Abraham Simmons, the volunteer chairman on the San Francisco civil grand jury report on truancy, says the situation in San Francisco hasn’t changed much in the past seven years: around 5,000 students are habitually truant each year.
Category: City Hall
Posted inCity Hall, Land use
In crackdown, SF abandoned building fee hiked ninefold
In a shift that suggests a new zero-tolerance stance on blight, San Francisco officials said Friday they would raise the annual fee to “register” more than 200 abandoned buildings to $6,885 each, the maximum allowable under a recent city ordinance. “We’re going for the full amount,” said William Strawn, a spokesman for the Department of Building Inspection. “We have to make people aware that this is a new law and we’re going to enforce it.”
Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Social Justice
City to carve out more contracts for ‘micro’ businesses
In a bid to make it easier for local businesses to grow in a down economy, San Francisco supervisors want to give more small, city-based firms a competitive edge in city contracts.
Posted inCensus, City Hall, Homelessness, News
Census methods could provide lift to hidden homeless
The 2010 Census may address an old problem in dealing with San Francisco’s homeless population by getting an accurate head count. The city’s homeless figures have ranged between about 6,500 and 8,600 people in the last decade, but the real number is anybody’s guess. The sketchy knowledge of who is living on the street has been a big impediment to perennial attempts to solve the crisis.
Posted inCity Budget Watchdog, City Hall, Labor
City finds millions to rehire laid-off nurses, clerical workers
San Francisco city leaders have found an extra pot of $8 million they hope to use as a patch on the summer’s tattered budget, potentially rescuing more than 500 frontline workers already given pink slips or downgraded to lower-paying jobs.
Posted inCity Hall, Elections, News
Special sign district on SF’s Mid-Market faces ‘uphill battle’
Warfield Building owner David Addington said he spent several years, working to bring general advertising back on Market Street from Fifth to Seventh streets, in hopes of returning the central city stretch to its former glory days as a theater district.
Although his enthusiasm for the special district hasn’t dimmed, a sense of reality has crept in as opposition to the initiative, Proposition D, mounts.
Posted inCity Hall, Elections, News
Half reviewed signs are ‘illegal’
Planning Department Ombudsman Dan Sider probably knows more about billboards than anyone in the city.
Posted inCity Hall, Immigration
Campos coalition set to overturn Newsom’s juvenile immigration policy
San Francisco is poised to overturn a policy, set by the mayor last year, that lets police turn over to immigration authorities minors who are suspected of felonies.
Posted inCity Budget Watchdog, City Hall, Health, News
SF leaders float drink fee to help balance budget
San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos is crafting a proposal that would place a fee on alcohol sold in the city, potentially raising $25 million to $35 million annually to help pay for alcohol-related public health and criminal justice costs.
Posted inCity Budget Watchdog, City Hall, Health, Labor, News, Social Justice
San Francisco layoffs disproportionately hit women and minorities, workers assert
As the city shrinks its payroll, sending layoff notices to certified nursing assistants and clerical staff, it is touching off accusations from organized labor that officials are discriminating against women and minority workers.