How fed up are San Franciscans with the city’s problems? New S.F. Chronicle poll finds pervasive gloom
The Chronicle, NOAH ARROYO: “San Francisco has long seen skirmishes between factions of its overwhelmingly Democratic electorate, but fissures are widening, positions are hardening and the public sees little hope of fixing the chronic problems that have plagued the city for decades, according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of city residents ever done.
Even as San Francisco gradually recovers from the crushing blow of the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority of respondents expressed deep worry, frustration and continued pessimism about civic life in the city, The Chronicle’s SF Next poll of 1,653 residents found.
“I’m getting kind of fed up with the city,” said poll respondent Dae Echols, 53, who expects that the high cost of living will force him to move elsewhere when he retires. “I just remember the hippie generation, and it was all about, take care of your friends, brotherly love. And that is totally gone.”
Capitol Weekly Interview: Randall Hagar and mental health care
Capitol Weekly, SIGRID BATHEN: “Randall Hagar has been in the forefront of major mental health policy and legislation in California for decades. As the father of a severely mentally ill adult son and longtime legislative advocate for California psychiatrists, he has deep knowledge of both family struggles and the complex intricacies of mental health policy.
He represented the California Psychiatric Association for nearly 20 years, and since 2020 represents a successor organization, the Psychiatric Physicians Alliance of California. He also actively advises community groups, families and legislators and has written much of California’s major mental health legislation.
With intense public and legislative interest in mental health this year, dozens of bills affecting a wide range of state and local mental health services have been debated in the state Legislature. The most prominent, comprehensive – and controversial — proposal this year to reform California’s fractured system of care is Gov. Newsom’s CARE Court plan (Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment).”
Senate confirms Biden’s nominee to Ninth Circuit appeals court in S.F.
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: “The Senate on Monday confirmed President Biden’s nomination of Salvador Mendoza Jr., a federal judge and former criminal defense lawyer, to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he will be the first Latino judge from Washington state.
The vote was 46-40, with three Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joining Democrats in support of Mendoza. He succeeds Judge M. Margaret McKeown, who is transferring to senior status with a reduced caseload.
Mendoza is Biden’s sixth appointee to the nation’s largest federal appeals court. All six have been either people of color, women or both. Biden has also nominated Anthony Johnstone, a University of Montana law professor, to the court, which has 16 Democratic appointees among its 29 judges.”
Welcome to the Age of Fire: California wildfires explained
CALMatters, JULIE CART: “Describing California’s wildfires means running out of modifiers, adjectives and apocalyptic images. There are no more words.
The state’s fires have become so unpredictable and extreme that new words were invented: firenado, gigafire, fire siege — even fire pandemic.
The landscape is getting hotter, and sooner, in more places. And it’s drier, for longer, all over the state. California now has 78 more annual “fire days” — when conditions are ripe for fires to spark — than 50 years ago. When is California’s wildfire season? It is now almost year-round.”
The new face of No on 30: Gavin Newsom
CALMatters, BEN CHRISTOPHER: “The opponents of Proposition 30, a proposal to tax millionaires to fund electric car incentives and infrastructure, want California voters to keep one thing in mind when they decide how to vote on the measure:
Gavin Newsom’s face.
A new “No on 30” ad features the governor — and only the governor — speaking out against the proposal in no uncertain terms.”
California and New York could soon change how workers everywhere negotiate salaries
LAT, NOAH BIERMAN: “Anyone who has ever been on a job hunt knows that it is often difficult to find out what a new position might pay.
That could be about to change. The governors of California and New York, both Democrats, have bills on their desks that would require companies to post pay ranges on job advertisements. Those two states — and their outsized economies and populations — could spur most larger companies to adopt the policy nationwide, advocates and experts say.
All workers could be affected, but evidence suggests that more transparent pay practices are particularly helpful for women and people of color, who are more likely to get lowballed in salary negotiations.”
California to give $2,500 training grant to workers who lost jobs during pandemic
CALMatters, MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN: “Living through a pandemic sucks, but for Diana McLaughlin, early 2020 was especially bad: A divorce in February 2020, societal shut-down in March, and as part of the COVID-19 economic fallout, she lost her job in April of that year, returning to full-time work only 18 months later.
California lawmakers had economically distressed folks like McLaughlin in mind when last year they approved half a billion dollars on education grants worth $2,500 to help workers displaced by the pandemic acquire new job-related skills.
McLaughlin is among the first 3,000 or so recipients of this grant, adult learners who were issued checks in a pilot program this spring and summer. Now the state is opening the grant to a wide range of adults with low incomes who lost their jobs or saw their hours severely cut during the pandemic. Half of the grant funds are reserved for displaced workers with children under 18.”
U.S. inflation falls for 2nd straight month on lower gas costs
AP, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER: “Sharply lower prices for gas and cheaper used cars slowed U.S. inflation in August for a second straight month, though many other items rose in price, indicating that inflation remains a heavy burden for American households.
Consumer prices surged 8.3% in August compared with a year earlier, the government said Tuesday. Though still painfully high, that was down from an 8.5% jump in July and a four-decade high of 9.1% in June. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.1%, after a flat reading in July.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices jumped 0.6% from July to August, higher than many economists had expected and a sign of inflation’s persistence.”
Even during record heat, surprisingly few people go to L.A. cooling centers. Why?
LAT, SUMMER LIN: “Anthony Willis has been living at a homeless encampment on Vermont Avenue and West 3rd Street near Koreatown for years. During the blistering heat wave last week that brought triple-digit temperatures to portions of Southern California, Willis used a hand fan, a big umbrella and drenched himself with ice to stay cool.
“It’s so hot,” said Willis, 35, on Friday. “I go to the Starbucks and grab ice water every day to keep from dying out here. I’m surprised we have a breeze coming through today — the wind is actually blowing.”
Willis had heard about the cooling centers opened by Los Angeles but hadn’t actually been to one. He said he’d consider going if free transportation or buses were provided to drop him off at a cooling center.”
Could extreme heat be just what California needs to finally solve homelessness?
LAT, ANITA CHABRIA/ERIKA D SMITH: “As the temperature edged past 110 one afternoon last week, the air inside L’aMaira Tyson’s sagging nylon tent felt like a blast from an open oven.
“It’s hot out here,” she said with stoic understatement, reclining next to two jugs of bottled water near a freeway overpass and a busy street in Sacramento. “I get through it with God.”
We appreciate her faith, but this encampment felt more like hell than heaven during the worst of the “heat dome” that sent temperatures soaring across California, including a record high of 116 in the capital.
Cooldown continues while smoky skies clear in these Bay Area cities
The Chronicle, GERRY DIAZ: “It’s been a week since the Mosquito Fire started and thanks to winds from the remnants of a tropical cyclone, of all things, it quickly grew to over 46,000 acres. Thankfully, these leftovers also shaved off the record-breaking heat wave and even brought a few sprinkles to the fire perimeter Monday afternoon, greatly helping with fire fighting operations around Tahoe.
The fire’s colossal smoke plume brought bad air quality to most of the Bay Area this past weekend and hazardous-level smoke pollution to Tahoe and neighboring regions in Sacramento. The hazy skies came two years after the infamous September 2020 ‘orange sky’ event.
Thankfully, this week isn’t looking anything like Orange Sky Day.”
COVID in California: COVID keeping 500,000 Americans out of work, study finds
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: “Americans gave their health care system low marks more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent poll. Long COVID may potentially be linked with an increased risk of mental illness, according to emerging research analyzed by Reuters. San Francisco reported the lowest average of new coronavirus infections since early March, but hospitalizations ticked back up.
Latest updates:
U.S. weekly average of COVID cases fall 19%”
Illegal weed shops are booming in plain sight. Police raids do little to stop them
LAT, MATTHEW ORMSETH: “When the cannabis dispensary Hierba opened on Cesar Chavez Avenue in October, customers had “sticker shock,” Guillermo Menjivar, the general manager, recalled.
Even with a 30% opening week discount, shoppers still couldn’t understand why, for instance, a gram of First Class Funk cost $15.
They could be forgiven: Until Hierba — the first legal dispensary in the city’s Boyle Heights neighborhood — opened its doors, the only options in the area were unlicensed storefronts that charge far less for cannabis products because they don’t abide by the raft of taxes and regulatory obligations that state and local officials impose on legitimate operations.”
In West L.A., two lawyers clash over an open City Council seat, encampments and policing
LAT, JAMES RAINEY: “Earlier this year, a homeless encampment along a Venice Boulevard median mushroomed to 60 tents — bringing thefts, fires, fistfights, drug use and a pronounced division in the heart of Venice.
By June, the city of Los Angeles shut down the squalid urban village and relocated roughly two-thirds of the residents, mostly to motel rooms. The rest scattered to other locales and a chain-link fence went up, closing the unauthorized campground around Centennial Park and the neighboring public library.
Now the clearing of the park has emerged as yet another point of contention between two lawyers running to represent historically tolerant Venice and much of the Westside on the Los Angeles City Council. Traci Park supported the Centennial Park cleanup, rooting on police, outreach workers and others who did the work. Erin Darling called the closure a failure, saying it was done without adequate planning on where to move unhoused people.”
Problems plague California school district data system, putting funding at risk
CALMatters, JOE HONG: “The data management system for California’s K-12 schools has been on the fritz for months after it was updated in April then rolled out with minimal testing, potentially jeopardizing school district funding.
The California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, or CALPADS, stores information for the state’s 6 million public school students. It’s how the state knows how many students have learning disabilities, are experiencing homelessness or qualify as English learners. The California Department of Education uses this demographic data to calculate how much funding will go to the state’s more than 1,000 school districts. Districts with more high-needs students get more money based on that data.
While one department official said nearly all the state’s schools will still get their full funding, the recent malfunctions have alarmed some district officials. “
Teachers and students both learned from this intensive summer English class
EdSource, ZAIDEE STAVELY: “More than 100 students in Lodi Unified School District spent part of the summer running relays and braiding jump-ropes from plastic bags, all while learning more complex writing and reading skills in English.
This summer school program was designed to strengthen English language skills for elementary and middle school students who speak another language at home and have not yet mastered English. At the same time, it aimed to give the 16 teachers who participated the skills to support these students throughout the school year.
The program, titled “The Prolific Plastic Pollution Problem,” focused on the history of plastic and the effects of plastic pollution.”
