By Alison Hawkes, Bay Nature With New Year’s Eve just approaching, you may find yourself staring at the heavens and wondering what 2013 portends. If you’re lucky and put yourself in just the right spot at midnight, you may be able to see the second-brightest star in the sky that’s normally invisible to much of […]
Yearly Archives: 2012
Posted inNews
Targeted by Gangs and Thieves, Growing Mayan Community Demands Translators
By Rigoberto Hernandez, Mission Local The killing of a beloved cook in October was the latest in what the Mexican consulate general in San Francisco says are targeted attacks against the city’s Mayan community. “This is something that we are very worried about,” said Carlos Isauro Felix-Diaz, the consul general. “For us, it’s fundamental to […]
Posted inNews
Local TV Archivist Restores Lost Bay Area History
By Sam Harnett, KQED News Fix When San Francisco Bay Area Television archivist Alex Cherian got a telephone call from ex-film editor Dave Peoples, he got excited. Peoples, who had worked at local station KRON-4, was offering outtakes, long stretches of B-roll that provided an intimate and unedited glimpse of historical events in the area. […]
Posted inNews
S.F. Juvenile Probation Chief Explores Arming Officers
By Amy Julia Harris, Bay Citizen The head of San Francisco’s juvenile probation department, troubled by a Mission District shooting between police and a former juvenile offender, is weighing whether to allow probation officers who deal with young criminals to begin carrying handguns. William Siffermann, San Francisco’s chief juvenile probation officer, is quietly attempting to […]
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S.F. Tenants Call for End to Ellis Act
By Jamie Goldberg, Mission Local Roberto Alfaro Sr., 67, has lived in his Mission District apartment at 164 Lucky St. for 27 years. Ana Gutierrez, 66, has lived in the unit next door for 34 years. Both are retired, disabled and living on a fixed income. These are the only San Francisco apartments they have […]
Posted inEnvironment, Government & Politics, Utilities
Dirtytech: They Obsessively Sort and Recycle What You Dump
If you think of Recology as a set of blue, green and black bins that hang out in the alley of your house that you roll out to the curb weekly — you have no idea. Over the last 10 years, what San Franciscans have been thinking of “garbage collection” has been transformed into something vastly different and much more industrial. Last month the 91-year-old worker-owned company announced that 80 percent of what San Franciscans put in the bins is going somewhere other than the landfill, a vast improvement on the 34 percent national average. The 650 tons a day of recyclables hauled by Recology is divided up almost entirely by hand, by a vast army of sorters.
Posted inNews
The Corner Grocery: Creating Community
By City Visions, KALW Can the corner grocery store bring prosperity to a community? Consumers are making more trips to drug-, club and dollar stores, and taking precious community money out of their neighborhoods. City Visions talks with Bay Area businesses that are recirculating the food dollars to bring health and wealth to local residents, […]
Posted inNews
Battle to Save City College Divides Teachers and Administration
By Jamie Goldberg, Mission Local Over 100 Christmas carolers recently braved a cold night to sing outside the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees meeting. The chorus included faculty, staff and students who earlier had lobbied for San Francisco’s Proposition A, a parcel tax touted as a measure to save City College. But, […]
Posted inNews
Nonprofit Groups Wade Into Political Giving
By Amy Julia Harris, Bay Citizen As executive director of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, Scott Staub raises money to give to the city’s libraries. In his spare time, he raises money to give to politicians. Staub heads a political action committee that is attempting to increase the political clout of the […]
Posted inArts & Culture, City Hall, Government & Politics, Homelessness, News
‘Homeless Bill of Rights’ Seeks Legal Protections for Those on the Streets
A new push for a statewide “Homeless Bill of Rights” could lead to free legal representation for anyone citied under laws such as San Francisco’s sit-lie law or anti-panhandling ordinance. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced Assembly Bill 5, as a response to what he said was a national trend of enforcing laws on public […]