Health
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With few restrictions and bundles of cash, cannabis ads help sagging media profits

01.17.2011
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Commercial broadcast stations still reluctant to take pot club advertisementsMedical marijuana advertising is taking off, propping up the fortunes of ailing media companies that have seen income from other business sectors plummet in the recession.

Advertisements offering free edibles for new patients and products such as “super silver haze” are helping to keep the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly and East Bay Express in business. Similar ads have even started cropping up — tentatively — in more staid publications, such as the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ads for pot are growing so fast in part because they face fewer regulations and restrictions than marketing materials for cigarettes and alcohol. The only real regulation is one requiring the ads to warn customers that they need a doctor’s recommendation.

City Hall
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Muni drivers try to shift the bulls-eye

07.19.2010
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Hands clasped and brows furrowed, Gabriel Desalla sat quietly for the first half of the Bay Area Transportation Advisory Committee meeting. He is one of 2,172 union workers in the transit agency who are under increasing pressure to make concessions that would restore recently cut Muni services. In a small conference room in Bayview-Hunters Point San Francisco, Desalla waits for committee president, Emanuel Andreas, to open the floor for discussion. The topic, as usual, is the ongoing battle over salaries, health benefits and work rules. The SFMTA says that reforms are needed to improve financial efficiency but many Muni drivers are resistant to the changes proposed. The concessions the city has sought include changes to healthcare benefits for dependents and allowing part-time drivers.

City Hall
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Muni cuts begin Saturday; drivers fear backlash

05.07.2010
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A reduced Muni schedule begins on Saturday, with longer wait times between buses and service that starts later in the day and ends earlier at night. The cuts are part of an effort to close a $12 million budget gap in the current fiscal year’s budget. Drivers are worried that frustrated passengers will vent their anger at them.

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News
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San Francisco gives Web users a peek at lobbyists’ work

04.26.2010
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San Francisco has put lobbyist information on the Ethics Commission website, giving greater access to information about special interests pushing their viewpoints in City Hall. But the site has received some criticism from those who say the site should be easier to use. The new site allows anyone to get answers to questions that had required a trip to the commission’s office.

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Education
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Lesson in SF grade schools: protest education cuts

03.04.2010
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On Thursday, San Francisco public school students as young as 5 will get a real-life learning experience about civic engagement — through protest. Students from kindergarten through college plan to convene at Market and Powell streets in the late afternoon to protest cuts to public education during a coordinated political action called the Rally for California’s Future. Several schools were planning to have students create picket signs in school. On Wednesday, students sat in the parent room at Sheridan Elementary School making signs and banners. But the school district, citing safety, put a stop to a plans for teachers to take students as a field trip.