JC Sanchez is this week's Photo of the Week winner. Beautiful shot, JC!
Our Beautiful Neighborhood
Do you have a "San Francisco Moment" that you'd like to share? You can submit your entries to the moderator@resetsanfrancisco.org.
Today, Mayor Ed Lee announced the San Francisco Budget Challenge – an online tool that allows the public to look at budget-saving options at City Hall. The website provides San Franciscans with an interactive look into the city’s budget.
You can get started here: http://sfbudget.org
The only aspect of the San Francisco Budget Challenge lacking is the integration of social media – and it shows again that the City is still behind at becoming a model government 2.0 city. And yet – while participating in this online game, San Franciscans merely “look” at ways to balance the budget, but are their voices really heard? Read More
In San Francisco, great policy still isn’t always enough. Sometimes we need public support to help our friends and colleagues in city government make the right choices.
That’s why the Sierra Club and many others are rallying this morning at San Francisco City Hall at 9:30 AM today (Thursday, May 18) in support of GoSolarSF – the pioneering local solar incentive program that has helped more than quadruple the number of solar roofs in San Francisco in just three short years.
GoSolarSF is creating green jobs, attracting new green industries, helping fight climate change and helping to make our nation more energy independent.
Read More & See the photos from today's rally!
Tonight, Circle the Wagons and Head to a Food Truck “Rodeo”
When you think San Francisco, you probably don’t think rodeo. But one of the first things many people do associate with our splendid city is food – really good, fresh food. So we shouldn’t be all that surprised to hear that the one rodeo San Francisco has, has nothing to do with horses and everything to do with food – say hello to food truck rodeos!
The term – and trend – refers to several food trucks riding into a public area, circling up and serving good grub. So with the weekend drawing near, we figured this Thursday night would be as good as any to take in what for many will be their first rodeo. Tonight and every Thursday night, Off the Grid hosts a food truck rodeo in the Upper Haight, where between 6 to 10 trucks gather near the corner of Stanyan and Waller Streets. Read More
Games, like so many social functions, are in the process of being revolutionized by online sharing technologies. Every day, millions of people spend hours online developing more efficient ways to get through World of Warcraft, save Princess Zelda or beat their friends at Scrabble.
If you put away your game console back in the Atari 1.0 days, you might have missed the revolution in gaming that now allows thousands of people to cooperate at once online to solve gaming problems. The latest statistic is that we spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games – many of these hours in cooperative teams of online game players.
Which led us to think – what if those people were engaged in trying to figure out how to make Muni run on time, make our schools even better or put San Franciscans back to work? That is to say, what if we turned our most pressing social problems into games, and turned the energy of millions of gamers towards finding the best solutions? Read More
By: Phil Ting
New York City's Mayor Bloomberg has just unveiled the “Road Map for the Digital City: Achieving New York City’s Digital Future” – an impressive 65-page plan that highlights the city’s commitment to using technology to increase access, open government, civic engagement and support for the digital job sector.
I hate to say it, but New York has taken the temporary lead here – and now San Francisco has to play catch up. We live in a competitive world – and San Francisco can’t afford to relinquish our leadership in the digital economy. Read More
Cities throughout the state are looking to marijuana as a way to generate revenue and help close ballooning deficits. Oakland, San Jose and Los Angeles already tax medical marijuana and several more cities are considering similar taxes. Should San Francisco join them?
A new tax on medical marijuana in San Jose is bringing in “a strong source of revenue” according to city officials. In fact, in the first month of the 7 percent tax on dispensaries San Jose reported that medical marijuana collectives paid $290,000 to the City. The revenue couldn’t have come at a better time, San Jose lawmakers are attempting to close the City’s $115 million budget deficit and major layoffs are expected.
Should San Francisco tax the sale of medical marijuana to close the City’s deficit and help fund crucial city programs? Take Our Poll & Read More
Okay – this should not be allowed to stand. News reports coming in that the Los Angeles Police Department is testing the use of electric bikes for their officers. Makes sense – when you need that extra speed boost to catch those runners the electric bike is just what you need. What makes us crazy is why LA – and why not San Francisco?
The bikes were donated to the LAPD for testing. We’ll keep an eye on this story and let you know when SFPD gets some hands on these new crime fighting tools. With our Resetty new police chief, we doubt this will take long. Read More
Last April, SFMTA released a real-time parking app called SFPark, so that San Franciscans can stop circling and start parking. The app isn't perfect (not sure we expected the people who run the SF MUNI to be perfect at 1.0) - but it is, for the most part "spot on" as the Chronicle's Rachel Gordon's writes yesterday on her experience with the app.
"The high-tech parking hunt isn't foolproof. But during a Chronicle road test on a recent afternoon with the manager of the SFpark program, the parking data was, for the most part, spot on."
We wrote about the glitchy SFPark app when it launched - so we decided to hit the streets and test out the app for ourselves. Take a look. And don’t forget to tell us if it works for you. Read More
The Chronicle is reporting that the Board of Supervisors is pushing hard to trim MUNI’s overtime budget – and MUNI boss Nat Ford is pushing back.
Ford says overtime “is not a four letter word.” The supervisors, who swear they mean it this time, say they want to cut the overtime budget down to size once and for all. One Supervisor calls it like being in the old TMC cable staple Groundhog Day – waking up again and again to the same old routine from our Municipal Railway.
Reset thinks if we are looking for movie metaphors, it might be more appropriate to reference the enduring classic Casablanca. Somehow it feels like the Supervisors are “Shocked, just Shocked” to find overtime abuse. Read More
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