San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/category/politics/)
Demonstrators in Hong Kong have been demanding more democratic freedoms, as well as an inquiry into police use of force and the release of detained protesters. As millions have taken to the streets and participated in other actions, clashes between police and protesters have turned violent. Here in the Bay Area, people from Hong Kong have been paying close attention, organizing solidarity actions and strategizing about how to stay involved from afar.
Young people have led the way on major social and political movements in recent years, from climate action to Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Youth have also been mobilizing to get the right to engage more directly, through local elections.
Hundreds marched through San Francisco on Friday afternoon to mark Juneteenth, protesting police killings and calling for racial justice. The San Francisco Public Press followed the demonstration, which made its way from the Ferry Building to City Hall and then on to the school district building. Read updates from the march below, and hear a compilation of reflections from demonstrators in this recent episode of our radio program and podcast, “Civic.”
4:25 p.m.
With some 250 protesters still in front of the school district administrative building on Franklin Street, Indigenous dancers performed a ceremony while protesters sat and knelt. Lexi Hall sang “Lean On Me” with some demonstrators occasionally chiming in for the chorus.
“I think it’s definitely important for the youth to be a voice for the Black Lives Matter movement,” said Hall. “And we all came together, all of the creatives in San Francisco to put on a show and celebrate Juneteenth for the city.”
Hall’s partner, 19-year-old rapper Xanubis, had performed several times at the march that day. Xanubis and Lexi Hall.
Public Press reporters were in the thick of Sunday’s march over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Proposition F would add restrictions and requirements to campaign contributions in city elections.
Corporations are already barred from donating to campaigns, but this ballot measure would extend that ban to other entities: limited liability companies and limited partnerships.
The measure would also restrict contributions from people with a financial interest in big development projects pending before the city.
Finally, Proposition F would expand the requirements for disclaimers on campaign advertisements. Any ad funded by an independent political committee would have to name that committee’s top three financial contributors, and how much they paid.
If you want to hear more analysis of Proposition F, click below to hear from San Francisco State University associate professor of political science Jason McDaniel.
More people voted in this election than in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president.
San Francisco is not the only city in a housing crisis. The multi-year plan proposed by Mayor Ed Lee bears some similarities to those proposed by Bill de Blasio, the new mayor of New York, where even last week a major initiative advanced to fix older affordable buildings. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
President Barack Obama will soon announce a plan to limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, making tackling climate change a second term priority, according to The New York Times.
