By Garrett Leahy : sfstandard – excerpt

It’s as prime as prime San Francisco real estate can be: a bustling North Beach corner with views of Sts. Peter and Paul Church and Washington Square Park close to amazing restaurants, historic bars, cafes and a plethora of bakeries.

But it’s a grimy shell of its former self. The building at 659 Union St. is barely even a building at all. What’s left of it after two ravaging fires is essentially a brick exterior propped up by metal rods. So why is the space still empty?…

San Francisco Planning Chief of Staff Dan Sider said the developer needs to work with the city to get redevelopment plans fully approved. Demolishing the old brick walls is possible, Sider said, but it’s a lengthy process requiring Jurow to meet with the city, something he hasn’t done since November…

The demolition would require an environmental report and a public hearing at the Historic Preservation Commission, which takes at least 18 months and does not guarantee success, Sider said…

Jurow said he didn’t know he could tear down the old brick wall until The Standard passed on Sider’s comments. The developer said he would like any new exterior to fit the current style of the neighborhood…

The office of Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whose district includes North Beach, said it is working to make Jurow’s plans a reality.

“We’ve been working closely with the City Attorney, Planning Department and Project Sponsor on a Special Use District for this site, which would provide numerous exceptions for the developer to build the project that they’ve proposed,” a representative for Peskin said. “It is our understanding that the Planning Department has been waiting on critical information from the project sponsor that the Department and City Attorney requested some time ago, in order to facilitate the crafting of the [district]. We stand ready to move this forward whenever the project sponsor gets back to the city.”…(more)

By Randy Shaw : beyondchron – excerpt

Peskin Galvanizes SF’s Mayor’s Race (Updated April 4)

On Saturday, Aprill 6 Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin is announcing he is running for San Francisco mayor. I had long assumed this would happen.

San Francisco now has the most open mayor’s race since 1975.

There is no clear front runner.

Let me share by sharing my history with Aaron Peskin…(more)

By Annika Hom :missionlocal – excerpt

Supervisor’s anger follows series of Mission Local articles revealing squatters, deferred work, and failing habitability scores in public housing

Supervisor Shamann Walton Thursday ripped into the property manager overseeing troubled Potrero Hill and Sunnydale public housing, criticizing its explanations for mismanaged properties.

At a meeting Thursday, the Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee grilled management corporation Eugene Burger for recent incidents, such as squatters living in vacant units, mounting trash, deferred work orders and poor habitability scores, and a lethal fire…

But Walton was unsatisfied with the majority of management’s answers.

“Now I understand where the problem lies,” Walton said, feigning sudden enlightenment. “We think quality of service for residents is different than what Eugene Burger thinks” it is, he said.

“Everybody who is in the development working on properties, developer, contractor, Housing Authority, HOPE SF — you are all responsible for meeting residents’ needs, point blank,” Walton said sternly…

Supervisor Catherine Stefani also questioned the city agreements that pay Eugene Burger to run the sites: “I don’t understand why we continue to engage and ask people to do the work if they are not able to perform it,” she said…(more)

By Noah Baustin : sfstandard – excerpt

Richmond neighborhood resident David Jacoby was shocked Monday to discover that he and his neighbors had received $108 parking citations while their vehicles were sitting in their own driveways.

Their offense, according to the city, was blocking part of the sidewalk.

But Jacoby said that his Prius and the rest of the cars on his Second Avenue block were all parked exactly as they had been for the past decade, never before drawing the ire of parking enforcement.

“It seems a bit random and unwarranted and, frankly, unfair,” Jacoby said.

A few doors down, his neighbor Shari Johnston, also ticketed, was in disbelief that she was hit with a fine on her vehicle.

“It’s in our actual driveway that we pay for,” Johnston said…(more)

RELATED:

San Francisco invents new rules for ‘anti-homeless’ planters

SFMTA parking boss targeted minority neighborhoods, former deputy director alleges

Looks like the bosses need a new plan. When the permits to allow street furniture and planters come about, the issue of sitting down access is going to be a little hard to prove. More of this subject will be coming up soon now doubt. The next Mayor may have something to say about it. There is a long list of SFMTA employees who have filed complaints and those may expose even more problems in the department when new leadership takes over. These articles only show a tip of the iceberg.

By Noah Baustin and Michael Barba : sfstandard – excerpt

Frank Chiu walked away from his job as San Francisco’s first director of the Department of Building Inspection nearly 20 years ago.

Since then, he has worked as a permit consultant on construction projects that his brother—and two nephews—later inspected in their roles as city building inspectors, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest in a department that has been dogged by ethical issues.

Chiu, 66, and his son, Chris, work with contractors and architects who renovate offices in downtown high-rises. He helps them save time and money by ensuring that their building plans comply with the city’s notoriously complex codes. Chiu says his job getting the permits is done by the time his family members inspect the construction work on the projects. But outside observers say the situation creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest…(more)

It is the City Family Plan. Been working for decades. Squirreling away bucks to combat the negative feedback when the s**t hits the fan. Which it did recently.

By Joe Eskkenazi : missionlocal – excerpt

Ex-HR manager Stanley Ellicott, earlier charged with selling city-bought electronics, now accused of setting up bonus company to bilk SF

Ex-HR director Stanley Ellicott was arrested for a second time on March 21. He is facing 62 felony counts stemming from an alleged scheme to defraud the city of hundreds of thousands of dollars via a bogus company he established.

In January, San Francisco Human Resources manager Stanley John Ellicott was arrested and charged with a bevy of crimes, including purportedly selling electronics on the internet that had been bought with city money earmarked for earthquake supplies.

This morning he was arrested again and hit with more than five dozen charges — most notably allegedly ripping off some $627,000 from the Workers’ Compensation bureau he oversaw. San Francisco jail records reveal that Ellicott, 38, was booked at 9:07 this morning and is being held on $50,000 bail for his 62 felony charges.

He is accused of establishing a bogus company and using it to loot the very branch of the HR department that he was charged with keeping both technically and monetarily sound…

The January and March cases against Ellicott are unrelated. But it was the investigation into the former that led to today’s arrest and charging. In addition to allegedly selling high-end consumer electronics bought with emergency supply money, Ellicott was in January charged with participating in a larger municipal theft and kickback scheme operated by former Community Challenge Grant director Lanita Henriquez and former Gavin Newsom mayoral staffer, businessman and city fixer Dwayne Jones…(more)

RELATED:

City HR manager charged with selling tech gear — bought with quake supply money — on eBay

By Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez : kqed – excerpt

As Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin mulls a run for mayor, how people view his opposition to market-rate housing would be both a strength and a vulnerability should he jump in the race.

That’s particularly true in San Francisco’s west side, a neighborhood replete with single-family homes where people have rallied against state laws that would allow more multi-story housing to be built. Peskin is sometimes viewed as a champion of saving neighborhood character from what residents consider to be outsize new construction.)

George Wooding, a neighborhood activist who lives just west of Twin Peaks, said neighbors are angry about Mayor London Breed’s “Housing for All Plan,” which would incentivize building taller, denser housing. He said they worry there isn’t enough parking or infrastructure to support the plan.

“That’s going to be one of the turning points of the mayor’s race on the west side,” Wooding said. “Anybody with a brain running for mayor is going to start attacking the density programs.”

San Francisco’s next mayor will steer the city’s future approach to housing.

Peskin is on one side of a divide in development philosophy between moderate and progressive Democrats in San Francisco. The moderates want the city to build, build, build to bring housing costs down. Progressives want the city to focus on building affordable housing while fiercely defending tenant protections…

“Government has a role to play. And a progressive mayor, I think, can do so much more to protect and enhance our existing residents and our existing small businesses,” Peskin said…

Eileen Boken, a west side advocate who frequently attends City Hall meetings, said her neighbors were “blindsided” by state Sen. Scott Wiener’s proposal to wrest housing approval control of Ocean Beach away from the California Coastal Commission…(more)

RELATED:

Petition to Oppose SB 951 and Keep our Pacific Coastline Free and Open.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/no-on-sb-951-keep-california-coastline-open-and-accessible-2

Peskin’s statement says it all..”We don’t have to destroy San Francisco to save it.”

This statement is profound and comes at a pivotal time. One may walk by many up-zoned empty projects lining streets of empty sidewalks fronting sad boarded up storefronts along streets that were “improved” by SFMTA. We have seen enough destruction already. Now it is time to fix the mess we find ourselves in. We need to restore San Francisco’s once safe friendly neighborhoods that we had before the bulldozers arrived. We need to fill all the holes in the streets and quit digging more. We need a respite from the dust and noise.

In may opinion, the candidates do not fall into left/right categories.