San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Commission approved a budget Thursday that included $3.4 million in cost savings, through the elimination of unfilled positions and fee increases, in response to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s request that all city departments shave at least 8 percent off their budgets.
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A look of apprehension falls over Elizabeth Hernandez’s face when she glances over at her daughter Daniela, a 3-year-old who casually scales the lone play structure in the Bernal Preschool’s diminutive outside activity area."She seems bored," said Hernandez, a Bernal Heights resident whose daughter attended the neighborhood preschool for six months. "There just isn’t that much for her to do when she goes outside to play."
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While the news of Doris and Donald Fisher’s contemporary art museum proposed for the Presidio’s historic Main Parade Ground has made headlines as well as drawn some criticism for its modern architectural design, another major project in development at the former Army base — the Walt Disney Family Museum — is moving forward with little attention.
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The letters on the facade of the U.S. Post Office at 101 Hyde St. are faded and weary. A single employee helps a streaming line of patrons with general delivery queries. The stamp-dispensing machine in the lobby bears a note that says its services are out of order. Located in the Tenderloin, the facility’s open doors, lack of security figures and dearth of full-time employees make it a sheltered haven for criminal activity, said Elaine Zamora, a neighborhood resident and member of the advocacy group The New Tenderloin.
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Traffic collisions involving pedestrians in San Francisco increased from 2006 to 2007, but a study points out another glaring statistic — the number of senior-citizen deaths from these accidents.According to a report released Thursday at the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee meeting, there was a 50 percent rise in fatalities in pedestrian-versus-auto collisions.
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A package of transit projects are slated to coincide with the proposed development of up to 15,000 new housing units in The City’s southeast sector, but funding shortfalls could limit the number of travel options in the region, transportation officials said Wednesday.
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With FasTrak violators driving away with $7 million in unpaid tolls last year, regional transportation officials will decide today on security improvements geared at slicing that total in half. Up for approval in the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is a $7.5 million contract authorizing the installation of a new camera system capable of snapping photos of passing automobiles’ front and rear license plates, MTC spokesman Randy Rentschler said. The contract — with New York-based TRMI Systems Integration — is worth $7.5 million.
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The man born Leib Lejzon was the youngest of the Jewish Holocaust survivors employed by Oskar Schindler during World War II, a story later immortalized in the film "Schindler’s List." Leyson began working in Schindler’s enamelware factory in 1943 at just 13 years of age. Though his two older brothers died during the Holocaust, Leyson’s parents, sister and another brother survived because of Schindler’s efforts.
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With a coyote population that has doubled in San Francisco over the past year, city animal officials are investigating new safety measures as the wild canines enter their breeding season — particularly since two of the animals were slain last summer because of aggressive behavior.At the time of the two coyote killings — shot by state animal officials after numerous attacks on domesticated dogs — there were approximately six members of the species in
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The United Way of the Bay Area’s 211 program, a call-center program that links local residents with health and human service agencies, will expand its coverage from three Bay Area counties to seven, according to the organization’s officials. Already present in San Francisco, Santa Clara and Alameda counties, the call service will now include coverage in Marin, Napa, Contra Costa and Solano counties, United Way spokeswoman Maria Stokes said. The formal expansion will start Monday — or 2/11.
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With an infusion of new funding approved by voters in November, The City’s branch library improvement program is moving forward, although minor delays have held up the expected opening of some of the restored branches, according to library officials. Today, the 70-year-old Bernal Heights Branch Library is closing for a $5.7 million makeover that is scheduled for completion by early 2010.
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Safety measures and practices at the San Francisco Zoo will be put under the microscope by a newly formed seven-person panel.Members of the peer-review team assigned by the Mayor’s Office were announced during Thursday’s Recreation and Park Commission meeting.
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Frank Schweiger can still list off the injuries as if they occurred yesterday — broken femur, ruptured Achilles tendon, two broken feet and a broken left forearm — all the result of a head-on collision, suffered 24 years ago when he was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.
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For more than 20 years, the San Francisco native has been crafting visual works of art using the unlikely medium of toothpicks.
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Bernal Heights resident Erick Balderas was not unlike most 21-year-olds. He liked to rap, enjoyed watching boxing and dreamed of one day becoming famous.Unlike his peers, however, Balderas’ days of watching sports and daydreaming about a life in the spotlight are over. On Nov. 18, 2007, while waiting in a car outside a friend’s house on 23rd and Treat streets in the Mission district, Balderas was killed by gunmen who opened fire from a nearby vehicle.
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