San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/2015/01/)
Choice is Resegregating Public SchoolsAttempts to alleviate homelessness with subsidized supportive Despite their aspirations and efforts, San Francisco schools are increasingly segregated. Last school year, a single racial group formed a majority at six out of 10 schools. Our investigation tries to find out why. » Read more
Distance, funding cuts and travel costs make it hard for students from low-income families seeking city’s best schools
Eight-year-old Karishma Sears started her trek to school with her father in the family car one Thursday in December. It took only 15 minutes to drive from their home near Mount Davidson 4.6 miles to Starr King Elementary in Potrero Hill, where she participates in a highly regarded Mandarin immersion program her parents chose for her. » Read more
By Beth Slatkin, Bay Nature
When several hundred surf scoters and other diving ducks wintering on San Francisco Bay were recently found to be coated with an unknown sticky substance (referred to as “mystery goo” by stumped investigators), San Francisco Baykeeper was one of the first organizations on the scene, helping with wildlife search-and-rescue efforts. This small grassroots watchdog organization founded in 1989 has racked up an impressive number of victories against polluters of our estuary, from oil refiners to municipal governments to private marinas. We spoke with Baykeeper program director Sejal Choksi about the ongoing fight to protect the quality of San Francisco Bay. Read the complete story at Bay Nature.
Inside the newly released Winter 2015 edition of the Public Press, you will find a publication that commemorates the storied 48-year history of one of America’s earliest and most important alternative weekly newspapers: The San Francisco Bay Guardian. The day the San Francisco Media Co. killed the Bay Guardian in mid-October, we offered to print whatever the laid-off editorial staff wanted to give us to reflect on their situation as an eight-page insert in our fall edition — if they could get it to us in a week. Instead, they chose to take three months and put together a thoughtful retrospective that makes an eloquent and impassioned case for preserving a diversity of voices in local media. The Guardian’s closure shocked the local journalism community as much as it did the progressive political constituency with whom the paper sided on so many efforts over 48 years.
By Liza Veale, KALW Crosscurrents
When most people are on their way to sleep, San Francisco’s Homeless Outreach Team is just beginning its graveyard shift. The 24-hour patrol team responds to the immediate needs of the roughly 7,000 homeless people living on the city’s streets. Some need blankets or medical attention. There are also issues, like noise violations, public urination or blocking the sidewalk. Read the complete story at KALW Crosscurrents.
Last winter, the San Francisco Public Press published a detailed, data-rich narrative showing how private funds have saved a few schools from the ravages of years of budget cuts, but ended up exacerbating educational inequality within the San Francisco Unified School District. » Read more
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, Bay Nature
“Not a very burly building” is the way planner Maggie Wenger describes the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center. It is a homey, roomy place crafted of wood and seasoned by bay fog and salt spray — the kind of structure you would imagine Roosevelt’s WPA crews might have built in a national park. It sits on short stilts right in the middle of an 1,800-acre marsh, as well as squarely in the memories of thousands of schoolchildren and other visitors who have come here to learn about the bay. The Hayward Shoreline is both a beloved open space on Alameda County’s heavily urbanized bayshore and one of the low-lying assets that planners like Wenger know are most at risk from sea-level rise. “It’s already in trouble,” she said.
By Jon Brooks, KQED News Fix
The California Department of Motor Vehicles sent out a retraction Friday night of a memo it had issued earlier this month that vehicles even occasionally used for commercial purposes — like those driven for ride services such as Lyft and UberX — would need to be registered as commercial vehicles. That announcement had drawn a flurry of press coverage since it was first reported by BuzzFeed. Switching registration of a personal vehicle to that of a commercial vehicle would add another layer of bureaucracy to signing up for ride-service work and potentially dissuade drivers from joining up. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
By Lindsey Hoshaw, KQED News Fix/KQED Science
Last year, a record number of sea lions washed up on Central and Northern California beaches, according to the Marine Mammal Center, the organization that treats wounded wild marine animals. Usually, the center near Sausalito treats fewer than 20 sea lion pups a year, but in 2014 that spiked to 245. Older sea lions also stranded themselves in record numbers last year, 449 up from 176 in 2013. A neurotoxin found in algal blooms affected 34 percent of the adults. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix/KQED Science.
By Scott Smith, Associated Press/The California Report
California farmers now must abide by the nation’s strictest rules for a widely used pesticide in a change designed to protect farmworkers and people who live and work near agricultural fields but is likely to raise prices on produce. The restrictions announced Wednesday target chloropicrin, a pesticide injected into the ground before planting crops, such as strawberries, tomatoes and almond orchards. In recent years, the chemical has caused hundreds of people to suffer from irritated eyes, coughing fits and headaches, state officials said. Read the complete story at Associated Press/The California Report.