Heat, reparations, and SFPD overtime

Good afternoon!

Yes, there’s more on the police: We’re reporting live today from City Hall on a proposal for SFPD overtime, and you can follow the story here. But first some encouraging news, some hot news, because it’s satisfying when reporting brings a response.

Yesterday, on the heels of Annika Hom’s Mission Local story exposing the frigid conditions at City College of San Francisco, the CCSF Board called a hasty emergency meeting, announcing that $2.6 million has been approved to speed up the repair of boilers at the Mission, John Adams and Ocean campuses.

In 2020, voters approved an $845 million bond measure, specifically to construct and repair facilities. But none of the funds were set aside for heating CCSF buildings, and students and teachers have been complaining for years about classrooms that can go as low as 42 degrees. Until our story prompted more urgency, the administration’s fixes were hand warmers and space heaters. Carolyn Cox, an ESL instructor, walked up to the trustees during public comment and gave them a packet of hand warmers “There, problem solved,” she said. Board President Alan Wong promised accountability, and said the repairs should be done by summer. “As long as students are not getting heat,” he said, “the heat is on us.“

Also yesterday, we live-blogged the Board of Supervisors hearing of a draft reparations proposal sponsored by Supervisor Shamann Walton and developed by an advisory committee with the Human Rights Commission. Several messages sent to the Board of Supervisors ahead of the meeting had strongly opposed the plan, calling it racist and unfair. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said, “I think the the fury that this little report has inspired among some people is itself evidence of the imperative of actually making reparations.”

Mission Local was there for the presentation, and more than three hours of public comment that was overwhelmingly in favor of reparations. “This is not about Black people just having their handout,” said one commenter. “This is about hundreds of years of free labor, about being removed from our homes, not allowed to be educated, not allowed to earn a wage, not allowed to reproduce and raise families, pushed out of San Francisco, forced to pay the education of others without the same benefit, isolated and redlined, and the list goes on.” All the supervisors spoke in support of the proposal, and a resolution to accept the reparations plan passed unanimously.

Today, Mission Local is live-blogging the Budget and Appropriations Committee of the Board of Supervisors, as it considers Mayor London Breed’s controversial $27.6 million budget supplemental to fund police overtime. Follow our live blog here.

More soon,

Sara