News
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Deader Than Ever: California Forests Head Into Fire Season

06.21.2016
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By Alice Daniel, KQED News Fix/KQED Science
Roger Coigny has lived in the mountain community of Pinehurst for most of his 75 years. He’s seen a lot of changes, but nothing like the millions of Ponderosa pine trees here in the Southern Sierra Nevada that have died over the past two years. “And the ones that die the quickest are the biggest, most beautiful, tallest and strongest,” he says. The trees are stressed and dying after more than four years of unprecedented levels of drought, plus an infestation of bark beetles. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix/KQED Science.

News
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State Leads Way in Solar Tech but Communities of Color Left Behind

06.20.2016
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By Calindra Revier, El Tecolote/ New America Media
California is the leader of solar technology and one of the wealthiest states, yet its poorer communities, in large part, don’t have access to this expanding technology. The Mission District, recognized for its Latino community, has for some time been battling the powerful push from the tech industry. From an environmental standpoint, the question is being raised, “What can be done to protect the very basic rights of its lower-income citizens?”
Read the complete story at El Tecolote/ New America Media.  

News

#PublicPressLive: SF Green Party Talks Candidate Debates, Privatizing the Post Office

06.20.2016
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This year, the Public Press is visiting San Francisco neighborhood and community groups to talk about civic issues that are overlooked in the press. Executive Director Michael Stoll spoke with members of the San Francisco Green Party on May 25. Member Barry Hermanson — a Green Party candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives — talked about the lack of candidate debates in the 12th congressional district. He says there have been no candidate debates or forums since 1987, when Rep. Nancy Pelosi was first elected. “By God, this is San Francisco!” Hermanson said.

News

#PublicPressLive: San Francisco’s FDR Democratic Club Talks Disability Issues

06.20.2016
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This year, the Public Press is visiting San Francisco neighborhood and community groups to talk about San Francisco civic issues that are overlooked in the press. Publisher Lila LaHood visited the FDR Democratic Club on June 1. Members discussed how data-driven policy-making impacts people with disabilities, who sometimes are not reflected in official recordkeeping. They also spoke about the death of Thu Phan, a disability rights advocate who used a wheelchair. Phan was killed in a traffic accident on Market Street in February. 
Member John Alex Lowell said he believed there was a flaw in how the city’s Vision Zero program counted traffic fatalities.

News
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Perfect Policy Storm Showers Money on Legislative Races

06.16.2016
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By Laurel Rosenhall, KQED News Fix/CALmatters
Some of the outsized money spent on California legislative races this year came pouring through the mail slot of voter Michael Johnson’s home, arriving in the form of two or three glossy ads a day in advance of the June primary. Most of the ads weren’t from candidates. They were from interest groups that have business before the Legislature, running their own campaigns to elect a favored Assembly contender. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix/CALmatters.

News
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San Francisco Will Add New Centers for the Homeless

06.15.2016
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By Joe Rivano Barros, Mission Local
The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a measure Tuesday that requires the city to build six more so-called Navigation Centers in the next two years to get more homeless residents off the streets. The vote follows the success of the nationally lauded 75-bed Navigation Center located on Mission Street near the 16th Street BART Plaza. It is a transitional shelter that focuses on moving small groups from encampments off the street and into permanent housing that opened in March 2015 and had moved 128 individuals into permanent housing as of March this year, and sent an additional 126 home to family or friends. Read the complete story at Mission Local.  

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What Happens to Raccoons Trapped in San Francisco?

06.14.2016
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By Jessica Placzek, KQED News Fix
As part of our series Bay Curious, we’re answering questions from KQED listeners and readers. This question comes from Emily Shumway, who was working late one night and came home to a raccoon in the middle of her living room. Now she wants to know:
What happens to raccoons that are live trapped in San Francisco? Where do they go? Raccoons are trapped for two main reasons: Either they were found on someone’s property or they were found in pretty bad shape.

Courts & Legal Issues
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Supes Crack Down on Airbnb, Scofflaw Hosts

06.14.2016
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UPDATE (6/28/2016): Airbnb has sued the city over the Board of Supervisors’ recent changes compelling the home-sharing giant to police and block unregistered hosts. The San Francisco-based company argues that the revisions to the short-term-housing rental law violate the Communications Decency Act, the Stored Communications Act and the First Amendment. » Read more

News
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Lessons From an El Niño That Didn’t Go as Planned

06.13.2016
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By Lester Rowntree, Bay Nature
While many people feel this winter was a bit of disappointment — a betrayal even, since we didn’t get a record-busting Godzilla-like 1982-83 and 1997-98 — I’m not one of them. Remember back in your science classes when you learned that scientists are just as interested in being wrong as being right, or that a busted hypothesis was equally important as one substantiated? Well, we can learn a lot from this year’s quirky El Niño. Some forecasts were right on the money while others were consistently wrong, and now, as El Niño’s unpredictable twin sister La Niña strengthens, it’s worth asking what lessons there are to take from the 2015-2016 winter. Read the complete story at Bay Nature.

News
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Child Care Providers Struggle to Afford Rising Minimum Wage

06.09.2016
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By Andrew Stelzer, KQED News Fix
If you’ve got kids, or are expecting one, you’ve probably been warned a million times: Child care is expensive. But just how expensive is it here in the Bay Area? About $1,800 a month and up for an infant, according to Kim Kruckel with the Child Care Law Center in San Francisco. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.