Last year, when Sup. John Avalos introduced and eventually won passage of the city’s landmark local hiring ordinance, a number of battles broke out, as folks in neighboring municipalities began fretting that the new law could shut them out of construction jobs in San Francisco. Avalos worked hard to make sure their concerns were addressed, but he continued to encounter resistance from San Mateo County. Read more »

There’s three reasons I’ll always remember the Chronicle’s Phil Bronstein: he used to be married to Sharon Stone, he got bitten by a Komodo Dragon at the L.A. zoo, and he had the audacity to write a column in the Chronicle that was titled “Treasure Island eco-dream is bad choice for funds.” Read more »

More bad news for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s troubled Secure Communities program, which continues to draw fire for deporting thousands of folks with no criminal records since it was started under former President George W. Bush in 2008. Last month, Illinois said it was quitting the program, and today Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a letter suspending S-Comm in NY state. Read more »

When Police Chief Greg Suhr got sworn in at City Hall a month ago, reporters each got to ask one question during a hastily convened media roundtable inside Mayor Ed Lee’s office. And since the Guardian’s story about the FBI’s secret agreement with the San Francisco Police Department had just hit the streets, I asked the new Chief, if he would welcome clarification around the duties of SFPD officers assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Taskforce. Read more »

Tom Ammiano’s TRUST Act (AB 1081) passed the California Assembly in a 47-26 vote. It now heads to the Senate for approval. Ammiano says his bill "seeks to repair the damaging impacts of the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency's “Secure" Communities program."  The feds' Secure-Communities program, in which fingerprints taken in local jails are automatically shared with immigration enforcement officials, has increasingly been accused of undermining public safety without transparency or local oversight. Read more »

Reporting by Sarah Phelan. Photograhy by Luke Thomas.

At the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office’s May 18 Justice Summit, the ethics of law enforcement were a central topic. And not surprisingly, the latest incidents of alleged police conduct in which SFPD officers are caught on surveillance video, which the Public Defender’s Office released, as they apparently steal personal property from suspects whose homes in the Julian Hotel they searched for drugs under possibly illegal circumstances, were on everyone’s minds, along with the crime lab and Henry Hotel scandals.Read more »

From the moment I walked into Sharman Bock’s District Attorney campaign launch and saw the roomful of “signs proclaiming, "A prosecutor for District Attorney", I realized that Bock isn’t the type of candidate to hold her punches. And that makes perfect sense, because unlike the other candidates in the D.A.'s race, Bock, 48,  is a seasoned prosecutor.Read more »