The Wiener Way Is getting a lot of pushback as people realize their rents are not going down as he promised they would. Question for our readers: Will the voters get the message that his way has not worked the way he claimed it would and quit supporting him?
Scott is pushing the towering plans for Marina Safeway.
Wiener’s housing laws are set up for cities and counties to fail, allowing developers to do almost anything they want, for many years to come Wiener’s housing laws are set up for cities and counties to fail, allowing developers to do almost anything they want, for many years to come August 26, 2026 By MICHAEL BARNES…(more)
The bizarre incompetence of Wiener’s SB 79 Do that math: This will never work. And it undermines all the twisted efforts cities are making to comply with RHNA September 22, 2025 By MICHAEL BARNES…(more)
By Lynn La via email from calmatters – see email for action items
With days to go until the end of the legislative session, lots of things are brewing at the state Capitol:
California Forever setback: Solano County supervisors voted against proposed legislation that would have allowed the billionaire-backed California Forever to speed up the creation of a new shipbuilding facility by exempting parts of it from environmental review. The vote threw a wrench in California Forever’s wider efforts to develop a new city and manufacturing hub in the county. Read more from Kate Wolffe and Yue Stella Yu.
Coastal carveouts: Newsom is pushing a plan that would give an environmental carveout to an oceanfront project belonging to Jeff Worthe, a Santa Monica developer who is also a donor to the governor. Environmental advocates are slamming the last-minute proposal and oppose any backdoor deals that sidestep a state law limiting development along the coast. Read more from Stella.
Cheaper GLP-1 drugs?: A bill that aims to lower the price of anti-obesity medications, or GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, is one step closer to reaching the governor’s desk after clearing the Assembly earlier this week. If passed, the state would partner with a drug maker to produce cheaper GLP-1 drugs and distribute it through the state’s CalRx program. But it’s unclear how long this could take: California’s $55 insulin took three years to bring into market under CalRx. Read more from Ana B. Ibarra.
Meta to pay $17B — and limit ‘likes’ for teens — in social media settlement with states // CalMatters (free)
Taxing the rich cracks open the Democratic coalition // Politico (free)
Trump can’t cut off funding to communities whose policies he opposes, court rules // The Mercury News (gift link)
Nearly 300,000 K-12 students are homeless in CA, UCLA report says // EdSource(free)
Years late, billions over budget: CA’s high-speed rail hasn’t laid a track // The Wall Street Journal (gift link)
CA gas prices ‘shaping up to be the highest on record.’ What you’ll pay // The Sacramento Bee (paywall)
CA lawmakers sound alarm about urgent need for $2B for Olympics transportation // LAist (free)
SpaceX windfall presents dilemma for CA pension fund // Bloomberg (gift link)
At a forum organized by retirees, congressional candidates appeal for the organization’s first-ever endorsement in a race for public office.
At a candidate forum hosted by California Alliance for Retired Americans, the two contenders for California’s 11th Congressional District seat agreed: High earners should pay more into Social Security…
In his opening remarks, Wiener supported changing the payroll tax cap, or the maximum amount of annual earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax, which is currently $184,500. ”If you make $10 million a year,” Wiener said, “you pay the exact same amount into Social Security as that person who makes $184,500 a year.”
Chan’s opening made no mention of Social Security but she spoke about pushing for progressive taxation broadly.
Once the candidates started taking questions, the San Francisco Public Press asked, “Would you support eliminating the Social Security payroll tax cap, so that income above $184,500 is taxed the same as income below it? If not, would you support raising it?”
Wiener reiterated his position on raising the cap, adding a proposal to also restart the tax at $400,000 or $500,000.
Chan agreed: “I’m absolutely in agreement of lifting that cap, because the system is not equitable. We need to make sure that people who can pay are paying their fair share into the system.”
She went further, arguing that lifting the payroll tax cap isn’t enough. She said she wants broader progressive taxation on the wealthy to fund other aspects of the social safety net. Wiener also talked about supporting stronger progressive taxation and the need to reverse President Trump’s corporate tax cuts.
The candidates otherwise differ on taxing the ultra-wealthy. Chan supportsProposition 40, California’s one-time tax on billionaires, and backed San Francisco’s “Overpaid CEO Tax,” which voters rejected in June. Wiener opposed both…
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?
Families for an Affordable San Francisco, an Independent Expenditure PAC supporting Scott Wiener’s congressional bid, was the primary employer for a number of staffers who also work on Wiener’s official campaign—something that would have been illegal until recently and is still in a shady political arena, experts say.
Under federal law, independent expenditure super PACs are explicitly prohibited from coordinating with campaigns. That’s because IEs can take unlimited money, and contributions to a candidate’s campaign committee are limited.
The Federal Elections Commission in 2024 issued an advisory saying that IEs and candidates can share fundraising for canvassers. That ruling is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit.
In several cases, Federal Elections Commission records show, staffers have been paid during the same period by both the Wiener for Congress Campaign and Families for Affordable San Francisco.
A former staffer, who worked briefly for the Wiener campaign, shared documents exclusively with 48hills that identify the super PAC as their employer. They noted that a similarly structured employment agreement, with Families as the employer, was circulated “to about 12 people.” Given that the Scott Wiener for Congress 2026 runs Wiener’s campaign, the former staffer expected that committee to be their employer.
“Not only have I never seen this before, but I have only seen it that campaigns and independent expenditures have zero communication, zero coordination,” they said in an exclusive interview with 48hills.
The former staffer, who shared details on the condition of anonymity, said that when they received the employment agreement that listed Families for an Affordable San Francisco as the primary employer, they flagged the concerns to higher ups. They got no response from them and chose to leave the campaign because of the legal concerns…
Jim Sutton, a lawyer who is an expert on election law, told us that the situation is, at the very least, questionable… (more)
San Francisco politics has often been described as a knife fight in a phone booth. Having spent a life inside that phone booth, I can tell you the description is largely accurate.
I have thrown my share of elbows and taken plenty in return. Politics is a tough business — no one who puts their name on the ballot should expect otherwise.
But there are still lines you don’t cross. State Sen. Scott Wiener’s decision to create an artificial-intelligence chatbot impersonating Supervisor Connie Chan, his opponent in the November race for Congress, crossed several.
Wiener’s campaign built a website around an AI version of Chan, put her face on it and invited voters to have a conversation with a machine programmed to mock her. When prompted about Chan’s accent, the chatbot responded that her “accent is so thick I can barely understand myself.” When asked whether she was an American citizen, it dodged the question with a birther swipe, which Wiener shrugged off as a “joke.”
His campaign has since taken the site down for “maintenance” after widespread condemnation, but not before Wiener dug in his heels on the legitimacy of the attack. He has also yet to formally apologize for the offense it caused… (more)
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.
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 playinginto his “HOUSING ONLY” zoning directives, except when he needs an exception and then he creates one..
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)
