Politics Blog

Aiming for the top of the food chain

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The issue of labeling for genetically engineered foods gained fresh momentum last week, when Sen. Barbara Boxer announced she’d be pushing for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require this consumer notification on a national level.Read more »

Coastal Commission to rule on Beach Chalet soccer project

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The California Coastal Commission will decide tomorrow (Thu/9) whether San Francisco and its Recreation and Parks Department violated the Coastal Act in approving a renovation of Golden Gate Park’s Beach Chalet soccer fields that uses artificial turf and stadium lights and seating. [UPDATE 3pm: The commission just approved the project. Full story coming soon.]Read more »

More SF restaurants settle with the city over fraudulent employee health surcharges

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City Attorney Dennis Herrera today announced another batch of settlements with restaurants that have been fraudulently using surcharges on customers’ bills to cover their city-required employee health coverage and using some of that money to simply pad their profits.Read more »

Will SF's new broadband infrastructure be controlled by the city or Google?

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Board President David Chiu is calling for San Francisco to add to its broadband fiber network every time a contractor or utility tears up a street, joining other cities in expanding high-speed Internet capacity. But will this new network be a municipal utility or corporate-controlled? An upcoming hearing he has called for could begin to answer that question.Read more »

Nice to know our tech friends aren't paying taxes

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Since Mayor Ed Lee has decided that tech companies are the future of San Francisco, it's nice to note that these outfits are often no better than the cheating robber barons of old -- or the modern Leona Helmsleys. The Campaign for America's Future notes that Apple dodged a $9.2 billion tax bill that would have been enough to cover most of the sequester cuts this spring. Read more »

How SF politics (and journalism) really works

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The internal report on SF Housing Authority management berates ousted director Henry Alvarez as a jerk and a bully, somone who made racist and homophobic comments and intimidated staff. But the report also shows exactly how the corrupt politics of San Francisco contracting works. You can't read the whole Chronicle story because of the paywall, but I'll excerpt the part that matters:Read more »

Pride Board locks out press, protesters at public comment meeting

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"Let the press in! Let the press in!" the crowd of about 50-60 Bradley Manning for Grand Marshal supporters chanted yesterday evening at 7pm, packed into the lobby of the Golden Gate Business Association on Pearl Street, after being denied entrance to the elevator leading to the Pride Board meeting on the fourth floor. A hired security guard held the crowd, which included reporters from KTVU and KQED, back and the elevator doors closed for the last time as "No cameras, no justice!" filled the air. 

The word came via the significant police presence outside the building (officers were also posted outside the building's stairwell) that only 15 people at a time were being allowed into the board meeting, which was held to accept "public comment" on the Bradley manning controversy. The meeting was also supposedly held to address any questions about its official statement, released yesterday afternoon, rescinding Manning's election as Grand Marshal because he was "not local."

No one there, it was clear, was getting in. 

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Pride Board statement: Manning "not local," controversy "not our mission"

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Here's the official statement just issued by the Pride SF Board about the Bradley Manning grand marshal fiasco, "clarifying" its bizarre rules ("Under longstanding policy, the community grand marshal upon whom the Electoral College votes is defined as 'a local hero (individual) not being a celebrity'"), and directing the electoral college to vote for one of "two, duly qualified nominees for the 2013 Community Grand Marshal: Bebe Sweetbriar and Associate Justice Jim Humes."

(Poor singing drag queen BeBe Sweetbriar -- despite her incredible productivity, even Pride doesn't think she's a celebrity! We still love you, Beebs.)

The statement also engages in a gross bit of condescencion.

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T-Third passengers unhappy about train service disruptions

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Around 20 residents from San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood lined up at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board meeting May 7 to voice complaints that all too often, the T-Third light rail transit vehicles leave passengers stranded on train platforms, taking rail cars out of service before the end of the line and leaving riders to wait for the next arrival.Read more »

Why the PG&E settlement is lame

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One of the factors that the state regulators took into account when they decided how much PG&E should be fined for the San Bruno blast was the company's financial situation -- that is, how much of a fine could the utility "safely absorb." That's the first sign that something screwy is going on here.Read more »