Participation in the June elections in San Mateo County is typically low, but this year could be different as voters can weigh in on the primaries for California governor and replacements for several longtime county officials who have opted not to seek re-election, elections officials said.
June elections typically only tally between 35 to 39 percent voter turnout, vastly lower than the 78 percent draw during the election in which President Barack Obama won office, said David Tom, elections manager for the San Mateo County Elections Office.
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Smokers who continue to light up in non-smoking areas on the San Francisco State University campus will face stiffer penalties – a $58 fine for each violation – starting April 12, the university said.
On that date, the university will also reduce the number of designated smoking areas on campus to four, it said.
Despite a policy enacted in 2004 in which smoking was banned campus-wide except for designated areas, smokers continue to break the rules, President Robert A. Corrigan said in a statement.
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Professor Brett Bonthron is chair of the University of San Francisco’s eighth annual International Business Plan Competition that’s set to take place Thursday and Friday at the Hotel Kabuki. The competition hosts 21 student entrepreneur teams from around the world competing for $25,000 in prize money and receiving coaching from more than 40 Silicon Valley industry leaders.
How do students benefit from this competition?
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The football field at City College of San Francisco may soon get a new playing surface, as its current turf is aging, officials at the school said.
On Wednesday, the school’s Board of Trustees is scheduled to approve spending no more than $750,000 on a new playing surface to be paid in $90,000 increments over eight years.
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The Department of Public Works has a message for all those parched San Franciscans who are just dying for a cool drink of water on Monday:
“Say NO to bottled water!”
That was DPW’s recent Twitter message promoting World Water Day, which is Monday. The agency is asking San Franciscans to stay away from all that plastic and “join the tap water revolution.”
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The Board of Education is set to vote Tuesday on a policy to add a special seal onto the diplomas of graduating students who showed “proficiency in speaking, reading and writing in one or more languages in addition to English,” the San Francisco Unified School District said.
“Preparing students for our world of multilingualism and multiculturalism has become an integral and indispensable part of the educational process,” the district said.
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Parents currently enduring the unpredictable and nerve-wracking process that determines where their children attend public schools in San Francisco are offering mixed reviews about a new assignment system that is supposed to make everyone’s life easier next fall.
Families of students entering kindergarten, middle school or high school were notified via mail by the San Francisco Unified School District in recent days of the school their children may be attending.
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The struggle for high school students to arrive at The City’s public schools on time has prompted some Board of Education members to propose changing the school day to begin one hour later.
Currently, most public high schools ring the first bell around 8 a.m. and end around 3 p.m.
But Commissioner Sandra Lee Fewer is pushing the idea of starting high school classes an hour later at 9 a.m. and also ending them an hour later to accommodate sleepy-headed teenagers.
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San Francisco’s Sanchez Elementary School will officially open some cool green amenities Wednesday: A new “green lab” and “vertical garden.”
The green lab contains a weather station, solar panels and other tools for scientific research, the San Francisco Unified School District said.
The vertical garden uses an 8-foot chain-link fence to grow vegetables, it said. The garden uses aquaponic technology and is powered by renewable energy.
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Six more schools are about to receive funding and guidance toward helping them cut back on their energy use, water consumption and waste generation, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.Last year, seven schools received funding as part of the Green Team program, partly using the money on projects that would divert less of their waste to clogged-up landfills.
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The long-shuttered, three-screen theater on Geary Boulevard and 18th Avenue has become a haven for homeless and has contributed to so much blight along the bustling Richmond district strip that neighbors and businesses are pleading for something to be done.
“There are a lot of homeless people sleeping there,” said Yevgeniya Lapa, an employee of the Europa Plus market across the street. “They use it like a restroom. It’s dirty.”
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San Francisco State University ranks 21st in the nation for the number of students that have served in the Peace Corps program, the university said, citing recent Peace Corps data.
In all, 1,267 alumni have volunteered in the Peace Corps since it was founded in 1961, the university said.
UC Berkeley tops the most volunteers list with 3,371, the University of Wisconsin is second (2,848); the University of Washington third (2,560), the University of Michigan fourth (2,276) and the University of Colorado fifth (2,157), according to the Peace Corps.
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The San Francisco resident who ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days is set to embark today on another seemingly impossible adventure: He will ride an outdoor elliptical bicycle from Chestnut Street in The City to Los Angeles, then run through L.A. for 24 hours straight to promote the new Los Angeles Marathon. Karnazes will cap the trip by completing the marathon.
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It’s hard to imagine there are benefits to a high unemployment rate, but San Franciscans’ thirst for jobs has been a boon for the 2010 census.
“We have former executives and CEOs, Ph.Ds, senior managers, people with management skills [applying for jobs],” said Sonny Le, a regional U.S. Census Bureau spokesman. “We have the best candidates ever.”
And there are lots of them, he said.
With a tight job market in The City, applications for employment through San Francisco’s two census offices have been streaming in, Le said.
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The 900-plus layoff notices that the San Francisco Unified School District had approved sending to teachers and other employees by the state’s Monday deadline would save the district about $48 million in one year and $97 million during the next two years, union leaders said.
The district is trying to close a projected budget gap of $113 million during the next two years.
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