By Heather Knight
San Francisco Chronicle

Fewer than seven months since its inception, San Francisco's 311 call center, where live operators answer city-related, nonemergency calls 24 hours a day, marked its 1 millionth phone call on Tuesday. Mayor Gavin Newsom answered that call from a man reporting upturned newspaper racks at Geary and Kearny streets. Newsom told the man that he would make sure the problem was promptly fixed. The call center, located at Market and South Van Ness and modeled on similar centers in New York, Chicago and Baltimore, receives 6,000 to 7,000 calls every day. Most calls are related to Muni, but other popular subjects for callers are potholes, graffiti and garbage.

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By Bonnie Eslinger
San Francisco Examiner

New statistics obtained from San Francisco’s 311 hotline are starting to home in on residents’ everyday concerns, with graffiti, illegal dumping and questions about “when’s the next Muni bus coming?” high on the list. In mid-February, city officials started to route calls for the Department of Public Works and Muni through San Francisco’s new multimillion-dollar call center. Nonemergency calls for other city departments will be integrated into the system during the next two years. Read more »

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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Please join Mayor Gavin Newsom as well as representatives from labor, local political clubs and enthusiastic supporters like yourself at our campaign HQ this Saturday, July 21st at 10:30AM. We will be hitting the streets of San Francisco with the Mayor, collecting signatures and talking to other San Franciscans. (If you can't make on Saturday you can download the signature forms at anytime. Just click on Aaron's blog and follow the instructions). Your signature is a mark of support for our efforts to make free WiFi a reality, improve MUNI, create a Community Justice Center and more – including passing a budget that prioritizes the basics of daily life like filling potholes, cleaning up our parks and policing our streets.

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