San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/author/sara-bloomberg/)
Sara Bloomberg is a freelance journalist who has been published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, 48 Hills Online, the Ingleside Light, El Tecolote, KQED and Fog City Journal. She studied journalism at City College of San Francisco and politics and language studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
The California Legislature enacted the state’s first anti-vagrant statutes in the mid-19th century, targeting Native Americans and Mexican-Americans. Since then, policymakers and voters have regularly acted to rid city streets of people who are homeless or indigent. This brief timeline highlights some key years and actions.
As San Francico police respond to more calls for “quality of life” volations, citations have declined sharply in recent years, and the courts have been throwing out warrants for violations, quietly decriminalizing homelessness citywide, an analysis of city records shows.
The wait time for an emergency shelter bed for homeless San Franciscans has hit a record high, as growing demand outstrips availability, city records show. Among those waiting weeks on the list recently were someone 97 years old and three people in their 80s.
David Montgomery never planned to go into software engineering and never thought he would be a trailblazer bringing campaign finance disclosures online to help hold candidates, lobbyists and committees more accountable to the public.
A Mexican tax on sugary beverages has reduced consumption since 2014, and as a result is projected to help cut rates of diabetes, improve overall health and bring other indirect cost savings, according to a study published Tuesday.
Proposition V, which would tax distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages, underplays big health and associated costs linked to those drinks. Top estimates approach $1 billion a year.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chuck “C.W.” Nevius is imploring tech companies “to get into politics, particularly grassroots politics in cities like Oakland and San Francisco.” But he misses the obvious: the tech industry is and has been deeply involved with local politics, led by Ron Conway (photo).
With two months until Election Day, more than $2 million has been amassed in the collective war chests for local candidate campaigns, 90 percent of which has been raised for six Board of Supervisors seats.
The Public Press spent six months digging and sorting, and many hours talking with staff at the Ethics Commission for clarification on the best ways to find and distill the information on the 2015 elections.
San Franciscans will not vote for nearly three months, but big money is flowing into the fall election already. Local campaigns have spent $3.15 million, with more than half going to just six of 25 measures on the ballot.
