Steven T. Jones

Suhr apologizes for sparse spying report, pledges more info

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Police Chief Greg Suhr has issued an apology for the sparse report on joint SFPD-FBI surveillance activities that his department gave last week, pledging to work with the activists who had criticized it as failing to comply with a city law adopted last year. But it remains to be seen whether the two sides will agree on the level of detail that would constitute meaningful civilian oversight of sensitive domestic spying operations.Read more »

Activists slam hollow report on SFPD-FBI spying

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UPDATE: SUHR APOLOGIZES FOR REPORT The San Francisco Police Department continues to resist meaningful oversight of its partnership with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. After last year pressuring Mayor Ed Lee into vetoing a strong oversight measure and signing a weaker version, the SFPD last week issued a required report that activists are slamming as “grossly inadequate.”Read more »

The machine

Sup. Scott Wiener is relentless, driven, prolific — and changing San Francisco in sometimes alarming ways

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steve@sfbg.com

Scott Wiener is a political machine.

I don't mean that he's part of a political machine, although he is arguably a member of a few nascent operations in town, from the old-school Democratic Party establishment to the morphing amalgam of groups pushing what he calls a "livability" agenda. I mean that Supervisor Wiener, who represents District 8, is a machine — almost robotic in his tireless, 24/7 engagement with all things political.Read more »

Herrera steps up his crackdown on surcharge fraud by restaurants

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City Attorney Dennis Herrera has stepped up his efforts to ensure San Francisco restaurants aren't committing consumer fraud with their healthcare surcharges – by pocketing money collected from diners ostensibly to cover their city obligation to provide health coverage to employees – offering an amnesty period for following city law.Read more »

Proposal to raze I-280 linked to train and real estate deals

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It's a bold idea, discussed for years behind closed doors and recently announced in a strangely understated and pro-growth way: Tear down the last mile of Interstate 280 and replace it with an wide boulevard – reminiscent of the removal of the Central and Embarcadero freeways – in order to facilitate the extension of electrified Caltrain and high-speed rail tracks into the Transbay Terminal.Read more »

King's ideals echoed in SF and DC events

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Labor leaders and a plethora of elected officials from San Francisco – including almost the entire Board of Supervisors – began today at the San Francisco Labor Council's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast. They heard inspiring words from speakers on hand, but not from President Barack Obama, whose inaugural address wasn't broadcast at the event as planned due to technical difficulties.Read more »

Labor supporters make progress with yoga community on hotel boycott

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While the Hyatt and Yoga Journal have tried to minimize the long labor dispute between hotel management and workers – which led to a national boycott of the Hyatt chain that the Yoga Journal has repeatedly refused to abide, this weekend holding a conference here at the Hyatt Regency – labor activists have finally made progress in the yoga community in recent days.Read more »

Burning Man veterans get ticket access, followed by everyone else

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Burning Man veterans, volunteers, and insiders are now awaiting word on whether they'll get on the inside track to buy tickets to this year's event, avoiding the overwhelming demand that turned last year's ticket sales into such a clusterfuck. But the lucky 10,000 people chosen for the express line will pay the same $380 as the 40,000 people that follow in a couple weeks.Read more »

Bungle in the jungle

A vaunted New Age event creates ugly recriminations

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steve@sfbg.com

Talk about karma.

The Synthesis 2012 Festival, which marked the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, was supposed to be an opportunity to bring spiritually minded people together around the Kukulkan Pyramid in Chichen Itza, Mexico to help usher in a new age of cooperation and goodwill. That was the vision espoused by Executive Producer Michael DiMartino, a Californian who said he had been leading tours in the area for decades and setting up this event for years.Read more »

Chiu's committee assignments keep the moderates in charge

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A week after engineering his unanimous re-election to an unprecedented third consecutive term as president of the Board of Supervisors, David Chiu today announced his assignments to board committees, placing fiscal conservatives into two of the most powerful posts and making himself a key swing vote on the Land Use Committee.Read more »