Should bicyclists be allowed to treat stop signs as “yields” and stop lights like stop signs? Tomorrow, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Bicycle working group will be pondering the question.

Idaho, recognizing the law of momentum is just as important as the vehicle traffic code, already adopted this practice back in 1982. Read more »

A two-day Theatre of the Oppressed workshop is coming to the Bay Area in July. It's open to anyone interested in learning how to use theatre as a way to get people to understand and care about social, environmental, and political justice issues. It's been used in prisons, schools, war zones, rural villages, and urban streets. Read more »

Chalk this one up in the “take nothing for granted” category.

The Board of Supervisors at today’s meeting gave an empty seat on the Sunshine Task Force to James Knoebber, rather than David Waggoner -- the candidate recommended by Rules Committee. The switch came from Sup. Sean Elsbernd, who happens to be sitting on the opposite side of the courtroom as Waggoner in a case currently before the Ethics Commission.

Yet, there was no discussion about the amendment from Elsbernd to vote in Knoebber over Waggoner. Read more »

While PG&E is requesting the California Public Utilities Commission allow them a 6.5 percent electricity rate hike over the next six months, ostensibly to cover skyrocketing natural gas prices, they’re telling local citizens they’re expecting prices to drop. Read more »

photo courtesy of Indybay

It looks like the city of Fresno will be writing a big fat check to 225 homeless people who sued when city workers trashed their belongings in a series of raids on encampments in 2006. Read more »

Oh my. For all you folks that have been following the controversy around building new power plants in San Francisco, it just got even better.

Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors today outlining a “more promising way forward than the current proposal” to build two natural gas-burning “peaking” power plants in the city.

The way forward: retrofit three existing diesel turbines at the Mirant-Potrero Power Plant, while at the same time shutting down Unit 3, the most polluting part of the power plant, as soon as the Transbay Cable comes online. Read more »

The Coalition on Homelessness has done a quick survey of the budget slashes that were announced today.

To sum, if you're a cop, you're psyched. If you're down on your luck, without a place to stay and off your meds, and the city's been helping you sort all that out....well, you've got until the end of the month to get it together. Read more »

At today's Local Homeless Coordinating Board meeting, Mayor Gavin Newsom's homelessness “czar,” Dariush Kayhan, briefed the group on new ideas for improving city-funded shelters that he and the mayor have been hashing over.

There were just a few, and most of them seem like they need coordination more than cash, but they all answer, to some extent, some of the calls for help that have been coming from the city's homeless shelter system.

All of this comes from a Feb. Read more »