Margaret Kadifa

1 day ago | missionlocal.org | Margaret Kadifa

On Friday, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie released his proposed budget that would lay off about 100 city employees to confront a $782 million budget shortfall. On Wednesday, more than a thousand workers rallied on the steps of the San Francisco City Hall, in protest of those layoffs and other cuts. “When public service is under attack, what do we do?” Yelled one speaker, as the rally started around noon.

1 week ago | missionlocal.org | Margaret Kadifa

San Franciscans may soon be paying more for their trash pickup, under a city proposal presented Friday at a Refuse Rate Board meeting. The city’s refuse rates administrator, a position within the city controller’s office, proposed a rate hike of almost 28 percent over the next three years, starting in October. The proposed increase is the latest in a back-and-forth between San Francisco and Recology, which has a charter-enshrined monopoly on the city’s trash collection.

1 week ago | missionlocal.org | Margaret Kadifa

How well is San Francisco delivering for its residents? The city’s controller tries to answer that question at the end of every fiscal year with its “Annual Performance Results” report, on what services San Francisco offers and how many people are using them —  from public transit to libraries. This year’s report, released last week, includes data on city departments from July 2023 through June 2024. The big takeaway: San Francisco is on the long road to recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

1 week ago | missionlocal.org | Margaret Kadifa

Since the COVID-19 pandemic cratered the city’s commercial real estate boom, San Francisco’s downtown office buildings have emptied out, and its nearby stores and restaurants closed. Five years later, more than a third of San Francisco offices remain empty, a higher proportion than in New York, Los Angeles, Austin and Seattle. In response, city officials have floated incentive after incentive to transform some of that empty office space into residential housing.

2 weeks ago | missionlocal.org | Margaret Kadifa

Three San Francisco supervisors on the Budget and Finance Committee unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday that, if the entire board approves, would return property taxes to downtown developers who retrofit old offices into housing. The rationale for the giveback is that turning offices into housing is expensive, and this would help developers recoup the costs.