Mayor Newsom wants to bring a community court to Union Square to address quality of life concerns, like aggressive panhandling, public urination, and graffiti.  The new court will be modeled after Manhattan's highly successful Midtown Community Court, which helped revitalize Times Square in the early 90s.  But, we need your support.  As Mayor Newsom said in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, "We're fighting against the status quo, and they're fighting for the status quo," he said of his opponents. "I'm not interested in fighting for failure."  Please sign our petition today.  Read more »

By  Alexandria Rocha
San Francisco Examiner
Originally Published April 24, 2007

A rapid bus system on Geary Boulevard would create faster, more reliable service on the busy corridor while also attracting a quarter more riders, according to a feasibility study released by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.  Along with Muni, the authority has been researching whether to introduce a bus rapid transit system on Geary Boulevard since 2004. BRT systems typically feature bus-only lanes closed to vehicles, with buses making fewer stops and having priority at traffic signals. Read more »

Since May of 2006, the MTA has been involved in a comprehensive process known as the Transit Effectiveness Project, or TEP.  No one has more acronyms than government, most of them nobody can remember.  But this one is going to effect your lives in so many ways, is worth paying attention to.   MUNI is one of the most commented upon city services on ActLocallySF.org.  The comments we get, the suggestions that are offered and the opinions rendered are all collected and given to Mayor Newsom.  We've gotten thousands.  But this is not the only way to express yourself.  The MTA has a website on how to improve MUNI and they're looking for your direct feedback.  So take a click-stroll over to the website: http://www.sftep.com/ and let the folks over at MUNI know what you think. Read more »

By Gavin Newsom
San Francisco Examiner
Originally Published April 19, 2007

On Tuesday, the city controller released the 2007 City Survey that measures the opinions of San Franciscans on the public services they use and experience day to day.  The results reflect the optimism that I feel as a San Franciscan — proud to live in a city where in the last three years, unemployment is down 38.6 percent, universal child care and after-school programming for all public school children is being realized, and health care access for all uninsured is on track to begin in July of this year. Read more »

Like everybody else in America, we at ActLocallySF.org are absolutely distraught over the images we're all seeing from Virginia Tech today. Today was like any other Monday: we had a few things we were working on and cool video we were excited about putting on the site.  It feels like the right thing to do for today is pause for a bit and say a prayer, think a positive thought or do whatever it is you do when a tragedy of this magnitude hits America. There are hundreds of people in America dealing first hand with unspeakable and unimaginable pain as we speak. We're thinking of them. Read more »

By Cecilia M. Vega, Wyatt Buchanan
San Francisco Chronicle
Originally Published April 14, 2007

Cars would be banned from a stretch of Golden Gate Park's main road on Saturdays for six months of the year under a groundbreaking agreement reached Friday that could end a long-running and acrimonious debate over vehicle usage in San Francisco's largest park.  The compromise, which will require approval from the Board of Supervisors, came after more than 15 hours of negotiations in City Hall brokered by Mayor Gavin Newsom's office. It would make a stretch of roadway off limits to vehicles from the first Saturday of April through the last Saturday of September every year. The deal also covers a smaller area than is currently closed off to cars on Sundays and makes the ban permanent, scrapping a proposed six-month trial period. Read more »

We expected our Pet Peeves Blog to be one of the more popular features on our website, but were unprepared for the outpouring of comments we have received.  We have received thousands of opinions from San Franciscans and Mayor Newsom has read almost all of them. Many of your entries are related to homelessness and panhandling.  Gavin Newsom has been working on solving this problem since the day he took office.  And while there is still a long way to go, the compassionate approach of getting people into housing and providing them with the support and services they need to keep them off the streets has been successful. Read more »

Tax season is fast approaching and while we all race to get our tax filings to the IRS, now is a good time to pause for a second and think about San Francisco’s model anti-poverty program: the Working Families Tax Credit. In 2005 Mayor Newsom partnered with San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros to create the working families tax credit. Basically, the city and its private sector partners give a local match to a federal tax credit along with specific funding for outreach services to make sure that the working poor are actually getting the money they are entitled to. The bottom line: it is working. In each of the past two years, there was more than $2 million in awarded to SF working families. That’s money that went to reduce debt, pay for education and even some savings. Read more »

A few weeks ago we wrote about a new poll in California, which showed that the state’s residents were moving toward greater support for same sex marriages. Things have changed a lot since Gavin Newsom first allowed same sex couples to get married in San Francisco City Hall three years ago. One thing that hasn’t changed is the measured and deliberate (that’s fancy talk for taking a long time) pace of our court system. So while voters’ attitudes are changing – moving more and more in support of equality for gay citizens – the court fight grinds on. It feels like we San Franciscans have been in just about every court in the state on this, but now we are at the top: the California State Supreme Court. On Monday, the City Attorney’s office filed their briefs asking for the state’s law barring same sex marriage to be overturned. Read more »

A lot has been made over the past six months or so about whether or not the 49ers will stay in San Francisco. The insiders at City Hall and in the media are predictably obsessed with who is up or down politically as a result of the situation. It is a good thing that the city and the 49ers continue to talk and work on things together, because at the end of the day the Mayor, and many others, would like to see the team stay here. While news of the stadium gets the most attention, the plan to invigorate Hunter’s Point and Candlestick Point is what really drives the effort. Forty years ago, Robert Kennedy, Jr. came to San Francisco and gave a speech about the challenges facing neighborhoods like Hunter’s Point. Gavin Newsom has plans to do something about it. Read more »