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Politics Blog

Inside the Occupy Oakland protest

01.30.12 - 2:12 pm | Yael Chanoff |
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An Occupy Oakland march that turned violent Jan. 28 led to the arrest of 400 people, including me.

The march, which peaked at about 2,000 protesters, was organized with the intention of entering a vacant building -- the Kaiser Convention Center -- and turning it into a new “Social Center” that participants in Occupy Oakland hoped to use to gather, teach, and organize.Read more »

The college tuition problem

01.27.12 - 5:33 pm | Tim Redmond |
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President Obama wants to solve the horrible problem of college tuition costs and student loans by offering tax breaks and telling schools to keep their costs down. Memo to the prez: Holding the line on tuition increases won't do it. Tuition is already way to high. Student loan requirements are already way too crippling.Read more »

Burning Man ticket requests far exceed supply

01.27.12 - 5:22 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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Burners' worst fears are about to come true: they'll be denied tickets to Burning Man when the results of the new lottery-based system are announced on Wednesday. But organizers say if everyone stays calm and relies on their community then they'll probably still get tickets.Read more »

Mayor Lee's call for more hearings gets wary reception

01.26.12 - 9:19 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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Labor and the Left came out strongly against Mayor Ed Lee’s proposed charter amendment to require all city legislation be delayed and subjected to hearings by the Small Business Commission and other commissions if it might cost private sector jobs, putting its prospects of making the ballot in doubt.

 “This legislation is one, unnecessary; two, unbalanced; and three, divisive,” Mike Casey, president of the San Francisco Labor Council – whose executive committee voted unanimously to oppose the legislation – said during today’s Rules Committee hearing on the measure.Read more »

Can SF follow Berkeley in dumping the big banks?

01.26.12 - 3:47 pm | Tim Redmond |
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The City of Berkeley is considering dropping its contract with Wells Fargo and moving the city's money to a credit union or a smaller community bank. That makes perfect sense -- the Move Your Money Project has been urging individuals to do that, and there's no reason why cities (which are huge customers of banking services) can't do the same.

In fact, San Francisco ought to be next on the list.Read more »

America’s Cup moves forward, but economic concerns remain

01.26.12 - 3:08 pm | Yael Chanoff |
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In past weeks, several environmental and community organizations filed two appeals of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) prepared for the America's Cup yacht race in 2013.

Jan. 24, the Board of Supervisors rejected the appeal, allowing for construction on the several major projects contained in the America's Cup proposal to move forward.

But some supervisors say that the many groups with environmental concerns about the America's Cup brought up important issues, including economic issues that will still need to be addressed.

Read more »

Why the public thinks government is fat

01.26.12 - 2:54 pm | Tim Redmond |
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Polls from the PPIC are typically pretty accurate, so I have no reason to doubt the results of a recent one showing that a majority of Californnians still think government can be cut substantially without a reduction in services. It's hard to fathom; as Brian at Calitics notes,Read more »

How should San Franciscans vote?

01.25.12 - 7:20 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee will consider competing proposals for changing how elections are conducted in San Francisco tomorrow (Thu/26) at 2 p.m., taking public testimony and voting on which ideas should go before voters in June.Read more »

Milk Plaza vote raises public-space issues

01.25.12 - 4:52 pm | Tim Redmond |
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The supervisors will vote Jan. 31 on new rules for the use of Harvey Milk Plaza and Jane Warner Plaza, rules that could have an impact on the future use of small public parklets. Sup. Scott Wiener introduced the legislation, which has stirred up a lot of opposition -- and in the end, the decision will probably come down to how Sup. David Chiu decides to vote. Read more »

Redistricting: A Guardian Forum

01.25.12 - 4:31 pm | Tim Redmond |
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The new supervisorial districts could change the makeup of the board and have a lasting impact on local politics. There's been a lot of discussion about individual districts -- but not so much talk about how the new map will affect progressive politics citywide. We're holding a Guardian forum Jan. 26 to look at that issue, discuss different scenarios and come up with some alternatives. Read more »