San Francisco Bay Guardian

By Brittany Baguio

 The Board of Supervisors this week voted to impose non-resident fees for admission into Botanical Gardens in an effort to help alleviate the city's $483 million budget deficit, as requested by the Mayor's Office. But even supervisors who supported it say they hope to end the fees if they can find some general revenue sources, a process that will begin next week after Mayor Gavin Newsom releases his budget on June 1. Read more »

Internal polls by Pacific Gas and Electric Company's consultants show that Prop. 16 -- the scandalous attack on public power and community choice -- is still trailing, despite $45 million in advertising, a source familiar with the polling told me today.Read more »

Well, maybe it's not entirely, new, but I haven't seen it around here. The Point Reyes Light, a legend in West Marin, was just sold to a community-based group that's almost, sortof a nonprofit. It's actually called a "low-profit limited liability company" (not a bad name for most newspapers these days), and it's going to be operated as a community trust, of sorts. Mark Dowie, the well-known investigative reporter, is involved, so that's good news. Read more »

Immigrant rights attorney Francisco Ugarte, who works for SFILEN,  just talked to me about why it’s critical that folks raise their concerns about immigrant rights with their elected officials in the face of Secure Communities, a program ICE is planning to bring to San Francisco June 1, and to all U.S. jails by 2013, without the openness and transparency that we have come to expect under the Obama administration. Read more »

Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously appointed tireless immigrant rights advocate Angela Chan to the San Francisco Police Commission.
That’s the good news. Read more »