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Recently introduced legislation threatens right of neighborhood groups to challenge inappropriate development and bad land use
March 10, 2013
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires state and local agencies to analyze and publicly disclose the environmental impacts of proposed projects and to adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts. Appeal under CEQA is one of the most important tools that neighborhood groups and individuals may use to influence changes in their neighborhoods.
Crime, criminalization and gun control: Oakland leads the way in crime hysteria
March 8, 2013
Oakland may seem like a local anomaly with its big increase in homicides in 2011-12 and the anti-crime hysteria which now engulfs it. But Oakland is just a prime example of the intertwining of crime and criminalization under capitalism, in which the ruling class divides working people one from another and targets particular groups for victimization.
RUMEC, fighting corporate oppression, ignorance and poverty through construction
March 6, 2013
RUMEC has been at the forefront of the new labor movement. We would like to unify our people through construction, religion, art, music and education. We seek the liberation from outside forces that foment ignorance, oppression and poverty. We aspire to escalate into an established position of recognition and respect as an independent, all inclusive institution that represents our striving people.
Muni’s shameful racism: T-Train stops short of BVHP
March 5, 2013
I would like to know the reasons why the Muni constantly stops trains on the T-Line at 23rd Street as if the rest of Third Street doesn’t exist. I pay for a monthly pass and I feel that I deserve to be treated with the same services as the Mission Bay area. It’s despicable how the Muni service treats the citizens in Bayview. This is obviously a classic combination of classism and racism.
Berkeley coalition demands access to information about death in police custody
February 28, 2013
Xavier Christopher Moore died Feb. 12 during a situation we believe was instigated by the Berkeley Police Department, at her apartment on the fifth floor of 2116 Allston Way, the Gaia Building. The BPD’s press release of Feb. 13 says that they responded to “a disturbance call” at Moore’s apartment. Media reports have said this call was related to mental health.
San Francisco launches Free Muni for Youth Pilot Program
February 28, 2013
Low and moderate income youth in San Francisco age 5 to 17 will be able to ride Muni for free as of March 1, when the SFMTA will begin a 16-month pilot program. Thousands of youth, parents and community members have organized for more than two years to secure the free transit passes, which enable young people to get to school, jobs and after-school activities.
Man who stole Larry Faulks’ home pleads guilty to auction rigging, mail fraud
February 24, 2013
Did a company called DMG Asset Management buy your foreclosed home? It bought Larry Faulks’ Diamond Heights home from Wells Fargo Bank after the bank put it up for foreclosure auction via a practice called dual tracking, whereby a bank forecloses and auctions off a home whose loan it is supposedly in the process of modifying.
Let Bayview Hunters Point Community Legal help you fight for justice
February 23, 2013
Justice is the backbone of civil society, the very core of a democracy. The law, however, is a confusing morass of conflicting rules and decisions that is often impenetrable to the average citizen. Until last month, there was nowhere permanent that residents in Bayview Hunters Point could go to for basic legal help.
Justice for Kevin Clark! Stop racist police brutality!
February 18, 2013
With a banner reading “From the Mission District to the whole Bay Area – Stop Racist Police Brutality,” over 300 community members rallied against the most recent case of police violence in San Francisco. The event was prompted by a video that became widespread showing 18-year-old City College student Kevin Clark being brutalized by two San Francisco police officers.
Roy Clay, Black Godfather of Silicon Valley
February 8, 2013
One of our great African American mental giants is often called the “Godfather of Silicon Valley.” Roy L. Clay Sr. is the name of this African American star. In 1965, he created and headed the Hewlett-Packard computer division. It was the first computer company in the Silicon Valley. In 1966, Roy and his team created the HP-2116, the world’s first mini-computer.
All because I asked for an African American police officer
February 7, 2013
This weekend I was detained because I asked for an African American police officer. Even if I was not within my rights to request to speak to a Black police officer, they should have just said, “No, we’re not doing that. Get out of here.” Instead, I was detained for asking for a reasonable accommodation based on my mental state and taken to 850 Bryant St.
SF School District blocks Blacks from rebuilding school
February 4, 2013
It has been five short months since dozens of unemployed Black workers and contractors protested exclusion of Blacks from demolition and demanded inclusion of Blacks in the rebuilding of Bayview’s Willie Brown Middle School. Now SFUSD plans to ask the School Board at their meeting Tuesday, Feb. 12, 6 p.m., at 555 Franklin, First Floor, to AWARD THE $44.6 MILLION CONTRACT FOR WILLIE BROWN SCHOOL TO A MAJOR WHITE CONTRACTOR without competitive bidding. Pack the meeting! Protest economic racism!
The Underground SRO Railroad and other acts of dismantling the plantation called Amerikkka
February 2, 2013
This is but one example of many acts of interdependence, love and revolution achieved by our family of poor and indigenous peoples at POOR Magazine. It is how we walk, live, struggle, dream, activate and revolutionize. It is what launched Homefulness, it is what started POOR Magazine and it is what kept me and my po’ Black-Indian Mama Dee alive.
Save Treasure Island Job Corps
February 1, 2013
The Department of Labor has made the very bad decision that all Job Corps Centers are to stop enrolling trainees in February and may stop enrollment until next July. This is an incredibly bad way to shore up their budget. It is both penny wise and pound foolish. Education and training is one of the president’s highest priorities. Apparently the Department of Labor has not gotten that memo.
Supervisor Avalos calls for investigation of LIBOR fraud by big banks
January 31, 2013
Standing in front of a JPMorgan Chase bank branch on Tuesday afternoon, San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos announced he was launching an investigation into San Francisco’s potential losses from the LIBOR interest rate fraud scandal and to explore options to recoup that money as other cities and counties have recently done.
Saving City College of San Francisco: Faculty initiate campus and community coalition
January 29, 2013
CCSF, one of the nation’s most successful community colleges, is fighting for survival. A lifeline to immigrants, students of color and the poor, the school has been knocked to its knees by brutal austerity measures. Students, staff, faculty, and community are joining together in the fight to save CCSF from closure. You are invited to the launch of the campus-community coalition on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 6-8 p.m., at CCSF Mission Campus, Room 109, 1125 Valencia, between 22nd and 23rd streets, San Francisco.
Leo Robinson, soul of the longshore
January 29, 2013
Leo Robinson was a Black leader of the longshore union in San Francisco. He died in mid-January. For many of us, he was a lifelong companion, an example of what being an internationalist and a working class activist was all about. When Leo Robinson spoke, he had the full attention of every union member in Local 10’s cavernous waterfront union hall.
SFPD can’t stop and frisk, so they turn to ‘hunting’ and ‘wolf packing’
January 27, 2013
It’s a damn shame to see this sort of abuse of power, especially when you consider Mayor Lee, who was largely applauded for being the City’s first Asian-American mayor, was a long-time civil rights attorney. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, as many traditional civil rights organizations and leaders have turned the concept upside down.
To the Oakland City Council re its $250,000 corporate cop contract
January 24, 2013
Instead of throwing another quarter million dollars away on a gimmick, the City of Oakland should turn to its own Bay Area neighbors in Richmond to see what they’re doing right and why their homicide and violent crime rates have so radically dropped. I imagine that Richmond’s crime fighting team would consult with Oakland’s at little or no cost, considering the mutual benefit of reducing crime in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Was Oakland police consultant William Bratton involved in the failed Venezuela coup? And if he was, should Oaklanders be concerned?
January 23, 2013
Hundreds of Oakland residents turned out to voice their opinions about the City Council hiring William Bratton as a $250,000 a year consultant to help bring down an escalating crime rate. They accuse him of instituting “stop and frisk,” a program that they say is the blue print for racial profiling. Bratton’s background suggests there may be a lot more to be concerned about than stop and frisk.