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So you’re planning to chase cheap housing in Sacramento? We locals have just one demand first

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So you’re planning to chase cheap housing in Sacramento? We locals have just one demand first


The Tower Bridge is a Sacramento icon. Will S.F. miscreants sneak out at night and repaint it like their magnificent international landmark? 

Hector Amezcua/Associated Press 2019

San Franciscans are looking to Sacramento, again, to maybe, theoretically, possibly, please God, be able to afford a house that isn’t comparable in price to an NBA franchise.

The Chronicle’s Christian Leonard wrote that “home buyers in the San Francisco metropolitan area check the Sacramento region for listings more than any other destination, according to a recent report from real estate brokerage site Redfin.”

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Having lived in Sacramento for 10 years, l can assure you that your state’s capital is indeed generally nice. When I came down here in 2013, it was far more affordable than my previous residence of Portland, Ore., which has had an astronomical number of San Franciscans move there over the past few years. 

The San Franciscans gamely took on the “Portlandia” zeitgeist, which was about three tokes away from the regular San Francisco vibe anyway.

In Sacramento, the prevailing attitude about San Francisco was, oh boy, we love the 49ers and the Giants but, wow, would it kill you to not make the City of Trees unaffordable?

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Gov. Gavin Newsom, you may recall, used to run San Francisco as mayor. When asked, “How often are you up in Sacramento?” the then-lieutenant governor said, “Like one day a week, tops. There’s no reason.”

Newsom wasn’t done. “It’s just so dull. Sadly, I just, ugh, God.”

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People in Sacramento reacted like Sacramentans do, which is: don’t overreact, we hear that all the time, you guys think we’re the next gas station past Nut Tree.

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Now Sacramento is a destination resort for the rapidly expanding housing refugee cohort that is even leading some Californians to move to, gulp, Texas and Florida. I just, ugh, God.

Now Sactown Dull is The City cool, and Gov. Newsom lives in Sacramento and doesn’t spend a ton of time in I Just Ugh God Sacramento in favor of visiting various TV studios around the country. Suddenly, a lot of people want to move to Sac. 

Since San Francisco’s median home price is about $1.12 million as of October, and Sacramento clocks in on Zillow at $563,000, the miracle of the free market economy suggests that some Sacramentans may find themselves in a seven-figure crib. No ugh, God there for a select few. 

There was a minor San Francisco-Sacramento contretemps a few months ago when The City’s basketball team lost a few games before realizing it had Steph Curry. 

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The rivalry was chill. Sacramento loves San Francisco. San Franciscans, conversely, generally don’t give Sacramento a second thought, unless the gas gauge shows they’re not going to make it to Lake Tahoe on Friday night.

McCarthy illo 
Musk illo 

San Francisco, for all of its Doom Loop national news coverage from Gov. Newsom’s ex-wife’s network of choice, is still pretty awesome, generally. The question is, would relocated affordable home San Francisco people with flowers in their hair and their great sports franchises dig Sacramento? Would they want to change Sacramento into their image? Would they become … Sacramentans?

Sacramento, for example, has just one bridge, Tower Bridge, a charming little gold-spray-painted structure from the Great Depression. Would S.F. miscreants sneak out at night and repaint it like their magnificent international landmark? 

Would Elon Musk creep over and buy up everything in order to run it into the ground? Would Musk, given his net worth of $245 billion, be able to snarf up all the affordable homes here? There are 2,969 homes in Sacramento for sale, according to FRED, the division of the Federal Reserve that tracks these things. At $563,000 a pop, that’s about $1.67 billion, couch-change stuff for your friendly local Bay Area Alex Jones enabler.

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AI? We have the state capitol, where a bit of artificial intelligence goes down from time to time. San Franciscans don’t really seem to care much about Sacramento’s gearhead bureaucratic political scene unless Willie Brown is running it. We still can’t rule out that he isn’t.

Sacramento has a mayor, former state Senate President Darrell Steinberg, who, by all accounts, is just about the nicest, most sincere guy ever. No S.F.-level clashes, really. The Sacramento City Council is also pretty sedate, too. The county supes? Snore.  

As the ambiguous Bay Area blob (sorry, Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area) grows into Sacramento and prices out more and more Californians from the housing market, it may well spur a little more urgency within the confines of the Sac-based Legislature to address the problem. 

As the new Sacramentafrisco expands, Sacramento has only one demand for new homeowners. 

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Can you get Steph Curry to keep his mouthguard in? I just, ugh, God.

Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and writer. He can be reached at jackohman.net, on Instagram at @jackohman60 and Threads at @jackohman60. 



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San Francisco, CA

Jets to play San Francisco 49ers Week 1 on Monday Night Football

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Jets to play San Francisco 49ers Week 1 on Monday Night Football


The NFL is releasing its full 2024 schedule on Wednesday night, but prior to the full release the league is providing details on some marquee games.

We now know the Week 1 opponent for the Jets. The team will travel to the West Coast to play the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football.

The 49ers are the defending NFC Champion. This marks the second straight year the Jets kick off their season with a marquee Week 1 matchup on Monday Night Football. The team famously won an overtime thriller against the division rival Bills to start the 2023 campaign. Of course that win came at a big price as Aaron Rodgers suffered a season-ending Achilles injury on the first offensive series.

Robert Saleh served as 49ers defensive coordinator before his hiring as Jets head coach in 2021.

The Jets and 49ers last played in Week 1 in 1998. The game was a classic. San Francisco won on a 96 yard touchdown run by Garrison Hearst in overtime. However, the Jets went on to win 12 games that season and appeared in the AFC Championship Game.





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San Francisco, CA

Facing $800M budget deficit, SF looks into city department expenses

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Facing $800M budget deficit, SF looks into city department expenses


SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — San Francisco could soon face more budget cuts.

“We are about three quarters of the way into our fiscal year. We are taking a look into how we are doing in the year and how is our revenue coming in,” said Michelle Allersma, director of Budget and Analysis in the controller’s office.

San Francisco’s current annual budget for 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 is $14.6 billion.

By Tuesday, the Allersma said the office will have a detailed report that will inform the mayor what steps to take.

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MORE: Mayor Breed announces SF budget for next 2 years, revealing key city priorities

“We are looking the general fund and we are looking into all the tax revenue. So there is sales tax, hotel tax,” said Allersma.

The controller’s office is digging deeper into the expenses by every city department and the revenues coming in. One concern so far is office vacancies.

“We are definitely seeing not a lot of commercial buildings are selling. We are taking a hit in our real estate transfer tax,” said Allersma.

Ahead of the latest budget review, Mayor Breed asked for city departments to make cuts for the next fiscal year.

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MORE: SFMTA to add 35 more transit fare inspectors amid financial crisis

As the last controllers report looms today the Mayor’s office said in part:

“The Mayor has asked Departments to proposed reductions of 10%, but that doesn’t mean those will lead to cuts. She could choose to take all of their proposed reductions, or only part of them, or none at all.”

One of those asked to make cuts was the sheriff’s department.

“We don’t have anything else to cut. We are already short-staffed. We have cut and we are proposing to cut a little bit of our overtime budget only as a part of that and we are looking at asking for more money,” said San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto.

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Sheriff Miyamoto is reporting a 36% increase in the jail population over the past year.

MORE: SFUSD officials under pressure from state amid ongoing budget crisis

“We need to deal with the increase in the population and the needs of that population. The transportation cost that are associated with moving people back and forth from our main jail out in San Bruno to the courts,” said Sheriff Miyamoto.

By June 1, the mayor is set to submit a full proposal for the budget to the board of supervisors. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is part of the city’s budget and finance committee.

“We are in a rough place budgetary. We had to make pretty significant cuts last year and we are going to have to do that again this year,” said Mandelman. “I’m concerned about basic services, public safety of course but I’m also concerned about housing. We have more than 10,000 people every night who used to be homeless and are now housed.”

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Full statement from the mayor’s office:

“The Mayor’s Budget will be submitted by the end of this month. Any new information provided by the Controller will be incorporated in that budget. To be clear, the Mayor has asked Departments to proposed reductions of 10%, but that doesn’t mean those will lead to cuts. She could choose to take all of their proposed reductions, or only part of them, or none at all. And Departments can propose their reductions by finding other sources of revenue, like state and federal grants, to offset their costs.There is a lot of work that goes into balancing the budget, and the Mayor and her staff have been working on this for months. We will have more at the end of the month.”

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

Copyright © 2024 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.



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San Francisco, CA

Folsom Street redesign to trim traffic, prioritize biking and transit

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Folsom Street redesign to trim traffic, prioritize biking and transit


San Francisco city leaders broke ground Monday on a nearly decade-in-the-making street redesign that will transform one of the city’s main arteries that carries vehicles to downtown.

The Folsom Street streetscape project will remake the bustling thoroughfare across the entire SoMa neighborhood, from 11th Street to Second Street. While drivers are currently able to travel in three, and sometimes four, lanes on Folsom Street, the project will permanently funnel vehicle traffic into two lanes. Meanwhile, builders will add a transit-only lane on the 1.3-mile strip and install a two-way bikeway protected from vehicles by concrete islands.

“This project is about making the South of Market neighborhood a safer, more inviting place to walk, bike, shop and take transit,” Supervisor Matt Dorsey said. “Obviously, there’s going to be cars, too, but this is what 21st century urbanism is.”

The Folsom Street rebuild is part of a long series of projects aimed at San Francisco’s goal of pushing people away from driving cars and trucks and toward taking transit, biking and walking. By the year 2030, the city hopes to ensure that at least 80% of trips taken in San Francisco use methods that produce low amounts of carbon emissions, including riding transit, walking, biking, driving electric vehicles and carpooling.

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