How else does a communications aide announce he is leaving his post?
Via Twitter, of course. Tuesday night, Brian Purchia, who has been Mayor Gavin Newsom's deputy director of communications, announce on his Twitter account that he was moving on: "Leaving @GavinNewsom admin, proud of DataSF @SF311 #Open311 CCSF #socialmedia: http://bit.ly/bqtuAL Thx @CraigNewmark + #opengov team!"
On a follow-up post, Purchia said he was joining PR firm Burson-Marsteller.
Read More
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will be in The City on Monday for a fundraiser.
Rice will be at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon St., for a Friends of Faith (Fancher) event that benefits underinsured and at-risk women with breast cancer.
If you notice Rice scrambling for a television, she may be trying to keep track of the second-ranked Stanford women's basketball team in the Elite Eight. The Cardinal faces Xavier in Sacramento at 6 p.m., the same time as the start time of the fundraiser. Rice is a former administrator at Stanford and an avid sports fan.
Read More
Legislation that would require residential hotel owners and operators to post notices advising occupants that they can call 311 to report potential violations goes before the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee on Monday.
Last week, the Building Inspection Commission voted 7-0 to recommend the approval to The City's Housing Code.
Approval by the Land Use Committee would send the legislation on to the full board Tuesday.
Read More
City Attorney Dennis Herrera will join Chinatown Community Development Center representatives and tenants of single-room occupancy residential hotels to discuss the difficulties of counting SRO tenants in the 2010 census.
The event is at 11 a.m. today at 688 Commercial Alley. It is important for everyone to be counted because political representation and government funding can be based on population.
Read More
The Fire Department will conduct disaster and preparedness training for learning the basics of personal preparedness and prevention.
The first of the two-day seminar is Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Neighborhood Emergency Response Training session is free for individuals, neighborhood groups and community-based organizations in The City.Training includes hands-on disaster drills that will help individuals respond to a personal emergency as well as being members of a neighborhood response team.
Read More
Legislation introduced by state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco-San Mateo, will be heard by the Senate Public Safety Committee Tuesday.
Senate bill 840 would require individuals who reasonably believe they have witnessed a murder, rape or lewd or lascivious act with a child under the age of 18 to notify law enforcement.
The legislation was conceived after a Richmond girl, 16, was allegedly raped repeatedly in front of as many as 20 witnesses.
Read More
More employees would be able to work part time and still receive partial unemployment insurance benefits under a bill authored by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.
The measure before the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee on Wednesday also would require greater promotion of the “work share” program.
A similar effort in New York reduced the number of employees needing full jobless benefits. The bill is part of Senate Democrats’ 27-bill job-creation package.
Read More
The Department of Technology may respond to a resolution by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu on The City’s control of a potential fiber network built by Google during Monday’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee meeting.
The City has until March 26 to submit its application. Chiu’s resolution calls for the network to be set up in a way that The City would maintain control of the infrastructure.
Read More
State Sen. Leland Yee will have strong support when he unveils his latest piece of legislation Friday.
The Democrat who represents San Francisco and San Mateo will be joined by San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar and city Health Director Dr. Mitch Katz when he announces a bill that mandates health insurance policies include coverage for tobacco cessation services.
Yee’s news conference is at 10 a.m. at San Francisco General Hospital, 1001 Potrero Ave.
Read More
A vote to place a moratorium on marijuana dispensaries in Daly City has been postponed.
City Councilman Sal Torres was unable to attend Monday’s meeting due to an illness, and because a vote of four of the five members was needed, the measure was pushed back until March 22.
Daly City has received about 10 inquiries in the last year from people who are considering setting up dispensaries. The City Council was to consider placing a 45-day moratorium on establishing the organizations.
Read More
Tourism is The City’s largest industry, so any dip in visitors and the cash they spend here creates big ripples.
The amount of money spent last year by visitors to San Francisco dropped 7.8 percent from 2008 to $7.8 billion, while the number of visitors dropped 5.8 percent to 15.4 million, San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau chief Joe D'Alessandro said.
The lower numbers were expected, but “it’s especially disturbing in light of the importance of tourism to the economic health of San Francisco,” he said.
Read More
State schools superintendent Jack O'Connell will release a list of the persistently lowest-achieving schools in California.
The state Board of Education will reveal the poorest-performing institutions in an 11:30 a.m. conference call. Schools on the list will be subject to severe sanctions until their performance improves.
Read More
U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier will be showing off some of the Bay Area recipients of stimulus funds.
The Democrat who represents San Francisco and San Mateo County will host a bus tour of public, private and nonprofit projects that have benefited from federal stimulus funds today.
Among the stops the tour will make is Terminal 3 at San Francisco International Airport, Zenergy Power in South San Francisco and Samaritan House in San Mateo.
Read More
The San Francisco Municipal Railway will receive $18.2 million to rebuild and perform preventive maintenance on light rail vehicles, and BART will get $17 million for railcar and station equipment improvements, part of $83.9 million in transit stimulus funds granted California agencies.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Friday that the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board will get $2.7 million for the San Mateo bridges project, and the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation Department will get $2.4 million to replace bus wash equipment.
Read More
An underground equipment failure left almost 1,400 PG&E customers without power for part of Sunday night.
A PG&E spokesman said 1,361 customers were without power when the underground equipment failure happened at Second and Howard streets at 6:19 p.m. By 7 p.m., power had been restored to all but 342 customers, said spokesman J.D. Guidi, adding that the remaining customers should have power restored by midnight.
What equipment was affected and the cause of the equipment failure was under investigation, Guidi said.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/user/189/189?page=5&field_author_value=
