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San Francisco Editorial
SFO shuttle system needs fixing
- The 13 shuttle-van companies serving San Francisco International Airport must be doing something right, because they carried approximately 470,000 flight passengers last year. But airport officials say they receive “unacceptably frequent” complaints from dissatisfied shuttle riders who grumble that van operators are too difficult to reach by phone, charge higher rates than were quoted and travel roundabout routes. Also, the three van pickup locations at SFO are too hard to find.
Mandatory furloughs a good start to solving deficit
- Yes, it will be easier said than done. But The City could save $26.5 million and cancel up to 8 percent of its upcoming $300 million-plus deficit by simply requiring the 12,562 municipal employees paid from the operating budget to take four unpaid days off sometime during the next fiscal year.
911 emergency phone ‘fee’ muddle
- The California 1st District Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 3-0 last week that local governments cannot charge phone customers a monthly fee for access to the 911 emergency phone system without two-thirds voter approval. The judges said such user fees were actually special-use taxes requiring direct voter balloting as specified by Proposition 218 in 1996.
Deferred maintenance is expensive
- When local governments run short of money, as so often they do, one of the easiest budget items to cut is infrastructure maintenance. After all, the pavements and park greenery could still be fixed next year, so not many voters will care or even notice that routine upkeep has been skimped yet again. Maintenance cutbacks are politically much safer than discontinuing some popular service program.
Another weapon to tame street
- When a freeway shares the surface streets of a residential neighborhood, expect problems. On 19th Avenue, those problems include five fatalities in 2007. Between 2000 and 2005, there were 1,205 injuries and 12 deaths — because 19th Avenue is also seven miles of state Highway 1 connecting San Mateo and Marin counties via western San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. Most fatalities were pedestrians hit while crossing the wide and confusingly marked thoroughfare.
Care Not Cash on road to success
- Ever since then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom proposed his controversial Care Not Cash initiative, which was passed by city voters in 2002, the homeless advocacy establishment has been incensed over this policy to provide housing and services to certain homeless welfare recipients instead of giving them cash aid to continue living in the streets. And the opposition has never ceased throughout Newsom’s mayoral terms.