The elimination of California’s redevelopment agencies will have a tremendous negative impact on under-resourced San Francisco communities such as Bayview-Hunters Point. Renaissance Bayview, a program of Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, has partnered with The City’s Redevelopment Agency to provide emerging and established entrepreneurs with critical small business support services. Bayview Renaissance manages the Third Street Corridor Program and neighborhood Marketplace Initiative while also staffing the Bayview Merchants Association. Read More

Thanks for Ken Garcia’s Sunday column about the destructive impact of San Francisco politics on The City’s families. I agree that the Board of Supervisors continues to pass laws that discriminate against productive local people, and families are the biggest victims of this agenda. Our “leaders” behave like fanatic crusaders preaching poverty as some kind of a moral ideal we should all strive for. They hate business (big and small) and wish to transform San Francisco into their vision of a utopian paradise where commerce and for-profit institutions have no place. Read More

So many public sector employees have yelled at me, stalked and blocked me while I was collecting signatures for Jeff Adachi’s pension reform measure. Can you imagine the outrage if I went to these same city employees’ workplaces and harassed them about not caring about The City’s finances or future city worker pensions? They would call the police on me. Read More

Your Sunday cover story, “Paying for the parks,” resembled a press release from the Recreation and Park Department rather than independent journalism. For example, the article indicates the new boathouse vendor at Stow Lake will generate $50,000 a year in additional revenue. But as a member of the family that operated the boathouse for decades, I can tell you we offered a $55,000 higher minimum annual rent than the New Mexico group that has been given the new contract. That is at least $1 million lost to The City over the term of the lease. Read More

Bay Area bicyclists alienated a lot of people Saturday on the Golden Gate Bridge, and that’s a shame. Only wobbly tourists on rental bikes and a handful of experienced riders demonstrated any concern about safety. Pedaling with arrogant sneers of self-assumed superiority, spandex-clad jerks sped carelessly into heavy crowds of pedestrians who were trying to enjoy one of our greatest local attractions. Read More

As a city worker, it was extremely frustrating to read Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s Thursday op-ed, which continues to mislead voters with inaccurate information. There is nothing “citizen-led” about Adachi’s ballot measure. He personally wrote the measure with backing from a few wealthy supporters. In contrast, the consensus plan was crafted by Mayor Ed Lee, business leader Warren Hellman, the Board of Supervisors and labor groups. Read More

Three city officials were named in The San Francisco Examiner as candidates to replace ousted San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency chief Nathaniel Ford. Two of those named have already taken themselves out of the running, leaving Department of Public Works chief Ed Reiskin as the clear front-runner. But The City’s streets are in such horrendous disrepair that it is hazardous to exceed 10 mph. I could show you the repair bills for recent damage to my car as a direct result of a pothole. Even walking is hazardous due to the dramatically uneven pavement. Read More