Good morning. It's Tuesday, Jan. 29.
— Officials put forward a plan to help federal workers.
— CPUC changes bankruptcy financing rules for PG&E.
— And a racing sloop collides with a gray whale.
On Friday, President Donald Trump agreed to open the federal government for three weeks after a 35-day shutdown.
Also on Friday, Mayor London Breed, Treasurer José Cisneros and District Six Supervisor Matt Haney announced a plan to assist the estimated 2,000 federal employees who live in The City and the 1,300 employees of the San Francisco International Airport.
The plan calls for legislation to secure a $20 million line of credit to give zero-interest loans up to $6,000 to furloughed federal workers or federal workers who go without their paychecks during a federal government shutdown. Cisneros has also tapped nonprofit Balance to assist these workers with financial matters.
With the government back at work, the National Park Service will be able to assess the damage its parks sustained over weeks with little to no stewardship.San Francisco Chronicle
The shutdown threatened the work of scientists across the country who are at risk of losing funding, missing deadlines to file reports or ruining data sets with gaps in research.KQED
In February, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, in partnership with the San Francisco Human Services Agency and nonprofit Hunters Point Family, will hire attendants to monitor public restrooms in the seven parks that received the most 311 complaints as part of a new program called Park Stop.
Peter A. Magowan, the former owner of the San Francisco Giants who helped to save baseball in The City, died on Saturday from cancer. He was 76 years old.
In 1992, when the Giants were at risk of moving to Tampa Bay, Magowan helped organize the ownership group that bought the franchise for $100 million. Later, he would spearhead building the team’s waterfront ballpark.
A joint investigation by The Trace and BuzzFeed News found that a significant number of shootings in major American cities go unsolved and sometimes are not investigated at all. In 2016, the San Francisco Police Department made arrests in 15 percent of nonfatal shootings.
Citing a U.S. Geological Survey report that estimates San Francisco has a 72 percent chance of being stricken by at least a 6.7-magnitude quake by 2043, Mayor London Breed instructed city departments to create plans by the year’s end for strengthening seismic standards for new buildings and developing post-earthquake recovery plans.
On Thursday night, more than 800 volunteers scoured The City for the biennial Homeless Point-In-Time Count. The purely visual survey, which is mandated by the federal government, serves as a report card for the city’s progress in housing its unsheltered population.
In 2002, there were 8,600 homeless people counted. In 2017, there were 7,500. Results of this year’s count will be published in the next six months.
As Anti-Pacific Gas & Electric protesters rallied, the California Public Utilities Commission held an emergency meeting to alter loan terms for the company as it grapples with bankruptcy.
CPUC President Michael Picker predicted dire consequences — such as power outages at hospitals, public facilities and homes — should the company go without the loan.
Last week, cab drivers held a protest at City Hall over a policy that will prevent some drivers from picking up passengers at San Francisco International Airport starting on Feb. 1. The protesters took a letter to Mayor London Breed’s office, but she was away in Washington, D.C. attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Mission
After sitting without an upgrade for more than 20 years, the Mission branch library’s planned $19.8 million renovation became the topic of discussion for the project’s lead architect Andrew Sohn and residents in the Mission. Sohn’s proposals, which would expand the library’s first floor, will break ground in 2020 at earliest.
Potrero Hill
To offset the estimated $400 million cost for modernizing its bus yard at 17th and Bryant streets, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency proposed building 800 to 900 units of housing on top of it. The project would require SFMTA to partner with a private developer.
The Bay
The Three Bridge Fiasco boat race lived up to its name on Saturday when two sailors crashed into a gray whale. After losing their sloop’s rudder, the pair waited in the Bay until a nearby dockmaster escorted them ashore. It’s unclear whether the whale sustained any injury.
Noe Valley
Upon receiving a report that a man shot his girlfriend in a home on Fair Oaks Street, police searched and surrounded a household linked to an Instagram executive early Saturday morning. The report raised a false alarm — the second involving a tech executive this month.
Potrero Hill
At a meeting last Tuesday, nurses of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital denounced understaffing and high workloads that they allege leave some patients unsupervised. Norlissa Cooper, the president of SEIU Local 1021’s Registered Nurses Chapter, claimed that over the past three months, the hospital has not provided adequate break coverage 70 percent of the time.
Excelsior
Police took four hours to respond to the 911 call of a bakery owner who had his fingers broken and cash stolen in an assault by two men. City officials promised to improve emergency response times for callers who do not speak English.
South of Market
On Friday, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency held an open house to collect input for its Folsom-Howard Streetscape Project. The $26 million undertaking aims to reduce fatalities and make it "more pleasant to walk, bike, shop and live" along segments of Howard and Folsom streets that are a part of The City’s Vision Zero High Injury network.
Dogpatch
Embattled by activists from its controversial subtenant Juul, the San Francisco Port Commission directed its staff to urge the mayor and the Board of Supervisors to create legislation preventing companies in the tobacco, firearms and alcohol businesses from renting city property.
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This edition was curated and written by Alex Mullaney and edited by David Mamaril Horowitz.The newsletter is designed by Marquee and published on Proof.
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