News
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SFO Grappling With Emergency Repairs to Eroded Seawall

11.30.2016
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By Ted Goldberg, KQED News Fix/The California Report
Amid heightened concerns about rising sea levels around the Bay Area, San Francisco International Airport officials are scrambling to make emergency repairs to a seriously damaged concrete wall that protects SFO’s airfield from the bay. The airport’s top official called the damage to the seawall along SFO’s perimeter “an imminent threat to airport property” in a letter to the Airport Commission in September. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix/The California Report. For more information on rising sea levels, read the 2015  San Francisco Public Press special report, “Building on the Bay: Sea Level Rise Threatens Waterfront Development.”

News
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S.F. Officials Seek Deportation Defense Funding

11.29.2016
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By Laura Wenus, Mission Local
To defend undocumented immigrants from incarceration and deportation under a Donald Trump administration, Supervisor David Campos and other city officials are pushing for $5 million in funding to hire attorneys to the Public Defender’s office and community nonprofits. Campos’s joint proposal with Public Defender Jeff Adachi hinges on the idea that those facing immigration proceedings should have legal counsel, like any other person accused of a crime. Currently, undocumented immigrants facing deportation do not have the right to a court-appointed attorney, though some are able to find lawyers through nonprofits. Immigrants facing proceedings are four times as likely to win their cases with a lawyer on their side – if they have been detained, a lawyer makes it seven times as likely that they will prevail, according to the California Coalition for Universal Representation. 
Read the complete story at Mission Local. 

News
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To Save S.F. Bay and Its Dying Delta, State Aims to Replumb California

11.28.2016
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By Julie Cart, CALmatters
The report’s findings were unequivocal: Given the current pace of water diversions, the San Francisco Bay and the delta network of rivers and marshes are ecological goners, with many of its native fish species now experiencing a “sixth extinction,” environmental science’s most-dire definition of ecosystem collapse. Once a vast, soaked marsh and channel fed by the gushing Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the delta has diminished dramatically over the previous century as those rivers and their mountain tributaries have been diverted to irrigate Central Valley farms and Bay Area urbanity. With winnowing supplies of Chinook salmon available for food, Orcas off the coast are starving. So, too, are seals and fish-eating birds. And the Gulf of the Farallones, a national marine sanctuary, is suffering from a lack of freshwater fed by the bay.

News
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What’s Next for S.F. Taxi Industry?

11.23.2016
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By Ryan Levi, KQED News Fix
The blows keep coming for San Francisco’s struggling taxi industry. The city’s largest taxi company, the bankrupt Yellow Cab Cooperative, is up for sale. A series of large personal injury lawsuits against the company combined with the growing popularity of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft pushed Yellow Cab into financial insolvency. 
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.

News
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Undocumented Students Fear Returning to Shadows Under Trump

11.22.2016
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By Farida Jhabvala Romero, KQED News Fix/The California Report
Mitzia Martinez felt so shellshocked after the presidential election that the 19-year-old UC Berkeley student holed up in her apartment for days, away from her friends and her classes. Martinez needed to make sense of the massive changes her life could face under a Trump administration. Her biggest concerns: losing the ability to support herself financially and, worse, once again feeling vulnerable to deportation. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix/The California Report.

News
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San Francisco’s Homeless Czar Talks Encampment Strategy

11.21.2016
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By Laura Wenus and Laura Waxmann, Mission Local
Still in its infancy, San Francisco’s 5-month-old Department of Homelessness is developing new methods for moving an estimated 800 individuals living in 78 encampments around the city off the streets, according to Jeff Kositsky, who directs the new department that will eventually have some 110 people under his direction. The department started with Islais Creek south of the Dogpatch in late August, then moved to the Mission District where it is still working north of 16th Street. Next, the department is likely to work on removing encampments in South of Market. Read the complete story at Mission Local. 

Elections
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Record Number of S.F. Voters Cast Ballots

11.21.2016
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By the time polls closed on Election Day, San Francisco’s initial turnout figure appeared depressingly low, just over 50 percent.
But as ballots continue to be tallied, the number of voters has hit a historic high.
The milestone was reached over the weekend, the Department of Elections reported. » Read more

News
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Mapping Bay Area’s Resegregation: What You See May Surprise You

11.18.2016
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By Devin Katayama, KQED News Fix
As Bay Area cities scramble to find housing solutions to prevent displacement, a new report warns that the region is resegregating by race and class. Urban Habitat, a nonprofit located in Oakland that focuses on equity issues, released a report this week that takes a closer look at where the demographic shifts are happening within the nine-county Bay Area, as well as Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix. 

City Hall
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S.F. Vote Counters Pushing to Finish by Thanksgiving

11.18.2016
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It’s all over except for the counting — and that’s still going on.
With San Franciscans still very much focused on President-elect Trump as Thanksgiving approaches, city officials continue to feverishly tabulate tens of thousands of ballots from the Nov. 8 election. » Read more

News

Threats to Freedom of the Press Are Real

11.18.2016
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Journalists across the country are wringing their hands about how they might have enabled, or at least tolerated, the rise of an impulsive, would-be strongman in Washington. Donald Trump has plainly pledged to sue journalists for offending him, blacklist reporters from access to government sources and public records, break up media companies that question his policies and crack down on protesters. The election has accelerated conversation about the meaning of the philosophically fraught term “objectivity.” In the new political era, taking that word too literally clearly risks coming in conflict with other principles we hold dear: free speech, the rule of law, the public’s right to know and the democratic process itself. The Public Press has always abided by a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy stance — one we intend to maintain. At the same time, the changing tenor of the national political debate has encouraged us to reconnect with and reaffirm what we think of as a “pro-public” bias.