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City workers decry layoffs, demand alternatives

Christopher D. Cook, SF Public Press — Mar 15 2010 - 3:48pm

City workers are demanding alternatives to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s hard-nosed fiscal approach as he attempts to close a $522 million projected budget gap through mass layoffs and de-facto furloughs.

As San Francisco grapples with a ballooning deficit for the coming fiscal year, Newsom laid off 17,474 workers two weeks ago, but promised to hire back “most” of them at 37½ hours per week. For the rehired, that represents a 6.25 percent pay cut — which city workers’ unions intend to challenge in court.

Toting 8½-by-11-inch “termination of employment” pink slips, angry city workers lined up at last Wednesday’s Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing to decry the layoffs and urge city leaders to explore other sources of money.

Embattled union seeks to blunt second year of city cuts

Kevin Stark, SF Public Press — Feb 26 2010 - 11:54am

(UPDATE: A reform slate of candidates won victory in the election. For details, see Kevin Stark's blog). wins the election this weekend at Northern California’s largest public-sector union will inherit a troubled labor local beset by internal conflict and controversial negotiations in San Francisco that cost the union hundreds of jobs this past year.

In crackdown, SF abandoned building fee hiked ninefold

Angela Hart, SF Public Press — Feb 12 2010 - 5:38pm

In a shift that suggests a new zero-tolerance stance on blight, San Francisco officials said Friday they would raise the annual fee to “register” more than 200 abandoned buildings to $6,885 each, the maximum allowable under a recent city ordinance. “We’re going for the full amount,” said William Strawn, a spokesman for the Department of Building Inspection. “We have to make people aware that this is a new law and we’re going to enforce it.”

City to carve out more contracts for ‘micro’ businesses

Monica Jensen, SF Public Press — Feb 3 2010 - 6:13pm

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.

Census methods could provide lift to hidden homeless

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Feb 1 2010 - 4:43pm

The 2010 Census may address an old problem in dealing with San Francisco’s homeless population by getting an accurate head count. The city’s homeless figures have ranged between about 6,500 and 8,600 people in the last decade, but the real number is anybody’s guess. The sketchy knowledge of who is living on the street has been a big impediment to perennial attempts to solve the crisis.

A possible path to bikes on the Bay Bridge

Gianmaria Franchini, SF Public Press — Jan 28 2010 - 1:03pm

While the Bay Area Toll Authority met on Wednesday morning to vote on Bay Area bridge toll increases, dozens of bicycle activists demonstrated support for the building of a bicycle and pedestrian pathway addition to the Bay Bridge’s western span. They are pressing bridge officials to pave the way for a cross-bay bike lane. But construction of the pathway, which could double as a maintenance and safety shoulder, remains hung up in a bureaucratic no-man’s land: it has garnered some public support, but it is not clear who has legislative power to funnel toll revenue to new projects.

Lawyer leads fight to save species on city-owned golf course

Angela Hart, SF Public Press — Jan 19 2010 - 2:33am

Environmental lawyer Brent Plater has single-handedly brought the fight to close the Sharp Park Golf Course to the attention of San Francisco city leaders, who are on the verge of making the city-owned course in Pacifica a high-profile example of local leadership to save endangered species on public lands.

A leader in several groups such as Wild Equity and the Sierra Club, Plater also is the mastermind behind the Big Year contest to discover more rare plants and animals on public land as a way of saving and expanding sensitive endangered species’ habitats.

New transit center to displace SoMa neighbors

Angela Hart, SF Public Press — Dec 11 2009 - 1:15pm

South of Market business owners and residents are conflicted over plans for an ambitious new transit-center redevelopment. They say that while the project may be good for the city and the Bay Area, it's bad for their livelihoods. Among those being pressured to relocate are 26 businesses, at least 24 live-work lofts and eight parking lots operators.

San Francisco less progressive than it thinks, says outgoing green chief

Victoria Schlesinger, The Public Press — Dec 2 2009 - 4:46pm

After eight years as the director of the city’s Department of the Environment, Jared Blumenfeld is leaving the position in January for a bigger job.

Supervisors: holidays a bad time to lay off city workers

Monica Jensen, The Public Press — Nov 25 2009 - 6:59pm

More than 500 low-wage city workers threatened with job and pay cuts this fall received a holiday-themed reprieve Tuesday, as the Board of Supervisors delayed layoffs in the hopes of finding federal and state funds to prevent cutbacks.

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