San Francisco, CA
Declaring the end of progressive San Francisco is a bit premature – 48 hills

The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Standard have both declared that this is no longer a progressive city.
That seems a bit premature to me.
The early results from last night’s election do, indeed, mostly favor the wing of the Democratic Party that calls itself “moderate” but is actually, on economic issues, pretty conservative. (I call neoliberals conservatives.)
Ballot measures supported by the mayor that do things like give the police more authority to spy on us all and require drug screening for welfare recipients are passing easily.
The conservatives are heading for control of the Democratic County Central Committee.
But let’s hold on a moment here before we pronounce a dramatic shift in local politics.
These results are based on a turnout of 20.9 percent. Four out of every five registered voters have not had their votes counted. There are, as of Wednesday, more ballots still outstanding (110,000) than have been counted so far.
And according to all the maps I have seen, the early ballots, the ones they count first, are overwhelmingly from the most conservative parts of the city.
Look at the data: 22.5 percent of the Democratic votes have been counted. But almost 29 percent of the Republican votes are in. One out of every ten votes counted so far was cast by a Republicans, who represent 7.4 percent of the registered voters.
The early returns always skew conservative, since the more conservative voters tend to turn their ballots in early.
I’m not suggesting that the final results will change dramatically—but only a few hundred votes separate the winners and losers in the DCCC, and it’s likely that at least a few more progressives will make the cut.
In the end, though, we will have a fairly conservative outcome—largely because of who voted. The Chron noted that in an update this afternoon. The Department of Elections will release more results Thursday at 4pm.
As I said last night, many of the conservative voters turn out anyway, and the mayor’s attacks on the poor and promotion of the police brought out more of those voters. And the billionaire money made a huge difference, particularly in the DCCC race.
The biggest problem for the progressives, particularly younger voters, was the lack of anything at the top of the ticket to inspire them to vote.
People on the left in San Francisco, by and large, are not happy with Joe Biden. So, either as a protest or as a matter of disinterest, some of then stayed home.
Check out this chart, from the Department of Elections. Turnout is highest when there’s something at the top of the ticket—and that is also when progressives do best.
In November, if there’s a candidate progressives can support running for mayor, there’s a good chance that the presidential race and the mayor’s race will bring out enough voters on the left to make a big difference in the supes races and on ballot measures.
The impact of the tech workers who have moved to town in the past ten years is becoming real. At first, they weren’t voting; now, apparently, they are. We all knew this was going to happen; as longtime activist Calvin Welch likes to say, “who lives here, votes here,” and as displacement forces out the working class and communities of color, the city gets more conservative. The Yimby pro-market approach to issues like housing, and the pro-police approach to social problems, has become more appealing to the wealthier residents.
Maybe wave after wave of gentrification will ultimately usher in a neoliberal majority on the Board of Supes and a more conservative body politic.
But I’ve been around a long time. In the 1980s, the city was run almost entirely by economic (and often social) conservatives like Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who had more than six call-up votes on an at-large board. Frank Jordan, a former police chief, was elected mayor in 1991. In the later 1990s, Mayor Willie Brown controlled the supes and his pro-developer politics dominated the city. The left was always in the minority and on the ropes.
Gavin Newsom get elected mayor by attacking poor people with a ballot measure called “Care not Cash,” which passed with a clear majority.
The DCCC used to be controlled by the old Brown-Burton Machine, which made sure that progressive Harry Britt, the heir to Harvey Milk’s supervisorial seat, lost a generational, defining Congressional race to machine candidate Nancy Pelosi.
Conservative election outcomes are not new. Neoliberal mayors have run San Francisco for much of past half century.
But recent years have shown a remarkable uprising of progressive candidates and causes. The young, organized, diverse left in this city is as strong as I’ve seen it.
So after all this time, I’m not ready to write the obituary for the progressive city.

San Francisco, CA
San Francisco eyes new pickleball court sites

As pickleball popularity grows, so does the demand for courts – and the debate over the sport’s noise factor.
NBC Bay Area’s Sergio Quintana shows us how San Francisco is trying to meet the demand without upsetting residents in the video report above.
San Francisco, CA
Skaters push back as San Francisco plans to demolish iconic Vaillancourt Fountain

A growing group of skaters is pushing to preserve the Vaillancourt Fountain after the City of San Francisco announced a multimillion-dollar renovation plan that would remove the structure made of concrete square pipes.
Zeke McGuire started skating at the age of 10, and he grew up skating at the plaza and near the fountain.
“To see it go would be devastating,” McGuire stated. “I’ve been coming here my whole life. I’ve skated those stairs. I’ve been injured on those stairs.”
He’s skated on every inch of the Plaza, including the ledges of the Vaillancourt Fountain, which was completed in 1971. It’s impossible to miss, with its boxy concrete tubes that stand about 40 feet high.
It’s been the backdrop of more skateboard videos than anyone could count.
“It’s extremely awesome,” McGuire said. “There’s people all across the world that come to San Francisco to skate here specifically. So for it to be gone, people would come here to visit and it wouldn’t be here anymore, so I would say get it in before it’s gone.”
San Francisco Recreation and Parks announced the Embarcadero Plaza Renovation Project last year. It is a plan to construct a new waterfront park, which would tear down the structure.
Tamara Barak Aparton with Rec and Parks says that after years of deterioration, the fountain is unsafe.
“The structure is unstable,” Barak Aparton stated. “Hazardous materials are present, and we can’t allow the public access to a space that poses safety risks.”
Historical preservationists, landscape architects, and skate enthusiasts, like Bay Area professional skateboarder Karl Watson, are now pushing back and saying it’s a part of that sport’s history in San Francisco.
“A beautiful monstrosity that needs to stay,” said Watson, describing the fountain.
He says except for a few exceptions, people didn’t skate into the fountain, just around it.
“The fountain was integral for when we were tired after skating, we needed a place to relax and just enjoy the water flowing and the fountain definitely did that for us,” Watson said.
Now, the fountain is stagnant. The water stopped flowing years ago. In June 2025, it was fenced off.
Feldman was disappointed to see it like this.
“I came down here last week just to see the fencing and I was like ‘oh, they really don’t want us skating here anymore’,” Feldman explained.
In August, the Recreation and Parks department formally requested permission to remove the fountain from the city’s Civic Art Collection.
But McGuire is hoping people like Watson, and the artist keep fighting. Armand Vaillancourt’s lawyer recently sent a letter to multiple city departments demanding the city cease and desist all efforts to remove his work.
No final decision has been made yet, but if it does go, McGuire hopes they’ll leave something.
“Even if it was to be fully demolished, I think it would be really nice if they kept a little bit of something,” McGuire said. “Or maybe make a part for people to skate.”
San Francisco, CA
Laver Cup to make San Francisco debut at Chase Center

San Francisco is set to host the 2025 Laver Cup at Chase Center from September 19 to 21, marking the first-ever tennis tournament held at the arena and the return of major men’s pro tennis to the city in over a decade. Steve Zacks, CEO of the Laver Cup, says this event showcases tennis like fans have never seen before, featuring a unique team format created by Roger Federer.
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