The bad news is that state funding for California libraries has been completely eliminated. There’s not really any good news about that, except that it was expected. This past July, state library funding was sliced in half, and there was a trigger amendment attached to the budget that would eliminate state funding for public libraries at midyear if the state’s revenue projections were not met. Needless to say, they weren’t.
Yearly Archives: 2012
Posted inCity Hall, Transportation
Taxi officials studying taxi app, passenger feedback
Finding a cab in the city may soon get easier for San Francisco residents and visitors to the city. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation, which oversees taxi services in the city, is working on developing an application to help make it easier for people to find a cab.
Posted inEconomy & Business
Payday loan industry: the stories
Public Press writer Rick Jurgens reported on San Francisco’s payday loan industry in our Winter 2011 print edition. He found that large corporations like Wells Fargo and Credit Suisse are among the biggest backers of these profitable low-finance firms. A subsequent whirl around the world of social media has revealed that payday loans are a fact of financial life for many, and some alternatives do exist.
Posted inLand use
End of redevelopment agencies traps billions in local government loans
More than 400 redevelopment agencies have been officially shuttered, leaving a trail of uncertainty – and a potentially staggering debt load. Across the state, cities and counties have loaned more than $4 billion to their redevelopment agencies over the past few decades, but according to the law governing how agencies will be dissolved, they may not be able to recover that money.
Posted inCommunity, Neighborhoods, Transportation
S.F. transportation agency apologizes, reassesses parking meter plan
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency agreed to assess people’s parking needs block by block in the Mission and other southeastern neighborhoods before installing any new parking meters. That marked a change in the agency’s attitude since a Jan. 13 meeting in which a hearing officer approved the installation of about 5,000 parking meters in several eastern neighborhoods, despite the objections of hundreds of people who spoke unanimously in opposition to the proposal.
Posted inHealth, HIV & AIDS, LGBTQ+
California drugmaker’s HIV prevention pill sparks public health debate
Foster City drugmaker Gilead recently updated its application with the federal Food and Drug Administration for approval to market its HIV treatment medication Truvada as an HIV prevention pill. If the FDA approves Truvada for preventive use, it “would be the first agent indicated for uninfected individuals to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV through sex,” according to a company statement at the time of the filing in December 2011.
Posted inCity Hall, LGBTQ+, Neighborhoods, Parks & Open Space
Ordinance would put restrictions on Castro District plazas
A proposal to regulate two popular Castro District hangouts by restricting chairs and shopping carts is a step closer to becoming city law. The Board of Supervisors will decide Tuesday on an ordinance, which passed the Land Use Committee this week, that would ban nighttime sitting, sleeping, vending, smoking and even pushing a shopping cart in Harvey Milk and Jane Warner Plazas.
Posted inLaw & Justice, News, Public Safety, Social Justice
Fight brewing over historic California plan to close last 3 youth prisons
California, often a trendsetter, could make history if it approves Gov. Jerry Brown’s bid to close all state-run youth prisons and eliminate its state Division of Juvenile Justice. Much depends, though, on whether the state’s politically influential prison guards, probation officers and district attorneys can be convinced — or forced by legislators — to agree to Brown’s proposal. That won’t be an easy sell, due to both public-safety arguments and sure-to-surface haggling over just who pays to house juvenile offenders.
Posted inNews
S.F. supervisors weigh local oversight of FBI terrorism investigations
San Francisco supervisors are considering legislation that will require local control and civilian oversight of terrorism investigations the San Francisco Police Department undertakes with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Calling it “The Portland Solution” because it mirrors a similar ordinance enacted in Oregon, Supervisor Jane Kim said that her legislation does nothing more than restore transparency to intelligence gathering by police officers working with FBI agents.
Posted inNews
Leapin’ lizards — it’s Leap Year again
Storifying has come to SF Public Press. From time to time, we will be gleaning the best from social media to amplify our coverage. This is our first storification: our take on 2012, a Leap Year. We hear from the academics, the artists, the cognescenti on the Mayan apocalypse — as well as many people in the universe of social media who have expressed an opinion on this unique component of the Gregorian calendar.