The biofuel businesses remains very small nationwide. There’s just a single biofuel station in San Francisco, DogPatch Biofuels. Across the whole of the U.S., there are just over 1,500 biodiesel stations, and 2,500 stations that serve E85 ethanol.
Malia Cohen was on a City Hall field trip in third grade when Dianne Feinstein, who was mayor of San Francisco at the time, invited the class into her office. The young student was hooked.
"It wasn't just the grandeur of the rotunda that really left an impression on me. It was also Mayor Feinstein, who talked about working in public service," said Cohen, now 32. "I knew I wanted to work at City Hall."
What do you do when your daughter decides to come out to you unexpectedly at 18? For DeAnna Green, a single African-American mother living in the San Francisco neighborhood known as Bayview-Hunter’s Point, this was what happened. At 18, her daughter Rosetta, now 22, introduced what Green describes as her “girlfriend girlfriend” and came out as a lesbian. Green didn’t know what to do or say, remembering moments where she was gripped by confusion and doubt.
She came to actively accept her daughter, even if she didn’t agree with it from her religious teachings. The change, Green said, came in large part through the help of the Family Acceptance Project, a community-based research and policy initiative in California that’s developing the idea that family acceptance of LGBT youth is a proven way to combat challenges like depression and suicide attempts, both of which disproportionately plague queer youth.
The EPA's environmental justice working group was only revived this year, but the agency has been giving out awards for leaders in the area for a few years. This year's winners represent different regions and are focusing on different problems, but all unified in the struggle for environmental justice. Five awards were given to multi-stakeholder partnerships representing 35 organizations.
The 2010 winners include San Francisco's EcoCenter at Heron's Head Park "for creating an environmental justice education center for use by the residents San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point and other communities with environmental justice concerns."
The center is San Francisco's first completely off-grid building and the first environmental justice education center in the Bay Area.
SAN MATEO, Calif. (KGO) -- On a 4-0 vote, San Mateo County Supervisors today passed a resolution urging San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to veto an ordinance that calls for a 50 percent local hiring goal for all city-financed construction jobs within a 70-mile radius of San Francisco. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' intent is to help provide jobs to building and construction trades people who live in San Francisco.
However, San Mateo labor leaders and the four San Mateo County Supervisors (the Board is currently missing one member with the election of former Board President Richard Gordon to the state assembly) argue that San Francisco's ordinance takes away job opportunities for its local residents. They point out the current jobless rate is close to 30 percent for construction and trades jobs.
The San Francisco General Hospital Foundation (SFGHF) has announced the 14 artists who have created the 2011 series of Hearts in San Francisco – a public art exhibition in conjunction with the annual “Heroes & Hearts Luncheon.”One of the artists chosen, Linda Adreveno, works out of her studio at Hunter's Point.
Read more at StarkInsider.comLinda Adreveno has been creating art for several years and has participated in many exhibitions in the Bay Area as well as other parts of the country. A native San Franciscan, she’s inspired by the many cultures and communities that make up The City. At her studio in Hunters Point she creates pieces using elements that people can easily relate to. It’s one of the reasons text often finds its way into her work.
The book is divided into two sections: "Hunter's Point and Beyond" and "Through the Window," which consists of pictures that Shapiro took while driving around in his VW bus. Sometimes the windshield wiper is in the middle of the frame and sometimes his hand is at the big steering wheel.
Street-corner life was more photogenic then than now. For one thing, everybody wasn't talking on a cell phone or staring into one punching keys. Either inside or out, the hair, the cars, the plaid pants and denim leisure suits all say '70s "Soul Train."
"You put this in context, despite harsh economic realities, despite the Great Society not living up to what (President Lyndon) Johnson had planned, black people in their own communities did celebrate," says Richards. "They're poor but they're having fun. In my mind, this could be put to music."
Photographs by Barry Shapiro: Through Sat. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission St. (415) 512-2020. www.sfcamerawork.org.
A two-alarm fire shattered windows and damaged a house managed by the San Francisco Housing Authority in the city's Potrero Hill neighborhood Wednesday evening, a fire spokeswoman said today.
Firefighters responded to reports of a fire at 150 Dakota St. at about 8:55 p.m., San Francisco fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said.
A witness reported seeing flames coming out the windows of the two-story home before firefighters arrived, Talmadge said.
"The heat was breaking the windows, but no one was seen inside the home," Talmadge said.
Responding crews had water on the fire within minutes, and the blaze was extinguished shortly after their arrival. No injuries were reported.
A damage estimate was not immediately available, but Talmadge said officials don't expect foul play in the cause of the fire.
"We called arson investigators, and there was nothing that indicates it was anything suspicious," she said.
The Potrero power plant could be shut down entirely by the end of February, the Guardian has learned. According to a report prepared for the Dec. 15 meeting of the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) Board of Governors, an energy regulatory body, the aging power plant will soon be released from a Reliability Must-Run (RMR) contract requiring its continued operation for grid-reliability purposes.
Removing the Potero power plant from service will benefit San Francisco’s air quality, particularly in the city’s southeastern neighborhoods.
A 17-year-old boy was shot dead Wednesday night in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, police said Thursday.
The victim, identified by the Medical Examiner’s Office as Grady Anderson, was shot at about 7:20 p.m. in the 1600 block of 25th Street.
According to police, officers nearby heard gunshots and then found the victim. Anderson was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where he died.
The Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet determined where Anderson lived.
The shooting is the second in two days in that same area. On Tuesday, a 20-year-old man was shot while parking his car on 26th Street near Connecticut Street at about 9:45 p.m.
The man survived the shooting, which police said was believed to be gang-related.
Oscar Jimenez, a veteran girls basketball and softball coach in whose stewardship of young lives transcended the court and the field, died Tuesday.
He was 57 and was recently diagnosed with lymphoma, said a close family friend.
Many of the teens he coached came from San Francisco's impoverished and violent neighborhoods of Hunters Point and the Mission; others came from the more affluent and tranquil enclaves of and Forest Hill. On his teams, which served as a refuge for some, the players found camaraderie and built confidence.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Two men were wounded in separate shootings in San Francisco's Bayview and Potrero Hill neighborhoods Tuesday, police said.
At about 5:20 p.m., an 18-year-old man was shot in the leg near Keith Street and Thomas Avenue in the Bayview.
The man told police he heard a gunshot and then fell to the ground. His wounds were not believed to be life-threatening.
At about 9:45 p.m., a 20-year-old man was parking his car on 26th Street near Connecticut Street when someone approached him and shot him once in the back, police said.
The man's car rolled down the street and crashed into other parked cars before it came to rest, according to police.
The victim in that shooting, which is believed to be gang-related, is also expected to survive, police said.
No arrests have been made in either case.
Read more at Huffington PostIn 1995, San Francisco's now-thriving Alemany Farms was a four-acre, illegal dumping site growing tires, cars and refrigerators. Community leader and former San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners Director Mohammed Nuru spearheaded a unique, community-based collaboration to put at-risk, low-income youth to work transforming the vacant lot into an urban farm. San Francisco's first "urban youth farm" was planted, providing 50 lucky teens with business, landscaping and non-violent resolution skills while offering a healthy alternative to a life of drugs, crime or violence. Today, Alemany Farms stays true to its original vision; growing organics foods and creating green jobs for residents of low-income communities with the values of environmental justice and social equity firmly rooted.
Read more at SFGateWhen Jay LaViolette tells people he's a public school teacher, the reactions range from disinterest to sympathy.
In his fourth year teaching in San Francisco's Visitacion Valley Middle School, he is far from the highest paid among his friends and, on top of that, he lacks job security.
It is a tough job that's getting harder, he said.
With the city planning to directly spend about $10 billion on public works over the next decade, there is a baseline logic in trying to use that spending to help those who have been hurt most by the recession.
But the local-hiring mandate will work only if everyone — the city, the unions, the contractors and the aspiring workers — gets behind the idea of using construction projects as a tool of social policy. Ideally, hundreds of low-income San Franciscans will get stable, middle-class jobs in the construction trades. But safety-valve provisions in the legislation could invite mischief, and leave city taxpayers with higher bills and not much more.
Can a winner who lost the first-place vote in D10 be a bridge builder?
But when the RCV dust settled, the results proved that the D10 vote continues to break down along class, race, and gender lines. These RCV patterns personally benefited Cohen's success in picking up second- and third-place votes.Read more at the SFBG
At last, some answers to the question on every San Franciscan's mind: "why doesn't my phone get any reception?"
Read more at NBC Bay AreaThe answer, in short, is interference. But not the cellular kind -- interference from neighbors. The latest salvo in the battle happened on Potrero Hill. Wireless provider Clearwire wanted to install a few basketball-sized antennas on an existing structure in the park. Neighbors found out about the plans, and started making nervous noises about the health and safety of the equipment.
The San Francisco Arts Commission plans to implement two public art projects in conjunction with the renovation of the Palega Recreation Center: one to be located outdoors and one for the building’s interior. A total of five artists were selected by the Palega Recreation Center Artist Selection Panel to create artwork proposals for these two opportunities. The artists Scott Oliver, Rebar Group and the team of Peter Richards and Susan Schwartzenberg have created proposals for an outdoor artwork. The artists Jeffrey Long, Scott Oliver and Kelly Ording have created proposals for large scale, two-dimensional integrated artwork inside the Recreation Center. Come see the public art proposals while they are on view at the Palega Recreation Center and provide us with feedback in the comment book located at the Center. Your opinions will be shared with the selection panel before one proposal is chosen for implementation.Proposals can be viewed at the Pegala Rec Center, 500 Felton St., until the 20th, or they can be downloaded from the SF Arts Commission website at:
Last month District 10 voters elected a new Supervisor: Malia Cohen. In a hotly contested race, in which Lynette Sweet won the most first place votes, Cohen elbowed past her initial third place position to emerge the winner through the ranked choice voting process. In the final tally just one-fifth of the voters identified Cohen as one of their three choices, enough for her to edge out Tony Kelly, who received the second most first place votes.
The election results tell a chaotic tale of a district in search of an identity. The two Asian-American candidates, Marlene Tran and Teresa Duque, gathered more than 3,400 votes between them, reflecting a new, powerful, ethnic voting bloc. Kelly beat me in Potrero, but didn’t crack the top five vote-getters in the district’s other three dominant communities: Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley, and Portola. Cohen won without strong support from the Hill – she was sixth in terms of first place votes from our community – suggesting a political tilt towards the district’s southern neighborhoods. More than 2,500 District 10 voters either didn’t select a supervisorial candidate, or spoiled their ballot by marking multiple politicians as their first choice. If these individuals had properly voted or participated in the supervisors’ race they’d have changed the outcome.Read more at the Potrero View
Our first Park Champions volunteer work day for Candlestick Point will be this Saturday, December 11, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.! Please consider volunteering, as there is a lot of work to be done.
Due to recent flooding, your help is needed to create a drainage trench around the main office so flooring can be replaced. Volunteers will also be used to do some much needed tree trimming around the park. On-site training will be provided, as well as coffee, water, snacks and FUN! Please bring a water bottle and work gloves. To register, go to our website and choose Candlestick Point SRA from the park list.
Building student housing in San Francisco may become a more attractive option for developers if, as expected, the city approves new rules that would make it cheaper to create residential developments for colleges and universities.
The ordinance lifting the affordable housing fees is the brainchild of the Housing Action Coalition, which advocates for creating more housing in the city.
Tim Colen, the organization's executive director, has been working on developing the legislation for two years after he was approached by the tiny American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which enrolls 300 students and whose main campus is on Arkansas Street in Potrero Hill. He soon learned that other colleges - large and small - had housing shortages.
Unlike the stall at Ferry Plaza, Tell Tale's 1,000-square-foot space in Potrero will have actual tables and chairs.
We recall sitting on Santa's lap at the old Emporium store on the site, roughly, of Bloomies. It seemed grand: elves in tights, plywood candy-cane cutouts.
Thursday on Potrero Hill a different kind of grand is stirring, as Tell Tale Preserve Co.'s William Werner launches a new boutique inside Big Daddy Antiques, a four-month-old home shop at 17th Potrero. Big Daddy owner Shane Brown says he's designing the 1,000-square-foot space-within-a-space just for Tell Tale: a communal two-board table form the 1800s, scaffold walls, industrial lighting. "The look is organic industrial ― if you can call something that," Brown says. All the furniture will be for sale, and anyone wearing tights will most likely be a customer.
Arc Ecology filed suit today in federal court against the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, citing First Amendment issues and the Commission’s alleged retaliation for Arc’s criticism of the Agency’s Candlestick Point/ Hunters Point Shipyard project.
Bayview community members are calling for complete, adequate, timely and on-going community oversight of the Superfund site remediation process.
Read more at Salem News(SAN FRANCISCO) - Community groups POWER, Greenaction, SLAM, and other Bayview community leaders are meeting Mathy Stanislaus, the Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response in Washington, DC and the official responsible for Superfund cleanup at the agency. Stanislaus will tour toxic waste sites at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, including areas contaminated with radiation that border family housing and neighborhood businesses.
A homicide in Visitacion Valley on Thursday was the second fatal shooting in The City in less than 24 hours.
An 18-year-old described as a black man was found dead “outdoors on the ground” in the 1400 block of Visitacion Avenue around 12:03 p.m. Thursday, according to San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Andraychak. He died from his injuries after being taken to a hospital.
Andraychak said the killing was being treated as a homicide, but could not say whether it was gang-related.Read more at the San Francisco Examiner
Read more at The Western EditionRecently, according to Brown, District 10 has experienced a highly competitive race for supervisor. Brown said that the city should return to citywide elections. He said that he absolutely abhors ranked choice voting because the process dilutes the race.
“The system that has been designed by the Progressives in this town adversely affects the ability for a distinct racial minority group to organize,” Brown opined. “If you had citywide elections as we’ve had in the past, and we had candidates running against other candidates, rather than this wildcard contest where nobody runs against anybody, you would be able to consolidate resources.
“As long as you have this wild card configuration where people don’t get but 40 votes, makes it almost impossible.”
To resolve the issue, Brown suggested that people urge the mayor and the Board of Supervisors to put a measure on the ballot that will modify the method of electing the supervisors.
SARATOGA, Calif. -- Here in the Golden State, there's a burgeoning business in selling solar panels for the home. There's also a business in making it less of a headache.
Edward Lortz knows about the headache side. Two years ago, he began researching solar panels for his home in Potrero Hill, a San Francisco neighborhood that overlooks the bay.
Vallejo Breakers, Vallejo After Dark, Benicia Waterfront, Fairfield Pumpkin Blossom and San Francisco Potrero Hill are not names of local foot races. They're a few of the "vintages" of honey produced by Vallejo-based Bay Area Bee Co.Read more at the Times-Herald
The brainchild of Lithuanian transplant and newlywed Rokas Armonas, Bay Area Bee Co. has some 10 hives in backyards around the Bay Area, including his own. Armonas said he hopes to increase that number and expand into Oakland/Berkeley and Marin.
"If they agree to have the bees, they get honey for free," he said.
If you're interested
What: Bay Area Bee Co. products -- honey and, soon, bees wax candles and other items.
Where: Available Saturday mornings at Vallejo's Moschetti's Espresso at 11 Sixth St. and also at the San Francisco Underground Market, which next will be held Dec. 18 at the SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan St.
Cost: $8 per pound; San Francisco varieties slightly higher.
Contact: bayareabeecompany@yahoo.com
San Francisco's long-running case against a permit expediter who repeatedly violated city building codes has ended with a $486,000 payment from his bankruptcy estate, the city attorney's office said Wednesday.Read more at SFGate:
The city won a Superior Court ruling in 2003 finding that Jimmy Jen had broken numerous laws while expanding a residence he bought in Visitacion Valley in 1999 and sold two years later. Judge Ellen Chaitin said Jen had violated health and safety rules and ignored a city order to stop work on the property.
Read more at SFGateSan Francisco's fat can become fuel after a long-stalled biodiesel production facility on San Francisco's southeastern waterfront gained approval from the city's Port Commission.
The new operation, owned by Darling International Inc. (a Texas-based company locally located at 429 Amador St), will produce 10 million gallons of biofuel each year using leftover cooking oil.
A rogue's gallery of downtown power brokers and moderate politicians is lining up to give D10 supervisor-elect Malia Cohen money during a fundraiser at Democratic Party money man Wade Randlett's house tomorrow night (Wed/1). And while the group may be trying to buy the support of a candidate they didn't support in the election, Cohen and some of her progressive supporters say she's been open to developing relationships across the ideological spectrum.
To get a sense of the political importance of building Muni's new Central Subway line into Chinatown, take one look at a document explaining the transit agency's newest ridership projections for 2030 that focus extensively on the T-Third Metro route.
Who Benefits from Net Neutrality?
For inner-city areas like Richmond’s Iron Triangle, San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point, and West and East Oakland, the FCC’s plan, if achieved, could drastically reduce unemployment. It would also spur community involvement, investment and economic expansion – which could ultimately reduce crime and recidivism rates.
A cluster of lofts, condos and industry on several blocks south of the Dogpatch neighborhood is struggling to create an identity for itself.
According to resident Bill Slatkin, when people started moving in to the yet-to-be-named neighborhood — which is bounded by 22nd Street, Cesar Chavez Street to the south, the T-Third to the east and Caltrain tracks on the west — the area was on a path of growth.
LET’S DO IT AGAIN! San Francisco Bayview merchants and sponsors came together for “The Second Annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner - Turkey Your Way”, at Velma’s Place - the heart and soul venue of the community, located on Jerrold Avenue, where it all began last year! VELMA LANDERS, long time District 10 resident, opened her club three years ago; which serves not only as a nightclub (that has featured named musicians), but the community as well.
"We get it faster than Safeway, usually just 24 hours from the field," Food Bank Executive Director Paul Ash said, leading a tour of the Food Bank's 50,000-square-foot Potrero Hill warehouse. Filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves holding boxes and pallets of food, it looks like a Costco or Sam's Club.
