A tuition refund of $249 or more per semester that the California State University system is planning to give most full-time students will be a godsend for thousands feeling financially pinched in their academic pursuits. But the move will also reduce tuition revenues into the system by about 3 percent this school year.
Yearly Archives: 2012
Posted inNews
Climate Change in Coastal Communities: Riding the Tide
San Francisco Bay is the largest estuary on the Pacific coast of the Americas, and it is a place of great biological diversity. We journey underneath its surface to swim with the harbor seals; we look overhead at a million migratory birds; and we explore marshlands along its shores. This story is part of a media […]
Posted inEconomy & Business, Public Safety, Utilities
How the Profits Upkeep Commission Helps PG&E Pick Your Pocket
The next time you pass a power pole consider this: Pacific Gas & Electric expects that pole to be there until the year 2357 and perhaps until 2785. The average PG&E pole has just nine years of useful life left, according to PG&E’s sworn testimony asking for more money to speed pole replacement. It got money through rate hikes to replace poles on a 50-year cycle, but it has been replacing them on a 346 to 778 year cycle while, by PG&E’s own testimony, diverting that money to other purposes.
Posted inNews
Signs of the Season: From Crab Pot to Stovetop, Dungeness Crabs Arrive
By Jackson Karlenzig, Bay Nature Thanksgiving time marks the start of one of the most exciting sustainable, local food events of the year: Dungeness crab season. This year’s crabbing is expected to be lower than average, due to natural cycles in the crab population. But that hasn’t stopped fishermen like Don Murch of Bolinas from […]
Posted inCity Hall, Muni, Transportation
Muni May Use Extra Funds on Fast Passes for Low-Income Youth, Maintenance
San Francisco transit director Ed Reiskin wants to use $6.7 million in extra regional transportation funds for a 12-month pilot program to hand out free Fast Passes to the city’s low-income youth and to rehabilitate light-rail vehicles.
Posted inNews
Algae Fuel Comes to the Bay Area, but How Ecological Is It?
By Laird Harrison, KQED News Fix To the list of things that started in the Bay Area (blue jeans, sourdough French bread, fortune cookies), you can now add automobile fuel made by algae. Last week, four service stations in Oakland, San Jose, Berkeley and Redwood City became the first in the world to pump the […]
Posted inFood Systems, Government & Politics
Food Bank Looks to Make Up Loss of Federal Funds
Federal food aid cutbacks have forced the San Francisco Food Bank to seek additional cash donations after it failed for a second straight year to receive money from the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
Posted inNews
Climate Change: The Flood Next Time
Chuey Cazares is part of a large extended Chicano family, living in the tiny hamlet of Alviso. Nestled in between salt ponds, on the southern tip of San Francisco Bay, Alviso is at risk of flooding from both the creeks above and the Bay below. Converting the salt ponds back to their original wetlands could […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environment, Government & Politics
With California Carbon Cap-and-Trade Program Launch, Experts Debate Economic Side Effects
At 10 a.m. Wednesday, California’s potentially revolutionary carbon cap-and-trade program launched in a humdrum fashion. Numbers began appearing on a secure Web site accessible to the biggest oil exploration companies, manufacturers, utilities, state regulators and independent monitors. No one outside of this select group got to see its inner workings. But the event marked a new phase in the state’s pioneering effort to halt climate change: actual dollars traded for permits to emit carbon dioxide.
Posted inNews
Garden Grows at Mission District Elementary School
By Erica Hellerstein, Mission Local It’s a noisy Tuesday afternoon on Mission and 16th. Music blares through the crackle of static, tires screech and vendors hawk their wares. But just one block down from the raucous intersection, the soundtrack of Mission life melts away. At the Marshall Elementary School garden, students sift through soil and […]