San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/2017/12/)
KQED News Fix
Perhaps as many as 15,000 or 20,000 times every weekday, BART riders skip paying fares, and these scofflaws cost BART, according to its estimates, $15 million to $25 million a year. In the wake of such losses, the agency has decided to try to do a better job of persuading riders that they should pay for the sometimes questionable privilege of boarding its trains. Read the story at KQED News Fix.
By Erika Aguilar, KQED News Fix
Nearly half of more than 296,000 home loans issued in California in 2015 went to white homebuyers, while African-Americans secured just 3 percent, according to federal mortgage data analyzed by a Bay Area policy group focused on diversity and equity. The report by the Greenlining Institute, based in Oakland, and National Community Reinvestment Coalition studied mortgages issued statewide and found communities of color in California, such as Latinos and African-Americans, do not get home loans at the rates that whites do. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
By Joe Eskenazi, Mission Local
Caroline Ayres just wanted to hear about her kids’ school system. What she got was the hybrid of a political rally and a revival meeting. “It was,” she recalls, “an attempt at conversion via emotional outreach.”
It happened earlier this month on Mission Street, in a Sons of Italy outpost promising reasonable rates for its hall of mirrors. There, speaker after speaker excoriated the deplorable state of San Francisco’s public schools, particularly for black and Latino students, and lauded the work of charter schools, which were described as “our private educational institutions” by an African-American clergyman. Read the complete story at Mission Local.
By Jessica Placzek, Ryan Levi and Eli Wirtschafter, KQED News Fix
On Jan. 1, it will become legal for adults 21 and older to buy and sell recreational marijuana in California. In anticipation, Bay Curious is answering a bunch of your questions about commercially available marijuana. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
By Scott Shafer, KQED News Fix
Between the singing, the prayers and the tears at Sunday’s memorial service for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, political luminaries like Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Nancy Pelosi all spoke about Lee’s life and the sacrifice he made for the city. But perhaps the person with the most at stake was a relatively unknown member of the Board of Supervisors, the first politician to address the gathered crowd at City Hall. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
KQED News Fix/The California Report
On Jan. 1, California adults will be able to walk into shops and buy marijuana products for recreational use. As investors and owners get ready to cash in, an effort is underway to unionize marijuana workers. The hope is to give them more protections and a say in the rapidly expanding industry. Read the story at KQED News Fix/The California Report.
KQED News Fix
Earlier this month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and East Bay Congressman Mark DeSaulnier wrote to officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and told them that they needed to start planning for a new vehicular and rail crossing between the Peninsula and East Bay. Feinstein and DeSaulnier suggested that planning should start under the auspices of Regional Measure 3, a pitch to Bay Area voters to increase bridge tolls by as much as $3 to raise money for dozens of transportation projects. Read the story at KQED News Fix.
As San Francisco bid farewell (San Francisco Examiner) to Major Ed Lee, who died unexpectedly last week, tributes (San Francisco magazine) and remembrances are flooded in — from plaudits at a memorial service attended by nearly 1,600 people at San Francisco City Hall (San Francisco Chronicle), to former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s memories (Atlantic magazine) of Lee in their days of yesteryear as community activists to recitations of Lee’s trademark cornball jokes (San Francisco magazine). » Read more
KQED News Fix/The California Report
The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to beef up rules for utilities that have facilities in areas where thick vegetation and strong winds make fires more dangerous. Under the new rules, electric and telecommunications utilities will need to widen vegetation clearances around their lines. They will also have to conduct more inspections of power lines, phone lines and utility poles. Read the story at KQED News Fix/The California Report.
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