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San Francisco Examiner
Beloved SF shoe shiner survived pandemic, remains committed to downtown
Shoe shiner Christopher “Olajuwon” Mitchell has been a fixture in downtown San Francisco for much of the last 40 years, often bedecked in San Francisco 49ers gear and Hawaiian bead necklaces. “Shine ’em up! Get ’em shined,” Mitchell called recently to the passing commuters and tourists, the lifeblood of his one-man business, as he sat juggling brushes in a chair atop a portable stand outside the Embarcadero BART and MUNI station. ...
How Vision Zero progress in SF stacks up to other cities
San Francisco recorded fewer per-capita traffic deaths than five of 12 comparable cities within and outside of California during one of the final years of its initial decadelong quest to eliminate such fatalities, according to a recently published Controller’s Office report. The City Controller on Wednesday published dashboards of data measuring injuries, fatalities, commute methods, annual public-transit trips and traffic citations in The City and 12 other jurisdictions from 2012 — two years before San Francisco pledged to eliminate all traffic deaths before 2024 —...
Two SF tower projects face troubles amid weak downtown economy
Hines, a premier developer behind Salesforce Tower and other prominent San Francisco buildings, has run into problems with two downtown high-rise projects amid The City’s sluggish post-COVID-19 economic recovery. A Hines-led joint venture has let die an option to develop one publicly owned property in the South of Market area, for which it had proposed a 47-story residential tower, a townhome building and a mid-rise building which together would have a range of ultra-luxury to below-market-rate residences. ...
Like the private sector, The City shrinks office footprint to save money
The decline of real-estate values in and around Civic Center has been, in a twisted way, to The City’s benefit. San Francisco is hoping to shave about $10 million from its budget over the next two years by shrinking and consolidating its office space in and around the Mid-Market and Civic Center areas. Ironically, it’s an approach reminiscent of that taken by private-sector companies in recent years amid a dramatic...
Muni operators union agrees to new contract with SFMTA
Unionized Muni operators voted Thursday to ratify a new contract with The City, about two weeks after voting down the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s previous proposal, according to city officials and union members. The SFMTA Board of Directors announced during a special meeting Thursday afternoon that transit operators represented by Transport Workers Union Local 250A — which also represents fare inspectors and automotive service workers among other employees — voted to ratify the proposal that same day. ...
Parents say they’re miffed over SF school board’s public-comment rules
Parents are saying the San Francisco Board of Education’s recent decisions to enforce a hard deadline on public comment at its weekly meetings, and to prioritize in-person speakers, are limiting civic engagement. The school board is one of a few remaining legislative bodies in The City allowing for virtual participation, a vestige of the COVID-19 pandemic, after most of its peers ended the practice last year. For the last several meetings, the board has prioritized student speakers — whether they are attending in person or...
Parents say they’re miffed over SF school board’s public-comment rules
Parents are saying the San Francisco Board of Education’s recent decisions to enforce a hard deadline on public comment at its weekly meetings, and to prioritize in-person speakers, are limiting civic engagement. The school board is one of a few remaining legislative bodies in The City allowing for virtual participation, a vestige of the COVID-19 pandemic, after most of its peers ended the practice last year. For the last several meetings, the board has prioritized student speakers — whether they are attending in person or...
New tenants coming to troubled Emporium Centre San Francisco
Seven new tenants have signed leases in the troubled Emporium Centre San Francisco, the giant downtown mall announced Thursday, including a city-backed program that gets young people paid internships, a company that provides local sidewalk-cleaning services, and several retailers. The new leases offered some good news for the half-empty shopping center, which a San Francisco Superior Court placed into receivership last October after the mall’s owners said they would walk away from their mortgage. ...
Experts say SCOTUS abortion-pill ruling is ‘a reprieve, rather than a win’
San Francisco reproductive-health experts said the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling Thursday that preserved access to mifepristone — commonly referred to as the abortion pill — was good news, but not necessarily the end of the legal road. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone in 2000. Its usage — in conjunction with another pill, misoprostol — has become a widely accessible method of inducing an abortion. In 2021, the FDA eased regulations on the pill, no longer requiring an in-person visit for a prescription. ...
Where San Francisco gas prices stand two years after historic high
Two years since San Franciscans’ pain at the pump rose to a historic high, gasoline prices in The City have largely eased. But they still remain among the priciest in the nation. Experts say it’s tough to predict where gas prices will trend into the summer months because of how many variables remain in flux. The good news, they said, is that if gas costs remain exorbitant in California, that could further fuel people’s eagerness to switch to electric vehicles. ...
Chinatown’s newest eatery is ode to one of China’s most popular street foods
Rice rolls in Guangdong province, China, are as common as pizza or hot dogs in America. But despite the dish’s popularity — and the fact that much of The City’s Chinese population is originally from Guangdong — few restaurants in San Francisco specialize in the silky rice noodles wrapped around minced shrimp or pork and then smothered in soy sauce. Tom Zhen and his family are hoping to change that. Later this month, the Zhens are opening Rice Roll Express in a small storefront at...
San Francisco mayoral candidates spar in first 2024 debate
The first debate between the five prominent San Francisco mayoral candidates demonstrated the difference in their personalities and personal experience. The debate Wednesday evening at the Sydney Goldstein Theater featured few fireworks but forced each to defend their records and elucidate their plans to address The City’s most pressing problems, including concerns over public safety, fentanyl overdoses, persistent homelessness and a beleaguered downtown economy. Previous events had featured the candidates...
Trans advocates eager to see what comes next for SF as a sanctuary city
LGBTQ+ advocates and community leaders said Wednesday they welcomed the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ unanimous declaration this week that The City is a sanctuary for transgender, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary and two-spirit people. But, they said, San Francisco can’t live up to that promise without providing much-needed support services and other forms of assistance. “Though the work is far from over, this declaration sends a clear message to the rest of...
Report: SF lacks ‘comprehensive funding plan’ to fight climate change
San Francisco is not prepared for the looming effects of climate change. That’s according to a new report from a government oversight group that found numerous shortcomings with a multiagency program created by Mayor London Breed and designed to spearhead San Francisco’s climate-change preparations. In a report titled “Come Hell or High Water,” the San Francisco civil grand jury wrote that The City lacks “a comprehensive funding plan for climate...
Fiscal advisors say SFUSD must plan job, program cuts
Fiscal advisors told the San Francisco Board of Education this week that The City’s school district will have to cut programs and lay off workers — in addition to already planned school closures — to stave off a possible state takeover. The San Francisco Unified School District is staring down a $420 million deficit at the start of the 2025-26 academic year in the absence of such measures, and state auditors said last month that the system has a high risk of bankruptcy. ...
SF poised to rethink redistricting after major controversy
A new effort has set its sights on remaking how San Francisco draws the borders of its 11 supervisorial districts through a change to The City’s primary governing document. The proposal aims to prevent gerrymandering, which is when electoral districts are unfairly drawn to favor certain political factions or demographics. Board of Supervisors Aaron Peskin and a coalition of good-government groups backing the proposal say they want politicians as far...
Why voters should watch San Francisco’s mayoral debates
Let me let you in on a poorly kept secret. Politicians don’t make statements; paid communications professionals make statements. That’s why I suggest you tune into the mayoral debate this week and the several others taking place before the November election. After more than a decade of reporting on local government and politics in cities of all sizes, my assessment of the value of candidate debates has usually amounted to...
Lake Merced RV dwellers ramp up protest as long-feared eviction looms
They’ve been asking city officials to help them relocate to a city-backed safe parking site for years. But now time is quickly running out for the dozens of families living in RVs along Winston Drive near Lake Merced as the city prepares to begin a road improvement project sometime next month. Facing impending displacement, the residents and their advocates staged a rally Tuesday morning in a last-ditch effort to press their demands and ask the city to reconsider its plans. ...
Play Debate Bingo as five SF mayoral candidates share stage
Wednesday marks the first time in which all five of San Francisco’s main mayoral candidates will share the stage in a debate. City Arts and Lectures will host all five candidates, co-presenting the event alongside Manny’s. In-person tickets are sold out, but you can stream it from home for $11.75. As the candidates take center stage together for the first time, so, too, will the 2024 mayoral election’s key issues. With that in mind, The Examiner compiled the key terms, subjects, phrases, people and cliches sure to be mentioned during Wednesday night’s debate, presenting them in easy-to-follow bingo cards. Wednesday’s paper includes one, with five others shared on our website, social-media platforms and within our newsletter. Play along with your friends and family, and tag us on social media —@sfexaminer on Facebook, Instagram, X and Linkedin — when you pull off bingo.
State lawmakers aim to keep farmers market funding intact
As California faces a looming budget deficit and looks to tighten its belt, thousands of low-income San Franciscans and several farmers markets could lose a state benefit that increases access to fresh produce for food-insecure families and provides extra funds to small farms throughout the state. But now, the Legislature is fighting to keep the Market Match program, operated through the California Nutrition Incentive Program in its most recently proposed budget. Lawmakers must pass a budget bill by Saturday under the state’s Constitution. ...
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