San Francisco hands back applications to cannabis card users
San Francisco is among the most active cities in California in easing access to medical marijuana, having issued more than one-third of the 47,828 cannabis cards in the state. But unlike surrounding counties, San Francisco has a long-standing practice of handing back the paper applications for cards and not recording the names of patients or the doctors who give them the required recommendations.
To commemorate the centennial of the Angel Island Immigration Station, authors Erika Lee and Judy Yung shed light on the thousands of immigrants who passed through the “Guardian of the Western Gate” in their recently released book “Angel Island: Gateway to America.”
While more than 70 percent of detainees were from China, others came from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Russia, Mexico and more than 70 other countries, a finding they discovered while examining hundreds of documents that were made public in the National Archives’ collection in San Bruno in the 1990s.
Muni’s practice of leaving passengers at light-rail stops before the end of the run and turning around – known as switchback or short-turning – came under heavy criticism before a Board of Supervisors commitee today. The City Operations & Neighborhood service committee, chaired by Supervisor Carmen Chu, wanted to hear solutions to the problem. Chu, who has […]
Police Chief George Gascon was named San Francisco district attorney by outgoing Mayor Gavin Newsom on Sunday and Gascon quickly announced that he would seek election to the post in November. In his final act of office, Newsom swore in Gascon in a hastily arranged ceremony at city hall. The surprise move was the latest in […]
A Toxic Tour reporting project
A year after the dissolution of the Restoration Advisory Board for Hunters Point Shipyard, the Navy says it will introduce a new community involvement plan that it says emphasizes diversity.
The announcement follows the White House’s reconvened interagency effort on environmental justice, which held its first meeting under the Obama administration in September. The group is creating a four-year road map to develop “stronger community relationships” and targets “overburdened communities.” The next meeting is set for April.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 on Friday for City Administrator Edwin Lee to fulfill the remaining term for outgoing Mayor Gavin Newsom. Lee will become the first Asian American mayor of San Francisco when the vote is ratified at next week’s board meeting on Tuesday. Sheriff Michael Hennesey, who was also considered for the position, was rejected by the board 9-2.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors spent eight hours debating who to select as interim mayor to finish Gavin Newsom’s term and ended up delaying any decision until Friday.
Angry lame-duck Supervisor Chris Daly blamed Board President David Chiu for a potential deal to install City Administrator Ed Lee in the post, vowing to “politically haunt you for the biggest fumble in the history of San Francisco politics.”
He then added: “It’s on, like Donkey Kong.”
The Department of Public Works wants residents to stop dumping unwanted items such as furniture and mattresses on city streets through a campaign launched last month and by the threat of fines of up to $1,000.
The department says illegal dumping is costing the city millions of dollars to clean up the mess left behind by residents and contractors. The city is encouraging residents to take advantage of free services offered by Recology Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate.
The San Francisco Police Department and the City Attorney’s Office are also working to find those responsible for dumping construction materials in the Bayview-Hunter Point area.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates Muni and parking and traffic, projects a $21 million budget deficit by the end of the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The latest projections from the agency come at time when new Governor Jerry Brown has said he would like cities and counties to take over some state services […]
In her new book on homelessness in San Francisco, “Hobos, Hustlers and Backsliders,” Teresa Gowan describes how former Mayor Frank Jordan’s framing of the issue in terms of crime and sin evolved into Willie Brown’s conflicted policies, finally emerging as Gavin Newsom’s version of “authoritarian medicalization” policies, most controversially the policy idea that got him elected in 2003, Care Not Cash. This essay condenses some of the discussion of the book (University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
San Francisco, a historical stronghold of the labor movement, civil rights activism and other social movement activity, embodies the tension between valuable public space and progressive politics to a high degree, an important reason for the central position of the “homelessness problem” in the city’s electoral politics over the last 25 years.
