Bayview Dumped On — Again

From The Bay Citizen,

Illegal dumpers have targeted one city street four times in the past five months.

San Francisco wants to know who dumped more than 10 tons of debris, including shingles and other roofing material, on a sidewalk in the Bayview district. A neighbor discovered the mess near 1347 Donner Avenue.

The Bayview has become a dumping ground for businesses that do not want to pay to dispose of their debris, leaving the San Francisco Department of Public Works to mop up. “The Southeast section of San Francisco is frequently targeted by large-scale industrial dumping activity,” said the Department's spokeswoman, Gloria Chan.

Read more at The Bay Citizen

Read more at ABC7

Read more at SFAppeal

When 0.45% of Total Voters Can Translate to Victory - NY Times

Scott James of the New York Times/Bay Citizen writes,

If the new San Francisco Board of Supervisors sworn in Jan. 8 is anything like its predecessor, there will be a time when an unpopular decision will have citizens asking, “Who picked these people?”

The answer will be: hardly anyone. 

A record 8 of 11 supervisors on the new board have an interesting distinction: They were not the first choices of a majority of voters, but prevailed in the city’s ranked-choice voting system.

Read more at NY Times

Avalos to introduce scaled-back local hiring bill - Bay Citizen

Gerry Shih writes:

San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos is expected to introduce on Tuesday a scaled-back version of a mandatory local hiring bill after reaching a tentative agreement with labor unions, Avalos and a union official said Monday.

In its first year, the legislation would require construction firms contracted by San Francisco to hire at least 25 percent local residents for city jobs. The minimum would be raised by 5 percentage points every year thereafter until it is capped at 50 percent in 2016.

Read more at The Bay Citizen

Foodbank crashers on the prowl - Bay Citizen

Vivian Po writes,

During the holiday season, families in need depend on food banks to put meals on the table for their loved ones, but professional "food bank crashers" are taking advantage of the free food for their own profit, reports David Huang for the Sing Tao Daily. Some people collect food repeatedly from different locations, and then make money by selling the donated food items.

Read more at the Bay Citizen

D10 Politics in the News This Week

Right on Target - SFGate

Local Hiring Protesters Shadow UCSF Groundbreaking - SF Weekly

Local Hiring Key Issue in SF District 10 Race - Bay Citizen

Progressives in Trouble in District 10 Supervisor Race - Beyond Chron

Cash not Care - SFBG

San Francisco's wide-open District 10 race - SFGate

Danny Glover Robo Calls for DeWitt Lacy - SFBG

Steve Moss - The Big Duck - SFBG

Even more money

The amount of money floating into these campaigns is astonishing.

Read more at the SFBG and The Bay Citizen.

Recall that Moss isn't the only candidate benefiting from Republican contributions like those from rent control overturn advocates Coates and Zacks. Although these numbers are huge, Lynette Sweet also has that sweet campaign office rent of $100/mo courtesy of the Vidovich family. Read more at Beyond Chron, SFBG, and Muckey.

Chinese voters in D10 - SF Bay Citizen

My thoughts on today's post online in the SF Bay Citizen:

Asians make up over a third of the population of D10, so while the candidate forums so far have skewed heavily toward the concerns of the African-American community, Blacks make up a smaller 28% of the population in the district. Fifteen candidates in the D10 race are African-American, with only Duqué and Tran holding down the Asian fort and Moss, Enea, Weber, and Kelly the only Caucasians. It'd be nice in future elections to see greater representation from the Chinese-American community, and if anything, greater engagement of this growing population needs to be done by our next supervisor to encourage our next generation of Chinese-American leaders. One thing that comes to mind here is that the Chinese community tends to skew a little more conservative, so Progressives may need to watch their backs - Jackson's move to engage this community is a smart one.

It's a shame, really, that I haven't seen more Asian voters attending the forums, and although campaign materials are often printed in other languages, including Chinese, I worry that candidates are not reaching out to the Chinese community as much as they ought to. Hopefully the candidates will all be in attendance at next week's Visitacion Valley Community Center forum, cosponsored by the Chinese American Voter Education Committee, and will make a showing at Sunday's Portola Festival - No Folsom St Fair for any of you, I'm afraid!!