Category: California

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Daly City rebels against Olympic Club’s Westlake Park proposal

By Angela Swartz, Freelance Writer : sfgate – excerpt

Beware Gifts that come with Conditions

The ‘whole idea of privatizing a public park is really nonsensical,’ protester says

Children blow bubbles and climb monkey bars on a typical foggy Thursday evening at Daly City’s Westlake Park. Just 100 feet away, in front of a pale yellow post-World War II building with a green awning, about 50 people clutch bright signs reading “No plastic park” and “Westlake Park is not for sale or lease.” Organizers, who are part of a group called Save Westlake Park, pass out neon-colored posters describing a “land grab” and flyers linking to a website with more information on their cause.
 
The Aug. 13 gathering at the park at 145 Lake Merced Blvd. brought together a new coalition of residents of the working-class suburb just south of San Francisco. They have banded together in hopes of halting a $10 million proposal to revamp Westlake Park. The Olympic Club, one of the oldest private athletic clubs in the world, has offered to make the changes — in exchange for some exclusive use of the field and facilities. … (more)

What is it about AstroTurf that YIMNYs like? This is becoming a national front to green grass trees. Who is behind this? We know who is paying for it, but why? And what role does Rec and Park pay in. this?

They cut down a tree, pour concrete or Astroturf and call it a park?

And then want the public to volunteer to maintain it?

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Grassroots Efforts Are Thwarting the Billionaire Agenda

By Ian Firstenberg : phoenixproject – excerpt

If you are not at the table you are not in game.

Despite their attempts to remain in the shadows, the state’s roughly 200 billionaires have outed themselves. Greater visibility has meant their narrow — and self-interested — agenda has come increasingly under fire.

San Francisco billionaires like Michael Mortiz and Chris Larsen have a storied history of opposing increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy, using their fortunes to elect allies who will protect them from any incursion into their wealth.

Recently a labor-backed measure, the Billionaire Tax Act earned a place on November’s statewide ballot. The modest, one-time tax that, if passed, will fund essential services like public hospitals, has mobilized California’s elite who tried — and failed — to keep it off the ballot. Despite successes in smaller statewide races, and a few wins in recent San Francisco elections, the very fact that the Billionaire Tax earned a place on the ballot may be a sign that their winning streak is coming to an end.

The measure is popular. It should also be kept in mind that the tax on billionaires will not meaningfully affect their lives or reduce the obscene generational wealth. Nonetheless, billionaires are willing to spend millions to defeat it. This won’t endear them to the state’s voters. A coalition led by Google cofounder Sergey Brin has reserved $87 million of ad space for spots to combat the measure. That number will likely increase as the election approaches… (more)

When billionaires have such an appetite for spending ungodly amounts of money to buy elections one must consider why? The end goal cannot be more money since paying the taxes might be less painful than fighting them. What is worth more than the money? Buying a seat at the table where power lies.

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Albertsons is infuriating Bay Area shoppers over vacant grocery stores

By Susan Guerrero : sfgate – excerpt

Town Hall July 23, 2026 on the Towering plans at the Marina Safeway

In the heart of downtown Larkspur, a tiny shopping center has become the grave site of a former Lucky Supermarket. The building, with its barren storefront and sealed doors, has haunted the neighborhood since 2023, yet there are currently no plans to open another grocery store in its place.

Tina McArthur, a Larkspur resident and board president of the historic Lark Theater, blames the building’s owner: Albertsons Companies.

“I think it’s terrible that they just left their building like that,” McArthur said. “The lights are still on. … I really don’t think they care one bit.”

The Lucky store is not an outlier. Albertsons — the parent company of Safeway, Vons and other major supermarkets — owns dozens of vacant surplus properties across the U.S., including at least seven vacant California stores listed for sale. An SFGATE investigation found that Albertsons appears to have a history of using its vast real estate portfolio to block the opening of competing grocers through restrictive land covenants or by keeping its properties vacant. In some cases, Albertsons has introduced controversial development plans on its properties that could raze existing supermarkets like Trader Joe’s in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood and Safeway in San Rafael without replacing those markets.

Albertsons could leave even more vacant properties on the market as the grocery company plans to shutter an unknown number of underperforming stores in California, and beyond, after its failed merger with the Kroger Company…

Grocery companies that keep properties vacant or add covenants to prevent future stores contribute to limited food access in communities, according to Christopher Leslie, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine…

The race for housing  Albertsons’ impacts on grocery availability in the Bay Area are likely to only increase as the grocery conglomerate flexes its muscle into property development. Align Real Estate and Albertsons are developing housing projects at Safeway locations throughout the Bay Area, including plans to build almost 3,500 units of housing across San Francisco’s Marina, Bernal Heights, Outer Richmond and Fillmore districts. The proposed residential housing project that could demolish the Safeway in San Rafael is not part of the Align Real Estate portfolio and is instead managed by Mill Creek Residential…(more)

Lots to take in here. I can remember hearing about food deserts from Malia Cohen years ago. Now we all are being faced with them.

What do we belive and what can be done to break those covenants? The food deserts are yet another reason to blame Wiener density bills for the loss of grocery stores as grocery chains are playing into his “HOUSING ONLY” zoning directives, except when he needs an exception and then he creates one..

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Newsom Proved Them Wrong

By SHIFT-BAY AREA: substack – excerpt

When Bay Area transit leaders are backed into a corner, they rely on a familiar, patronizing refrain: “The public just doesn’t understand how transit funding works.”…

The False Claim: The transit establishment’s response was swift, arrogant, and entirely dismissive. In KQED’s recent reporting on the Connect Bay Area Act, campaign spokesman Jeff Cretan dismissed proposals to redirect money from major capital projects toward transit service…

They Already Did It: Earlier this year, Newsom negotiated a financing package allowing Bay Area transit agencies to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars from state funds that had already been allocated for transit capital projects.

The largest share of those capital dollars had originally been reserved for construction of the San Jose BART extension. Instead, they became the source of loans designed to keep existing transit systems operating.

As columnist Daniel Borenstein observed, the package did not require new state money. It relied on capital funds that had already been committed to construction projects, temporarily converting those resources into operating support through a loan structure.

The accounting mechanism may have been creative.

But the result was unmistakable.

Capital resources were used to sustain operations.

Exactly the scenario transit advocates now insist cannot happen… (more)

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Landline service could end for good across the Bay Area and California

By Amanda Bartlett : sfgate – excerpt (audio track)

AT&T is hoping to remove landline service in several parts of California, raising concern among residents who say they rely on the service for myriad reasons…

AT&T secured a big win in its lengthy battle to pull landline service across the state of California after the Federal Communications Commission approved a petition from the telecommunications giant last week to end the service. The plan would cut off access to 184,000 households starting June 1, 2027, the Mercury News reported, though it remains unclear how many homes in the Bay Area would be affected.

“Only 3% of households we serve in California still use traditional phone service. We’re taking a phased, year-long approach to upgrade customers in these areas where better, more reliable services are available,” AT&T said in a recent news release, adding that “no customer will be left without access to phone or 911 service.”… (more)

 

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Why turning 55 is one of the most important financial milestones if you live in California

By Jessica Roy : sfchronicle – excerpt

Every birthday is worth celebrating. But in California, you might celebrate a little more when you turn 55 — especially if you own a home.

What’s all the excitement about? It’s the age you become eligible to sell your home and buy a new one while retaining your property tax basis, thanks to Proposition 19… (more)

This is actually a tease for the next article that is a lot more compelling in my opinion, and there is no firewall.

Primary Care as a Public Utility
The Case for a Common Fund

Importance  More than one-third of US adults lack access to primary care, which has increasingly become a commodity rather than the common good envisioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Many states are working to bolster primary care, but face common challenges related to federalism, fragmentation of health insurance, and administrative hurdles that undermine their efforts to invest in primary care. These challenges are discussed and one potential solution is described: a primary care common fund that finances and pays for primary care from the perspective of a public utility…

Conclusions and Relevance  As people in the US increasingly struggle to find a primary care clinician, state investments in primary care share common challenges. A primary care common fund could help states overcome these challenges by pooling resources and paying for primary care as a public utility—consistent with the vision of primary care as a common good—without disrupting the rest of the health care system. This approach is supported by precedent and paths toward feasibility… (more)

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California’s second-largest home insurer to raise rates this fall

By Megan Fan Munce : sfchronicle – excerpt
White picket fence photo by zrants
Farmers Insurance Group, the second-largest home insurer in California, is set to raise overall policy rates for homeowners by 1.5% this fall.
Its rate hike, approved Monday, will take effect for the insurers’ nearly 915,000 homeowners at their next renewal date following Sept. 15, 2026, according to a filing with the California Department of Insurance. While increases across the state will average out to 1.5%, Individual customers could see their rates rise by much more than 1.5% or may see their premiums decrease. Data on the exact range of rate changes or which areas may see the largest hikes wasn’t available on Monday.
Farmers covers approximately 11% of all insured homes in California, second only to State Farm General. As part of its filing, the insurer said it will up its home and auto bundling discount from 15% to 22% and increase the discounts homeowners can get for reducing their wildfire risk.
This is Farmers’ first filing under the Sustainable Insurance Strategy, a set of regulatory reforms finalized last year that altered the way insurance companies price wildfire risk. The request was first submitted last November for a 6.99% increase but was approved by regulators at just 1.5%…(more)
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A federal ‘naughty list’ is making some California condo sales nearly impossible

By Christian Leonard : sfchronicle – excerpt

The additional layer of checks adds yet another complication for the California condo market, which historically has been much softer than that for single-family homes.

Buying a condo is tricky enough. But a federal database of problematic condo buildings — which some lenders are calling a “blacklist” — is making it even harder to get a mortgage for some.

The database was created by Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored corporation that buys mortgages from lenders and sells them to investors as securities. The system frees up lenders’ funds for additional loans and lessens their risk, generally resulting in lower rates for buyers…

But not for every buyer. More than 700 California condominium complexes are flagged in Fannie Mae’s database as being “unavailable,” meaning the company won’t purchase loans for units there, according to data provided by condo law firm Alcock Marcus. The number of affected condos has skyrocketed in the past few years.

The impact of being on the list could be severe. A bank often won’t lend money for a condo that’s on that list, said Kevin Casey, a Bay Area loan officer with Guarantee Mortgage. That means the buyer has to either get a non-qualified mortgage, which is a riskier type of loan that comes with higher interest rates, or back out of the deal entirely….

Condo owners and sellers were already struggling to find insurance, with providers either leaving the state or significantly raising rates. Those insurance woes have also resulted in the Bay Area having some of the highest HOA fees in the country. And in the Walnut Creek retirement community of Rossmoor, most buyers have to pay in cash after Fannie and Freddie announced they would no longer back mortgages there unless it was funded for a complete loss. Rossmoor is one of 35 flagged condo complexes in Walnut Creek, according to the Mercury News.

Casey, the Guarantee Mortgage agent, said buyers who are considering bidding on a condo should make sure it’s in a well-run association, as that can determine how much time they spend navigating issues later in the deal.

You’re buying two things,” Casey said. “You’re buying what’s between the walls, and you’re buying the management company. So you have to spend … a good amount of time looking at that HOA.”… (more)

 

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New state bill aims to cancel medical debt for low-income Californians

: sfexaminer – excerpt (audio track) 

The state would purchase and forgive many Californians’ medical debt under a legislative proposal announced Monday.

Around 40% of Californians are struggling with some kind of medical debt regardless of whether or not they have some form of health insurance, said Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who authored Assembly Bill 2123, during a press conference Monday.

“Many people do have coverage,” she said, but they “still end up with bills they can’t afford, high deductibles, copays, denied claims — [it] can leave families owing thousands of dollars, and they never expected [it] would happen.”…

The Medical Debt Relief Act of 2026 is based on an existing pilot program launched in Los Angeles County in 2024, where the Board of Supervisors invested $5 million to purchase debt for pennies on the dollar and erase it for people whose household incomes are at or below 400% of the federal poverty level, or have medical debt that equals 5% or more of their annual income…(more)

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Break up PG&E?

By Sam Maslin : sfchronicle – excerpt

We should first try fixing the California Public Utilities Commission

As we gear up for the 2026 election season, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is in the crosshairs. Tom Steyer is running for governor and loudly vowing to “break up” the electric utilities. Meanwhile, in the San Francisco congressional race to replace Nancy Pelosi, all three major candidates — Scott Weiner, Saikat Chakrabarti and Connie Chan — support a takeover of the city’s electric system.

Politicians and voters have every right to be upset at PG&E. Rates have gone through the roof as the company has presided over a string of deadly failures and costly outages. But moves to take over the grid should give us pause. San Francisco City Hall, with pressing challenges and its own history of mismanagement, seems ill-equipped to launch an electric utility, and advocates of municipal power are often unrealistic about what would be involved. There are better ways to get the electric system we want.

Here’s the thing: The large investor-owned utilities are already publicly controlled. As state-sanctioned monopolies, they are comprehensively regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission, which has the responsibility to approve their actions. So if we’re unhappy with the utilities, why don’t we just try regulating them better?

We should be asking much more of the five members of the commission, who are appointed by the governor. As a developer of solar and energy storage projects in California, I have seen firsthand how our regulators have failed to produce effective energy policy or to provide even a modest check on the utilities.

The truth is, the commission has not been meeting the moment…

Now’s the time for a fresh start. Leadership is turning over at the commission, and we’ll soon elect a new governor who will appoint new regulators. As voters, we should be asking pointed questions and demanding better results.

Can we unpack the rate increases? How are costs categorized, and do we agree? What returns are utilities receiving on their investments, and are they appropriate? Are there more cost-effective solutions to grid challenges that aren’t being considered? How can we empower communities to develop the next generation of energy assets?…

Let’s organize with our neighbors — using existing groups and forming new ones. Let’s take a hard look at utility profits and, in this era of budget cuts and hard choices, insist that they do belt-tightening just like the rest of us. Let’s increase the pace of energy development and fight for the right to develop local resources to prevent future blackouts, just as PG&E has.

We should be unabashed about these goals with the incoming governor’s administration. We want a transformed utility system and intend to work effectively across the different stakeholders to effect real change. Of course, we can always keep a city takeover in our back pocket…

Ultimately, there isn’t one solution to our energy woes. The grid is a large, multilayered system, and we have to do many things at scale to ensure that we have the energy we need over the coming years. But having regulators who recognize the urgency of the situation is a must, and right now, we don’t.

So we can keep talking about a long-term breakup with PG&E, but let’s recognize that we have the opportunity to demand better outcomes now… (more)

Sam Maslin is CEO of Eddy Energy, a developer of community energy storage projects, and the president of the Noe Valley Democratic Club in San Francisco.