City still has no plans as Fillmore Safeway closes

Good afternoon! Here’s the latest:

It’s been a year since Safeway, the only full-service grocery in the Fillmore, announced it would close. Residents demanded help from the city then, but no plans were made. Now officials say it would take years more to get a new store on the site—and suggest people get their groceries and prescriptions delivered instead.

See our back story on the Safeway, which said in 2024 it would stay open until now to “give the community and the City more time to establish a transition plan.”

A decade ago, participatory budgets offered a way for SF neighborhoods to take a sliver of city revenue, propose local uses for it, and then vote directly on those proposals. Now only D7 has a participatory budget—is it too “labor intensive” for supervisors?

We’ve got a nice story about the 108-year-old Verdi Club, now a site for swing dancing, dinner parties, music, and burlesque. Take a look, then find out what’s happening at the historic club on our events page.

More soon,

Sara