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How Well Can Law Enforcement Address Sex Trafficking?

By Sukey Lewis, KQED News Fix
A sexual exploitation scandal that has launched investigations into misconduct across multiple Bay Area police agencies has some questioning how well law enforcement is positioned to combat sex trafficking and prostitution. So far, about 30 police officers are alleged to have had some form of sexual contact with the young woman known as Celeste Guap, who told reporters she had sex with some officers when she was only 17. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix. 
For more on the issue of sex trafficking, read the San Francisco Public Press Spring 2012 special section, Human Trafficking in the Bay Area. 
 

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S.F. Supervisors Approve Tenant Protections Against Fires

By Laura Wenus, Mission Local
San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved three proposals aimed at protecting renters from the repercussions of structure fires by prioritizing them for affordable housing and requiring landlords to provide more information to tenants and to the city. All three pieces of legislation were passed on first reading unanimously and will become law after another Board of Supervisors vote and mayoral approval. 
Read the complete story at Mission Local. 

City Officials, Experts Grapple With Looming Sea Level Rise

San Francisco Public Press Executive Director and Editor Michael Stoll (far right) presented findings from the Summer 2015 investigation on sea level rise in the Bay Area. From left, Beckie Zisser, with Save the Bay; J. Letitia Grenier, from the San Francisco Estuary Institute; Gil Kelley, director of citywide planning; and Steven Goldbeck, from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, spoke on a panel at the San Francisco Public Library’s main branch earlier this month. Photo by Hye-Jin Kim / San Francisco Public Press
 
The Bay Area is a long way from being prepared for impending sea level rise. That was the assessment from experts in City Hall, regional government agencies and environmental groups at a discussion convened by the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury Association. The meeting, held at the San Francisco Public Library’s main branch, was moderated by Michael Stoll, executive director of the Public Press.

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Civil Grand Jury Report: Fire Safety Inspections Fall Short

By Laura Wenus, Mission Local
San Francisco’s Civil Grand Jury, a volunteer citizen oversight body, issued a report this month that found that the Department of Building Inspections and Fire Department sometimes take too long to correct fire safety code violations. According to the Civil Grand Jury —  19 volunteers who serve for a year before a new group is selected — buildings go uninspected for longer than the city code requires and fire hazards persist because of inefficiencies in the two departments’ protocols. 
Read the complete story at Mission Local. 

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Parents Plan for Paid Family Leave in San Francisco

By Lisa Bartfai, KALW Crosscurrents
Rents and cost of living in the Bay Area are still on the rise, but San Francisco families will soon start seeing some relief: The city has a new family leave law that will go into effect in January 2017. The law will guarantee parents six weeks off with full pay while they’re home with a new child. That’s a big departure from the current policy. Right now, you get the same amount of time off, but with only 55 percent pay. That part is covered by state disability insurance; and when the new law takes effect, employers will cover the rest.

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Mobile Restrooms Offer Solution for Lower Polk’s Homeless Community

By Libby Leyden, KQED News Fix
Two portable bathrooms stand surrounded by flower pots and a white picket fence in one of the dirty and run-down alleys in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. A large van decorated with LED lights is parked nearby, stocked with clothes, home-cooked food and hot coffee. This is the mobile City Resource Relief Center. Seven days a week it moves through the side streets in the Lower Polk section of the Tenderloin, assisting the homeless that live here, often because it’s close to services. Starting last week, the center evolved from being just a nocturnal operation to one that provides 24/7 access to a clean and safe public restroom — a basic need that has been hard to satisfy in this neighborhood.

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BART Needs to Speed Up Installing Surveillance Cameras, Says Top Official

By Ted Goldberg, KQED News Fix
BART needs to stop “tap dancing” around and quickly install surveillance cameras on all of its trains, the chairman of the Bay Area’s regional transit planning agency said after learning that the system was moving slowly in putting the devices in place. “I don’t know what’s taking so long,” Dave Cortese, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said in an interview. “I think there’s a genuine concern that BART isn’t able to move quickly enough on some of these basic maintenance- and security-type issues.”
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.

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Displaced Tenants Pick Up Checks, But Many Have Nowhere to Go

By Laura Waxmann, Mission Local
Community efforts raised $140,000 to help 67 individuals displaced by a five-alarm fire at 29th and Mission streets last month get back on their feet. The Mission Economic Development Agency dispersed some of that money Friday night at the Salvation Army Community Center at 1156 Valencia St. near 23rd St. Most of those picking up their checks are still without permanent housing and expressed serious concerns about the city’s efforts to relocate them. Read the complete story at Mission Local.

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At Least 2 Dozen S.F. Police Dept. Officers Tied to Teen at Center of Sexual Exploitation Scandal

By Alex Emslie and Nicole Reinert, KQED News Fix
The San Francisco Police Department has minimized the extent to which a sexual exploitation crisis rocking several East Bay law enforcement agencies has touched its side of the Bay Bridge, but a KQED analysis of current and former department officers’ Facebook accounts shows that the 18-year-old woman at the center of the sex abuse scandal was connected to dozens of people affiliated with the department. A week after former Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent suddenly resigned amid revelations that several Oakland Police Dept. officers may have sexually exploited and trafficked a young woman — and allegations that he may have mishandled an internal investigation — headlines blared that S.F. Police Dept.  officers may also have been involved. The woman, who calls herself Celeste Guap, claimed to have had sex with San Francisco officers who knew she worked in the sex trade.