Politics Blog

Property resistance in the Bay and beyond

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In 2004, Hannah Dobbz climbed up the drainpipe of an abandoned building in Emeryville and disappeared through a broken window. Outside, her friends waited with blankets, pillows, and food. Making her way down to the first floor, she unsecured the plywood door and let them in.Read more »

Covering the Boston bombing

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Ever since the horrible, awful bombing at the Boston Marathon, I've been doing what every crazy newshound does and spending far too much time on the Internet trying to get the latest scrap of information. This morning, none of us could drag ourselves away from the developing story.Read more »

Bay Area groups critical of immigration reform proposal

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Olga Miranda, secretary treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council and president of SEIU Local 87, did not mince words when sharing her initial reaction to the proposed federal immigration reform bill, which was unveiled April 16 by a bipartisan group of senators.

“If it was myself and our members at the bargaining table, we would walk away,” Miranda said. “This proposal is nothing more than an offense to the community.”Read more »

Is there hope for California?

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Nothing cheers up an old tax-and-spend liberal than word that two major new sources of state revenue -- enough to begin closing the gap in education funding -- are at least on the table in Sacramento.Read more »

The Chron gets the condo deal wrong

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It's kind of a surprise that the Chron actually likes the (possible) condo conversion deal. That paper typically opposes anything that is good for tenants and supports anything that the landlords like. But it's annoying that the editorial writers made it sound as if Sups. Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell engineered this whole thing. You need to get beyond the silly paywall to read the full editorial, so I'll reproduce the key part here:Read more »

Is there such a thing as "green" fracking?

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Michael Klein is an unlikely oil industry executive. He’s also an unlikely environmental activist. For many years, the affluent San Franciscan was a major donor and chair of the board of the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental organization famous for its aggressive agitation targeting timber giants, coal companies, air polluters, and the dirty energy financiers of Wall Street.

But he's stepped down from that role, and has since helped form a company called Hydrozonix, which might be called a “green” fracking enterprise.Read more »

CEQA change moves faster in SF than Sacto

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So the Guv says he doesn't think he's going to be able to gut CEQA this year. I think he's right: The party he supposedly leads (but doesn't tend to follow him) won't go for it, any more than the party Obama leads will got for cuts to Social Security.Read more »

Warriors Arena proposal rouses supporters and opponents

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UPDATED Rival teams have formed in the last week to support and oppose the proposed Warriors Arena at Piers 30-32 as the California Legislature considers a new bill to approve the project, a new design is about to be released, and a trio of San Francisco agencies prepares to hold informational hearings.Read more »

Boston, a day later

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It's hard to know what to say about the Boston Marathon bombings. Except that I don't believe the guy on the roof did it, and I don't believe the government did it to get its hand down our pants, and nobody has any idea if some organized domestic or foreign terrorist group was responsible or if it was a lone nut. Read more »