Gavin Newsom keeps track – and measures the progress and results – of every one of his policy pledges. Take a look at the Mayor's Accountability Index. Sign Our Petition
Mayor Gavin Newsom is competitive about many things, garbage included. When the city found out a few weeks ago that it was keeping 70 percent of its disposable waste out of local landfills, he embraced the statistic the way other mayors embrace winning sports teams, improved test scores or declining crime rates. But the city wants more. So Mr. Newsom will soon be sending the city’s Board of Supervisors a proposal that would make the recycling of cans, bottles, paper, yard waste and food scraps mandatory instead of voluntary, on the pain of having garbage pickups suspended.
An innovative San Francisco health-care law is prompting some businesses to raise prices and curtail hiring. But it also is showing early signs of doing what it was intended to do: push employers to defray medical costs for more workers. San Francisco's law aims to provide affordable health care to the city's estimated 73,000 uninsured residents, roughly half of whom work. It requires businesses with 20 or more employees to spend a minimum amount toward their health care, either by providing insurance, reimbursing medical expenses or contributing to a municipal health-services program. The first payments by big companies to the city's program were due last week. >Read more>Post A Comment
The heavens will power Grace Cathedral — with help from The City — if supervisors vote to bankroll solar-panel installations, according to an environmental and religious leader who joined others Tuesday in endorsing the program. The City’s public utilities commissioners Tuesday unanimously endorsed the proposed solar incentive program, announced last month by Mayor Gavin Newsom. If approved by the Board of Supervisors, the program will provide grants of up to $10,000 per building to help meet solar-panel installation costs. “We’ll be taking advantage of it,” the Rev. Sally Bingham, environment chair of the diocese of California and president of California Interfaith Power and Light, told commissioners before their vote. “We are looking right now at putting solar on our Grace Cathedral roof at the top of Nob Hill.”
By Wyatt Buchanan San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco's groundbreaking program to provide health care to all 73,000 uninsured city residents received a major lift this week as more than 700 businesses in the city signed up for the plan. The businesses represent 12,900 employees, more than half of whom are eligible for the Healthy San Francisco program, which currently enrolls 19,000 people. The other employees are eligible for a health-care reimbursement account.
Mayor Gavin Newsom said the U.S. census has somehow overlooked 100,000 San Francisco residents and the city is failing to collect millions of dollars in federal funding as a result. The city will officially contest the Census Bureau's 2007 population estimate of 764,000, the mayor said. A formal announcement of the challenge is expected today.
The holidays are upon us, and everywhere you turn there are signs of the season. For most of us this is a joyful time -- a time to relax and reflect with family and friends -- a time to put aside our differences and be thankful for our health and hopeful for the future. But, for an alarming number of Bay Area families, seniors and others, this is an extremely stressful time of the year. The San Francisco Food Bank estimates that one in four children does not get enough food to cover their daily nutritional needs in our city and 150,000 people are living with the threat of hunger. This holiday season, the Food Bank will try to feed more than 20,000 local families who are having a difficult time putting enough food on the table. But they will not be able to do it without our support.
Many of the most progressive environmental policy initiatives seem to origininate in the Bay Area these days, and this one fits the mold. To help San Francisco reach its self-imposed goal of a 75 percent recycling rate by 2010, Newsom announced on Earth Day that city officials are drafting an ordinance that would require all residents and businesses to recycle paper, plastics and aluminum, and to compost all food scraps and yard waste.
When Jackie Goldberg and Sharon Stricker headed to San Francisco to get married four years ago, they saw their wedding as a political statement. It surprised them both when, halfway through the ceremony on the steps of the City Hall rotunda, the usually stalwart Goldberg burst into tears. They had joined the rush to San Francisco after Mayor Gavin Newsom, arguing that to prohibit same-sex marriage violated the equal protection clause of the state Constitution, ordered gender-neutral licenses to be issued. More than 4,000 gay and lesbian couples married in February and March 2004 before the high court invalidated the licenses and the wedding train stopped as abruptly as it had begun. >Read more>Post A Comment
Coast Guard Asking For Help Finding Injured Wildlife, Tracking Spill
The Coast Guard is asking for the public's help with the oil spill that has fouled San Francisco Bay and local beaches. No government agency has put out calls for volunteers, but that information will eventually be posted online at www.owcn.org. People interested in volunteering with the cleanup should not call any of the numbers, as the high level of calls has made it difficult to disseminate information, officials said today. Enviornmental group Baykeeper is collecting a list of interested volunteers via their Web site, www.baykeeper.org.
San Francisco is green, clean, and organic—the architecture is high-tech and eco-friendly, and the food is excruciatingly fresh and local. Is this the world's first true 21st-century city? I've prepared for my appointment with Mayor Gavin Newsom by stopping at Citizen Cake, a Hayes Valley restaurant where my iced coffee is made with organic milk and my chocolate cream-filled cookies, a sophisticated take on the Oreo, are spiked with fleur de sel. But even the infusion of sugar, caffeine, and sea salt can't help me keep up with the mayor who, despite being trapped behind his enormous traditional wooden desk, is a bundle of nervous energy as he rattles off the ways in which San Francisco is becoming America's premier green city.
After eight years of disastrous Bush-Republican policies, America is reeling. Still at war, moving into a deep recession, saddled with crushing debt, Americans face the most important election for president in generations.
In this environment, the most important thing Democrats and progressives can do is to unite in support of our common goal: Reversing the damage done by George Bush and the Republicans. In this environment, the worst thing we can do is to fight each other. But that is exactly the threat presented by the recently announced candidacy of Ralph Nader.
Nader’s candidacy has a special meaning to me – because his new running mate, former San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ President, Matt Gonzalez, was my opponent in 2003 when I first ran for mayor.
A new state ruling means it could be weeks before all votes cast at the polls on Election Day are counted. That's why the best way to vote this year is to vote by mail. Make sure your vote is counted -- keep San Francisco moving forward -- vote absentee. You have until October 30th to request an absentee ballot. If you have an absentee ballot at home return it today. By voting you are saying that we need more innovative homeless solutions like Care Not Cash, which has moved 2,062 homeless people into permanent housing. That we should continue to reform city government with programs like the new 311 Call Center, which just received its one millionth call. And that making our streets safe, clean and pothole free is not just a promise but a priority.
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Brian Blogs: Our Editor Brian Purchia on what's happening at ActLocallySF.org. Cliff Waldeck:A green look at SF business. Ron Miguel: Blogging from The Richmond...
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By Felicity Barringer
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By John Upton
By Wyatt Buchanan
By Steve Rubenstein
The holidays are upon us, and everywhere you turn there are signs of the season. For most of us this is a joyful time -- a time to relax and reflect with family and friends -- a time to put aside our differences and be thankful for our health and hopeful for the future. But, for an alarming number of Bay Area families, seniors and others, this is an extremely stressful time of the year. The 
By Dave Loos
By Mary Engel
San Francisco Chronicle
By Karrie Jacobs
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