Trash Talk
Last fall, Recology paid ratepayers $24 million after municipal regulators determined that the privately held waste disposal company had overcharged its customers. It made similar payouts in 2022, $25 million, and 2021, $94.5 million. Now, Recology wants to increase its rates by 18.2 percent starting this October, followed by additional hikes of 7.5 and 3.9 percent in 2027 and 2028. By the end of the year, Recology’s present $47 per month charge per household would jump to $55.55. The company cites higher operating costs and lower revenues as the reason for the price hike. “A larger-than-usual increase is now needed to bring rates back up to a sustainable level,” the proposal states. According to Robert Reed, a Recology spokesperson, residential customers in San Francisco pay 25 percent less than per household prices in Oakland and San Jose. Even after the proposed rate rise, their rates would remain eight percent lower. In contrast, Berkeley households, which rely on municipal trash pickup, pay less than San Francisco’s present rates.
New Management
Last month, Bell Properties replaced The Eugene Burger Management Corporation as manager of the Potrero Annex-Terrace and Sunnydale housing complexes. Bell manages commercial and residential properties primarily in Southern California, including affordable housing and mobile home parks. No other entities bid to oversee Potrero and Sunnydale. A three-member panel scored Bell at 74.3, after which the Housing Authority’s board of commissioners approved a 24-month contract for $1,050,000 a year. Bell will be responsible for rent collection, maintenance, security, and inspections.
School Passes
Last month the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee approved Hiba Academy’s plan to transform 99 Rhode Island Street into an elementary school. The building previously housed tech companies, including Airbnb. The prekindergarten through fifth grade school, run by the Wellington Education Group, will open in fall 2026, with 100 to 200 students up to second grade, ultimately growing to 470 pupils up to fifth grade by 2029. The three-story, 63,000-square-foot structure has been vacant since 2023. Supervisor Matt Dorsey, whose district includes the new institute, is enthusiastic about the project. “99 Rhode Island has historically been an office building, and with the changes in Showplace Square and neighboring Mission Bay, the need for schools and other community servicing uses is greater than ever,” he said.
Stone Supe
In an interview with Mission Local, District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton alluded to the challenges of working with former mayor London Breed. “…I would say I was less compelled to talk to her team than I am to the new mayor’s team…I would say that the old mayor’s staff is more guarded and less transparent. And definitely more standoffish when it came to focusing on issues that affect folks who are disproportionately dealing with the most issues,” he said. In his first term, Walton seemed to be vying with Breed to be the primary voice of San Francisco’s Black community, a competition, if there was one, that he lost. He’s now the last prominent African-American politician standing, the only Black board member, with two years left on his term.
Escape Garden
In the wake of the Trump Administration’s pledge to ramp up deportation of immigrants without proper papers, an East Bay Olive Garden manager gave the restaurant’s staff the following guidance: always park in the back parking lot and leave the back door unlocked. If U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrive at the eatery, run… The Administration’s ascendance is the apogee of a centuries-long push-pull between empiricism and rationalism, science and religion, opinion versus fact. Its present victory was fostered by “liberals” and “conservatives,” libertarians and anarchists: former San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly’s dedication to inserting the “f-bomb” into every municipal debate; ex-President George W. Bush’s fictionally-based Iraqi War; Disney-fied New Age “wisdom” that all answers can be found in one’s own heart; school board arguments over renaming schools and removing books from libraries; Silicon Valley’s fake-it-til-you-make-it zeitgeist; virtual currencies. It’s a war over the nature of reality, a power struggle between the visible and invisible, whether or not God exists, and in what form. The empiricists have lost, for now. Things fall apart. And then come together again, world without end.