The next steps if Joel Engardio is — or isn’t — recalled
By Adam Shanks : sfexaminer – excerpt (audio)
Sunset and Parkside residents will now decide the political fate of San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio.
Voting by mail and in person has begun for the Sept. 16 recall election of Engardio, who was elected to a first term representing District 4 in 2022 but has faced criticism for his support of Proposition K, a 2024 ballot measure that closed part of Great Highway to cars.
Though the recall debate and campaign have centered on Engardio’s actions in office that have led to this point, here we discuss what will happen if Engardio is — or is not — recalled by his constituents next month.
The first results will be posted on Election Day on Sept. 16, although the numbers will continue to be updated in the following days as mail-in ballots trickle in. The election must be certified by Oct. 16.
Here’s what you need to know about next month’s election, and what might come next month… (more)
‘Take your concert and go f*** yourselves’: Park neighbors lose it after weeks of chaos
By George Kelly and Tomoki Chien : sfstandard – excerpt
The Richmond has had it.
After four consecutive weekends of major events that cumulatively will bring half a million people to Golden Gate Park, neighborhood residents are reeling from the impact of crowds, noise, trash, drunken foolery, and traffic disruptions that have transformed their neighborhood into a nonstop bacchanal.
The surge of large-scale events began in late July with the San Francisco Marathon and continued through three days of Dead & Company performances, three more for the Outside Lands Music Festival, and one last large-scale concert Friday, with legions making their way to and from Golden Gate Park through the Richmond.
Of course, when hundreds of thousands of revelers pour into a typically sleepy district, there are bound to be tensions — and complaints.
“Take your Outside fucking Lands and go fuck yourselves,” said one rant submitted to San Francisco’s 311 system. “Take your fucking Grateful Dead concert and go fuck yourselves. Take your Golden Gate Park concert and go fuck yourselves. This is a RESIDENTIAL neighborhood.”
In the nearly 100 submissions logged with 311, residents reported pee bottles on the street (including a photo), cars blocking their driveways, smoking concertgoers, and trash on the sidewalks. Mostly, though, callers complained about the “insufferably loud” thumps of bass.
Residents have long complained about noise at Outside Lands. In 2019, two peace-loving San Franciscans filed a California Environmental Quality Act appeal in an attempt to bar the city from renewing the festival’s permit.
This year, neighbors took to Nextdoor to air grievances, calling on residents to bring their gripes directly to Supervisor Connie Chan, who represents the Richmond…(more)
New SF economic and workforce head predicts brighter times
By Patrick Hoge : sfexaminer – excerpt (audio)
Anne Taupier, the new executive director of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development: “We want to be a partner with our businesses and with our citizens and with everyone who wants to be doing business in San Francisco.”…
Anne Taupier said she feels fortunate — not just to have been named the new executive director of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, but because she’s been given the job at this moment in history, as she believes The City is heading into a brighter future.
“I really do feel this energy and excitement,” said Taupier, the agency’s former director of development, who was appointed in mid-June to the top job by Mayor Daniel Lurie. “I feel like I’m lucky, because I am stepping into this role when you can feel that change in the air.”
Taupier’s optimism comes despite a decrease of millions of dollars to her agency’s budget in the recently adopted two-year city budget that closed a deficit of about $800 million, and a downtown that among other things has been grappling with high office-vacancy rates since the COVID-19 pandemic that stood at 34.8% in the second quarter, according to the real-estate firm CBRE…
In 2009, Taupier joined the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, where she worked on real estate, and she was appointed director of development in 2020 to oversee large projects, including the Treasure Island, Stonestown Galleria and Potrero Power Station developments, among others. She also worked on housing and development policies on behalf of the Mayor’s Office.
Taupier succeeds Sarah Dennis Phillips, whose appointment to be The City’s planning director was announced at the same time as Taupier’s move within OEWD.
The agency Taupier now leads has 151 budgeted full-time employees in multiple divisions, including a business-development team that works to attract and retain companies, and another that focuses on supporting neighborhood commercial corridors. Its biggest division — the workforce development unit — performs various tasks that include working with organizations that provide job training and placement services.
The agency’s budget declined by $54.9 million in the fiscal-year 2025–26 budget. About $26 million of that decrease is due to the transfer of community-ambassador programs to the Department of Emergency Management, which now provides oversight for certain city-funded community-safety ambassadors in neighborhoods that include Mid-Market, the Tenderloin and the Mission…(more)
RELATED:
SF leaders work to loosen rules to fill vacant storefronts.
Chinatown Muni ambassadors honored as program ends amid budget cuts
Apparently the priority is to build the economy rather than protect the residents and businesses. We suspect there are a few places that $26 million could come from for the neighborhoods who want to keep their ambassadors. If we believe the AI media, the estimated pay range for a Community Ambassador at City and County of San Francisco is $21–$32 per hour, which includes base salary and additional pay. A lot less than most city employees, yet they are the first to go.
Why does the government keep piling on improvements that destroy the programs people like and support? Will someone please figure this out and stop the practice?
The looming threat to hundreds of small businesses in San Francisco
By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt
Almost a third of all the small businesses in the city’s neighborhood commercial districts could face displacement under Mayor Daniel Lurie’s plan to allow more and denser housing in neighborhoods, data from the City Planning Department shows.
In some neighborhoods—the Geary corridor, for example—nearly half the small local merchants are endangered, the data shows.
That’s because the so-called “family housing” plan would encourage developers to demolish small buildings to put up larger ones—and many of those small buildings have small commercial tenants.
City planners tell me that they will discourage the demolition of existing rent-controlled housing (although SB 79) a bill by Sen. Scott Wiener would encourage that practice.)
But 1,769 small businesses are in vulnerable places (sites that are prime for new development where there are no existing residential units)—and 47 are officially recognized “legacy businesses.”
As the planning report notes:.. (more)
The Small Business Commissioners agreed at their meeting on Monday. They took no action, pending plans to talk to neighborhood merchants and consider legislative remedies. They do not fee that any of the current Board of Supervisors are working on anything of substance yet. (July 28, 25 meeting)
Just a few cops cover San Francisco’s largest police district
By Junyao Yang : missionlocal – excerpt
Taraval Police Station, located at 2345 24th Avenue, covers the largest and most populous police district in the city.
Taraval Station, situated in a red-brick building on 24th Avenue in the Sunset, covers the most populous and largest geographic area in San Francisco.
The sprawling police district runs from Golden Gate Park in the north to the San Mateo County line, and from Ocean Beach to Seventh Avenue. It is home to more than 153,000 residents, or 17.5 percent of San Francisco’s population. At 10.8 square miles, it is 66 percent bigger than the next-largest police district, Ingleside (6.5 square miles).
But it has 43 fewer officers than Ingleside, and residents are complaining. It has more property crimes than the Ingleside and Bayview Districts, and the longest response times for high-priority 911 calls…
As of July 17, there were 51 sworn officers at Taraval Station, according to its acting captain, Anthony Ravano. The recommended staffing level for that station is 120 officers, a 2023 SFPD staffing analysis report shows. …
Taraval Police District, the largest in the city, has the longest response time to high priority calls…
For now, as long as the station doesn’t have enough officers, Corriea said, “community policing” ends up being a lofty goal and little more.
“It’s like smearing peanut butter on a piece of bread,” Corriea said. “If you have a lot of peanut butter, it’s thick. If you don’t, it’s thin.”…(more)
RELATED:
Taraval Station, covering S.F.’s west side, gets new police captain
PRESS RELEASE: SAN FRANCISCO HERITAGE PROTESTS PLANNED DEMOLITION OF CITY LANDMARK
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 21, 2025 [SAN FRANCISCO]—San Francisco Heritage, the city’s leading preservation nonprofit, protests a planned demolition of 447 Battery Street, one of San Francisco’s 320 designated city landmarks, and calls on the Board of Supervisors to preserve the building.
As part of a proposed development agreement between the city and developer Related California, 447 Battery Street—the former Jones Thierbach Coffee Company warehouse and San Francisco Landmark no. 299—is proposed for demolition to make way for a mixed-use luxury office/hotel tower at 530 Sansome Street and new city fire station.
“This is unprecedented,” said Woody LaBounty, SF Heritage President & CEO. “Since the city’s landmarks program establishment in the late 1960s, only 320 have been designated and none have been intentionally destroyed.”…
“Landmarks are more than old or attractive buildings,” LaBounty said. “From the Mission Cultural Center to the Rainbow Flag in the Castro to City Cemetery in Lincoln Park, they tell our collective story. By establishing that they can be erased for needs of the moment we open the door to losing any of them.”
San Francisco has more than 200,000 parcels, but only 320 designated landmarks under Article 10 of the Planning Code. The purpose of Article 10 is described as necessary to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the public through, in part, “the enrichment of human life in its educational and cultural dimensions…by fostering knowledge of the living heritage of the past.”… (more)
S.F. IS FINALLY CULLING COMMISSIONS, BUT THE FIRST CUT ONLY TARGETS ‘INACTIVE’ BODIES
by KELLY WALDRON : missionlocal – excerpt
“The Task Force Desparately wants the {public to get Involved…”
Eight months after dueling ballot measures promised to take a hard look at San Francisco’s 149 city commissions, it’s happening: Next week, a newly convened task force will vote on whether to eliminate 34 bodies that are currently inactive, the first step in a long streamlining process.
“Obviously we want to do the easy ones first, then we’ll tackle the other groups piece by piece,” said Jean Fraser, vice chair of the Commission Streamlining Task Force, which was formed after voters approved Proposition E on Nov. 5, 2024.
The Advisory Council on Human Rights is slated to be cut; its last known meeting date was more than 15 years ago. Others to be eliminated from the city’s code include the Graffiti Oversight Board, the Delinquency Prevention Commission and the Industrial Waste Review Board. Thirty-two of the 34 inactive bodies have not met in the last year…
If 34 are eliminated next week, the Prop. E task force will have 115 advisory boards, committees, councils, commissions and other bodies left to review. All are generally tasked with overseeing department decisions or collecting public input about department decisions.
The task force largely consists of City Hall veterans: Harrington, who was also on the Prop. E campaign and appointed to the body by the measure’s chief proponent; former Supervisor Aaron Peskin; Sophie Hayward from the City Administrator’s Office; Natasha Mihal from the Controller’s Office; and Andrea Bruss from the City Attorney’s Office…(more)
Please consider how some of the Neighborhood groups might be able to participate in the process. This is the first we have heard about this.
Thanks for letting us know the Task Force that is cutting commissions etc. wants public input. That is sort a vague bit of information. What kind of help and engagement do they want? And how do they want the public to be involved? Are they looking for a lot of emailed suggestions or do they want to reach out to neighborhood groups, or professionals or what exactly do they want from the public. We look forward to hearing more.
SF PARKS ALLIANCE SINKS DEEPER INTO CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION
By ALEX MAK : borkeassstuart – excerpt (June 19)
The more people who speak out, the more this case looks like massive corruption and misallocation of funds was conducted by certain people in the SF Parks Alliance (SFPA). The organization faces a criminal investigation by the district attorney, and the city attorney is conducting a probe to determine whether millions in public and private money were misused.
The SF Parks Alliance is a nonprofit that partners with public and private agencies to help with park-related projects across San Francisco. And to be fair, we’ve had a lot of amazing park-related programming here, like the art installations at Entwined or the Golden Mile in Golden Gate Park, to SF Live concerts in Crane Cove or Sundown Cinema in neighborhoods citywide, and those lovely murals painted on our slow streets…just to name a few!…
Rumors of financial mismanagement began to swirl in February, when the Head of SF Parks nonprofit Drew Becher resigned, and Parks COO Justin Probert was fired. Then, in May, the Chronicle reported on leaked emails between board chair Louise Mozingo and a donor over $3.8 million of misused funds…
Many neighborhood groups say the Parks Alliance was holding their funds when it folded in February. For example, The SF Standard reported that this week that Parks Alliance had $148,000 of the Friends of Franklin Square‘s money, which is now lost. At a conversation on Tuesday at Manny’s cafe featuring Recreation and Parks General Manager Phil Ginsburg, a Friends of Alta Plaza Park member, Anita Denz, said a $50,000 bequeathment was now missing.
Meanwhile, the Parks Alliance continued laying off staffers in June. Ironically, the Park’s home page is still asking for donations, with the slogan, “SF Public Places Are in Danger: Budget cuts threaten our parks–DONATE TODAY!”…
Supervisor Shamann Walton has subpoenaed documents from the Parks Alliance and is calling for Ogilvie, Becher, and board treasurer Rich Hutchinson to testify. Supervisor Jackie Fielder has called for an audit of the nonprofit’s relationship with the Recreation and Parks Department.
It will be a lengthy process to find out where all the money went, and if the organizations that were working with the SFPA, will ever be made whole…(more)
YOUNG PEOPLE ARE LEAVING S.F. CAN AN OBSCURE CHANGE TO THE CITY’S CODE HELP BRING THEM BACK?
By Emily Hoeven – sfchronicle – excerpt
… An arcane city planning code provision prohibits more than five people from living together in the same “dwelling unit” — such as a single-family home or large apartment — unless they’re legally related family members or they function like a family, including by buying and eating all their meals together.
Six unrelated housemates living together in, say, a six-bedroom Victorian, is essentially outlawed….
San Francisco embraces co-living in places designated as group homes, such as “tech dorms,” tiny sleeping pods and single-room occupancy hotels. (Masimore’s building, which is attached to a church, used to be a rectory that housed the clergy.)
But until now, single-family homes and large apartments have been off-limits for these types of arrangements.
On Monday, Supervisor Bilal Mahmood plans to introduce legislation to change that, he shared with me exclusively.
The five-person limit is “arbitrary and difficult to enforce,” Mahmood told me, adding that it’s also “antithetical to San Francisco values” by creating a distinction between related family and chosen family. Furthermore, Mahmood said, “It doesn’t even reflect our range of housing needs.” …
By focusing on lease agreements, rather than individuals, Mahmood’s bill doesn’t limit the number of people who can live in a dwelling unit. (He’s setting the maximum number of lease agreements at nine to avoid interfering with another part of the city code that requires any building with 10 or more units to pay inclusionary housing fees.) .
Fixing San Francisco’s codes gets complicated quickly, but Mahmood’s legislation could prove to be an innovative solution to help the city’s housing crisis. … (more)