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Another Week, Another San Francisco Nonprofit Scandal

It can be hard to stay on top of everything that happens in San Francisco politics—City Hall Digest navigates all the latest developments to make sure you’re in-the-know. Incredibly, but unsurprisingly, yet another scandal has popped up in the tangled web of nonprofit contractors that the city relies on to provide critical city services. This week’s City Hall Digest breaks down the reasons why unscrupulous people continuously take advantage of San Francisco’s system, the city’s failure to reduce traffic deaths despite adopting Vision Zero policies, and Aaron Peskin (again) creating legislation to specifically benefit a small group of his constituents at the expense of every other San Franciscan. Check it out.

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Why Does San Francisco Keep Getting Sued?

It can be hard to stay on top of everything that happens in San Francisco politics—City Hall Digest navigates all the latest developments to make sure you’re in-the-know. This week’s City Hall Digest breaks down the latest lawsuit trying to force city officials to take some kind of meaningful action to fix the Tenderloin’s long-standing problems, weighs the risk-reward math behind some new ebike battery regulations, and examines Supervisor Catherine Stefani’s new legislation that (finally) requires the city’s nonprofit contractors to use standardized performance metrics.

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City Hall Digest: SFUSD Adds Algebra Back to 8th Grade—At a Steep Cost

It can be hard to stay on top of everything that happens in San Francisco politics—City Hall Digest navigates all the latest developments to make sure you’re in-the-know. This week’s City Hall Digest breaks down the cost of SFUSD reintroducing algebra to San Francisco 8th Graders, digs into what a new Chamber of Commerce poll says about the state of San Francisco (hint: it’s not great), and celebrates a rare win—San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors working together to add more treatment beds in San Francisco.

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Why Can't Anything Get Done?

A lot of things in San Francisco are pretty messed up—it can get overwhelming. Why can’t anything get done in San Francisco? A lot of our problems are glaringly obvious, why aren’t they getting fixed?

A big reason? The structure of San Francisco’s government. We have a strong Mayor system that doesn’t give the Mayor any authority, a system that puts real decision making power in the hands of unelected commissioners, a system that lets a single individual derail projects that have widespread support. It all adds up to a system that incentivizes inertia and keeps the status quo.

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Proposed District Election of School Board Members Dilutes Minority Voting Power and Weakens Parent Access and School Governance

A lawsuit could potentially force San Francisco’s school board to radically change the way it elects school board members just months before the next election. In this guest editorial, John Trasviña lays out why this baseless change will have terrible consequences for SFUSD and San Francisco’s public schools, and what you can do to stop it.

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