San Mateo County’s request for money to purchase a drone was approved last month, but county officials said Monday that plans to deploy the controversial robot are not moving forward.
A grant of $70,000 for the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office to buy a small surveillance drone dubbed a “fully autonomous first responder” by developer Lockheed-Martin was approved March 14 by the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative, which doles out money to local law enforcement for counterterrorism activities.
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The San Francisco Unified School District is partially responsible for a five-alarm blaze that severely damaged several Western Addition buildings in 2011, a lawsuit alleges.
The owner of 1015 Pierce St. — a three-story, 25-unit building that experienced $6 million in damage — has sued the SFUSD along with the owners of 1502 Golden Gate Ave. and 1109 Elm St. for $4 million.
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If destruction is the fate of Defenestration, that’s all right with the quirky art project’s creator.
So long as it’s the wrecking ball.
Something less cataclysmic, and Brian Goggin just might be more inspired to find a way to keep part of the furniture that’s been hanging off an abandoned South of Market hotel since 1997 on display somewhere in San Francisco, the artist said.
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San Francisco’s financial portfolio may have lost millions of dollars when banks manipulated interest rates during the financial crisis, city officials said Wednesday.
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Work crews dug up a block of 15th Avenue several times before a water main there ruptured and flooded 23 homes Feb. 27. City officials are now investigating whether the work — most recently three months before the accident — disturbed or damaged the water pipe before it burst.
The 16-inch cast-iron water main, which dates to 1952, “pulled apart at a joint” on the 15th Avenue hill that leads from Wawona Street to West Portal Avenue, according to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
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Wet weather postponed “emergency” repairs to Coit Tower’s leaky roof throughout the winter, while a long-awaited $1.5 million rehabilitation of the entire deteriorating San Francisco landmark has been delayed until after the annual crowds of tourists go home in October.
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First there was the flood of water — and now there is the crash of claims.
The first wave of legal and insurance claims filed by homeowners whose properties were damaged by a Feb. 27 water main break at 15th Avenue and Wawona Street have been filed, according to records.
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Inmates in San Francisco County Jail have it better than most people incarcerated in California. Thanks to diversion programs that offer alternatives to incarceration, the jail is not overcrowded; there are also opportunities for education, drug treatment and other ways to break the cycle of crime and punishment.
That’s partially why San Francisco taxpayers pay more than most California counties to house inmates — the vast majority of whom are awaiting prosecution.
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Negotiations over San Francisco’s biggest redevelopment projects in a generation — and just how involved state-owned Chinese enterprises will be in building them — are expected to be a key part of Ed Lee’s first visit to China as mayor, which begins today.
Lee is expected to sit down with officials from the China Development Bank during his eight-day trip to the People’s Republic of China. Over two days in Beijing, the Chinese-American mayor also will meet with key political leadership, which just changed hands.
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San Francisco’s busiest fire station is now housed in a new building, and The City has a unique patron to thank for Station 1’s sparkling new Folsom Street digs: The arts.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art funded the $14 million station — which Mayor Ed Lee and other city dignitaries officially opened Thursday morning — via a land swap.
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State lawmakers looking to reform California’s medical marijuana industry point to Colorado, which has a state agency tasked with overseeing the quasi-legal business, as an example to follow. But that state’s cannabis-control arm has squandered money and has not adequately defined its mission, according to a recent audit.
Colorado’s Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division has run in the red for nearly two years and underreported state tax revenue from the sale of marijuana by $760,000, according to a state audit.
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Laguna Honda Hospital won’t be able to forget Derek Kerr — ever.
In addition to a $750,000 cash payout, the former hospice physician — whose 21 years of service at The City’s long-term care hospital ended with a layoff after he filed whistle-blower complaints alleging misuse of a patient gift fund — will be honored with a plaque commemorating his service, to be installed at the hospital. In addition, he’ll be publicly lauded by the same officials who allegedly retaliated against him.
The agreement was set in a settlement approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.
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Workers at The City’s largest hotel have ended a dispute with management over health care, an agreement that could bode well for San Francisco’s vital tourist industry as large events and projects approach.
The 750 doormen, room cleaners, cooks and other workers at the 1,900-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square, represented by UNITE HERE Local 2, and Hilton management announced the agreement Monday.
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Teach children to code, and you may feed them for a lifetime — even in expensive San Francisco.
Middle school students are being taught programming language just as they might learn Spanish or English as a second language. With this introduction, they are getting a head start in the race to secure a career in a technology-driven world.
These students, however, are not in San Francisco middle schools; they are in Ireland.
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Defenestration may at last return to earth.
The quirky art installation — couches, beds and at least one bathtub appearing to exit the windows of a long-empty hotel building at Sixth and Howard streets — would be removed under a city plan to redevelop the site into a $18.8 million affordable-housing project that is finally moving forward.
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