Category: Update

By Emilio Garcia-Ruiz :sfchronicle – excerpt

When I started as editor in chief in September 2020, the pandemic lockdown was in full force and the streets around The Chronicle’s downtown offices were strikingly dystopian.

Like many newcomers, I asked about all the signs of drug addiction I was seeing on my daily walk to work. More than one person, as part of a casual conversation, told me that drugs in San Francisco are sold by migrants from Honduras who are victims of human trafficking and forced to sell on the streets of the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.

Has anyone written that story? I asked.

It would be very difficult to get, I was told. Obviously, investigating a drug network is hard enough for police, much less journalists…

Despite concerns about their safety and the threat of contracting COVID, the two spent hundreds of hours in the open-air drug markets in the Tenderloin and SoMa over these past 18 months. They watched how the business was done, interacting with everyone they could: dealers, users, residents, community activists and the police…(more)

Megan Cassidy and Gabrielle Lurie should be commended for putting so much effort into this investigation that resulted in multiple storites that document the characters and their work that produces what we are seeing on the streets of San Francisco. One may choose to belive it or not, act on it or not, but the work to inform the public has been done and it is an amazing story. The issues are immense and complicated, but, if we are going to solve the problems we must understand the situaltion we are dealing with, and the work Megan and Gabrielle did gives us a lot to work with. Our sincere thanks. (read the articles and you will see what I mean)

By Bay City News : sfstandard – excerpt

Doctors at St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco have launched a campaign to preserve its unique services amid reports the facility and another of the city’s hospitals, St. Francis Memorial Hospital in Nob Hill, may be acquired by UCSF.

A group of the hospital’s most senior physicians said in a statement this week their “Save St. Mary’s” campaign is to ensure that the medical center maintains its accessible and patient-centered care and most cherished programs and services.

St. Mary’s, on Stanyan Street near Fulton, is San Francisco’s oldest continuously operating hospital. Established in 1857, it was the first Catholic hospital west of the Rockies…

Among the services the physicians are especially concerned about are the Sister Mary Philippa Clinic, which provides care to the homeless and uninsured, and the St. Mary’s McAuley Institute, which provides acute inpatient psychiatric care for youth and young adults…(more)

By Michael Barba : sfstandard – excerpt

San Francisco’s disgraced former utilities chief Harlan Kelly was found guilty of various fraud charges Friday after a dayslong trial.

Kelly, the former general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), was charged in connection with two alleged schemes.

One involved benefits he accepted from a businessman and expediter, Walter Wong, who was seeking contracts from his department. The other involved Kelly misrepresenting debts to a loan company in an application filed with the help of real estate mogul Victor Makras.

RELATED: Ex-Building Inspector Bernie Curran Gets 1-Year Prison Sentence…(more)

By Dave Osgood

It wasn’t expected, but Rincon Annex was the only appeal considered at the meeting and it lasted 4 1/2 hours! And it’s not done. The matter was continued to September 6.

Board of Supervisors President Peskin sat through the meeting in person for over three hours in order to speak during public comment. He said the planning department had erred in approving these permits.

Obviously we’ve raised an issue of some importance.

Actually the meeting devolved into two related subject matters:

• The Rincon Annex building and the proposed signs.
• How the planning department processes permits involving historic buildings.

Annex: This remains an uphill battle. Three board members are appointed by Breed. Two are appointed by supervisors, and one of them indicated he has considerable interest in Rincon Annex and was ready to deny the four permits. The other was absent last night, so we would have had to get the votes of all three Breed members to prevail.

Process: The process of preserving historic buildings in the city is a real hodgepodge of confusing ordinances that allows developers and planners to pick and choose how permits are issued. Numerous areas of the planning code apply with vague exceptions and subjective requirements. President Peskin stated this matter should’ve gone to the historic preservation commission, but it appears that recent efforts to streamline planning means that step is no longer required. Despite pages of code, it was stated that there are no limits on the size and number of signs that could go on Rincon annex. It remains unclear why other historic buildings, such as the old federal reserve, remain sign free. Concern was expressed about the precedent the Rincon permits would set.

The appeals board’s minutes are already out and indicate:

“The Board continued the matter to September 6, 2023 so that the department and parties can submit briefs addressing the following topics:

• How the Planning Department arrived at its decision to approve the permits, including the determinations it made; and whether the Planning Department could provide written findings of a determination under Planning Code section 1006.6, including any resource implications that would have for the Department.
• The applicability and conformity of these permits with Article 11 of the Planning Code.
• Whether the issuance of the permits complies with the 2018 legislation (Planning Code section 1005(e)(6)).

The City Attorney will provide an opinion to the Board on the legal issues raised by these topics.”

I believe they were also to report why the matter didn’t go to the historic preservation Commission . Briefs will be submitted by the parties on August 24. As the appellant, we obviously have a seat at the table. It was suggested that we get an attorney involved. City officials often make that recommendation to activists without seeming to appreciate the burden and cost involved. Mr. Peskin left after public comment, and officials said during the subsequent discussion that they didn’t completely understand why he said the planning department had erred. It has been suggested that it is critical for Peskin to submit a document to the Board of Appeals.

Hopefully this could lead to some reform, and we should encourage that. We should get a better idea at the upcoming general assembly meeting about what groups and organizations are most involved in historic preservation. Any thoughts people have on how we can best use this unique opportunity to encourage reform would be welcome.

By Sam Whiting : sfchronicle – excerpt

From her protected pier inside Gashouse Cove, San Francisco fuel dock operator Chrissy Kaplan can look 300 yards out to the breakwater and see her future. She doesn’t want to be there.

Kaplan is being permanently relocated from her location across from the Marina Safeway to make way for a basin remediation project that will require removal of her dock and up to 185 boat slips.

The joint project by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department will create a new city park that includes the 12 acres of water and excludes both power boats and the fuel dock. Remediation is scheduled to begin in 2026 and necessitates moving Gashouse Cove Marina Inc., which Kaplan has operated for 50 years, out of the East Harbor and down past Marina Green to a newly constructed West Harbor near the St. Francis Yacht Club.

But it isn’t the added wind or rougher water that will make it difficult to fuel boats bobbing in the tide that bothers her — Kaplan doesn’t see any way to relocate her 22,000-gallon fuel container, which is buried in two fiberglass tanks in a concrete vault beneath the parking lot outside the gate of the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.

“There is no space to my knowledge that is secure enough to accommodate tanks in the West Harbor,” said Kaplan, who is 69 and took over the fuel concession when she was 19 and just out of Piedmont High School…

“It will be a calamity,” she said. “Everything west of our current location is on unstable ground.”… (more)

By Alec Regimbal : sfgate – excerpt

Two of California’s highest profile Democrats — Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Adam Schiff, the latter of whom is running for Senate — have recently rallied around the same excuse for keeping Sen. Dianne Feinstein in her seat through the 2024 general election.

Feinstein is a member of the highly important Senate Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for confirming President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Appointing judges to federal courts is something Democrats can do without support from Republicans, and Feinstein’s multi-month absence from the Senate earlier this year — the result of a shingles diagnoses and complications from that diagnosis — left the committee evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, who refused to advance any judicial nominees in her absence…

Their argument is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell could attempt to block any Feinstein replacements from joining the Senate Judiciary Committee, effectively stalling Biden’s judicial nominees until the 2024 general election. According to a Wednesday report from Politico, Newsom — who was stumping for Biden in Boise over the holiday — forcefully made that point to a man who asked him to help push Feinstein out before her term ends next year.

“You think Mitch McConnell is going to seat another federal judge? Not a chance in hell. You better wish, you better pray, for her health,” he told the man, who, according to Politico, said he’d never considered that before backing away from Newsom…(more)

By Joe Garofoli : sfchronicle – excerpt

For decades, California politics has been dominated by Bay Area politicians, from Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and the Browns — Willie and Jerry — to Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom.

But a new generation of rising stars in their early 40s — led by the Inland Empire’s blue-collar Rep. Pete Aguilar, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, and Hollister’s Robert Rivas, who was raised in farmworker housing and sworn in Friday as the new Assembly speaker — want to give Californians who didn’t grow up on the elite coast a louder voice.

They represent parts of California where there are fewer wealthy, white residents and more people who are struggling to survive day to day in an increasingly expensive state.

Rivas, 43, took the oath of office Friday in Sacramento just a few feet from a longtime family friend, United Farmworkers Association cofounder Dolores Huerta, in an Assembly gallery filled with a dozen farmworkers, a nod to his roots — and Pelosi, eight former Assembly speakers and top state officials, a nod to his current power…

His Democratic colleagues elected him this year to the party’s third most powerful position — Democratic Caucus chairman — making him the highest-ranking Latino ever in the House. He has also been assigned a difficult task: to win back several Republican-held House seats in California. Doing so could be key to Democrats winning back the House in 2024. In mid-July, he will launch the California House Majority Fund, a super PAC that hopes to raise millions to flip red or purple districts like his.… (more)

By J.D. Morris : sfchronicle – excerpt

San Francisco legislators have put the brakes on a project that would replace a single-family Nob Hill home with 10 townhomes after neighbors objected in part because they said the proposed complex would cast too much shadow on an adjacent public recreation center.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday overturned the city Planning Commission’s previous decision that the proposed redevelopment of 1151 Washington St. did not need an environmental review because it met the standard for an exemption under state law.

Opponents argued the site had contaminated soils that required closer study, and the townhomes would excessively shade the nextdoor Betty Ann Ong Recreation Center’s basketball courts and playground at their hours of peak use, among other concerns.

Supervisors sided with the critics in a 7-4 vote that sent the question of the project’s environmental impacts back to planning officials for further analysis…(more)

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By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Governor’s Office, in highly unusual move, lobbies local Planning Commission on Breed legislation.

In a highly unusual move, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office is lobbying the San Francisco Planning Commission to approve a plan by Mayor London Breed that could lead to the wholesale demolition of existing housing on the West Side of the city.

Newsom’s Department of Housing and Community Development sent a letter June 16 to the SF Planning Commission urging support for the “Constraints Reduction Ordinance.”

That position is consistent with Newsom’s position on housing: The biggest problem, the governor insists, is that cities put too many rules on new development. His entire housing policy, such as it is, involves “constraint reduction.”

The letter, signed by Melinda Coy, who has the title of “proactive housing accountability chief” (I bet Newsom came up with that himself), states that…(more)

Read the article and comment if you can. Probably some well place letters to the editor may help. There is an effort to meet with supervisors to try to convince them that this is a big political mistake. The voters have already lost faith and trust in the government so removing more rights to participate in the future of the city will not endear them to the Mayor or anyone who supports less rights for citizens.

The San Francisco Standard – a live discussion about London Breed and the future of SF

Dear Reader,

Plenty of ink has been spilled about San Francisco’s problems. Less is understood about what drives the leader at the center of it all: Mayor London Breed.

From humble beginnings in one of the city’s toughest public housing projects, Breed’s life was deeply shaped by the crises now roiling San Francisco: drugs, poverty and mental illness. The Standard’s revealing, in-depth portrait of her improbable rise to power depicts a charismatic and sincere leader whose sharpest traits can cut both ways.

Over six months and through dozens of interviews with Breed’s friends, neighbors, colleagues and political adversaries, The Standard’s senior political reporter Josh Koehn unravels the mayor’s personal and political struggles as she faces perhaps her biggest challenge yet: solving San Francisco’s generational problems and winning over voters in a time of unprecedented upheaval.

At noon on Thursday, June 22, Senior Editor Annie Gaus and Koehn will host a live discussion of the story and what it reveals about Breed and the future of San Francisco. Please join us on Twitter Spaces and follow the @SFStandard and @Josh_Koehn to stay informed.

—Annie Gaus and Josh Koehn