It’s a situation that every Muni passenger knows all too well — you wait for 30 minutes at your stop without a single vehicle in sight, and then all of a sudden five different buses arrive simultaneously.There is a term for that unpleasant scenario — it’s called “bunches and gaps” — and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, wants to cut down significantly on those problems over the next six years.
Mayor Ed Lee took a tour of the Occupy SF encampment in Justin Herman Plaza on Tuesday morning, flanked by San Francisco police.
Lee told The San Francisco Examiner that he will meet with the Occupy SF protesters Wednesday. He said he hopes protesters will agree to move out of the plaza and relocate to a private property.
The City's homeless czar Dariush Kayhan walked the mayor through the camp.
maldax@sfexaminer.com
San Francisco was the first city in the nation to ban the use of plastic bags in grocery stores and pharmacies back in 2007. Since then many other cities followed suit, and others have raised the bar by charging for consumers using single-use plastic bags and having a ban apply to all retailers.
But now San Francisco is poised to expand the ban to retailers by July 2012 and all restaurants by July 2013.
One of the fascinating aspects of ranked choice voting is that one can learn which candidates have a similar voting base. I certainly wanted to know where the votes went after each candidate was eliminated. Below are charts that follow the flow of votes from round to round to show you how we got to the final tally and declaration of a winner.
Supervisor John Avalos became the best anti-Lee candidate in the race, outlasting all others in the crowded race who failed to distinguish themselves. But in the end, Lee proved untouchable and on Friday Avalos conceded.
Avalos had postponed conceding until all the ballots were counted, which took all week.
Two write-in candidates in the mayoral race have yet to receive even one measly vote, but both said they did indeed vote for themselves and they’re just waiting for it to be counted.Coming in at zero votes so far are John Edward Fitch — a first time candidate and 58-year-old resident of the Tenderloin neighborhood — and Patrick Monette-Shaw, who also ran for mayor in 2007.Fitch said he voted, but added that there was a larger reason why he didn’t do well in the race.
Much has been made of Asian voter influence in Tuesday’s mayoral election, but it’s also important to note that the geographic support of Ed Lee’s stretched citywide — including into the home district of his closest competitor.
Amid calls for changes to The City’s public financing program, which is available for mayoral and supervisor candidates, the Ethics Commission will debate what a revised program should look like. The first hearing is set for Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Room 408 at City Hall.
Mayor Ed Lee sailed to victory spending the most cash of any other candidate in the mayor’s race. As of Wednesday, reported spending to elect Lee to a four-year term totaled $2,682,859, which includes his campaign spending and those of third-parties groups, according to the Ethics Commission.
Public Defender Jeff Adachi is known as the guy who made City Hall take pension reform seriously. His initial effort last year, Proposition B, was defeated after labor leaders led a well-funded campaign against it while promising to draft a better solution for the November ballot.
