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Shawn Gaynor

Compromise measures

Housing and business tax propositions don't solve the city's problems, but both sides say they're the best we can expect

07.31.12 - 5:05 pm | Steven T. Jones and Shawn Gaynor |
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news@sfbg.com

San Franciscans are poised to vote this November on two important, complicated, and interdependent ballot measures — one a sweeping overhaul of the city's business tax, the other creating an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that relies on the first measure's steep increase in business license fees — that were the products of intense backroom negotiations over the last six months.Read more »

Suspended state

Californians lose extended unemployment benefits as recession lingers

06.12.12 - 4:40 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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news@sfbg.com

In May, a rip appeared in the social safety net that catches many of the people whose careers have been derailed by the continuing economic crisis when Californians lost eligibility for federal relief money under the Fed-Ed portion of the federal unemployment insurance extension program.Read more »

Sonic attack on the poor

Concert promoter blasts industrial noise at illegal levels to drive away homeless people

05.15.12 - 8:56 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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news@sfbg.com

It was 11pm on Thursday, May 3, and the ballet was just letting out. Affluently dressed dance enthusiasts streamed arm in arm down Grove street towards the Civic Center BART station chatting about the evening performance. That night's show of Don Quixote at War Memorial and Performing Arts Center was likely excellent judging by the theatergoers' exuberance.Read more »

Oakland protest: Tear gas, one arrest

05.01.12 - 1:13 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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Tuesday morning brought an eruption of protests though out downtown Oakland as Occupy activists marched and rallied in support of a national general strike day to mark May Day.

Though the action lacked the numbers of last fall's Port of Oakland strike, three early morning marches of several hundred protesters made there way through Oakland drawing attention to issues of gentrification, patriarchy and what protesters characterized as the injustices of capitalism.

In a city still waiting for an economic recovery, the protests were a reminder that simmering tensions over economic disparities continue to cause major disruptions of business as usual in Oakland.

Read more »

Local control of cops

Legislation seeks to prevent SFPD from working with the FBI to spy on lawful citizens

02.07.12 - 8:50 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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news@sfbg.com

Sup. Jane Kim has introduced legislation to the Board of Supervisors calling for a re-examination of the San Francisco Police Department's participation in some aspects of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was created by the Federal Bureau of Investigations to do domestic surveillance.Read more »

What are people?

Occupy protesters and progressive politicians call for end to corporate personhood

01.26.12 - 10:23 am | Shawn Gaynor |
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Protesters from the Occupy movement and beyond gathered in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Jan. 20, calling for the adoption of a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution aimed at refuting the idea that corporations should have the same rights as people, a legal doctrine know as corporate personhood.Read more »

Occupy movement targets foreclosed homes

12.07.11 - 5:28 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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Throughout the Bay Area on Tuesday (Dec. 6), Occupy activists and housing advocates launched what they said will be an ongoing effort to place families back into their foreclosed homes, seizing bank-owned homes to put pressure on the banking industry to cooperate with homeowners in loan trouble.Read more »

Homes for the 99 percent

Fed up with foreclosures and evictions, the Occupy SF Housing coalition fights back

12.06.11 - 7:02 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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news@sfbg.com

Pressed by foreclosures, evictions, and an economic crisis with the gnawing tenacity of an early winter flu, San Franciscans protested in neighborhoods throughout the city on Saturday, Dec. 3. Marches from four of the city's most impacted neighborhoods merged in the Financial District to pressure landlords, banks, and what the Occupy movement has dubbed the 1 percent to ease the spreading hardship surrounding housing in San Francisco.Read more »

BART adopts policy on cutting cell phone service

12.02.11 - 4:18 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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 The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors has adopted the nation's first policy outlining the circumstances under which cell phone service can be suspended. The policy comes in the wake of BART's disruption of cell service in a bid to preempt an August 11 anti-police brutality protest that was called to highlight the July 4 police slaying of Charles Hill by BART police at San Francisco's Civic Center station.Read more »

UC's pick of Bratton to investigate pepper spray incident isn't reassuring

12.02.11 - 3:28 pm | Shawn Gaynor |
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The video images are already iconic, a line of young students sit cross legged, arms linked, at the front edge of an Occupy UC Davis protest, nonviolently protesting the impacts of the economic crisis on the University of California and beyond. As police step forward students begin to chant “the whole world is watching,” and officers disperse fire extinguisher size canisters of pepper spray into the faces of the seated students.Read more »