Tuesday’s statewide election features a controversial industry-backed proposition that would amend the California Constitution to require a two-thirds vote before a community could change its energy provider. The largest tonnage of paper political ads flooding mailboxes in San Francisco sport a variety of images — some ominous, some silly and sarcastic — but the same message: Proposition 16, the “Taxpayers Right to Vote Act,” protects voters from spendthrift politicians. But the ads, paid for mostly by incumbent power provider Pacific Gas & Electric Co., are misleading in a few important ways.
Category: Economy & Business
Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Land use
Supervisors support fee deferment to encourage building in the city
Although one supervisor questioned whether allowing developers to delay paying some fees would spur building in the city, officials say the accommodation will create more jobs and spur the economy.
Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Land use
Two business tax plans aim to encourage new jobs in SF
In an effort to increase revenue and spur the local economy, San Francisco’s Office of the Controller is proposing two revised business tax plans that may end up on the November ballot.
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Posted inEconomy & Business, Law & Justice
Some Lawyers Want to Keep Debt Collection Out of the Courts
Debt collectors are increasingly using litigation as a tool to collect on aging debts. Critics say the practice clogs the courts and turns the credit card companies’ debtor lists into free-fire zones that sometimes target the innocent. In the Bay Area, a coordinated response to these practices is being developed, as a loose-knit group of public-interest lawyers pools resources to fight what they see as a misuse of the court system.
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Posted inCommunity, Economy & Business, Land use
Worldwide micro-lender looks homeward: Q&A with Kiva.org’s Premal Shah
Despite high loan requests and lower repayment rates by borrowers in the country, San Francisco nonprofit microcredit Web site, Kiva, has managed to raise $765,900 since launching its pilot program this past June in the United States. Typically, the organization distributes loans raised on its Web site to microcredit organizations in developing countries that lend it to impoverished entrepreneurs. The impact of the economic downturn on small business owners set the stage for Kiva to establish a program in the U.S. last June.
Posted inEconomy & Business
Seeking to Help Budding Researchers With a Click of the Mouse
Eureka Fund, based in San Francisco, is one of a handful of new nonprofit organizations created to give the general public an opportunity to pay for scientific research that is not fully supported by government or private sources. They are part of a fledgling movement to take the idea of crowd-sourcing and crowd-financing, which has worked in arenas like small business and education, to scientific research.
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 inEconomy & Business
Billy Bragg saved my life
There is something about being unemployed — or underemployed, as it is cutely referred to these days — that puts a crimp in one’s life. What is harsh is the loss of hope that comes with long-term unemployment. It is the constant effort to keep optimistic and on top of things while isolation grinds one down. Unemployment focuses the mind on individual survival, instead of collective solutions. Watching Billy Bragg perform recently at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco was, for me, a desperately needed injection of hope and a reminder that there is a lot more to life than getting by.
Posted inEconomy & Business, Homelessness, Housing, Social Justice
The return of Hooverville: car and tent cities on the rise in San Francisco
San Francisco’s per capita homeless rate has long been the highest in the country. But in the past year, it has shot up 40 percent, by some measures. The increase came as foreclosures put pressure on the rental market, the budget crisis slowed aid, and the job market tightened up.