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July 18, 2020July 18, 2020

Board of Supervisors should say no to the Balboa Reservoir project

By Jean Barish and Wynd Kaufman : sfexaminer – excerpt

The proposed 1,100-unit housing development on the lower Balboa Reservoir deals multiple blows to San Francisco. It surrenders The City’s last large open parcel of public land to private developers who offer false promises, the most outrageous being that the project is the best affordable housing deal ever. It dooms hope for restoring and growing enrollment at City College of San Francisco. And the bargain basement price of the land sanctions corporate welfare as well as shameful stripping of a precious public asset.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors must reject the final approvals for this oversized project scheduled to come before them in the next weeks.

Let’s examine just a few of the more glaring false promises: Affordable housing, community collaboration and consideration of the needs of City College. None of these assertions stand up to scrutiny…(more)

SFPUC is the property owner. SFPUC is currently under investigation as a party in the Nuru corruption scandal. Why you trust the judgement and intentions of the officers of an organization charged with collaboration and possible corruption and bribery? What is the rush to sell a hugely valuable property at a deep discount that should be considered a huge loss? This transaction does not pass the smell test. See article below.

Feds target donations from city contractors with new subpoena in Nuru scandal
By Joshua Sabatini and Michael Barba : sfexaminer – excerpt
…The office also released a subpoena of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission last week seeking documents related to city contractors and the personnel files of its director, Harlan Kelly, and Assistant General Manager Juliet Ellis…(more)

July 15, 2020July 15, 2020

SF Supervisor Seeks to Restore Oversight of Homeless Shelter Contracts Amid Corruption Scandal

By Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez : kqed – excerpt

In the name of expediting construction of homeless shelters, San Francisco Mayor London Breed in March 2019 asked the Board of Supervisors to relinquish its oversight of the contract process.

The argument was, if Public Works could simply award shelter construction contracts faster, people living in dire circumstances would be moved off the streets months earlier — saving crucial time.

But it didn’t quite work out that way.

The lack of oversight allegedly allowed former Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru to grant more than $1 million in homeless shelter construction contracts to Walter Wong, a permit expediter who was arrested by the FBI last month and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to engage in money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Nuru was also arrested by the FBI in January on public fraud charges.

Now, Supervisor Aaron Peskin said he will introduce legislation Tuesday allowing the Board of Supervisors to regain oversight and ultimate approval over homeless shelter construction in the city…. (more)

Since the FBI investigation started long before March 2019, it appears that there was already a lack of oversight in place long before the Mayor’s actions took place. If anything, the government has been in the business of removing government and public notice oversight of pending plans and projects for years. Perhaps it is time to slow that train down by stopping some of the state legislative efforts to speed it up. We understand there are 14 state bills being analyzed now by the Planning Department. Details on 9 of those bills are here: https://www.livablecalifornia.org/act-now-3-2/

The SF Planning Dept. is reviewing 14 state bills and will publish their analysis by end of day on Thursday July 16th. They will give a presentation on this legislation at the July 23rd Planning Commission hearing.

The analysis document should be attached as a background document for the Planning Commission agenda for that meeting. https://sfplanning.org/

The Dept will be looking at the following bills:

Some of the bills we are tracking:
https://discoveryink.wordpress.com/ca-bills/ca-bills-2020/

AB 725
AB 1279
AB 1436
AB 2345
AB 2580
AB 3040
AB 3107
SB 288
SB 899
SB 902
SB 995
SB 1085
SB 1120
SB 1385

July 13, 2020July 13, 2020

Op-Ed: Is the California dream finished?

By Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky : latimes – excerpt

For all the persistent rhetoric from California’s leaders about this state being on the cutting edge of social and racial justice, the reality on the ground is far grimmer.

Our new report on the state of California’s middle class shows a lurch toward a society in which power and money are increasingly concentrated and where upward mobility is constrained, amid shocking levels of poverty. Most of this data doesn’t even account for the recent effect of the coronavirus outbreak, which has pushed the state’s unemployment rate to 15.5%, higher than the nationwide rate of 14.7%…(more)

July 12, 2020

U.S. attorney hits SFPUC with subpoena as SF City Hall corruption investigation widens

By Dominic Fracassa : sfchronicle – excerpt

Federal officials served the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission with a sweeping subpoena last month, demanding numerous records and documents that appear to draw the agency into the widening City Hall corruption scandal touched off by the arrest of former Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru in January.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office issued the subpoena on June 15, according to a copy obtained by The Chronicle on Friday.

The subpoena suggests that federal investigators are interested in examining contracts the commission awarded to several companies, some of which have previously been linked to alleged schemes traced back to Nuru in investigations by the FBI and the City Attorney’s Office…

The federal subpoena specifically demands all communications “related to any LED light installation contracts” between commission employees and Walter Wong, Washington Wong, the relative with the business registration, and their affiliated companies. The City Attorney’s Office previously filed a subpoena directly to Alternate Choice in February…

They also ordered the agency to produce any commission audits from 2010 to the present related to trips taken by Kelly and Ellis…

Kelly’s wife is City Administrator Naomi Kelly, Nuru’s former boss…(more)

This is getting to be a rather extensive list of City Hall power players. Who will turn up next in the net?

July 11, 2020July 11, 2020

The Latino Task Force emerges to take on COVID-19

by Lydia Chávez : missionlocal – excerpt

In a neighborhood that quickly boarded up and felt abandoned by the end of March, it was hard not to wonder what would happen to the Mission District’s large immigrant population. Nannies, construction workers, and small business operators were either unemployed or venturing out to grocery stores, construction sites, or gig economy jobs, praying that they did not bring the virus home. The Mission District’s social service agencies went into action, calling their clients to check-in, but their physical storefronts shuttered. One morning I watched a couple knocking on the door of one of the agencies. I explained that the social workers had to take calls from home, that they should use the number posted prominently on the front door… (more)

We suspect that this is an example of other neighborhood groups who are taking on major efforts to help people take care of themselves. It is good to look at an example of a system in detail so we are happy to share this one.

Thanks to this virus, we are probably more organized and more aware of the needs people have for essential services. Hopefully this will shed some light on how these programs may work.

July 7, 2020

Jane Morrison, lifelong activist, dies at 100

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

She was an urban environmentalist before anybody knew what that meant — and a hero and mentor to many.

Jane Morrison, who was an urban environmentalist before anyone knew what that meant and a central part of the progressive movement in this city for more than half a century, has died at 100.

I got the news from John King at the Chron, who sent me an email asking if I wanted to say anything about someone who was already an legend in local politics when I arrived at the Bay Guardian in 1982…

Every year, well into her 90s, she would call me and inform me that I would be speaking at the San Francisco Tomorrow holiday party. It wasn’t a request, really – it was a piece of information. Of course I would be there; Jane told me I would.

She was funny, determined, a proud member of the progressive wing of the San Francisco Democratic Party going back to the 1950s, a former journalist, a community organizer and agitator, a Depression-era Oklahoma farm girl who never forgot what it meant to sacrifice for the greater good…(more)

July 3, 2020July 15, 2020

SF is piling tax hikes on the ballot. Will voters embrace them in a recession?

By J.K. Dineen : sfchronicle – excerpt

2of4Supervisor Matt Haney says that, with the city in a crisis, more money is needed from companies that “spend that much on lunch.”Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

3of4Arguello Market’s Sal Qaqundah, with employee Xandra Gonzalez, opposes new business taxes.Photo: Nina Riggio / Special to The Chronicle

San Francisco voters could be weighing as many as five tax hike measures this fall, in what will be a test of how the coronavirus-fueled recession influences attitudes on economic growth and whether the city’s big businesses are paying their fair share.

Four of the five tax-increase proposals — which have been placed on the November ballot but could still be withdrawn up until the end of July — were rooted in the pre-COVID days of 2019 when the city was flush with cash, the hotels were packed with business travelers, unemployment was about 2% and the growth of tech companies seemed limitless….

Haney, along with Supervisor Hillary Ronen, is behind one of the three revenue measures: a tax on CEOs earning at least 100 times the median income of their average worker…

Another measure, by Supervisor Gordon Mar, would put a 1.12% payroll tax on stock-based compensation and is expected to raise $50 million to $150 million…

A third, by Supervisor Dean Preston, would double the transfer tax from about 3% to 6% for residential and commercial properties sold for more than $10 million…

The fourth and fifth measures, the most comprehensive and complicated, are two competing proposals to overhaul the city’s gross receipts tax, one by Mayor London Breed and the other by the Board of Supervisors…(more)

July 3, 2020

California voters: Here are the 12 initiatives on the November ballot

By Dustin Gardner : sfchronicle – excerpt

Californians will see a lengthy list of initiatives and referendums on their November ballot.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla has assigned proposition numbers to 12 measures that have qualified for the ballot, from funding for stem cell research to a repeal of the state’s ban on affirmative action and an expansion of consumer privacy laws. Each must be approved by a simple majority to become law…

Proposition 14: Stem cell research…
Proposition 15: Limits on property taxes...
Proposition 16: Affirmative action…
Proposition 17: Parolee voting…
Proposition 18: Voting age….
Proposition 19: Property tax transfers…
Proposition 20: Criminal justice…
Proposition 21: Rent control…
Proposition 22: Gig worker classification…
Proposition 23: Kidney dialysis clinics...
Proposition 24: Consumer data privacy…
Proposition 25: Cash bail…(more)

June 30, 2020

A Historic Heat Wave Roasts Siberia

By Anton Troianovski : nytimes – excerpt

Wildfires are spreading. The mosquitoes are ravenous. People are shielding their windows from the midnight sun with foil and blankets.

MOSCOW — They used to ride snowmobiles in June in Russkoye Ustye, a Siberian village by the Arctic Ocean coast.

Last week, the temperature in the area hit 88 degrees.

“Nature is taking its revenge on us, probably,” Sergei Portnyagin, the village head, said by telephone. “We’ve been too bloody in how we’ve treated it.”

The climate has been warming rapidly in the Arctic for years, but even by those standards, a heat wave roasting northern Siberia for the past few weeks has been shocking… (more)

June 17, 2020

Exclusive: How SF sidestepped state law on developing toxic sites

By Cynthia Dizikes : sfchronicle – excerpt

Contaminated gas stations, vehicle repair shops and parking garages have become prized development commodities in San Francisco in recent years as the city struggles with a crushing housing shortage.

But city officials have repeatedly stymied public oversight when assessing whether these chemical-tainted properties are safe for hundreds of new homes by allowing developers to bypass environmental reviews required under state law, a Chronicle investigation has found.

The California Environmental Quality Act prohibits certain exemptions for the tens of thousands of properties on a statewide roster of hazardous-waste sites called the Cortese list. “Categorical” exemptions are only supposed to go to projects with no significant impact on the environment or human health. The prohibition was designed to protect the public, construction workers and future occupants from exposure to dangerous substances, environmental lawyers said… (more)