A high-profile effort to focus new Bay Area housing into energy-efficient transit villages is seen as unworkable even as it makes its public debut this summer, say urban planners, because regional government lacks the authority to make cities build dense urban neighborhoods. The three-decade Plan Bay Area, unveiled in May, is the product of more than two years of research on the region’s demographics, economy, transportation and architecture. Proponents say “smart growth” could be the future of the Bay Area — if regional agencies had either the legal tools to enforce the grand vision or enough money to make it worthwhile for cities to participate.
Category: Series
Posted inBack Issues, Bay Area Smart Growth, News
Issue 7: Summer 2012
Regional planners hope to make more of the Bay Area like San Francisco — walkable, BARTable and energy efficient. But “smart growth” is facing resistance from cities, and financial pressure from the cash-strapped state.
Posted inMedia, Muni, Neighborhoods, Transportation
Rerouted bus through heart of Mission District hurts business, neighbors say
Riders and businesses in the Mission District say the rerouting of major Muni bus lines is causing confusion and hurting commerce. The 14-Mission, 14L-Mission and 49-Mission/Van Ness, which usually travel along Mission Street, have been rerouted to South Van Ness since the beginning of March because of a repavement and infrastructure project by the Department of Public Works and Public Utilities Commission. The project affects Mission Street between 16th and Cesar Chavez streets.
Posted inCity Hall, Elections, Muni, Transportation
Muni chief takes aim at swollen overtime budget
City transportation director Ed Reiskin says he hopes to control Muni’s overtime spending in the next fiscal year by budgeting it at $42 million. After budgeting $32 million for this fiscal year, the actual spending is expected to reach $60 million.
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, Human Trafficking, Media, Public Safety
Infamous Berkeley human trafficking case’s long shadow: KALW News interviews reporter Viji Sundaram
The story of Lakireddy Balireddy made international headlines in the early 2000s, but what happened in the decade since then was even more important, said reporter Viji Sundaram of New America Media and part of a team project on human trafficking in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
Last week Sundaram sat down with KALW News host Holly Kernan to discuss her reporting on the history of efforts to battle human trafficking in the Bay Area and California.
Posted inHuman Trafficking, Law & Justice, Public Safety, Social Justice
Citizen petition claims more than 800,000 signatures for anti-trafficking ballot measure
A nearly three-year effort to put a strong anti-human-trafficking law before voters succeeded this week, organizers said, when they counted 873,000 signatures on their petition to put the proposed Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act on the November state ballot. The citizen-led campaign to strengthen criminal penalties against people who traffic teenagers, children and immigrant laborers on the streets of California cities, and over the Internet, has been working on the issue since 2009, when some Fremont residents started a grassroots organizing effort.
Posted inHealth, Healthy SF: Who Pays?, News
City’s health plan risks reverting to safety net for poor
Local, state officials must develop new models for care by 2014
This story appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
San Francisco’s experiment in universal health care, which grew over the last five years to cover an estimated 85 percent of the city’s uninsured, may need to partly return to its origin as a network of safety net clinics and hospitals for the poor as national reforms syphon off middle-class patients. Healthy San Francisco provides medical services to more than 50,000 city residents. But the program could take a financial blow within the next two years as cities and counties adapt to national health reform.
Posted inMuni, News
Muni riders speak out at town hall meeting
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees public transportation in the city, faces a $53 million budget deficit for the next two years. At a meeting in the San Francisco Public Library Wednesday evening, the agency was showing off its budget plan and was getting public feedback. We follow it via Storify.
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, Human Trafficking, Media, Public Safety
Understanding the Bay Area’s human trafficking problem: KPFA News interviews reporter Jason Winshell
The Public Press’ latest print edition cover story, on California’s uncoordinated attack on the problem of human trafficking, has been picked up in a variety of media since the publication of the special team reporting project in the Spring 2012 edition: “Force, Fraud Coercion: Human Trafficking in the Bay Area.” The project was produced in collaboration with New America Media and El Tecolote, San Francisco’s bilingual newspaper. Last week Public Press reporter Jason Winshell was interviewed on KPFA Radio by producer Anthony Fest. Winshell’s lead story showed that four years after a high-profile state task force issued a study, many of its recommendations for better laws, funding and coordination among agencies have yet to materialize.
Posted inCity Hall, Health, Healthy SF: Who Pays?
Some San Francisco firms using legal loophole to skimp on health care cost
A version of this story appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
It’s no wonder there is a hue and cry about an uneven playing field among businesses as they comply with San Francisco’s Health Care Security Ordinance. The law requires most employers to provide health care benefits to workers who put in at least eight hours a week. But an analysis of compliance reports submitted by 15 randomly selected employers to the city’s Labor Standards Enforcement Office finds that they spent wildly different amounts on health benefits per employee in 2010, the most recent year reported.