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SF Police Commission rejects police budget and layoffs. Will it matter?

By Julian Mark : missionlocal – excerpt

The San Francisco Police Commission on Wednesday night unanimously rejected the police department’s budget proposal, which would lay off 167 police officers, cut technology to aid reform efforts, and reduce the department’s overtime funds.

But the commission’s vote against moving the budget forward was a largely symbolic action that will signal to Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors that the commission was unhappy with the proposal as currently drafted.

In other words, the mayor and the supes will receive the budget no matter what — with a somewhat negative recommendation from the commissioners.

It seemed everyone agreed that such dramatic reductions to the police budget were unacceptable and at least needed deeper consideration. In urging the Police Commission to reject the budget, Chief Bill Scott repeatedly called the cuts “devastating.” …(more)

Did we just hear that  a police chief complained when a citizen took a dangerous situation  in hand by firing a handgun at an intruder? This is not going to end well.

 

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SPUR, Yimbys say stealth state laws can force more housing

By Zelda Bronstein : 48hills – excerpt

But what happens if developers don’t want to build anything but luxury condos — and maybe not even those?

On Friday, February 12, SPUR hosted a webinar entitled “Can Cities Use State Law to Overcome Housing Resistance?” The four panelists, all of the Yimby/Wiener persuasion, answered that question with a resounding Yes.

To anyone who’s depended on the mainstream media for an understanding of the current battle over California housing policy, that response must to be mind-boggling. The establishment press has claimed ad nauseam that the state has done little if anything to address California’s housing crisis.

Reporters have repeatedly memorialized the defeats of state Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 827 (d. 2018) and SB 50 (d. 2019 and again in 2020) and the midnight-hour death of Assemblymember Toni Atkins’ SB 1120 in 2020, leaving the impression that these were the only housing bills or at least the only ones that mattered.

At Friday’s forum, the panelists told a different story. Since 2017, the state Legislature has enacted a slew of housing laws that, as former director of the Department of Housing and Community Development Ben Metcalf put it, “buil[t] out the power of the state” to overrule local land-use authority…(more)

The developer bills that force density on single family homes may be the governor’s downfall, as more people learn about his efforts to overthrow local jurisdiction and remove single family zoning all over he state. All it will take is a candidate who listens to what the voters want and, hopefully knows how to make it happen. Governor Newsom is really pushing his luck. He intends to included a new Housing Accountability Unit (HAU) in his proposed budget, to fund enforcement of the forced density bills.
See details on the bill and actions you may take to fight back. https://www.livablecalifornia.org/governor-newsoms-latest-executive-overreach-a-housing-accountability-unit-in-hcd/

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Supes move to open more hotel rooms for homeless

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Legislation could set up another confrontation with Mayor Breed, who wants to wind down the hotel program.

Now that the Biden Administration has agreed to pay for it, five supervisors are moving to expand the city’s shelter-in-place hotel system to get and keep homeless people off the streets.

The bill would mandate that the city keep 2,200 hotel rooms open, and allow people still living on the streets to move in as current residents exit to other forms of housing…(more)

Someone needs to figure out a way to deal with the system that determines eligibility for rental assistance that people who need a little support to pay their rent we would have less people “falling through the cracks” ending up on the street. Next we need to investigate the unaffordable “affordable” rents that automatically increase, while market rate unit prices are falling. The subject was recently covered by CBS news: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/02/08/some-san-francisco-affordable-housing-units-renting-for-more-than-market-rate-units/

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California Utilities Will Buy More Energy, Hike Rates to Avoid Blackouts: CPUC

By Olga R. Rodriguez  : nbcbayarea – excerpt (video)

Utilities will be allowed to buy extra energy and pass on the costs to customers in order to avoid a repeat of rolling blackouts that kicked in last summer when demand outpaced supply, California regulators said Thursday.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to authorize Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Company to purchase additional power in the next three months.

“Customers deserve a reliable grid, and they deserve a regulatory body that will be mobilized to do everything in its power to ensure that we have one,” commission President Marybel Batjer said…(more)

All the more reason for people to switch to solar power, but, will the CPUC make that more difficult? Find out what California does for and against solar power users how the utilities exert constant pressure on net metering. https://solarrights.org

RELATED:

Utility bosses: If you make us look bad, there’s gonna be trouble

 

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Sick City

via email from Livable California

Salesforce towers above the towering empty office spaces gracing the San Francisco landscape

Vancouver’s high-profile professor, planner and author, Patrick Condon, told more than 160 California community leaders at the Livable California Teleconference on Feb. 6, 2021 that “upzoning” of neighborhoods drives up housing costs and cannot create affordable housing…

Prof. Condon’s latest book is Sick City, which addresses why upzoning doesn’t work, and is free to download here...

No amount of opening zoning or allowing for development will cause prices to go down. We’ve seen no evidence of that at all. It’s not the NIMBYs that are the problem – it’s the global increase in land value in urban areas that is the problem.”

Watch the video of Prof. Condon’s Presentation to Livable California HERE…

Download the Slides he presented on Saturday HERE … (great graphics)

Good timing after the recent announcement by Salesforce that they are going to a remote workforce and declaring the end of the office tech era.

 

 

 

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SF moved people onto Treasure Island despite serious toxic dangers

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Navy and its contractors gave inaccurate info on chemicals and radiation as development of housing moved forward, data at hearing shows.

For more than ten years, the US Navy provided inaccurate, incomplete or false data on the risks of chemical and radiological contamination at Treasure Island – while the city was moving more than 1,000 mostly low-income people into housing on the island.

That’s what a state official testified today in what Sup. Aaron Peskin called profound information. “You are the first person in a decade and a half to tell the truth,” Peskin said to Anthony Chu, the director of radiation safety at the state Department of Public Health…(more)

Stay tuned as more hearings are on the way.

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Some San Francisco Affordable Housing Units Renting For More Than Market-Rate Units

By Susie Steimle : cbslocal – excerpt

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Tenants living in so-called affordable housing units are now in many cases paying more than their market-rate neighbors.

These affordable units are not tied to the traditional real estate market fluctuations and hopeful tenants like Christine McDow say they should be…

According to Apartment List rents in San Francisco are down 27% since the start of the pandemic. A one-bedroom used to average $3,500 a month; now it’s down to $1,983.

Below Market Rate (BMR) units haven’t seen rent drops; in fact, in Dave Osgood’s building, they’re seeing rent increases…

“The so-called below market and market-rate seem to be merging,” Osgood said.

There are 76 below-market-rate units at The Towers at Rincon Apartments, Osgood says all year he’s seen people move out as cheaper market-rate units become available.

“There may be as many as 20% of them empty,” Osgood said…(more)

Unbelievable until you look at the city codes that have been heavily crafted by developer friendly lawyers and there are more layers than most people are aware of until someone files a lawsuit and starts looking for excuses to support their side. With luck, some of these can be fixed as they are exposed.

 

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Clint Reilly shares how his media group reimagines the future of local media

by Clinton Riley Holdings Inc. : bizjournals – excerpt (includes video interview)

In a one-on-one conversation, Mary Huss, publisher of the San Francisco Business Times, talks with Clint Reilly, local real estate, politics and media magnate. Tune in to hear them discuss how the San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly will revitalize coverage of the city…(more)

They intend to “grow” the paper, hiring journalists instead of firing them. This should  create opportunities for writers and investigative journalists. How will he pay for it? He has some deep pocket of his own, but, he must also have investors. He could merge the SF Weekly and SF Examiner, or turn SF Weekly into a weekend paper to promote entertainment when it returns.

It they really want to compete with the Chronicle they have a lot of hiring to do. Will they delve heavily nto electronic media? I don’t think they know yet. Following this story will be a story in itself. Has anyone seen any changes at the Marinatimes yet?

We should keep an open mind for now, especially if they increase federal and state coverage. That gives them a lot of new ground to cover,  and we are not lacking in subject matter these days.
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Vaccine Information

Posted on District 5 Newletter:

It is critical that everyone in San Francisco get vaccinated as soon as it is their turn. It is not mandatory, but vaccinating most people is critical to stop COVID-19 from mutating and continuing to impact our world. Information is constantly changing, and we suggest checking the latest here.

There is also a COVID-19 Vaccinations Tracker that provides information on the number of people who live in San Francisco who have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and the number of doses administered within San Francisco to anyone. We also encourage you to sign up to be notified when you’re eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Right now, we do not have enough vaccines for mass vaccination sites, but those will be set up as soon as we receive a shipment. Unfortunately, we have not received a timeline on the arrival of further vaccines, though it is coming. You can learn about future prioritization groups here.

To get your vaccine, contact your primary care physician. Please remember that the vaccine is in short supply so you may not be able to book your appointment today. If you do not have a physician, contact the SF Health Network.

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SF supes take on political corruption?

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

[Government Oversight and Audit Committee] Committee hearing will give us a clue. Plus: Protecting SRO tenants, preventing evictions and saving nightlife venues…
The last time a measure to create a public advocate – an independent office that could among other things investigate public corruption – some supervisors said it wasn’t needed. After all, they said, the board has a Government Oversight and Audit Committee, that can and should be investigating the kind of evolving scandal that has hit City Hall…


The supes have subpoena power if they want to use it, and can force witnesses to testify under oath.

That hasn’t happened yet in this scandal, but the committee has, indeed, decided to hold a hearing on the matter, and asked controller and the city attorney for updates…(more)

This raises some questions about who is being protected and shows a lack of will on the part of the supervisors to deal with corruption at City Hall differently from the way they handled problems with private contractors related to engineering disasters. Subpoenas were used for these hearings.)