Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods
Advocating for a healthy city
Produced by the San Francisco Office of the Controller – powerpoint presentation – Presented at the Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee
Public Integrity Review: Preliminary Assessment: Gifts to Departments Through Non-City Organizations Lack Transparency and Create “Pay-to-Play” Risk
https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=8821471&GUID=0E718AEA-5834-474F-941D-E238C5CE8FCA
By Tim Redmond : 4hills – excerpt
For months now, incumbent state Sen. Scott Wiener has not agreed to a single debate with his challenger, Jackie Fielder. That’s a common strategy for an incumbent with a money advantage who doesn’t want to give the challenger any additional media attention.
In this case, though, Fielder has been getting traction – she’s raised, all told, more than $600,000 and has donations from some 3,500 individual donors. She has the backing of the California Teachers Association and the United Educators of San Francisco.
And Wiener has finally accepted one invitation.
The two will meet for a virtual discussion Saturday/3 at 1pm, sponsored by Manny’s. You can watch the livestream here…(more)
Board of Supervisors Intends to try to implement some changes by shifting power at City Hall. Many suggestions have come from the City Controllor and the Ethics Commission. This should be an interesting meeting to watch.
Thursday, October 1, 10AM – agenda and docs
Government Audit and Oversight Committee
1. Rent control at Midtown Park Apartments
2. Administrative Code – Selection of Contractors From a Pre-Qualified List and Under As-Needed Public Works Professional Services Contract Reform. 200787
3. Budget and Legislative Analyst Performance Audit – Operational Overlap on Sewer Repair Between Public Works and the Public Utilities Commission. 200686
4. Administrative Code – Mayor’s Selection of Designees in Matters Regarding Contracting and Other Matters. 200949
5. Hearing – Investigations Into Public Corruption. 200279
On the other hand, it appears last year’s Health Care Master Service Plan is on hold during the pandemic, leading one to believe there is no plan.
Thursday, October 1, 1PM – agenda and docs
Planning Commission Meeting
3. Health Care Master Service Plan – continued indefinitely, but one may comment on continuance on this 2019 plan
: sfweekly – excerpt
State Senate candidate Jackie Fielder wants California’s Indigenous tribes to play a much larger role in wildfire prevention, as they did before colonization.
As skies finally begin to clear following a week of smoke that can only be described as hellish, many Californians are probably thinking, how can we prevent this from happening again?
Yes, California, the U.S. and the world need to begin drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But, as SF Weekly recently reported, in terms of what the state can do to reduce the intensity of wildfires in the near term, the consensus is clear: California needs to burn off a lot more fuel in controlled fires.
A recently approved program to limit the environmental review process for prescribed burns and vegetation management will help, but money and labor remain major obstacles. California will need to get creative to actually achieve its fire management goals.
That’s where a new plan by San Francisco State Senate candidate Jackie Fielder could come in. Fielder, a lecturer at SF State and leader of the recent campaign for a public bank in the city, has proposed an Indigenous Wildland Fire Task Force that would give Indigenous tribes a more central role in wildfire prevention. Building off tribes’ millennia of experience with “cultural burns,” the plan would establish new opportunities for collaboration among researchers, state, local, and federal regulators, and Indigenous communities; expand cultural burns beyond existing tribal lands; and provide new leadership and job opportunities for Indigenous people and others…(more)
Mayor London Breed’s apparent toleration of an unsanctioned homeless encampment “sweep” by a corporate event company this month has led her critics to ask whether the policy of City Hall is to turn a blind eye to privatized harassment of people living on the streets.
The sweep, which occurred just past midnight on the morning of Sept. 10 outside the old Honda dealership on 12th Street, resulted in the disposal of eight people’s belongings. Peter Glikshtern, a partner in the event company, Non Plus Ultra, was captured on video coordinating the operation with a hired crew. Witnesses said they threw tents and bags containing human ashes, musical instruments, car repair parts and thousands of dollars in cash into the back of two trucks, which were later taken to the dump…(more)
By Laura Wenus : sfpublicpress – excerpt (includes audio track)
an Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties will vote on Measure RR, a one-eighth-cent sales tax to be collected for the next 30 years, whose revenue from which would provide critical funding for Caltrain. While supporters say the rail service is at risk of shutting if the measure does not pass, this is not an emergency measure brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, which has cost Caltrain the majority of its riders. Opponents of the measure point to that decrease in ridership as evidence that the need for this rail service has dropped and say it may never recover enough to justify the tax. Opponents also say that a sales tax will disproportionately affect those already most hard-hit by the economic fallout of the pandemic…(more)
By Glenn Rogers
This historic picture of Lake Merced shows a stream along the location of the Great Highway today where the highway is planned to be abandoned and replaced with trails, parks and other amenities. This land was filled with soil before the road was built and is beside the the Sewer Facility. Therefore, all the land here is fill soil which is vulnerable to erosion and sea level rise. Therefore, the protection of this part of the coast from sea rise and Climate Change is dubious. In addition, this is the narrowest part of the coast along Ocean Beach. The extraordinary bad placement of the sewer facility here should be abandoned, in my opinion and moved to a place better protected.
Then, the large pipe that is parallel to the beach along the Great Highway is planned to be reinforced with a concrete wall to protect the pipe. This is another example of the failed policy of hardening the land beside the ocean beside the sewer facility which only caused increased erosion of the shore there. Better to move the pipe to a location underneath the Great Highway where the City will never allow the highway and the road to be lost to sea level rise. That would be on the east side of the Great Highway which protects hundreds of residences.
The proposed Ocean Beach Plan: https://sfplanning.org/ocean-beach, includes a video
Wednesday, September 30, 2020 There’s a scoping meeting for the upcoming EIR for this project. You can sign on to that meeting here: https://sfplanning.org/event/public-scoping-meeting-ocean-beach-climate-change-adaptation-project
By Ida Mojadad : sfexaminer – excerpt
The Planning Commission unanimously approved construction of a new wholesale flower market between 16th and 17th streets at Mississippi Street, across Interstate 280 from Mission Bay medical facilities.
Vendors at the nearly 100-year-old Flower Mart initially opted to return to their site at Sixth and Brannan streets after developer Kilroy Realty Group converted it into an approved mixed-use development. But, in between clashes over its temporary relocation, concerns emerged over the impact of traffic on the wholesale hub, which relies on truck and vehicle access…(more)
SFMTA has created a traffic nightmare downtown for businesses that rely on parking and deliveries to operate. Many are leaving town taking jobs with them. The Potrero neighborhood is able to accommodate the Flower Mart with easy freeway access and parking, so those jobs will be saved. Reuse of existing buildings will cut costs and limit the environmental impact. This is project is a good solution to a number of problems.
By Claire Cain Miller : nytimes – excerpt
That’s probably a good thing.
In the Before Time, Dan O’Leary, a director of business partnerships at a tech company, commuted two to three hours a day and flew on weekly business trips. He adhered to a strict schedule: His alarm was set for 5:30 a.m. to fit in a Peloton ride and shower before catching the train, and his workdays were jammed with meetings.
Since the coronavirus upended office life in March, his workdays have been very different, even idyllic. Sometimes he works from a picnic blanket in a park near his home in San Jose, Calif., or calls into meetings while on a walk….
Mr. O’Leary is among the most privileged workers. His job is secure, it’s easily done from home, he can afford the space and technology to do it remotely, and his company is supportive. He and his wife do not have children, so child care and school closures are not factors when working remotely.
He’s not alone: Many white-collar workers say their lives are now like Mr. O’Leary’s. They have adjusted their schedules to better fit their lives, and they’re enjoying it, according to a new, nationally representative survey by Morning Consult for The New York Times…(more)
By Dan Walters : calmatters – excerpt
California’s local officials routinely use taxpayer dollars for ballot measure campaigns, even though it’s illegal. One agency just got fined.
Four of the 12 measures on California’s November ballot were placed there by the Legislature.
Let’s assume that legislators had also appropriated $100 million in taxpayers’ money for campaigns to persuade voters to approve the four. It would have been an outrageous and likely illegal misappropriation of public funds under several laws…
The only agency that even expresses interest is the state Fair Political Practices Commission, because anyone who spends money on political campaigns is supposed to file reports on their activities.
Occasionally, the FPPC has penalized miscreant local agencies, the latest being Los Angeles County, which in 2017 spent a million dollars for an ill-disguised campaign to pass Measure H, a quarter-cent increase in the sales tax..
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association complained about the use of public funds, but as usual, the county’s district attorney refused to investigate. The organization filed a lawsuit and complained to the FPPC.
Last week, it was announced that county officials had agreed to a settlement — without admitting liability — and a $1.35 million penalty...
Using public funds to pass ballot measures is also illegal at the local level. Government Code Section 54964,..(more)
In San Francisco we have the FBI investigating various illegal uses of public employees time and public funds being funneled through community benefits programs and non-profits. It turns out the community that is benefiting from these programs is a very elite community comprised of friends of the City Family that doles out the contracts to a limited few supporters of the City Family program.
It took the FBI years of investigating to bring charges on actions that city authorities turned a blind eye to for decades. The best we can do is recommend some reading of the Marina Times articles that are covering the minute details of the cases as they unfold, starting with “Friends with Community Benefits“, by Susan Dyer Reynolds.