Malia Cohen

Here Is How You Can Avoid Being a Victim of That Weird Ghost Scam

District Attorney George Gascon's office has convicted seven people for scamming elderly Chinese women out of their life savings, making San Francisco the first city in the country to prosecute defendants in the now-infamous ghost scams. Another case is plodding along through pretrial motions. Sti ... More >>

Switched Off: Muni's Switchback Solution Conceals Other Problems

Scott Wiener Will Be Next Land-Use Chair, Mark Farrell to Head Budget

SF Weekly has learned that Board President David Chiu will award both of the city's most influential committee chairmanships to his moderate colleagues. Supervisor Scott Wiener will be the chairman of the land-use committee. Supervisor Mark Farrell will be named the chair of the budget committee.&nb ... More >>

Board of Supervisors President: David Chiu Unanimously Re-Elected

Supervisor David Chiu keeps discovering new ways to be elected board president. First, he was the compromise choice emerging out of a bitter political battle. Then the board's right flank pushed him to re-election. And, today, he was re-re-elected via a unanimous, 11-0 tally. But not without some cu ... More >>

Board of Supervisors: Get Used to Muddle in the Middle

By this time next week, barring an event recalling a Strom Thurmond phone book-reading filibuster, San Francisco will have a newly minted Board of Supervisors president. Incumbent David Chiu is in a solid position, but others, including Scott Wiener, are making plays of their own. It'll be intriguin ... More >>

SF's Proposed Ban on Hollow-point Bullets Is a Turning Point for U.S. Gun Culture

Hollow-point bullets have a pit at the tip, which makes them look a bit like tiny steel smokestacks. When the bullet hits a target, pressure builds within the pit and pushes outward against lead walls, causing the bullet's surface area to expand and leave a greater trail of damage within the target. ... More >>

Mike Antonini: Planning Commissioner Says He Has Votes for Reappointment

Mike Antonini is not Gregor Samsa. He did not wake up one morning to find himself suddenly transformed into a white, male, Republican, dentist. He has been white and male for a long while, a Republican for not quite as long, and a dentist for no brief interval either. This was the case when he was r ... More >>

Activists Gang Up on Mayor Ed Lee at City Hall

Today, protesters came at Mayor Ed Lee from all sides -- literally. On the Van Ness side of City Hall, a mix of Bay Area residents, politicos, and average Joes, gathered to oppose the mayor's controversial Stop & Frisk idea. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Hall, residents rallied against Lee ... More >>

Horrible Landlord Fined $800K for Forcing Tenants to Live Among Rodents and Sewage

And you thought your landlord was an asshole. A San Francisco landlord was hit with a $800K fine for forcing his tenants to live among rodents, sewage, crumbling walls, mold for more than a decade. The city lodged some 467 code violations at 32 properties owned by Bayview Property Managers. Oh and b ... More >>

Pissed: City Hall Urinator Draws Hardly a Glance

It's hard to get noticed in San Francisco. This city is so well-stocked with individuals, it's probably easiest to stand out by conforming. This kind of logic made 1960s sci-fi robots explode while saying "Does not compute, does not compute" in a tinny voice. But that's how it computes here.In any e ... More >>

S.F. Sunshine Committee Strife

There are four vacant seats on the city's Sunshine Ordinance Task Force. Contenders have been lining up, but there seems to be plenty of strife to go around when it comes to the governing body that's supposed to promote transparency and accountability in our local government.According to Richard Kne ... More >>

List: Another Year, Another Board of Supervisors

​Supervisor David Chiu, president of the Board of Supervisors, this week announced the new committee assignments for the Board this year. What's different this year? Nobody actually cares what David Chiu does anymore Eric Mar has to sit in the back Mark Farrell is the new chair of the Government ... More >>

Homeless Man's Service Dog, Shot Dead By CHP, Was Charging Supervisor's Aide

"I was convinced I was going to die," says city worker​Megan Hamilton, a legislative aide for Supervisor Malia Cohen, joined a gaggle of public employees for a tour of urban blight in the city's southeast. Instead, she says she was charged by three "aggressive" dogs and watched in horror as a Cali ... More >>

Election Money -- Who Gave What in San Francisco

Invest, young man. Invest in politics! ​As of last night, San Francisco's election season is all over except for the shoutin' -- and recriminatin' and fulminatin' and tabulatin' who bought what. Assuming Mayor Ed Lee does pull it out, a number of observers will note he did so in spite of the actio ... More >>

Move Your Money Day: San Francisco Residents to Dump Their Banks

​In what could be the first practical request by the Occupy Movement yet, protesters are asking everyone across the nation to take part in the "Move Your Money Day" tomorrow and divert their investments from big banks. It might seem ambitious, but considering how the mass exodus of customers from ... More >>

Is Google Reponsible for Anti-Abortion Center Posing As Abortion Provider?

Be careful what you search for. ​By now, we've accepted the fact that Google relies on our online searches to target products for advertising. But City Attorney Dennis Herrera is not; the mayoral candidate is asking one San Francisco anti-abortion counseling center to stop web advertisements that ... More >>

Pension Reform: Jeff Adachi Says Mayor's Proposal Doesn't Add Up

The new face of pension reform?​Mayor Ed Lee announced his long-awaited pension reform proposal today, partnering with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd to introduce an amendment to the city charter that aims to defray San Francisco's mounting liabilities for employees' retirement benefits. Lee's goal all ... More >>

San Francycle: Did David Chiu Drive on Bike to Work Day?

​Wasn't Bike to Work day fabulous this year? We certainly saw a lot more cyclists out than usual, and we hope to see them out again on the remaining 364 days until next year. Let's do a quick roundup of the best of the bikes. According to the Chron, the mayor and "almost every member of the Bo ... More >>

Board of Supervisors: What Kind of Dog Would They Be?

This took us literally all afternoon to make.​Earlier this week, city supervisors voted 10 to 1 to oppose the Golden Gate National Recreational Area's proposal to severely restrict dog owners from walking their pups off-leash in certain parts of San Francisco, namely Fort Funston and Ocean Beach. ... More >>

Japan Fundraiser Brings in $11,000 -- Jane Kim More Popular Than Burning Man Tickets

An evening with Jane Kim​We stand corrected. Someone can imagine cycling around the city with Supervisor David Chiu -- and paying $250 for it. Lunch with Supervisor Malia Cohen? Not so much. All in all, the Board of Supervisors pulled in $11,390 Wednesday night at a silent auction held for tsunami ... More >>

Japan Relief Auction Stunts We'd Like to See

We'd buy that for a dollar...​As reported earlier on this page, our Board of Supervisors raised $11,000 for Japan -- and did so by doing what it would do anyway. David Chiu was going to ride his bike. Now he gets some company, and $250 goes to disaster relief. Eric Mar was going to go to the Acade ... More >>

Japan Relief Fundraiser Tonight: Win a Bike Ride with David Chiu

Photo by Greg Dewar Pedaling, but not for politics ​Maybe it's the last thing you could imagine doing -- spending one-on-one time with your city supervisors. Imagine lunching with Supervisor Malia Cohen (what would you talk about?), or taking a trip to the Academy of Sciences with the perennially ... More >>

Ranked-Choice Voting Ain't Rocket Science

You needn't possess the brilliance of a former patent clerk to comprehend ranked-choice voting​We wrote earlier today about the headline-grabbing Chamber of Commerce poll that indicates San Francisco voters can't figure out how ranked-choice voting works.It's an interesting survey. Somehow, the 50 ... More >>

Mind Control Mesmerizes Supervisor Malia Cohen

​Today's Public Safety Committee meeting was like a bad sci-fi show. Even before supervisors got the agenda to talk about real crime in San Francisco, Supervisor Malia Cohen entertained and perplexed us with a public dialogue involving  electromagnetic weapons and .Seriously.During the public ... More >>

David Chiu Won't Be District Attorney

Supervisor David Chiu won't be prosecuting anyone anytime soon​These days, Supervisor David Chiu is just full of surprises. First, he stunned attendees of Chris Daly's farewell roast by showing up, less than 24 hours after Daly excoriated him as the anti-Christ of San Francisco progressive politic ... More >>

Gavin Newsom Could Delay Swearing-In. But Why?

Should he stay or should he go? ​The Chron this morning summarized a legal memo that backs up Mayor Gavin Newsom's oft-repeated threat of delaying his exit as San Francisco mayor if he's not satisfied with the Board of Supervisors' choice for his successor. The "Will he or won't he?" makes for gre ... More >>

San Francisco's Political Winners and Losers

Once again, San Francicans gave Gavin what he wanted...​With all of San Francisco's races decided, there's no excuse to not weigh in on who shat and who was shat upon in this electoral season. Other than the fact that San Francisco politics, like radium, slowly kills you over time by rotting your ... More >>

Marlene Tran's success shows strength of Asian voters

Supe Races Over: Tony Kelly Concedes to Malia Cohen in District 10

Quelle désastre!​With yesterday's concessions by District 2 candidate Janet Reilly and District 10's Tony Kelly, the San Francisco supervisorial races are, at long last, kaput. The new supervisors on the 2011 board will be Jane Kim, Scott Wiener, Mark Farrell, and Malia Cohen. As for how this wil ... More >>

Don Perata Deserved to Lose

Don Perata forgot to read the instructions before opening the package​Don Perata today conceded the race for Oakland mayor, capping an improbable victory for Councilwoman Jean Quan. We'll never know if Perata would have been a better mayor than Quan. But we already know that Quan certainly deserve ... More >>

San Franscisco Voting: All Leaders Expand Margins

​Earlier today, city election chief John Arntz told us that today's most recent round of ranked-choice voting tabulations determine "nothing." Fair enough. But it's better to win than to lose, and it's better to be ahead than behind. You can bet that all the politicos involved and their supporters ... More >>

Ranked-Choice Voting Totals For San Francisco -- Are These Our Next Supervisors?

She's ranked Nos. 1, 2, and 3 in our voting​San Francisco's Department of Elections moments ago released its most up-to-date voting data yet -- and Mark Farrell, Jane Kim, Scott Wiener, and Malia Cohen are all smiling. Smiling nervously, but smiling.  Today is the first tally using ranked-cho ... More >>

What the Hell Was John Getzow, Serial Evictee and 'Tenant From Hell,' Doing Hosting a Healthcare Symposium at Glide Memorial Church?

Last week we reported on how "Dr." John Getzow -- a serial evictee profiled in an SF Weekly cover story -- successfully stiffed the eighth San Francisco landlord to sue him for nonpayment of rent. We speculated we'd see Getzow's name come up again before too long -- and we were right. But we were su ... More >>

Ghost of Politics Past

The varied life and celebrated death of Eric Allen Bass, the man who was Joefire.com