Sixty-one percent of summertime Muni service cuts would be restored under a financial plan proposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The changes could come as soon as Sept. 4, and are higher than the 50 percent restoration promised earlier in the summer. The $15 million one-year funding package includes money shaved from the San Francisco Transportation Authority and Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The agency also looked at cutting back on hundreds hours drivers are paid while waiting for shift changes.
Category: City Hall
Posted inCity Hall, News
City’s struggle against graffiti tries rewards, murals and profiling
San Francisco’s ongoing battle against graffiti is finally paying off – at least for those turning in taggers to the city’s Graffiti Rewards Program. Anti-graffiti strategies like the reward program have proliferated in the last five years as the Department of Public Works has adopted a mix of law-enforcement and community engagement measures to reduce tagging. City agencies as a whole spend $20 million on graffiti abatement each year.
Posted inCity Hall, Transportation
Chiu and Newsom settle on Muni reforms
The mayor and the president of the board of supervisors this week agreed on several Muni reforms to help the transit agency restore services cut in May and to improve oversight of the agency. The proposed reforms include a plan to fully restore May’s Muni service cuts by December.
Posted inCity Hall, Labor, News, Transportation
Muni drivers try to shift the bulls-eye
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.
Posted inCity Hall, Environment, Land use, Social Justice
Is Bayview the new Gulf of Mexico? Activists see parallels
This week’s debates over environmental approval for the $8 billion redevelopment planned for Bayview brought to the forefront comparisons with neighborhoods in the Gulf of Mexico — both in terms of environmental and racial justice concerns. The neighborhood redevelopment plan passed its latest milestone — the contentious environmental impact report — when the Board of Supervisors gave it a thumbs-up after more than nine hours of debate Wednesday morning, by an 8-3 vote.
Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Land use, Neighborhoods, News
Mid-Market mogul: How Urban Realty quietly cornered San Francisco’s troubled main drag
San Francisco-based developer Urban Realty has been sitting on valuable, mostly vacant real estate on Market Street between Fifth and Sixth for almost six years. Urban Realty principal David Rhoades is waiting for the Planning Commission to approve the proposed CityPlace this month before he unleashes all of his plans.
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Posted inCity Hall, Health
Balanced city budget would restore $25 million to health and social services
City leaders Thursday got closer to bridging a $483 million deficit. The Board of Supervisors budget committee approved a plan that uses savings from across city departments to restore proposed cuts to health and human service programs. It also retains city workers whose jobs the mayor wanted to contract out.
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Posted inCity Hall, Homelessness, News, Social Services
Long-planned closure of homeless shelter sparks controversy
A homeless shelter at 150 Otis St. shut down this month, but will reopen sometime in 2012 as a homeless shelter for veterans. Swords to Plowshares, a nonprofit organization catering to homeless veterans, will run the facility. While homeless activists warn that the city will lose 59 beds, officials maintain they can fill the need because the shelters overall have about 100 vacancies a night.
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Posted inCity Hall, Housing, Land use, News, Treasure Island
Financial upside for developers is long-term and risky, city says
The developers of Treasure Island stand to earn a potential 20.6 percent return on their investments if the 18-year, phased construction plan and land sales proceed as they predict. That does not include possible future real estate sales.
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Posted inCity Hall, Housing, Land use, Neighborhoods, News, Treasure Island
Through two mayors, connected island developers cultivated profitable deal
In the next six months, local officials and a consortium of private developers will begin to finalize legal papers for Treasure Island’s future as a high-density eco-city. Renderings of the gleaming towers, parks and gardens suggest harmony and community. Yet the promise of an urban Treasure Island, one of the most complex and risky redevelopments in San Francisco’s recent history, has for more than a decade been wrapped up in a process driven by power and influence. The mayor got neartotal control. Political friends got plum jobs and contracts. Critics were exiled. City and state conflict-of-interest laws were waived. Independent inquiries and the will of voters were nakedly rebuffed.
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