Summer Fun

The Gill Action Fund, a political arm of the Colorado-based Gill Foundation, which recently named ex–Jerry Sanders PR aide Fred Sainz its director of communications, gave $250,000 to the No on Prop 8 campaign last week. Sainz is expected to become a key player in the campaign against the measure to ban gay marriage in California.… Happy Days, the 164-foot yacht of Union-Tribune publisher David Copley, is still trolling lazily along the French Riviera. On July 30, six days after Copley announced the U-T was for sale, the craft was spotted pulling into the International Yacht Club of Antibes after a short voyage from Monaco.… Democratic congresswoman Susan Davis continues to be an inveterate traveler. At the beginning of June, she was off to Rome with her husband to attend a conference titled “Political Islam: Challenges for U.S. Policy.” For each, lodging cost $2400 and meals $840. The total $14,280 tab was picked up by the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit outfit funded by big corporations and wealthy individuals, including George Soros, the billionaire backer of liberal causes. At the same time, Davis aide William Hazard also hit the road, traveling to Ankara, Turkey, on a “fact-finding trip to learn more about initiatives for promoting interfaith dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews,” according to his disclosure. The visit’s cost of $3020 was paid for by the Rumi Forum for Interfaith Dialogue. The weeklong trip included a “boat tour up the Bosphorus and Dinner on boat”; a stop at the Blue Mosque of Topkapi Palace; a visit to the Zulfaris Jewish Museum; lunch at the Turkish Grand National Assembly; and a visit with the Turkish minister of economy.