopleForBikes flyer, the summer-long tours are a “core element” of the group’s “two-year campaign to accelerate the adoption of protected bike lanes and related street innovations in the U.S.”

Borden told her transit board colleagues Tuesday that she found the trip “illuminating” — and was surprised to find some of Copenhagen’s busy thoroughfares actually filled with far more bicyclists than cars.

“Granted, they do have flat streets,” Borden said.

Potty talk: Has San Francisco finally cracked the long-suspected case of a serial porta-potty arsonist?

On May 30, San Francisco’s Arson Task Force reported catching a North Beach man, Albert Sodini, in the act of torching a portable toilet in neighboring Pacific Heights at about midnight.

The cops had been tracking the 51-year-old janitor, who lives in a downstairs apartment from his mother, for some time — and they watched him exit a porta-potty on the 2500 block of Clay Street as he zipped up his pants and drove off in a car.

Moments later, he returned on foot and tossed an “unknown object’’ into the porta-potty, which quickly began smoking, according to the police report. The suspect tried to make his get-away in his car parked half a block up the street, but was arrested on the spot.

Meanwhile, investigators snuffed out the flames, and inside the porta-potty retrieved a plastic bag with a newspaper and partially melted Gatorade bottle containing gasoline, law enforcement sources say.

Sodini is being held in San Francisco jail on $150,000 bail, charged with arson and two related felonies.

Police and fire arson investigators are crossing their fingers that the case is the break they’ve been looking for in a resurgence of porta-potty arsons that have plagued the city for the past year.

Arson Task Force insiders tell us they’ve been averaging two or three fires a week, with the number of flaming porta-potties occasionally surging to as many as 15 a month.

Asked if his client was a serial arsonist, Sodini’s attorney Chris Shea told us flatly, “He is not.”

Sodini, who has no criminal record, has entered a not guilty plea in the Clay Street case. His attorney said his priority now is to get his client sprung from jail — and added that “Mr. Sodini and his family are thankful nobody was injured in this particular fire.”