By Kellie Hwang, Bay Briefing : sfchronicle – via email

Gem of government efficiency

The news of President Trump’s executive order Wednesday night to eviscerate the Presidio Trust, the federal agency that runs the Presidio National Park, rang alarm bells about the fate of one of San Francisco’s most scenic and popular destinations. While the impact of the order is still unclear, it raises questions. The executive order calls for the functions of the Trust to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

Here’s what we know so far:

• Will services be reduced at the park? Not at the moment, according to the Trust.
• Will the Presidio look different than usual? There have been no known cuts to the staff who maintain the park’s historic buildings and landscaping, said Ryan Heron, a representative of the union of employees at the Presidio.
• What does the Presidio Trust do? It’s required to maintain and operate Presidio National Park, including its 600 historic buildings, and to be financially self-sustaining.
• How is it financed? The Presidio is one of the most efficiently run agencies in the federal government, and is entirely self-sufficient in its operations and finances. It has not received annual contributions from Congress since 2013. The trust covers the park’s expenses mostly with rental income from businesses. Its total operating revenue for fiscal year 2025 is expected to be about $195 million, with expenses of about $139 million, netting the trust a $46 million surplus for this year, according to budget documents. The trust had a 93% commercial occupancy rate and 96% residential occupancy rate last fiscal year and ended the year with $94 million in reserves.
• Is the executive order legal? Sen. Alex Padilla, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and a spokesperson for the trust have all said that they are looking into the legality of the order.

The head of San Francisco’s Republican Party downplayed the impact of the move. “Trump‘s executive order does not abolish the Presidio Trust, which is a self-sustaining entity created by statute,” San Francisco Republican Party Chair Bill Jackson said in a statement. “Let’s give the Trust a few weeks to figure out the impact of the order, if any. This gem of a San Francisco institution is not going anywhere.”

The Presidio Trust is “one of the most efficiently run organizations in the federal government,” said Craig Middleton, the trust’s first employee and former executive director. “If you’re trying to save money, this is not the place to look.”

Read our full story on how the Presidio Trust is managed and financed, plus what legal experts say of Trump’s order — and what may happen next.

By Matthew Tom, Silas Valentino : sfgate – excerpt (more)

Trump executive order targets San Francisco treasure Presidio Trust

LATEST Feb. 20, 11:40 a.m. The Trump administration hit one of the agencies tasked with overseeing San Francisco’s Presidio, the Presidio Trust, with an executive order Wednesday, labeling it an “unnecessary governmental entity.” The agency released a statement Thursday defending itself against possible elimination.

“The Presidio Trust has not received regular annual appropriations from Congress since 2013, instead relying on the funds earned by leasing the historic buildings that the Trust has renovated,” wrote Presidio Trust spokesperson Lisa Petrie in response to the executive order calling to eliminate “non-statutory components and functions” performed by the agency. “We will present a report on our activities to the Office of Management and Budget, as required by the order, in two weeks. We are confident that our activities are all statutorily-based.”

Bay Area political leaders have started rallying behind the trust, namely the agency’s original sponsor, Rep. Nancy Pelosi. “The Presidio Trust is statutory, and it has been protected from assaults over time by its statutory strength,” Pelosi wrote online. “We will be carefully reviewing the language of the President’s executive order and its purpose.”

Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, a regional business advocacy group, called the Presidio Trust a national model for how government and the private sector can collaborate and pleaded with President Donald Trump to reconsider the executive order in a statement shared with SFGATE… (more)

By Stephen Council, Tech Reporter :sfgate – excerpt (audio)

Humane aimed to “fundamentally reshape the role of technology in people’s lives”

Humane, which made wearable, AI-embedded pins, is shutting down the devices it had sold and pawning off its software, patents and employees to Palo Alto tech giant HP Inc. The deal, which Humane said in a Tuesday press release will close at the end of February, marks the end of the line for a startup that had used pedigreed founders and a lofty concept to raise more than $230 million in funding.

The startup was, in 2023, an archetype of Silicon Valley buzz. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff both invested in it. The company’s married founders had left prominent roles at Apple and described their screen-free AI pin idea as a way to “fundamentally reshape the role of technology in people’s lives.” The pin had a camera and responded to verbal questions like a leveled-up Siri… (more)

Of the three things one entrepreneur said he looked for in a company, the first is MONEY. Where is the market? Who is going to buy the product you are thinking of making? Looks like that one was overlooked by Humane. Anybody can buy a media campaign. Anybody can (it appears) raises capital when there are so many rich people looking for investments in anything other than their own workers. BUT it is not easy to sell a product nobody wants, unless you are selling energy and the government is forcing you to buy one, as is the case with a lot of the stuff we are forced to do to comply with state laws. Comments are appreciated and sharing this article..

By KATE TALERICO : bayareanewsgroup – excerpt (audio)

Oakland Asm. Buffy Wicks is back with a proposal to fund affordable housing, after it failed to make it to the November ballot last year.

East Bay Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks and state Senator Christopher Cabaldon, a Yolo County Democrat, on Tuesday brought back a proposal to place a $10 billion bond for affordable housing programs on the June 2026 ballot after failing to get a measure on the November 2024 ballot.

If approved, it would authorize general obligation bonds for low-income rental housing and supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, among other purposes.

“These bonds are a necessary step to address the staggering need for safe, stable and affordable housing,” Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, said in a statement. “Even in a tight fiscal climate, we must act with urgency.”

With a limited capacity to authorize new bonds, the legislature last year decided to prioritize two other bond measures of $10 billion each over Wick’s housing measure — one for renovations to public schools and community colleges, and the other to fund climate resiliency projects. Both bonds passed, with 59% and 60% of the vote, respectively… (more)

By Damien Rashidi : richmondsunsetnews – excerpt

Who doesn’t know about this recall? And who is paying to fight it?

Betray me once, shame on you. Betray me twice, shame on me.

Joel Engardio, San Francisco’s District 4 Supervisor since 2023, has had a relatively short tenure in City Hall and yet has already committed a serious violation: Ignoring the will of his constituents.

This past election cycle, we saw Proposition K on the ballot, which would have shut down the Upper Great Highway (UGH) indefinitely and turned it into a park. On the surface, a new community park sounds good, but the people of the Sunset District had serious problems with it. Without the UGH, many commuters would have to shift their routes to cut through the small narrow neighborhoods on the west side. Rerouting heavy traffic through these neighborhoods will lead to increased accidents and congestion, and endanger the citizens of the surrounding region. The partial closure of the UGH already has. This measure had no plan and no budget. It was all around a bad idea.

However, Engardio’s violation was not in supporting a proposition widely deemed as a bad idea, it was in supporting a proposition a supermajority of his constituency vehemently disapproved of. If you look at the returns from election night on Prop. K, you can easily see that the west side was united in their rejection of this measure. Some precincts reported as high as 83% of their voters rejecting it! Yet the proposition passed because the people on the opposite end of the City (with higher populations) approved it. Poll after poll through the election cycle gave a clear image of the Sunset community’s rejection of the proposal. But Engardio chose to stand with former Mayor London Breed, Sen. Scott Wiener and Abundant SF over the people who elected him…

… (more)

RELATED:

It’s Not Just the Great Highway. Some Chinese American Voters Have Felt Unheard for Decades

From a Reader: The (Not so) Subtle Takeover of Private Property by the City

If you need another reason to replace Engardio, he gives them to you every week. His latest is turning ADUs, (originally zoned for affordable units) into market rate condos, using the split lot legislation and other state bills to lure more single families into cashing out to wealthy carpetbaggers, as they exit the city for what they hope are greener pastures, with less draconian anti-family laws. If Lurie wants them to stay, he needs to appoint a new supervisor they trust to represent them. Hopefully he will ask them this time, since they also supported him in large numbers.

By Matt LaFever :sfgate – excerpt (excerpt) audio

After nearly five years of legal battles, a Grocery Outlet is finally coming to Fort Bragg, a remote outpost on California’s rugged North Coast. First proposed in 2019, the project ignited a small-town showdown: working-class residents pushing for an affordable food source, an elusive business interests group fighting it in court over concerns about coastal views and traffic congestion. After years of heated debate over everything from the project’s potential impact on wildlife and air pollution to what its exterior stone facade might look like, last week, a San Francisco judge dismissed the final legal challenge, paving the way for construction to begin.

The 16,157-square-foot store is slated to replace the deteriorating Old Social Services Building on a 1.63-acre lot at South Franklin Street, located between South Street and North Harbor Drive. Plans include a 53-space parking lot, perimeter sidewalks, stormwater drainage, and landscaping to manage runoff, according to documents presented to the California Coastal Commission. The store plans to operate seven days a week and employ 25 full-time and 10 part-time workers.…(more)

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and LINDSAY WHITEHURST : sfgate – excerpt (audio)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to temporarily lift a three-week funding freeze that has shut down U.S. aid and development work worldwide, citing the sweeping damage that the sudden shutdown has done to the nonprofits and other organizations that help carry out U.S. assistance overseas… (more)

By Ben Metcalf : sfchronicle – excerpt (audio track)

Rebuilding after the Los Angeles fires is going to be time-consuming and expensive. Accordingly, much attention has been given to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent executive actions to speed up the process and cut red tape, including by waiving environmental reviews, sidestepping Coastal Commission oversight and providing additional state resources to city and county planning and building officials

However, a different and little-noticed idea from the governor, included as part of his budget proposal to the Legislature early in January, also has the potential to be impactful. A small paragraph teases a big vision for housing: a new California housing and homelessness agency.

This proposed agency — which would replace the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency that oversees a kitchen sink of other state functions (such as horse racing and cannabis regulation) — promises instead a “more integrated and effective” administrative framework for addressing the state’s housing and homelessness challenges. It would oversee all of the existing housing entities and be tasked with leading the state’s response on aligning housing policies with transportation, climate and community planning… (more)

We need to look into the process for creating and dissolving state agencies because that is what Newsom is suggesting. What happens to the staff? We might want to talk to them.

What is the connection between an agency that oversees Business, Consumer Services and Housing and one that oversees Housing and Homelessness issues. Are they eliminating state oversight of Business and Consumer Services, combing them with other agency, or setting up a new oversight agency?

The new agency just adds climate and community planning to housing and transportation. How does combining “housing policies with transportation, climate and community planning” solve homelessness? Is this a ploy to circumvent CEQA more than they already have?

This makes no sense unless it is a power play. Once again the state wants to force change on us and is eliminating some basic services and oversight we need in the process.

Once again our state representatives are trying to control us while eliminating the basic services and oversight we need.

‘NO THANK YOU’ Elon Musk offered more than $97 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Its CEO, Sam Altman, offered a three-word response…

I think he made a counter offer, but, who knows what goes on among the clouds. Maybe taking on the role of Cloud control went to some heads and they think they are really in control of Mother Nature?

Unionbuiltmatters

A developer tries to cut costs, a contractor hires non-union, and together they create a deadly, tilting money pit in New York City

It matters who you hire.

The most experienced, best quality work crews in New York City belong to its best-in-the-world construction unions. Developers who shun them do so at their own peril. Here’s just one more very expensive case study to prove that point: The Seaside Condominiums, also known as “The Leaning Tower of Pizzarotti.”

The 58-story high-rise condominium at 161 Maiden Lane in New York’s seaport district, and which is being put up by general contractor Pizzarotti IBC, LLC, is leaning to the north.

Buildings aren’t supposed to lean.

Pizzarotti has sued the developer on the project, Fortis Property Group, who they say caused the lean because they cut costs on a “soil improvement” method, which they say is now causing problems with the building’s structural integrity, facade, waterproofing and elevators. Fortis counters that it was the work of the concrete crews hired by Pizzarotti that is causing the lean.

The non-union project, which started in March 2016, and is well into its fourth year of work, is now delayed yet again.

But the lean is just the latest problem at the site now haunting developer Fortis and contractor Pizzarotti.

Here’s the laundry list of mistakes that could have been avoided had they gone union: … (more)

​​