INDIANAPOLIS – The NFL will enter the final quarter of the season with this week’s games.

Week 14 is the last weekend in which teams have a bye. After Monday night, every team will have played 13 games with four left on their schedule. Weeks 15-18 will feature a full slate of 16 games.

Our “Big Game Bound” marquee matchup this week is Tampa Bay at San Francisco as the 49ers try to win their sixth straight game.

BGB host Chris Hagan talks with KRON’s Kate Rooney about whether or not the Niners can keep the good times rolling now that quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is out with a foot injury.

This week’s show features reports from the Raiders, Bills and Giants. We’ll also check in with former NFL running back Jarrett Payton for his weekly picks.

“Big Game Bound” streams every Thursday at 12 pm ET leading up to Super Bowl LVII in Arizona.

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As San Francisco focused much of its attention in recent months on drug sales and homelessness in the Tenderloin, street conditions in the nearby Mission District continued to deteriorate.

The neighborhood’s number of tents and other inhabited street structures has grown from a little more than 70 last June to about 100 now, according to periodic counts conducted by the city. Sidewalks along Mission Street, particularly near its BART stations, have become flourishing markets for unregulated merchandise sales. Residents are also concerned about trash and a series of fires, one of which recently displaced 22 people and damaged a popular taqueria.

Now, community leaders in the mission and local officials are attempting to help the neighborhood’s growing unhoused population while placing tighter controls on street vending and garbage, among other efforts.

“This is the overall feeling of a neighborhood in chaos,” said Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission and recently crafted a plan to address what she has called “unacceptable” street conditions.

Ronen said she was, in part, trying to redirect some of the San Francisco government’s attention from the Tenderloin, where Mayor London Breed declared a 90-day state of emergency that expired this month. Though Ronen supported that declaration, she wants to do what she can to prevent the Mission from following in the Tenderloin’s footsteps.

The encampments in Ronen’s district are not as numerous as they were when she first took her seat on the Board of Supervisors five years ago, she said. But the population of those living on the streets has grown recently, as have the ranks of street vendors. In her view, the problem was compounded when San Francisco directed much of its focus squarely on the tenderloin and its long-running crises of homelessness, public drug sales and opioid overdoses.

The confluence of all those events “made the Mission a disaster again,” Ronen said.

“I just feel so much sympathy and so much anger for all of my constituents: the businesses, the housed residents and the unhoused residents,” Ronen said. “We are failing the people of the mission. It’s unacceptable.”

Ronen’s plan for the mission includes recently passed legislation on street vending as well as various objectives to move more unhoused people inside, increase trash pickups and prevent street fires.

After talking to Ronen’s office, the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing in April plans to reopen 53 shelter beds in the Mission that were previously closed due to COVID-19. The Healthy Streets Operations Center, a citywide effort to address encampments, has started visiting Mission encampments weekly, trying to get unhoused people placed into shelter or a long-term home.

Public Works is stepping up its power-washing of trash cans around Mission Street BART plazas and educating merchants about how to properly dispose of cardboard so it doesn’t litter streets and become a fire hazard. Ronen’s office is also talking to Recology about how to keep the streets cleaner and working with public safety officials on other ways to prevent fires.

Another issue affecting the neighborhood is street vending. People have long set up on the neighborhood’s sidewalks to sell flowers, fruit and other things to passersby. But community leaders say the scene grew much more crowded after the COVID-19 economic blow that was hardest on low-wage workers who lost jobs.

Dennis Romero (l to r), makes a purchase from Jerome Allen, El; who is navigating homelessness, along the sidewalk on Mission at 24th Street on Thursday, March 24, 2022 in San Francisco, Calif.Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

Some people who felt like they had no other options may have turned to street vending. Rising homelessness contributed to the problem.

But while many sellers are legitimate, others may be hawking stolen goods. And merchants say the rampant amount of unregulated vending has been hurting their businesses. The city recently passed an ordinance to require vendors to get a permit and maintain proof of ownership or other authorization to sell goods.

“Vending in our community is part of its makeup. It’s part of the flavor that we’ve always had,” said Susana Rojas, executive director of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District. “Because of the pandemic and the economic downturn, we have people who are vending other items and who are not necessarily fully connected to the community.”

William Ortiz-Cartagena, a San Francisco entrepreneur who was born and raised in the Mission, is planning to soon open a storefront on Mission Street where 20 to 30 vendors can come off the streets and sell their goods inside. Clecha, a nonprofit founded by Ortiz-Cartagena, already has an agreement with a vacant store’s owner to launch the project, he said.

He envisions it looking like an indoor flea market, filled with people selling their wares but also tables in the back that offer services for small businesses and local residents.

“It’s basically a garage sale,” Ortiz-Cartagena said. “In the suburbs, nobody is out there penalizing people for setting up shops in their driveway. If you want to look at it through that particular lens, we’re doing the same thing.”

One of numerous people selling goods next to the 24th Street BART station recently was Jerome Allen El, 54, to an unhoused man who said he was sleeping on the street about one block away.

Laid out on the sidewalk by his feet was a cornucopia of items: shoes, jeans, moisturizer, even a fan and a flashlight. Everything was available for purchase, much of it for as little as $1.

Allen El, a longtime San Francisco resident, usually leaves the plaza each day with about $20 or $30 in his pocket, after paying people who help him out. He said he typically buys the goods from others or receives donations, and his proceeds help him meet basic needs such as food and clothes washing.

“I’m not trying to get rich,” he said. “I’m just trying to get by.”

Rojas’ organization, Calle 24, has been trying to inform the community about the new city law on street vending. But she and other local leaders knowing the neighborhood won’t see enough improvement by focusing on street vending alone.

“We can give all of our vendors a permit, but what’s going to happen to the people who are struggling the most?” Rojas said. “We can’t just continue to punish them and forget that they’re humans and that they’re part of our community (too).”

The street-vending increase has been hard on some of the Mission’s stores. Ronen, the supervisor, has spoken about business owners who have called her in tears because the influx of street vendors were obstructing sidewalks, deterring customers and in some cases selling the same items for much cheaper prices.

Street vendors and customers crowd the sidewalk around the 24th St. Mission BART Station on March 24.

Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

Ryen Motzek, the president of the Mission Merchants Association, who has worked in the neighborhood for 20 years, said he’s never seen anything like the current street conditions.

“Every neighborhood has its challenges, but this is a whole other level,” Motzek said. “It’s really affecting the mom and pop businesses the hardest. It’s devastating.”

Capt. Gavin McEachern of the San Francisco Police Department’s Mission Station acknowledged that quality-of-life issues in the neighborhood are widespread, which he partly attributed to consequences of the pandemic.

“It’s pretty bad,” McEachern said. “Not only visually, but I just think the sheer volume of things that we’re seeing is pretty daunting … It doesn’t look comfortable in the district and it doesn’t feel comfortable.”

McEachern said his officers’ work in the Mission is hampered partly by low staffing levels — a problem throughout SFPD. The station is down about 12 officers since October, when McEachern took the helm temporarily before assuming the role permanently in January.

“Traditionally, Mission Station is one of the biggest-staffed stations,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s ever been this low.”

McEachern said he has also been sending some Mission-based police officers to the Tenderloin, often through voluntary overtime but sometimes using on-duty personnel if no one steps up. On Wednesdays, when Mission Station is at maximum staffing levels, a handful of officers go to the tenderloin as a matter of course.

As Ronen and her office push the city to shift more of its focus back to the mission, local community groups aren’t waiting for the government to fix everything. Rojas said Calle 24 plans to have quarterly trash cleanups within the district’s boundaries, set to the north and south by 22nd Street and Cesar Chavez Street and to the east and west by Potrero Avenue and Mission Street. The first cleanup is scheduled for May 7th.

To Rojas, it’s part of her belief in the interconnected nature of the issues facing the Mission and San Francisco overall.

“It all goes in a cycle,” she said. “If we really look at the root of what’s going on, we can address core issues and find better, sustainable solutions.”

JD Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

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“It was very bad, we were scared to come in, basically a ghost town here,” said Jacques Oskanian.

Jacques Osaknian has owned a stationary store in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center for eight years. He’s still waiting for many customers to return, some of them office workers.

“I never thought of shutting down our business. That’s our bread and butter,” she said.

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

Now, there are encouraging signs like more people on the streets and more commuters in their cars, headed to work.

Google announced Wednesday it plans to start a hybrid work model on April 4. Bay Area employees must work three days in the office, the other two from home.

RELATED: Will San Francisco’s Financial District Ever Bounce Back?

“There’s still a need for face-to-face interaction and creativity, looking forward to those companies coming back to San Francisco employees on the street with small businesses benefiting,” said Rodney Fong, President and CEO of San Francisco’s Chamber of Commerce.

Some workers are in no hurry to get back. Vic Leung is spending just one day in the office.

“I enjoy the people connection I miss it, it’s a good hybrid for me,” Leung said.

VIDEO: High-tech projection mapping aims to bring people back to San Francisco

Mayor London Breed is pushing for more employers to bring workers back to the business district.

Mayor Breed’s office released a statement, saying in part:
“The mayor has been working with organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and talking to business leaders about announcing a shared commitment to return to the office… We will have more specifics soon… There is a lot of support for San Francisco and bringing workers back, though we know things will look different moving forward to allow for flexibility in the workplace.”

Experts say weekly office attendance is about 25 percent, with a slow uptick forward.

“Our calculations say buildings are ready and safe, now we need the right mentality. It’s time to come back to the city,” said John Bryant from Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco.

SF Travel reports a 20-percent increase in bookings at the Moscone Center since December, the busiest month is expected to be June.

RELATED: Hotels seeing higher occupancy rates near SF’s Union Square

With more encouraging signs on the road back to normal, Jacques is optimistic.

“I see movement, things are going better and better,” he said.

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The post When will employees return to workplaces in San Francisco? Mayor, enterprise leaders plan to work with employers to convey them again appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Officials in the South San Francisco Unified School District are considering possible plans to launch a new transition kindergarten program that would align with state goals to expand early education opportunities, but without additional state funding.

With the adoption of Bill 130 by the State Assembly, school districts must now develop a plan to offer all 4-year-olds a transitional kindergarten by June 30, 2022, the first year of a two-year kindergarten program, with full implementation by the school year 2025-26.

“It’s really about providing fair opportunities for all students so that when they enter the K-12 system they have all the skills and basic knowledge to be successful throughout their school years,” said District Superintendent Dr. Shawnterra Moore during a board meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 15.

But as a community-funded district, which means that most of the SSFUSD’s budget is funded through property taxes, the district does not receive government funding for admitting the new students unless the student comes from a low-income household or an underserved community.

Without government funding, civil servants will have to develop a program within the existing budget by 2023 that can accommodate 48 students between two classes with an adult to 12 student ratio.

Ted O, deputy superintendent of Business Services, said the district will receive $ 200,000 in one-time funding from the state and could receive an additional government-backed grant of up to $ 200,000 for infrastructure needs like retrofitting a building or paying teachers receive wages. But the district would have to top up the contribution it receives.

“I understand very well that we’re going to have to be doing some kind of magic if we’re going to apply for funding,” said vice president of the board, Mina Richardson.

The districts with the most underserved students also have priority for these dollars. These numbers are based on applications for the free or discounted lunch program. Dr. Jay Spaulding, assistant director of human resources and student services, said the number of students enrolled in the program has fallen from 42% to 32% in recent years as government measures have been put in place to fund school meals for all students regardless of income level .

“And that was the Catch-22. It’s amazing that we have free lunch for all students, but I think it has made some families feel like applying for the program, ”said President John Baker.

Alternatively, a drop in enrollments that has plagued the state could be seen as a benefit to the district, which must determine how to make room for the new students, Spaulding noted. Over the past eight years, the district has seen enrollments decrease by nearly 13%. The number of kindergarten attendants fell by more than 24% over the same period.

Community-funded districts cannot face fines or other consequences if the program is not set up within the first year, Moore said, adding that more clarity is needed on the matter.

“I don’t want to set it up so that it doesn’t come, but we were told that at that moment when we realized we were still gathering information,” said Moore.

To implement the program, the district has a number of options, including hiring a TC teacher for a class of 12 students, hiring a TC teacher and classified employee for a class of 24, or introducing a morning and evening model , the district, to accept 48 students a day by hiring two TC teachers to split the management.

The first model would cost the district $ 110,674 per class of 12, the second $ 79,837 per 12 students or $ 159,674 for 24, and the third $ 55,737 per class of 12 students, but $ 222,948 Dollars in total.

Some trustees supported the third option, but the district must support community contributions before it can agree on a plan. Baker said it could be difficult to interview parents who are unaware of possible program configurations.

“It’s really important to know that the option will really drive potential demand,” said Baker.

Richardson argued that a survey would not get enough responses from the community, pointing to previous efforts with little interaction. Instead, she suggested that the board set up a volunteer parenting committee to examine the options in more detail.

“They would bring a lot of insight that we are likely to miss tonight,” said Richardson.

Ultimately, the board directed staff members to interview parents and the community to gauge their interest in the options. They also directed staff to further investigate the costs and staffing levels required to implement the third option.

Moore said staff would come up with a resolution that the board should pass the next time the matter was discussed, and shared the hope that the state will release additional details on the potential impact if the program does not start immediately.

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By San Francisco Examiner Editorial Board

“We support supportive living. But not in this area. “

You seldom see such honesty in the housing and homelessness debate. Still, these words of Japantown Merchants Association President Richard Hashimoto, reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, undoubtedly reflect the sentiments of many. After all, they’re just a longer way to say “not in my backyard”.

The NIMBY resistance has now thwarted plans to convert a Japantown hotel into 131 housing units for the homeless. The proposed project at the Kimpton Buchanan Hotel on Sutter Street is part of the city’s plan to create 368 new housing units for the homeless with local funding and help from Project Homekey, which provides state and federal funding to convert hotels into permanent housing. The Japantown hotel housed around 100 formerly homeless people during the pandemic, and the hotel’s owner has expressed an interest in selling it.

But the idea is met with resistance from some neighbors who do not want homeless homes on their block. The outcry against the project has caused the city guides to “slow down” the planned project in a city with more than 8,000 homeless people.

District 5 supervisor Dean Preston, who represents Japantown, telegraphed his defeat last week.

“Japantown has a painful history of racist government decisions that have left a legacy of suspicion,” wrote Preston on Twitter. “From internment to redevelopment, we must recognize that making decisions for, rather than with, the J-Town community can reopen the wounds of generations.”

His comment was sharply reprimanded by housing activists, who criticized him for invoking historical trauma to justify opposition to the project.

“Using the history of racism against Japanese Americans to * block homeless homes that disproportionately help non-whites * is SF ‘progressive’ hypocrisy,” wrote Joe Goldman.

“Hello, Japanese here,” tweeted Jennifer Bradshaw, a Vancouver housing activist, “the internment has destroyed my city’s Japantown. This is absolutely no reason to postpone urgently needed supportive housing. “

The SF chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which Preston supported, urged him to “stand up for the unhoused working class.”

Preston’s controversial comments reflected arguments recently put forward by some members of the Japantown community.

“You guys are back on the train with Japanese Americans,” David Ashizawa wrote in comments during a public session on Aug. 26, according to Nichi Bei Weekly. “The last time that happened we ended up in camps.”

Others pointed to the trauma of the complicated history of the redevelopment in the Japantown area. In the 1960s, some members of both the Asian and black communities organized protests against the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency’s plan to demolish homes and businesses for a tourist-oriented Japantown project and evict residents and businesses. At one point, black activists even stood in front of bulldozers to demand affordable housing.

When the new Japanese commercial and cultural center opened in 1968, Mayor Joseph Alioto boasted that the project “emerged from an ugly ghetto,” wrote Meredith Oda in “The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco.” ”

In September 1974, over 100 Japanese residents marched to protest evictions in connection with a second phase of redevelopment.

“The group complained that the agency was evicting tenants from the four-block area – called Nihonmachi – between Post and Bush, Laguna and Webster Streets, and leaving their buildings uninhabited,” The Examiner wrote at the time.

“We saw over 1,500 small businesses, local residents and workers evicted from our community,” said Saichi Kawahara, president of an organization called Committee Against Nihonmachi Eviction. “The redevelopment agency is turning our community into a tourist trap.”

Tensions flared again in 1979 when The City considered a proposal to demolish the Victorians in the 1600s block of Laguna, despite opposition from some black leaders and conservationists. One proponent of the demolition argued that the Victorians didn’t belong in the neighborhood because they were “products of European culture”. The proposal was accepted 6 to 1 by the board of the redevelopment agency, with a black pastor giving the only “no” vote.

The Kimpton Buchanan Hotel debate is the newest chapter in the saga. The redevelopment in the Western addition, together with the creation of today’s Japantown, displaced many colored people in the 20th century. In the 21st century, some Japantown residents and business people are now struggling to stop The City from converting a tourist hotel into accommodation for residents displaced out of poverty and a chronic lack of affordable housing.

Obviously, some members of the Japantown community felt taken aback by this suggestion. Some blame the current residents of the hotel for a perceived increase in litter and park violations. Others suggest that the presence of ex-homeless people in the area could lead parents to fetch their children from a nearby preschool.

However, on one of the last days of the week the atmosphere outside the hotel was calm and clean. One block down, an uninhabited man – clearly not a hotel resident – slept in a doorway.

The setback shows the challenge that the leaders of San Francisco face as they try to resolve the human misery that is endemic to our streets. Should they stand up for the poorest and most disenfranchised among us by boldly pushing for tangible solutions? Or will they yield to the NIMBY arguments when they invoke progressive concepts such as racial justice in the service of reactionary positions?

The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is widely viewed as a terrible racist stain in American history, but has nothing to do with the city’s current efforts to shelter the homeless. After all, Japantown isn’t the only neighborhood where such projects are planned – or could meet with opposition. NIMBYs in SoMa are campaigning against a homeless housing project planned for the Panoramic SoMa building in Ninth and Mission, according to Hoodline. In a city with an ugly history of disenfranchisement stemming from the Spanish oppression of the Ohlons, will other neighborhoods resort to historical trauma to exclude the uninhabited?

Preston is now proposing to move the homeless project to two different hotels outside of Japantown. In a letter to Shireen McSpadden, director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Preston said last week that the two hotels would “provide at least 174 units of supportive housing for the ex-homeless.”

Preston denied any suggestion that the existence of supportive housing would harm Japantown, but also said he would also “oppose a zero-sum game in which marginalized residents are pitted against each other.” The Japantown hotel, chosen because it was viewed as the most suitable property for supportive living, is still an option. But Preston is clearly looking for a way out.

How unfortunate. If the city’s elected leaders don’t have the courage to face NIMBYism, at least they should be honest. Posing absurdly on painful historical subjects irrelevant to the homeless crisis only makes San Francisco seem ridiculous.

Perhaps The City should have done a better job of public relations, but Preston and Mayor London Breed shouldn’t let anti-homeless attitudes drive the project elsewhere. If they give in to discrimination against the unhoused in Japantown, they will provide every NIMBY in The City with a simple strategy to block out shelters for its most vulnerable residents.

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In a shocking and possibly illegal act of public absurdity, eight members of the board of directors voted to stop the construction of 495 new housing units on the site of a parking lot in the South of Market neighborhood. They did this by supporting a call for the project’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) last Tuesday.

Regardless of the fact that San Francisco needs fewer parking spaces and more residential units – especially high-density apartment complexes in walkable neighborhoods on public transport routes to alleviate the existential threat posed by global warming. No, get that: the project’s opponents used some environmental protection practice to stop a good, sustainable project that would bring dozens of affordable units to the neighborhood.

“This single project would create more homes than many districts in our city have built in the last 10 years,” said supervisor Matt Haney, who represents SOMA and supports the project, in an interview.

Given the severe housing shortage in San Francisco, 27 stories of new homes on 28,790 square feet of land currently used for car parking could be a welcome addition. Lower Austria. Opponents of the proposed residential tower at 469 Stevenson tossed everything but the kitchen sink at the project in their determined effort to stop it.

Build Inc.’s 469 Stevenson project would not only replace one parking lot with housing, but also include 73 affordable units below market, 40% of which would be reserved for current residents of the city.

“Some of the community benefits that this project brings with it include 4,000 square feet of ground floor retail space dedicated to local nonprofits and retailers,” Lou Vasquez, General Manager of Build Inc. told supervisors. “Half of this is rented to tenants for $ 1 a year and the other half for $ 1 a foot, which is well below current market prices.”

In addition, Vasquez said the project would provide $ 579,000 in funding for community programs, a lot with the capacity for up to 20 additional affordable units, an ancillary fee “equivalent to 50 additional units, and funding for the arts, homeless services, and local employment programs .

Unfortunately, these benefits have not been important to the opposition, which blames private development and housing market development for evil gentrification and a host of other evils.

During Tuesday’s supervisory board hearing, opponents of the project worried about soil integrity and the potential seismic hazard.

They feared that the building’s shadow might spoil the vibrancy of the sparsely populated Mint Plaza.

They vaguely claimed that new housing for the current residents of the city might somehow reduce the historical sites in the area.

They lamented the dreaded specter of gentrification, as if the current use of the site as a valet parking with 176 parking spaces for Nordstrom buyers would benefit communities struggling with housing shortages.

Most of the concerns had nothing to do with the environment, but that hardly matters. If you want to stop a project, abuse of some aspect of California’s Environmental Quality Act is usually the most effective way.

CEQA, signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970, requires local governments to consider a project’s environmental impact, usually through the EIR process. It has been used to block or delay bike lanes, homeless shelters, housing developments, university campuses, and hospitals. It provides a bottleneck for opponents to cause significant delays, with bogus environmental concerns being a fig leaf for NIMBY obstructionism.

It usually takes a CEQA-based lawsuit to cover up progress. However, 469 Stevenson’s opponents found an easier way. Their confused litany of complaints, disguised as an appeal by the EIR, convinced the majority of the overseers. The board voted 8-3 against the project, outweighing Haney’s support.

“I don’t think gentrification is preventing Nordstrom from holding valet parking,” Haney said, noting that the project had many community supporters. “If people are afraid of gentrification, it would help if they built apartments in their neighborhoods. One of the main reasons why we are building so many apartments in SOMA is that other parts of the city are not building apartments. “

On October 2, managers unanimously rejected a project at 450 O’Farrell St., fearing that the 316 micro-unit complex could become “dormitories” for technicians.

“That just doesn’t suit me,” said Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who supported the 469 Stevenson Project along with Haney and Supervisor Ahsha Safaí. “We just turned down a proposed project at O’Farrell for non-family housing, and this adds family housing to our portfolio. I just don’t understand how we can ever build apartments in this city if we continue to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. “

Earlier this month, The City missed an opportunity to convert a Japantown hotel into permanent housing for the homeless after the hotel owner pulled out in the face of opposition from NIMBY. All of this seems strange behavior in a city with 8,000 homeless people and some of the highest rents in the country.

Fortunately, the board’s outrageous vote did not go unnoticed. Housing officials made angry on Twitter, pointing out the absurdity of the decision.

“The San Francisco board of directors used a bill signed by Ronald Reagan to halt a union-backed housing project in the Nordstrom parking lot, citing shadows and gentrification,” tweeted housing attorney Jordan Grimes. “That sentence is both completely correct and completely insane.”

“A geotechnical analysis is indeed required in the CEQA,” tweeted supervisor Myrna Melgar, justifying her vote against the project to critics who accused her of abusing an election promise to support more housing.

The bizarre decision also caused a stir in Sacramento. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday that the California Department of Housing and Community Development is investigating whether the decision may have violated state laws. One of the laws in question? CEQA.

“We want to make sure this project and projects get approved across the state,” Gustavo Velasquez, state housing director, told Chronicle’s JK Dineen. “Whenever one of these cases comes up, we will act carefully if it falls within our remit.”

“If prosecutors find the vote violates state housing law, the city would receive a warning,” Dineen wrote. “If the city still doesn’t approve the housing project, the attorney general could file a lawsuit.”

It’s a sad day that you must pray that the attorney general will sue your city for common sense to prevail. But such is the state of affairs in San Francisco, a besieged city influenced by incompetents who seem to believe they can solve the housing affordability crisis by killing good parking lot preservation projects.

Gil Duran is the opinion editor of the San Francisco Examiner. gduran@sfexaminer.com

The post ‘Absurdity’: San Francisco leaders stall SOMA housing challenge to protect parking zone appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

In this Sept. 26, 2018 photo, Alison Collins, right, speaks during a meeting in San Francisco. | Liz Hafalia / San Francisco Chronicle via AP, file

SAN FRANCISCO – Voters with “recall fever” will decide next year whether they want to recall three members of the San Francisco school board in one of the most significant firing attempts in the country, fueled by parents’ anger over pandemic closures and controversial school renaming, including Senator Dianne Feinstein was considered unworthy.

The city’s electoral department on Monday confirmed a February 15 dismissal for three officials on the San Francisco Education Committee – President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga and Commissioner Alison Collins. Recall supporters filed 80,000 signatures to remove each commissioner, far more than the 50,000 required.

The San Francisco elections were announced just weeks after California voters overwhelmingly rejected the removal of Democratic governor Gavin Newsom. It is the most recent reminder that voters are in a bad mood after a prolonged period of the effects of Covid-19 on their lives, and shows the politicized environment that school principals are increasingly facing.

“Callback fever is alive and well in San Francisco and the voters are all in,” said Democratic strategist Katie Merrill, who supported the effort but had no formal role. “They were angry, they were frustrated with the school board, which” shirked its responsibility during the pandemic – trying to get children back to school. “

Joshua Spivak, one of the country’s foremost recall experts, said Monday that the movement in San Francisco reflects how school board members in particular have been targeted by recalls across the country this year, in some areas due to Covid-19 policy and in others because of fears that schools teach “critical racial theory”.

In 2021 there were around 200 individual attempts – the lion’s share unsuccessful – to recall members of the local California school board, Spivak said. And that makes the San Francisco Board of Education perhaps one of the largest and most momentous of those efforts in the country right now, he said.

Spivak said the “largest and most important recall by the nation in the country’s history” was the removal of school board members in Little Rock, Ark. in 1959 for attempting to maintain segregation.

While most efforts to recall school board members never get to the vote, Spivak said that once they qualify, there is a 75 to 80 percent chance of success, which means that the San Francisco effort is likely to pass with an all-absentee ballot. And with issues that “bridge the partisan divide that makes it even more interesting” – a choice that is being watched across the country, he said.

López and Collins did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Moliga said the recall had little to do with his positions on education.

“Trying to call me back is politically motivated, not educational,” he said. “This electoral process will bring these motives to light, and I look forward to this discussion.”

As with the Newsom recall, the attempt to recall the San Francisco school board was fueled by parents’ frustration with the pandemic policy. San Francisco took weeks longer than other major counties to fully open this spring, despite the city having comparatively low Covid-19 rates, a situation that upset parents who were pushing for classroom instruction.

The board further angered some voters during the pandemic by deciding to end performance-based admission for its elite Lowell High School, a decision that should address racial inequalities.

In perhaps the most sensational move, the board drew national ridicule for its decision in January to remove the names of 44 schools, including President Abraham Lincoln, President George Washington, and Senator Feinstein – all while the actual campuses were closed. The board decided that the historical figures were linked to historical racism or oppression; In Feinstein’s case, it was problematic that in 1984 it replaced a destroyed Confederate flag that had been part of a historical exhibition in City Hall.

The board finally decided in April not to continue the name changes, but not before it was derided by more conservative corners as an example of liberalism going too far.

Lopez’s meandering interview with The New Yorker in February didn’t help, as it seemed to gloss over whether some of the reasons for the decisions were historically correct. Lopez told The New Yorker, “Lincoln is not someone I normally admire or see as a hero because of these specific instances in which he has contributed to the pain of decimation of people – this is not something I want to ignore. “

Collins sued the school district and her fellow board members in March after they voted to remove her from her vice presidency based on tweets she wrote in 2016 criticizing Asian Americans. Collins, who accused Asian Americans of “using white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘move forward”, dropped her $ 87 million lawsuit on the same day in September that callback supporters filed the signatures to try to displace them.

A federal judge had dismissed the lawsuit a month earlier, and Collins chose not to fight it. Lopez was the only board member not named in the lawsuit.

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San Francisco will begin reopening more parts of its economy starting Wednesday, including indoor dining, movie theaters and gyms, an upbeat London Mayor announced when California gave seven counties the green light thanks to declining rates of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and Deaths.

“This is the beginning of a great time in San Francisco, saving you money by not buying plane tickets to visit other places. You can enjoy your city right here now, ”said Breed under the blue skies of Pier 39, a popular tourist area in picturesque Fisherman’s Wharf.

The announcement came almost a year after the San Francisco Bay Area imposed the country’s first lockdown, closing thousands of businesses and forcing residents inside.

San Francisco, with a pre-pandemic population of 900,000, has one of the lowest case and death rates in the country with more than 34,000 cases since the pandemic began and 422 deaths.

San Francisco will begin reopening more parts of the economy starting Wednesday, including indoor dining, movie theaters and gyms, Mayor London Breed told Breed on Tuesday. Pete Suratos reports.

City financial analysts noted that residents have stayed home more than people in other California cities and even in other equally strict counties in the Bay Area, contributing to good public health but also a poor economy.

Most of the state is still limited to outdoor restaurants and museums, including the densely populated boroughs of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego to the south.

San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Napa counties in the Bay Area join four other counties that move out under the most restrictive rules in the state, including reopening indoor dining rooms and movie theaters with a capacity of 25% or up to 100 Open people and gyms and yoga studios with a capacity of 10%. Museums, zoos and aquariums can be opened indoors with a capacity of 25%.

While some sectors were allowed to reopen after case numbers dropped in the summer, operations in San Francisco resumed in early December when the positivity rate rose across the country.

Outdoor dining, outdoor museums, and some indoor and outdoor personal services reopened in late January after the state canceled its regional stay-at-home order, but the economic toll has been grim.

Housing and commercial rents have plummeted as technicians who could work from anywhere fled to other parts of the state and county that were cheaper and had more leeway. Downtown restaurants that once fed crowds of hungry office workers and tourists for lunch have struggled.

Tourism is also struggling, as airline ticket purchases to San Francisco in late October and November fell 80% year-over-year – much worse than the US average – the city’s financial analysts said in a January report.

Breed on Tuesday urged residents to continue to wear masks and maintain proper social distance, even as it encouraged them to explore the city and pump money into the local economy.

“When your waiter comes to your table, put on your mask. When you go to the bathroom, put your mask on, ”she said.

Alcatraz Island, another top tourist attraction for the city, is slated to reopen in mid-March, said Julian Espinoza, spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which also includes Alcatraz.

Breed also announced on social media that another iconic San Francisco landmark will return sometime this year: the rattle of cable cars.

“Cable cars are part of the fabric of San Francisco. They attract tourists, they help our economy, and I won’t just make them go away, “she said.

The districts of El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc and San Luis Obispo were also allowed to reopen on Tuesday.

As more things reopen, Governor Gavin Newsom urges his case to resume classroom learning and urges the state’s public schools to raise $ 2 billion in funding, part of one that he announced with lawmakers Reopening agreements are.

It provides additional funding for districts starting classroom reopening April 1, starting with the youngest classes and students with special needs.

The majority of California’s K-12 public school classes have been closed for a year, including San Francisco, which had to sue its own school district to begin talks about returning children to schools.

Though his plan wouldn’t tell districts to reopen schools, Newsom has urged schools to work harder to get kids back into the classroom as vaccinations spike and positivity rates remain low. He said Tuesday the state’s 7-day positivity rate had dropped to just 2.3% – a record low, the health department said. Nearly 52,500 people have died in the state of nearly 40 million.

“Try it out,” Newsom said Tuesday after a school tour. “We can do the data that backs up science.”

The state’s two largest teacher unions have largely praised the deal, but teachers in Los Angeles called the plan an attempt to force schools to reopen, which would put still unvaccinated teachers at risk.

United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents California’s largest school district, said it was “a recipe for spreading structural racism”.

“If you make funding dependent on schools reopening, that money will only go to white and wealthier and healthier school communities,” union leader Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a statement.

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AP reporters Olga R. Rodriguez and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California also contributed to this story.

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Alice Pena Bulos, Roberta Cerri Teglia and Karyl Matsumoto may soon have their names engraved on the walls of South San Francisco history. The South San Francisco City Council naming committee has recommended renaming the Westborough Recreation Center after Alice Pena Bulos, the Magnolia Center after Roberta Cerri Teglia, and the upcoming Caltrain Station Plaza after Karyl Matsumoto.

Former Mayor Matsumoto has worked hard to bring a new Caltrain station / center to South San Francisco and incorporate her vision of a community space with art, landscaping and accessibility. Born and raised in South San Francisco, Teglia was the city’s first female planning commissioner, councilor, and mayor. She was mayor four times during her city council career from 1978 to 1995. Bulos was a former college professor in the Philippines who was a leader of the Filipino community in the North Peninsula for many years and who lived across from Westborough Park until her death in October 2016.

“These are women who have served the South San Francisco community extremely well,” said South San Francisco Mayor Mark Addiego. “It only seems fitting that now is the time to recognize her contributions and service to our community during the Month of Women’s History.”

This recommendation came during the city council’s ad hoc naming committee meeting on February 18, 2021, where committee members Addiego and councilor Buenaflor Nicolas instructed staff to submit these name applications for approval at the upcoming city council meeting on March 24, 2021.

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That first year, the journal’s Pride Business Leadership Awards recognized more than a dozen people for their contribution to the Pride movement.

On June 2, the Journal honored these winners in a special virtual event hosted by Lisa Carreño, President and CEO of United Way of the Wine Country, and Laurie Lynn Hogan of Laurie Lynn Hogan Consulting. The Journal also honored Carreño for her commitment to supporting the Pride movement.

Click the links below to learn more about this year’s Pride Business Leadership Awards winners:

• Steve Branton, Advisor, Principal, Private Ocean, San Rafael
• Pina Carino, First Vice President, Wealth Management Advisor, Merrill Lynch, Napa
• Theresa Heredia, winemaker, Gary Farrell Winery, Healdsburg
• Beck Kageyama, Human Resources Director, Keysight Technologies Inc., Santa Rosa
• Christopher Kren-Mora, President, Sonoma County Pride, Santa Rosa
• Paul-Louis Maillard, Medical Group Administrator, Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center
• J. Mullineaux, executive director, Santa Rosa Junior College Foundation, Santa Rosa
• Erich Pearson, CEO, SPARC, Santa Rosa
• Helen Russell, Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Equator Coffees LLC, San Rafael
• Gary Saperstein, owner, Out in the Vineyard, Sonoma
• Greg Sarris, Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Graton Casino and Spa, Rohnert Park
• Dana Van Gorder, General Manager, The Spahr Center, Corte Madera
• Grace Villafuerte, Home Social Worker, Adult and Elderly Department, Sonoma County Social Services Department, Santa Rosa

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