The first of three scheduled community meetings over a proposal to equip a number of San Francisco officers with stun guns showed the sharp divide between top Police Department brass asking for the devices and community members fighting to keep them out of cops’ hands. Ultimately, the seven-member Police Commission will decide whether to approve Police Chief Greg Suhr’s proposed stun-gun pilot program. The devices are intended to incapacitate someone by delivering 50,000 volts of electricity. Read More

In an effort by Police Chief Greg Suhr to equip San Francisco police officers with stun guns, the first of three community meetings is expected to take place today. Last month, Suhr told members of the Board of Supervisors that he would like to launch a pilot program to give stun guns to about 103 officers specially trained to handle mentally ill people. The devices are capable of shooting 50,000 volts of electricity through a person’s body. Read More

A homeowner advocacy group is targeting three city supervisors to ensure passage of legislation that would give some San Francisco homeowners a one-time opportunity to bypass The City’s condo-conversion lottery system by paying a fee. The owners of more than 2,000 tenancy-in-common units are seeking permission to convert their homes into condos — typically so they can refinance their homes at a lower mortgage rate. But The City’s lottery system only lets 200 units a year be converted into condos, forcing other owners to wait for years. Read More

Hundreds of San Francisco government workers exceeded the limit on overtime last fiscal year, as the time-and-a-half spending continues to climb. The City first placed a cap on the amount of overtime a worker could accrue in 2009, but it also allowed for special exemptions and waivers to exceed the threshold. According to a report recently released by the City Controller’s Office, 863 workers exceeded the cap last fiscal year. Read More

San Francisco’s anti-smoking laws intensified Tuesday with the passage of a law banning smoking at outdoor public events and another requiring landlords to disclose the number of on-site smoking units in buildings. Not surprisingly, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved both pieces of legislation introduced by Supervisor Eric Mar, who championed them as protecting the public from unwanted exposure to secondhand smoke. Read More

San Francisco’s payroll tax was kicked to the curb in the November election and replaced with a levy on businesses’ gross receipts. Now comes the hard and costly part: implementing the new and complex tax structure. To that end, The City plans to spend $2.57 million this fiscal year alone on increased staff and technology services to plan for phasing out the payroll tax and setting up the gross receipts system. Read More

San Francisco is using millions of dollars in federal grant money to help train and educate local residents to make them attractive hires for the booming technology industry. As The City celebrates its emergence as a tech hub around industry heavyweights such as Salesforce.com and Twitter, city officials are emphasizing the need to make sure some of the benefits accrue for San Franciscans who don’t yet possess specialized technology skills. Read More