Reset San Francisco | Phil Ting for Assembly 2012

The Reset How-To Project

Though imperfect, SFgov.org, SFMTA.com, and other city and county websites go a long way to make information available online for residents, businesses and visitors. One of the chief problems with this information, however, is all too often it is buried in veritable rabbit holes of links and pop-outs – not necessarily a one-stop-shop effort.

Open Government is about making our government more accessible, which means making the information on the city, government services, and public programs clearly the available. Frequently, the lack of communication between city agencies, or the lack of funding to update websites or other information dissemination mechanisms explain too many of the hurdles people have to undergo to complete simple tasks.

The Reset How-To’s project is an attempt to track down, aggregate and present that information to simplify navigating and getting to know our city. Do you have a question that you'd like us to answer? Email us at info@resetsanfrancisco.org and Read More

Can High-Speed Internet Turn College Towns Into Tech Start-Ups? And Why Isn’t It Happening Here?

Under the newly-formed Gig.U program, 29 American universities have joined forces to build a high-speed Internet network to serve the communities surrounding their campuses. The bandwidth the colleges are proposing to provide isn’t your average wi-fi – the one-gigabyte connections are fast enough to download high-definition movies in under a minute.

Gig.U hopes to lure high-tech startups in fields like health care, energy and telecommunications to the areas near the universities, many of which are located outside of major cities. Gig.U believes that by creating digital ecosystem new businesses, ideas and education models will thrive. Read More

SF Public Press Nails the Audit Story – City Leaving Millions on the Table

One of our favorite local news communities is just nailing this audit story. Angela Hart at SF Public Press goes into detail about how many city departments are failing to fully implement audits.

Of course audit’s are not always right on every point, but the comprehensive reporting from the Public Press builds the case that the city is not doing nearly enough to implement the cost-saving recommendations found in audits.

Phil Ting said last year “the most progressive thing we can do is make the city work.” For everyone who cares about making progress – this story is worth a read.

Reset Rating: How to find the perfect park in San Francisco

Reset Rating: How to find the perfect park in San Francisco

Looking for the perfect dog park in San Francisco? With on-site parking? And restrooms? Near Whole Foods so you can also snag that last minute addition for your picnic? The San Francisco Rec and Park Department offers an online tool to narrow down the list of nearly 220 San Francisco parks to the manageable few which fit your needs. Great idea… in theory.

You might be better off calling the department and picking the brain of the person who answers the phone. Read More

SFMTA Announces Plan to Bring Bike Sharing to San Francisco

By: Victoria Holliday

Years after bike-sharing programs brought transit options to cities like Berlin, Paris and Mexico City – bike sharing is finally coming to San Francisco. The SFMTA just announced the details of its pilot plan to launch bike sharing starting next spring. The early bike-sharing network will include 50 bike share stations and 500 bikes in San Francisco’s downtown core. Read More

Creating a Civic Return on Investment Calculator – How to Deliver Better Services Without Endless Cuts

By: Phil Ting

With ever-growing state and federal cutbacks now virtually guaranteed to strike the most vulnerable San Franciscans, our city government has a duty to address the key question head on: how do we propose to protect the seniors, children, jobless and homeless who are being left behind by a faltering economy and failing political policies?

One way is certainly to “backfill” the state and federal cuts with local revenues. However, there is hardly an endless supply of new local revenue and any new revenues need to be approved by voters who are increasingly skeptical of government and under economic pressure themselves. Read More

Are We Electing a Mayor Without a Mandate?

By: Eric Jaye

With the last-minute entry of Public Defender Jeff Adachi into the race for Mayor of San Francisco, the political situation remains opaque while the public policy dilemma facing the city is increasingly clear – we are on track to elect a mayor without a policy mandate. How is this happening?

Because in politics math is destiny – and the math shows that we could very well elect the next mayor with less than 20% of the first place votes. With the race for mayor turning increasingly nasty, and the special interest money machine preparing to flood our airwaves and mailboxes encouraging us to vote against one candidate or the other, the next mayor could very well emerge from a highly negative campaign with backing of less than one-fifth of the electorate.

San Francisco is a hard enough place to manage with a mandate. The mayor who emerges from this political mess will be, along with the rest of us, in dangerous and uncharted territory. Read More

Censorship Is Not a Public Safety Strategy

BART Shuts Off Cell Phone Service to Prevent Protest

By: Phil Ting
The news from BART keeps getting worse and worse. We learned this morning that not only did BART turn off cell signals in its Civic Center, Powell Street and 16th Street Stations on Thursday evening to try and prevent a protest – the decision was made at the very highest staff level of the agency.

Censorship is not, and should never be, a public safety strategy. We take BART leadership at their word about motives; they say they were worried about a crush of passengers and protesters on a dangerously crowded platform.

But the proper response to such a concern was to send BART police, and SFPD if necessary, to safeguard passengers and protesters. The decision to cut off cell service in order to prevent the protests violates fundamental principles of our democracy. Read more

Getting Inside the Outside Lands Festival

By: Katie Short

The third annual Outside Lands Festival is this weekend: 72 bands, 51 local restaurants, 30 wineries, and an expected 100,000 plus festival-goers. And while we are excited about the festival activities and bands once we get there, it’s the getting there part that concerns us. With the increase in traffic, the SFMTA will offer supplemental transportation. Read More

Don't Just Get Mad at Muni - Mad Lib Muni!

Don't Just Get Mad at Muni - Mad Lib Muni!

Let New SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin Know What You Think

Do you feel like your voice is being heard? I’m sure for most of you, the answer is no. If you could tell the new chief of San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority, Ed Reiskin, about how to improve your commute, what would you say?

We’ve created this quick Mad Lib for you to use to let Ed know what you think. These can be pretty fun, even though this is a serious topic. Please fill it out, and we’ll share it with Ed before our event on August 23.

Share the link with your friends: http://bit.ly/muni-madlib