The GrowSF Report: Voters demand change
What You Need To Know
Here’s what happened around the city for the week of March 4, 2024:
- Voters demand change
- Mayor Breed delivers “State of the City”
- Longer hospital stays for mentally ill violent offenders
- Your PG&E bill will rise — again
- Hej! Ikea’s new coworking space is open for business
- Bike lanes are good for business
- Recall of Alameda DA Pamela Price moves forward
Recent & upcoming openings:
- Four Kings is four-king good
- Gluten-free mochi pizza at Mochiko
- Leviosa Libations at Wizards & Wands
Voters demand change
There’s still 37,000 votes left to count, but with 193,000 counted so far, we can make some confident predictions:
A strong majority of commonsense, regular people have been elected to the Democratic County Central Committee
Voters supported all of Mayor Breed’s ballot initiatives: Propositions A (Affordable housing), C (office transfer tax exemption), E (police procedures), and F (addiction treatment)
Ahsha Safai’s Prop B (so-called “Cop Tax”) was strongly rejected, showing voters don’t want to be nickel-and-dimed for basic public safety
Joel Engardio’s Prop G (algebra in 8th grade) had an overwhelming victory, with every precinct supporting it
The Republican County Central Committee also elected a new wave of reform-minded candidates from the Briones Society, a group of never-Trump Republicans
We’ll get more results every weekday at 4pm, so stay tuned for the final results!
Mayor Breed delivers “State of the City”
Mayor London Breed delivered her 2024 State of the City address last Thursday. In her speech she highlighted the progress San Francisco has made toward downtown recovery and housing abundance.
Mayor Breed dug in on YIMBY policies, pledging to veto any anti-housing legislation that crossed her desk and welcome 30,000 new neighbors to San Francisco by 2030.
Breed also touted her public safety bona fides, buoyed by the passage of Prop E. She pledged to achieve full SFPD staffing (as supported by 75% of voters), and made the case that safety for everyone is progressive:
Wanting good public education and an effective police force, valuing the safety of our seniors in Chinatown and the Bayview, our immigrant and working families in the Tenderloin, is progressive
Her big challenge now is to remind voters of what she’s accomplished in the lead up to the November election.
Longer hospital stays for mentally ill violent offenders
Assemblymember Matt Haney (former Supervisor of SF’s District 6) introduced a bill to keep violent offenders with a mental illness in state-run mental hospitals for up to 30 days, instead of the current 5, when they’re released from prison.
According to Sophia Bollag in the Chronicle:
California law requires that people with severe mental illness who are convicted of violent crimes and pose a “substantial danger of physical harm to others” be kept in locked mental hospitals for treatment after they serve their prison sentences. They must be released within five days if a judge determines their mental illness is in remission, can be kept in remission with treatment or no longer poses a threat to others.
Haney’s reform will help ensure that those released will get a realistic plan to reintegrate into society, and not be forced out onto the street before they’re ready. He introduced the bill after reading a report in the Chronicle detailing the circumstances around Fook Poy Lai’s stabbing of an AA Bakery employee after he was released from prison.
Your PG&E bill will rise — again
Brace yourselves for an even high PG&E bill soon. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved yet another price hike for consumers with no other option. Luckily, the increase should be small this time — in some cases as little as $5 more per month.
State Senator Scott Wiener shares your frustration, tweeting “We asked CPUC to reject this PG&E rate hike — one in a series of hikes making PG&E service even more expensive. More rate hikes are coming. It’s unacceptable.”
Bike lanes are good for business
Small business owners need every bit of help they can get, so when they ask for parking spaces over bike lanes, we should take their concerns seriously. But according to a review of “32 research articles […] The results show that making streets friendlier for bikes — and sidewalks friendlier for pedestrians — is actually good for business, ” writes Adam Rogers for Business Insider.
Compared with the overall business climate in each [NYC] borough, sales in the bike-friendly areas soared by 84 percentage points in Brooklyn, 9 percentage points in Manhattan, and 32 percentage points in the Bronx. “Better streets,” the report concludes, “provide benefits to businesses in all types of neighborhoods,” from “lower-income neighborhoods with ‘mom & pop’ retail” to “glitzier areas with sky-high rents.”
This is great news for San Francisco. We’re a city blessed with fantastic weather and vibrant neighborhoods, so to know that building high quality bike lanes not only makes San Francisco more enjoyable for its residents, but also helps small businesses, is just phenomenal.
Recall of Alameda DA Pamela Price moves forward
Checking in across the Bay in Alameda County, the recall of District Attorney Pamela Price has hit a big milestone: they turned in over 120,000 signatures to recall her. The signatures haven’t been verified yet, but they only need 73,195 (or about 60% of what they turned in) to qualify for the ballot.
Price has overseen a huge surge in crime since taking office, with violent crime rising 21% last year and nearly 1 out of 30 people had their cars stolen. The reaction from voters in Alameda County mirrors the reaction to Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. Unless Price manages to do a better job, she’ll soon be unemployed.
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Recent & upcoming openings
A great city is constantly changing and growing, let’s celebrate what’s new!
Four Kings is four-king good
WHERE: 710 Commercial St
Opening this Thursday, March 14 is a new Cantonese restaurant from some of the talent behind Mister Jiu’s and Liholiho Yacht Club. Four Kings (or Four Heavenly Kings if you read Chinese) brings a “pure and authentic expression of [the chefs’] personalities and their food,” writes Elena Kadvany at The Chronicle.
We’re making a reservation right now with our eye on the whole deep-fried squab.
Gluten-free mochi pizza at Mochiko
WHERE: 226 Kearny
Mochiko is bringing asian-style pizza with a mochi crust made with a secret blend of rice flours that bake up chewy, crispy, and irresistible! Indulge yourself at their brand new location new Union Square!
Leviosa Libations at Wizards & Wands
WHERE: 2030 Lombard
Broomsticks & brewskis are waiting at a new Harry Potter themed bar, Wizards & Wands. Indulge your senses and your elder millennial nerd impulses (we say that with love!) with magic-themed drinks. ProTip: eat a newt to stave off a hangover.
The Spirit of San Francisco
There’s a lot to love about our city and the Bay Area. Here’s what makes it great. Brought to you by The Bold Italic.
What we’re doing this week
Tulip Day in Union Square
The ”Tulip Garden” at Union Square will open to the public at 1:00 p.m. and will close at 4:30 p.m. By that time, all 80,000 tulips will have been picked and will soon be giving many American households a wonderful feeling of early spring. And something else: March 8 is International Women’s Day! But we are celebrating this special day in March, with a bunch of fresh colorful tulips?
WHEN: March 9 from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
WHERE: Union Square, 333 Post St, San Francisco
A Midsummer Night’s Dream with SF Ballet
Enter Shakespeare’s enchanted forest of whimsy, mistaken identity, and jest—where fairies rule and love (eventually) reigns supreme. A delight for all ages, the Shakespearean favorite choreographed by George Balanchine returns to our stage set to music by Mendelssohn, with updated costume and set designs by celebrated French designer Christian Lacroix.
WHEN: March 12 - 23
WHERE: War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave
Drunk Drag Pink Carpet — Oscars Party
This year, we're rolling out the pink carpet in true San Francisco style, celebrating the biggest night in Hollywood with a cheeky nod to this year’s gayest films - Oppenheimer and Barbie. Dress to impress in your most glamorous Pink Carpet attire and compete for jaw-dropping prizes.
WHEN: March 10 at 3 p.m.
WHERE: SF Oasis, 298 11th St, San Francisco, CA
What we’re writing about
Community Music Center’s reopening hits all the right notes
Slide on down Mission Street and you’ll hear lots of sounds — mariachi at full blast, street hawkers trying to sell you handcarts, the grumble of BART in a hurry, Cuban habanera, Irish jigs, cool jazz, acoustic gospel; well, hold up.
You just walked past the Community Music Center, which just reopened its campus on 552 Capp Street.
Scented SF Symphony performance smells like success to me
Last weekend marked the world premiere of Alexander Scriabin’s 1910 tone-poem Prometheus, The Poem of Fire, a multisensory experience featuring pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony. The performance incorporated fragrance and colored lighting effects as envisioned by the Russian composer, aiming to immerse the audience in Scriabin’s synesthetic intention, or connection between two senses.
Remodeled Quince feels like a restaurant reborn in Jackson Square
Three Michelin-starred Quince is widely known to be one of the best restaurants in the world. We remember Quince’s cozy original space that opened in 2003 on Octavia Street, where chef Michael Tusk and wife, Lindsay, first revealed to us his Bologna, Italy-trained pasta perfection and her hospitality and restaurateur genius. They moved to Jackson Square six years later, and now — with a recent renovation — Quince is a restaurant reborn.
Ring ring … Hello? ‘Sqream’ is a scream at SF Oasis
No one makes us scream like San Francisco drag queen D’Arcy Drollinger and her performers — but it’s not like we’re screaming in terror. It’s all delight and fun in SQREAM, a hilarious parody of that 1996 film moment where Drew Barrymore bites it in the opening act, and so much more. This show has it all: Murder, mayhem, laughs, pop music and people from the 90s both on stage and in the audience.
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