San Franciscans are now debating how to pay for seismic upgrades to 44,000 San Francisco housing units vulnerable to collapse during an earthquake. The discussion concerns so-called soft-story buildings — structures in which multistory wooden-frame buildings sit atop garages or businesses with few internal walls. Such buildings famously collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Read More

As most people who have tried it know: Catching a cab in San Francisco is not simple. There is no centralized dispatch service and far too few taxi stands, and wildly waving one’s arm for taxis on the street is hardly useful — although often good exercise. Read More

“San Francisco DA George Gascón unhappy with cellphone industry approach to thefts,” Local News, Wednesday Read More

They held an election in California’s largest city last week, more or less. Just 16 percent of Los Angeles’ registered voters cast ballots, and neither of the two leading candidates for mayor received even a third of that vote. So City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel, each claiming the allegiance of just 4 percent to 5 percent of the city’s voters (and only a couple of percentage points of its 3.8 million residents) will face each other in a May 21 runoff election for the very dubious honor of governing a city that’s flirting with insolvency. Read More