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Survey of Mission District Families Tries to Discover Why Kids Are Falling Behind

08.18.2014
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By Melanie Young, KALW Crosscurrents
With the start of a new school year, families all around San Francisco are sending their children off with hopes for a good year and a bright future. But according to Carolina Guzman with the nonprofit Mission Economic Development Agency, children in the Mission District struggle on every rung of the education ladder. She says half the children entering kindergarten are not prepared to learn. “They don’t know their figures, colors, letters,” she said. “So that’s a big problem.”
The problems continue as the children advance through school.

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Water Bond Heads to November Ballot as Proposition 1

08.14.2014
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By Scott Detrow/KQED News Fix
A plan to spend $7.5 billion on water projects across California is on its way to the November ballot. The water bond measure — officially the “Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014” — passed both houses with near-unanimous support Wednesday night. The signing ceremony Gov. Jerry Brown held immediately after the vote was the kind of sight that has become an endangered species in politics these days: a bipartisan celebration of a major legislative package. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix. 

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Water Restrictions: Meaning of ‘Mandatory’ Depends on Where You Live

08.13.2014
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By Craig Miller, KQED News Fix/Science
Two of the Bay Area’s highest-profile water agencies enacted their versions of “mandatory” water restrictions on Tuesday. Customers of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission are facing an edict to cut outdoor water use by 10 percent. But as a practical matter, the order applies mainly to the Commission’s 1,600 customers with separate metered water accounts for landscape irrigation — golf courses, parks and the like. Those customers who fail to comply could see their water rates doubled. SFPUC General Manager Harlan Kelly called it, “a small, but important step.”
 
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix/Science.

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Neighbors Scrutinize Mission Street Makeover

08.12.2014
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By Laura Wenus, Mission Local
When it comes to designing the future face of the Mission’s main thoroughfare, there is one thing lots of people can agree on: They do not want another Valencia Street. What residents who packed a conference room late last week at the Women’s Building do want for Mission Street includes everything from the practical — more bike parking, more sidewalk space, more restrooms at BART stations — to broader principles, including preserving the cultural identity of the area and protecting it from gentrification. Read the complete story at Mission Local.

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Rental Brokers Blamed for S.F. Housing Crisis

08.11.2014
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By Ben Trefny, NRP.org
Online rental brokers like Airbnb, VRBO and Flipkey in San Francisco may be finding some success renting to visitors on a nightly basis, but people concerned about a shrinking rental market have turned to legal action and protests. In the city’s North Beach neighborhood, for example, protesters recently gathered around a three-unit apartment with flats an online broker rents to vacationers. This used to be the rent-controlled home of elderly tenants until out-of-town investors bought the building and evicted the residents. Read the complete story at NPR.org

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Thinking More Strategically About Bay Area Economy

08.07.2014
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By Ben Trefny and Edward Muldoon, KALW Crosscurrents
The Bay Area is constantly evolving. We have gone from the Gold Rush to Silicon Valley; shifted from boom to bust, and back again. It can feel a little bit like déjà vu. Back in 2000, just before the dot-com bubble burst, unemployment in San Francisco was at an all-time low of 3 percent. It is nearing that again — approaching what economists call “full employment,” meaning, statistically anyway, there are jobs for everyone who wants one.

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Can San Francisco’s Video Stores Be Saved?

08.06.2014
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By Jon Brooks, KQED News Fix 
You have to keep in mind just how few options there were back then. I’m talking pre-’80s, before the VCR became the first in a long line of accessories to turn your TV into the culture’s central nervous system of escapism. You could go to retro houses or watch truncated old movies on television (interrupted by mood-shattering commercials). But those were essentially passive choices; you might find Citizen Kane, or it might be Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy. You watched for a variety of reasons, one of them being “because it’s there.”
That is why I remember my first visit to a video store as a sort of cornucopian dream, a lavish spectacle that satisfied a deeply rooted desire.

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Day Laborers Find Jobs Scarce

08.05.2014
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By Guadalupe González, Mission Local
It is  a bright Thursday morning, and 10 men are outside the San Francisco Day Labor Program and Women’s Collective. Inside,  30 more men sit in the waiting room. A few check e-mail and Facebook on the four computers available. In the back, a thin man plucks the strings of a guitar. All of the day laborers are waiting patiently for their names to be called for work.

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New Public Land Plan May Rein In Bay Area Dogs

08.04.2014
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By Tiffany Camhi, KALW Crosscurrents
Just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, a few miles from Muir Woods, lies Muir Beach. The beautiful and peaceful waterfront is a favorite among locals, travelers and man’s best friend. But letting that dog off leash could soon be a thing of the past at Muir Beach and other open spaces in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Next year, the 80,000 acres of the GGNRA’s land, from San Mateo County to Marin County, will begin to operate under a new management plan for dogs. The proposed plan is an effort to regulate the rising number of dogs and visitors to the park. And it has sparked a slow-burning controversy over how to use our public land.

City Hall
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San Francisco and New York Affordable Housing Plans Compared

08.04.2014
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Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability in San Francisco. A version of this story ran in the summer 2014 print edition.
San Francisco is not the only city in a housing crisis. The multi-year plan proposed by Mayor Ed Lee bears some similarities to those proposed by Bill de Blasio, the new mayor of New York, where even last week a major initiative advanced to fix older affordable buildings. » Read more