News

Injunction issued against SF gangs

09.30.2010
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On Thursday KTVU reported that a San Francisco judge granted a preliminary injunction against two gangs in the city’s Visitacion Valley neighborhood. City Attorney Dennis Herrera requested the injunction, which affects the Down Below and Towerside gangs, accused of terrorizing area residents. Herrera told KTVU that the gangs are responsible for at least 10 murders in the past three years. The injunction applies to a 0.18-square-mile “safety zone” and prohibits “public nuisance” behavior such as intimidation, drug dealing, graffiti vandalism, openly carrying a gun, loitering, trespassing and other gang-related activities. For the 41 adults listed as gang members in the Visitacion Valley injunction, violations that are counted as misdemeanors could lead to up to six months in jail.

News
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SF Day of the Dead threatened by city deficit

09.30.2010
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 The elimination of a grant program by the city has put the annual Day of the Dead celebration in jeopardy. 
The Marigold Project, a Mission District-based non-profit organization that coordinates the annual festival of the altars at Garfield Park, faces a $9,000 deficit in the wake of the grant’s cancellation, according to Mission Local. The city Arts Commission cut the Neighborhood Festival Grant that helps support smaller community celebrations to reduce the city deficit. The grant allowed the organization to pay artists to decorate the large altars and cover the cost for dumpsters, portable toilets and cleanup. 
Permits for the event have yet to be approved by the Parks and Recreation Department, as the organization has been asked to cut down the event’s footprint, according to the Bay Area Reporter. The event celebrates the dead on Nov. 2 and regularly attracts some 15,000 people. Marigold is counting on donations from those in the community who don’t want to see the event canceled. "It’s a strong cultural touchstone event for the Mission," Marigold board member Kevin Mathieu said.

News

Teens protest outside retailer over toxic perfume

09.29.2010
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Teens marched in protest on Tuesday outside Abercrombie & Fitch’s Westfield Mall location in downtown San Francisco over allegations that a perfume they sell is harmful to people. Abercrombie & Fitch’s signature perfume "Fierce" has been found to contain toxic ingredients that cause allergies, headaches, wheezing and impacts male sperm count, according to a study by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found on the Huffington Post. Members of the San Rafael-based group "Teens Turning Green" campaign organized the protest, creating posters that mock the company’s racy ads by having models wear gas masks to symbolize the air being unsafe at their stores, according to KCBS. The group alleges that Abercrombie & Fitch employees walk around stores spraying the perfume, constantly circulating the scent and its alleged toxic ingredients on unknowing customers and themselves. The teens decided to march after they sent a letter and video regarding the perfume and its toxicity to company headquarters and got no response.

News

New drunk-driving law cracks down on third-time offenders

09.28.2010
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On Tuesday the San Francisco Chronicle reported on a new drunk-driving law that allows judges to revoke someone’s driver’s license for up to 10 years if an offender has three or more convictions of driving under the influence within a decade. The measure by Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, will take effect on Jan. 1, 2012. Hill told the Chronicle that the measure could take 100,000 DUI repeat offenders off the road each year. Hill also said: “Nearly 188,000 DUI convictions were handed down around the state in 2008 with 9,164 of those drivers on their third conviction and 3,200 with four or more DUI offenses.”
The National Highway Traffic Administration reported that there are roughly 1.5 million DUI arrests in California each year, with a third of them repeat offenses.

News
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SF wants to limit toys in unhealthy child fast-food meals

09.28.2010
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A vote on a proposed ordinance to ban toys in kids’ fast-food meals if they are deemed unhealthy was postponed Monday after amendments were made to the measure. The plan, brought forth by Supervisor Eric Mar, would ban in kids’ meals that exceed 600 calories, according to ABC7. 
Parents who frequent fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and others will have to look to healthy alternative sides like fruits, vegetables and milk if their kids want the toys as limits will be placed on calories, fat, salt and sugar, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Many in the fast-food industry have been meeting with city officials behind closed doors to voice their concerns. Opponents are trying to frame this as government regulation going too far. Mayor Gavin Newsom is opposed to the legislation.

Bay Area
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Story in progress: Veteran smart growth group wary of rushing to judgment

09.27.2010
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The other day we had a chance to chat over the phone with Jeremy Madsen, executive director of Greenbelt Alliance. This much-respected nonprofit has been advocating smart growth and open spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1958. In 2008 the outfit published Smart Infill, a 80-page report that recommends infill development — building on vacant lots and redeveloping blighted urban areas — as a way of accommodating the Bay Area’s growing population without paving the region’s farms and natural areas. » Read more

News
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Proposed hospital sparks community outrage

09.27.2010
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 A new hospital proposed in a busy part of San Francisco has residents from surrounding communities up in arms.
The California Pacific Medical Center wants to build a 15-story, 555-bed hospital at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Geary Boulevard as part of a $2.5 billion project that would alter the purpose of the four other California Pacific Medical center campuses as well. 
At a Planning Commission meeting Thursday afternoon, about 100 residents of the Tenderloin and Cathedral Hill neighborhoods came to voice their opposition, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The residents said the new hospital could cause major congestion on Van Ness Avenue might not serve the needs of the many low-income people in the area. The project would include closing the medical center’s California campus in Presidio Heights, changing the Pacific campus in Pacific Heights into an outpatient-only facility and replacing St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission District with a much smaller facility. Residents complained this restructuring will force many people to travel farther for health care.

News

PG&E gas line leaks higher than average

09.27.2010
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Pacific Gas & Electric has reported gas leaks on lines near large populated areas at a rate nearly six times those of other large pipeline systems across the country. Federal records indicate PG&E has reported 38 leaks since 2004 along more than 1,000 miles of lines controlled by the utility near environmentally sensitive areas and population centers, according to CBS 5. The utility has an annual average leak rate of 6.2 per 1,000 miles of line serving "high consequence" areas, which is more than six times the average leak rate for the nation’s six other large operators, according to the Los Angeles Times. PG&E has reported a 40 percent increase of gas leaks while reported gas leaks have fallen 30 percent nationwide in recent years. The state’s other large gas company, Southern California Gas, has a average leak rate of 2.3 per 1,000 miles, close to the national average for large operators.

News
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Bay Area roads rank among worst in nation

09.23.2010
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On Thursday the San Francisco Chronicle via the Associated Press reported on the San Francisco Bay Area’s roads being among the worst in the nation. This information comes from the national report transportation group TRIP. The report came from an analysis of road conditions done in 2008. Topping the list as the worst in the nation are Silicon Valley roads, with 64 percent considered to be in poor condition. The Concord area was ranked fourth while the San Francisco-Oakland Metropolitan area came in fifth, both with 58 percent of roads in poor condition.