By John Geluardi
Mayor Gavin Newsom put Rescue Muni members at ease Monday night when he assured them of his opposition to Proposition H, which was sponsored by his billionaire benefactor Don Fisher.
The public announcement was a relief to pro-public transportation organizations who oppose the thousands of new private parking spaces in downtown high rises the measure would allow.
“I’m surprised people don’t know I’m against Prop H,” Newsom said. “I don’t think they want to know that.”
Misleadingly billed as a parking regulation measure for the city's residential neighborhoods, it would actually increase by five-fold the number of allowable parking spaces in downtown office buildings, opponents say. Currently, the city’s zoning ordinance allows a 10-story office building to add roughly two stories of parking. If voters approved Prop. H in November, a 20-story building would be able to add 10 stories of parking, according to the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association's ballot analysis.
Creating thousands of new parking spaces downtown would encourage more commuter traffic and deal a major setback to years of transit friendly city policies designed to reduce vehicle traffic and increase reliance on public transportation.
The city's most colorful mayoral candidate just got denied city cash thanks to campaign finance rules designed by liberals to help little guys compete. Nice one, douches.
By Benjamin Wachs
Chicken John’s going to be campaigning for mayor without public funds, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
“I haven’t heard anything from the Ethics Commission,” he said over the phone.
“Really?” I said, confused. “Because, um… if you call them … like I can call them …”
“Nah,” he said. “I’m the candidate. They wouldn’t tell you about my matching funds before they tell me.”
Oh. Oh. Oh. This hurts. I know I should have said something, but, dammit, I’m not that guy.
According to staff members at the Ethics Commission, the showman-cum-candidate came a lot closer in a second review to reaching the totals needed: in all, they said, he had about $20,500 in qualifying contributions from 272 San Francisco residents. He needed $25,000 from 250 residents.
Chicken John has, in fact, received over $25,000 in contributions, but the Ethics Commission disqualified too many of them. While Ethics Commission staff wouldn’t go into detail about why Chicken John’s contributions were disqualified, they did list some reasons why contributions from San Francisco residents wouldn’t make it: if the same individual gives more than $100, only $100 is counted towards the matching funds total. If a contribution is for less than $10, it doesn’t count towards the matching funds total. If a contribution is from a business – even a San Francisco business – it doesn’t count. And, they said, some contributions had – according to credit card statements – been made after the Aug. 28 deadline.
The final result: Chicken John’s got over $25,000 in donations, mostly from SF residents, in the bank, but won’t be getting anything from the city.
Believe it or not, San Francisco is flooded with underground sources of fresh, drinkable water. Much of it, however, is flushed away -- literally.
By Joe Eskenazi
“Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.” – Mark Twain (probably)
Former San Franciscan Samuel Langhorne Clemens would be so disappointed with us. Here we are in the 21st century and we’ve yet to discover, here or anywhere, an underground supply of whiskey. And today, in 2007, the city’s vast subterranean reserves of water are, rather than being hotly fought over, either untapped or plugged directly into the sewer and pumped out to the Bay.
Sifting through arcane files in the San Public Library archives, writer Joel Pomerantz came across a recent letter of complaint from the sewer administrators to BART, imploring the rapid transit agency to pay its fair share.
“It turns out the area under Market Street has a lot of water flowing through it and the BART stations are threatened to be flooded all the time without pumping. The complaint said BART was pumping into the sewers without paying. Well, it turns out that’s potable water. It doesn’t even require treatment,” said Pomerantz at a recent panel discussion about the world of city water hosted by counterPULSE.
Incidentally...
By Benjamin Wachs
School district officials say that to ensure equality of access to the best programs for all students, San Francisco residents are going to have to pay up.
They don’t know how much, yet, but District Superintendent Carlos Garcia and School Board President Mark Sanchez confirm they’ll be seeking voter approval for a new school tax on the June ballot; three school facilities bonds from '97, '03' and '06 are already in place for the $600 million a year district.
They’re waiting until the Spring, Garcia said, in order to engage with ...
Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog the Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. -ed
By Ty Callister
Ted Leibowitz is most famed for his DJ’ing at indie rock station BAGeL Radio, but he’s also a blog guru of sorts. He teaches a San Francisco State class on blogging, writes for the blog State of the Day, and, of course, runs the official BAGeL Radio blog.
Leibowitz, who wears spiky hair, sharp sideburns, and a total of four earrings, is the quintessential home studio impresario. Walk to the end of the hall in his apartment and you’ll find a spare room lit by the sunny fog of the Richmond District. You’ll probably see one of his cats sniffing around the desk full of computer screens and mixing boards. To the side of the desk you’ll see hundreds of CD’s stacked and a little scratching post for the cats. And you’ll see Leibowitz at the mic, sipping from a red sports bottle, informing his listeners about the various news and events of the indie music scene.
The BAGeL Radio blog arose in 2005 when ...
