Most SF Ballot Measures Will Win

Posted August 30, 2016 by Randy Shaw

Despite complaints over San Francisco’s many ballot initiatives (24) (“Politicians Create SF Ballot Mess”), the official arguments filed last week show that most will win. Even high-profile measures—-the City College parcel tax, the transferring of responsibility for street trees to
Read More »

California’s Bail System: Reform or Abolish? (Part 2)— Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice

Posted August 30, 2016 by Rebecca Wegley

// The U.S. Department of Justice recently stated that holding people in jail simply because they cannot afford to post bail violates their Fourteenth Amendment rights under the US Constitution. In an amicus brief, Justice Department attorneys called for judges
Read More »

Legacy Businesses Need Legacy Neighborhoods

Posted August 29, 2016 by Randy Shaw

In their August 27 NY Times Op-Art, “New York’s Disappearing Storefronts,” Jayne Merkel and Julia Wertz describe how rising rents have hurt “the city’s street level fabric.” Sound familiar? The authors are apparently unaware of San Francisco Supervisor David Campos’
Read More »

Key Democrats Could Deny Farm Workers Overtime Pay

Posted August 29, 2016 by David Bacon

(Editor’s Note: The Assembly passed the overtime bill on August 29) As Assembly Bill 1066, which would grant overtime pay to California farm workers, heads for a vote in the Assembly, farm workers and faith and civil rights groups are
Read More »

Labor Unions, Not Anti-Immigrant Attacks, Drive Latino Voting

Posted August 29, 2016 by Randy Shaw

So-Called Prop 187 Effect is Really the Labor Union Effect An August 27, 2016 NY Times article on Latino voting (“As Trump Repels Minority Voters; GOP Fears its Future in the West,”), echoes a common but wrong explanation for Latino
Read More »

Celebrating Warren Hinckle, Journalist Who Brought Heat to Thousands of SF Tenants

Posted August 25, 2016 by Randy Shaw

A Giant of Reporting the Likes of Which SF May Never See Again Warren Hinckle has died at age 77. I met Hinckle in 1982, and worked closely with him on stories from then through the 1990’s. This larger than
Read More »

California’s Epic Housing Fail

Posted August 25, 2016 by Randy Shaw

California will not be spending $400 million for affordable housing this year, thanks to a mammoth strategic screw-up that should embarrass a state with a Democratic Governor and Democratic-controlled Legislature. While the legislative session has not ended, the deal conditioning
Read More »

Goodbye to the Loudest Drunk in NPR’s Online Bar

Posted August 25, 2016 by Alicia Shepard

// // // // Once seen as a way to democratize the media, news site commenting sections have become playgrounds for nasty trolls. // // // // Good riddance to NPR’s comment section, which is shutting down Tuesday after eight
Read More »