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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Bay Area Reporter

February 12, 2004 changed our world. Mayor Gavin Newsom had just returned from Washington where he was a guest of then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the president's State of the Union address. He, and the rest of us, witnessed the president voice his support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Returning to San Francisco, Newsom, in an act of amazing boldness and incredible political courage, ordered then-city Assessor Mabel Teng to issue marriage licenses to any couple who wished to marry, regardless of sex or gender identity, an order that Teng was happy to follow. For the next month, nearly 4,000 couples from all over the country flocked to San Francisco to marry in what would be called the "Winter of Love." The national and world press at first reported it as just another example of left coast San Francisco being out of touch with the real world. But as married couples returned home and resumed their lives, the sky didn't fall, and the national dialogue changed. Read more »

By Chris Colin
San Francisco Chronicle

Forget the Golden Gate Bridge and House of Nanking and Zeitgeist on a summer night -- the heart of San Francisco beats loudest on the carpeted second floor of that South Van Ness building you thought was Bank of America.

"Thank you for calling San Francisco 311, this is Kyle speaking, how may I help you?"

"Yes, there's a skunk with his head stuck ..."

Kyle Sutton is one of 50 or so customer service representatives, or CSRs, asking this question 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The free service launched in March not just to funnel 2,300 government phone numbers into a single line, but to give the city more of a service orientation. About 6,000 calls come in every day, and program director Ed Reiskin says 311 is on track to answer 2 million a year.

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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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That's one of John F. Kennedy's most famous lines and it is applicable to Gavin Newsom's new budget proposal.  This year, Mayor Newsom has taken another step towards making government work better for you. 311 is now in effect and working well (remember some politicians fought this remarkable tool), so it is fitting that the Mayor unveiled his budget at the 311 call center.  The proposed budget makes real investments in our streets. This investment, more than $36 million, allows the city ­ for the first time ­to meet our repaving needs and includes $5.4 million more for street repaving over last year. 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 »