By Cecilia Vega, Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writers
San Francisco Chronicle

Mayor Gavin Newsom was sworn in for a second term Tuesday, promising to make San Francisco a greener city and a national leader in health care reform while praising "San Francisco values" like support for same-sex marriage and protections for undocumented immigrants. Newsom's father, retired Judge William Newsom, administered the oath of office using a family Bible under City Hall's palatial dome in a ceremony that organizers billed as low-key. The mayor was sworn in alongside his sister Hillary Newsom Callan, her two young daughters and his new fiancee, Jennifer Siebel, to whom Newsom referred in his inaugural speech as "the love of my life."

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By David Smith
San Francisco Examiner

Headed into his second term as mayor, Gavin Newsom said he would renew efforts to combat homelessness, specifically street behavior, conceding that efforts during his first term “haven’t had the impact on street behavior that I would have liked.”  Newsom, first elected in 2003 on a platform built upon the issue of homelessness, has started various efforts in The City to try and remove homeless people from the streets, including Care Not Cash, a program that reduces cash amounts given to homeless people on welfare in exchange for housing or shelter, and Project Homeless Connect, a program that brings health and human services for the homeless under one roof during day-long events every other month. Read more »

By Robert Selna
San Francisco Chronicle

Mayor Gavin Newsom and city criminal justice officials announced on Thursday the location of a new court the mayor has been promising to more quickly judge low-level street crimes in the Tenderloin and steer offenders into community service and rehabilitative programs. At a press conference inside the new courtroom at Polk and Turk street - just north of Civic Center Plaza - Newsom said the newly-named Community Justice Center will open in July after a five-month trial run at the Hall of Justice, where the city's other criminal courts are housed.

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By David Smith
San Francisco Examiner

A new court in San Francisco’s Tenderloin that is being created to handle low-level criminal behavior in the downtown area has found a home just two blocks from the steps of City Hall. The City’s Criminal Justice Center — a special court that Mayor Gavin Newsom has said will direct offenders of such crimes as nonviolent drug use, theft, prostitution and aggressive panhandling to appropriate social services rather than jail or fines — will be housed at 575 and 555 Polk Street. Modeled partially after New York City’s Midtown Community Court, which requires most defendants to perform community service or attend a group meeting within 24 hours of arraignment, the San Francisco’s new court will take cases from the Civic Center, Tenderloin, Union Square and South of Market neighborhoods. Read more »

Editorial: San Francisco Examiner

Newsom has spent the last four years crafting nonideological and pragmatic solutions to The City’s myriad problems. He made his first big splash, both locally and nationally, by backing gay marriage, a stance that positively cemented his standing with many San Franciscans. But he’s shown a refreshing ability to buck San Francisco’s prevailing liberal winds and pursue more moderate agendas. His support of development both downtown and in existing neighborhoods and new industries such as biotech have been refreshing, as has his budgetary support for more police on the streets and nuts-and-bolts priorities such as parks and well-kept roads rather than ill-defined social causes prized by the left. Read more »

By Cecilia M. Vega
San Francisco Chronicle

Hoping to keep teachers and police officers from fleeing San Francisco because of its high cost of living, city officials unveiled a program Friday that offers down-payment assistance for the two professions. Credentialed teachers employed by the San Francisco Unified School District who are purchasing their first home in the city could receive a $20,000 interest-free loan to help cover the cost of a down payment. Teachers whose households earn less than 200 percent of the area median income, roughly $120,000, would be eligible. If teachers remain employed in the district for 10 years, the loan will be completely forgiven.

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By Adam Martin
San Francisco Examiner

The blast of a shotgun split the foggy air next to Lake Merced on Wednesday afternoon, demanding the attention of onlookers, including Mayor Gavin Newsom. Within five seconds, a computer system calculated the location of the shot to within feet inside the roughly 500-square-yard parking lot of the San Francisco Police Department’s training facility on the shore of the lake. Sensors picked up the shot, triangulated the location and marked it on an aerial photo of the lot on a computer screen. Read more »

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums are marking the sixth anniversary of 9/11 by making it easier for the Bay Area's first responders to deal with emergencies. Today, they announced the creation of the "Bay Area Interoperable Communications Initiative" which will give police, firefighters and other law enforcement agencies the ability to communicate on the same radio frequency during a major disaster. Read more »

By Gavin Newsom
San Francisco Examiner

Although crime is down in almost every major category in San Francisco, the homicide rate has risen here, as it has in most big cities, to unacceptable levels. To improve public safety, my administration has proposed a number of new initiatives, including a pilot program of placing security cameras in high crime areas. This technology has been deployed in other U.S. cities and in other countries, and the results vary from very effective to only slightly effective. In the United Kingdom, where the cameras were pioneered, crime dropped dramatically in most of the areas where cameras were used.

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San Francisco Examiner
Editorial Originally Published July 23, 2007

It was welcome news for San Francisco that the Board of Supervisors passed Mayor Gavin Newsom’s election-year budget last Tuesday without indulging in destructive stonewalling. The $6.1 billion budget is the largest in city history, but it appears to be supported by sufficient revenues and also preserves a record-breaking $117 million supplementary reserve fund. Especially important is that this 2007-08 budget shifts more funding into curing long-neglected infrastructure and life-quality problems that directly impact the daily existence of ordinary San Franciscans. Public Works will receive the most money ever allocated for fixing potholed streets. Beleaguered Muni riders can expect some improvement in service with 150 more drivers and 86 new hybrid buses.

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