By MADELEINE BAIR As Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education and candidate for District 9 Supervisor, tells it, his career in politics began by accident. It happened in the late nineties, when Teachers 4 Change, an organization Sanchez co-founded with other San Francisco teachers, picketed at City Hall, demanding more resources for underfunded classrooms and underpaid...
By MADELEINE BAIR The race for District 9 Supervisor is in its final months, and along the main corridor of the Mission District, storefronts are brandishing their allegiances. One market facade displays a sign for David Campos, while the taqueria next door promotes Mark Sanchez. A sign for Eric Quezada is taped beside an advertisement for international calling cards. Eva...
By NOAH BUHAYAR A four-hour meeting of the Board of Supervisor’s Land Use Committee came to a climax Monday afternoon, as elected officials grilled city planners on their proposal to increase the number of affordable family homes in the Mission District. “I think you’re gentrifying the neighborhood,” said Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, referring to the suggested rezoning of Mission Street between...
By ALLISON DAVIS As members of the Eastern Neighborhoods Planning commission outlined details of their proposal, Sophie Maxwell, chair of the three-member Land Use and Economic Development Committee, let no fact go uncontested. “It all sounds like a good idea, but we need meat on the bone,” said Maxwell several times during the three-hour Board of Supervisors hearing. The September...
By NOAH BUHAYAR Community organizers and builders clashed Wednesday night on how much developers should have to pay for infrastructure improvements in the Mission District. “We built communities when no one wanted to invest in our communities,” said Oscar Grande, a community organizer, referring to the Latino families that have lived in the Mission for several decades. But several developers...
Eric Storey is a dog person. Within minutes of meeting Storey—one of the District’s lesser known Board of Supervisor candidates–he is likely to mention a favorite past time: walking his eight year old beagle, Toby, in the district’s parks. But it was an unfriendly dog that first launched the 35-year-old self-described “average guy” into the crowded District 9 race. During...
By NOAH BUHAYAR San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a plan Tuesday that would protect existing industry, create new housing and raise funds for public improvements in four of the city’s eastern neighborhoods. The vote was an abrupt close to a process eight years in the making that often pitted community groups against developers. “It’s hard to believe that...
