San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

SF Weekly Letters

S.F. Prepares for More Powerful Storm This Evening

Yesterday afternoon's sunny skies were nothing more than a calm before the storm -- literally. We're now bracing for a second, more powerful rainstorm this evening, which could cause mild flooding in parts of the Bay Area. The city earlier this week issued advice to residents on prepping for these ... More >>

San Francisco Is Discharging the City's Only Public Shooting Range

We know how much San Francisco leaders love to hate guns. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is evicting San Francisco's only public shooting range, after 78 years on the shores of Lake Merced.The Pacific Rod and Gun Club may get booted from its firing range come Aug. 15, now that the cit ... More >>

Green Facade: New SFPUC Building Masks an Eco-Unfriendly Truth

Supervisor David Chiu Is Thirsty for Water-Saving Law

Supervisor David Chiu is really trying to make it easier for developers to install new on-site water treatment systems on properties with new legislation he plans on introducing today. The legislation would help developers, builders, and contractors cut right through the dreaded red tape, paperwork, ... More >>

Cole Hardware Guilty of Defrauding S.F. Taxpayers

​Cole Hardware -- which prides itself on being "San Francisco's favorite"  has been found guilty of bilking San Francisco taxpayers in a procurement scam, according to the District Attorney's Office. Cole Hardware is one of 10 co-defendants who conspired to defraud the San Francisco Public Ut ... More >>

SF's Drinking Water May Be Unsafe for Those with HIV/AIDS

Clean Energy Stimulus Cash Is Slow to Be Spent

Premium pay nets city workers millions in bonuses for just doing their jobs

How Prop. 26 undermines San Francisco values

City Wants $150M Water Recycling Plant in Golden Gate Park -- But Shut One There in 1981

Recycled water isn't emanating from those sprinklers in San Francisco. But it did in the days of yore. ​Last night, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission held its first public meeting regarding a proposed water recycling plant in Golden Gate Park. The $150 million plant would treat 2 milli ... More >>

San Francisco's Clean Power Program Collapses, Starts Over

Electricity never strikes out twice in one place... we hope.​After spending months attempting and failing to negotiate the terms of a new program to provide clean, relatively cheap power to the local citizenry, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission earlier this month began the process anew w ... More >>

SFPD: DNA Links Dead Man to Murder of San Franciscan Charles McAleer-Bonilla

Charles McAleer-Bonilla​The San Francisco Police Department is announcing that DNA evidence ties a suspected bank robber and kidnapper who recently died in a shootout with the Sacramento Sheriff's Department to the April stabbing death of San Franciscan Charles McAleer-Bonilla in Noe Valley.

Drink up: SF Tap Water "Safer" Than Bottled Water

sfwater.orgWorth every penny​Take a long, cool drink of the Hetch Hetchy the next time someone hands you a bottle of Fiji: city officials have long said that the imported mountain water which provides San Franciscans' tap water is better than bottled H20, and now they have a study to prove it.The ... More >>

Power Surge: Program could raise your electric bills

Your Rundown on the Week in S.F. Government

Plastic bags have unintended consequences​San Francisco public officials love -- and we mean really, really love -- to dabble in bold social experiments. Whether they're trying out a novel scheme for government-controlled electricity service, legally enshrining the right of cats to keep their nail ... More >>

Sewage Sludge Protesters Sling Mud at Chez Panisse

Comin' to Chez Panisse, baby! ​The good folks who earlier this month gallivanted into Mayor Gavin Newsom's office outfitted in HazMat suits and brandishing jars of compost will be doling out the charm again tomorrow -- at Chez Panisse. The Organic Consumers Association, via a not overheated at all ... More >>

Sewage Sludge Protestors Sling Mud at Chez Panisse

superhappyfoodie/FlickrUnfair target?​The good folks who earlier this month gallivanted into Mayor Gavin Newsom's office outfitted in HazMat suits and brandishing jars of compost will be doling out the charm again tomorrow ― at Chez Panisse. The Organic Consumers Association, via a not overh ... More >>

City to Shower the Poor with Free Toilets

Image | Audrey FukumanBevan Dufty and the PUC want to give low-income San Franciscans a new, low-flow throne​In a novel new take on the populist slogan of "a chicken in every pot," the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission today is announcing a program of providing free toilets for low-inc ... More >>

McClatchy Newspapers Renew Misleading Anti-Hetch Hetchy Crusade

Coming soon? Don't count on it. ​"Hetch Hetchy could go on ballot," declares a headline in today's Modesto Bee atop a story claiming the group Restore Hetch Hetchy is on the verge of putting a measure before San Francisco voters this November that, if successful, would lead to the destruction of O ... More >>

S.F. Water Main Rupture Symptomatic of Trillion-Dollar National Problem

Eruptions of water are more picturesque in Yellowstone Park than South of Market​Here's a reassuring thought -- yes, the city does have a program in place to replace its oldest and most vulnerable water mains. Here's a less reassuring thought: A 100-year-old water main burst over the weekend, floo ... More >>

Bay Links: Hit-men, Deep Fryers, & Paparazzi

​You get the assassin you pay for. [Crime Scene]Mouth-watering shots of Kara's Cupcakes. [Jun Blog]Are you frying a turkey for T-Day? The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission wants to know. [SF Sewers]Modern-day blight in Noe. [Burrito Justice]Muni paparazzi are out of control! [Muni Diaries] ... More >>

City Softens Requirements on Clean Energy Master Plan

City officials have backed off from several of the more ambitious aspects of a planned overhaul of the local power grid that is intended to make San Francisco's energy supply greener and less dependent on Pacific Gas & Electric Co.The promised land​The city's Public Utilities Commission and Lo ... More >>

Hand Off That Funky Fry Oil at Various S.F. Drop Points

Daniel Greene/FlickrYou could make someone's '83 Volvo very happy with this.​You can now repurpose used cooking oil in the greenest of ways, even if you haven't converted your own car to drive on biofuels. If you live in San Francisco, you can now get rid of that dodgy fry oil left from cookin ... More >>

Chronicle Decries Willie Brown-Sponsored Bill SF Weekly Reported On Last Week -- But Can't Track Down Its Own Columnist Brown

Have you seen this man? The Chronicle can't seem to find him. A week ago, SF Weekly reported on the curious case of former mayor -- and current Chronicle columnist -- Willie Brown carrying the water for a massive engineering firm that the city shut out of a Hetch Hetchy irrigation project. In a nuts ... More >>

Graft and Gaming

City employees are bleeding the city to death. One way is legal and the other is not.

SFPUC On the Take, Alleged Bribe-Taker Says

San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission has long had a "gift policy" in which employees were allowed to accept lavish trips and other presents from suppliers doing business with the city -- or at least that's the claim of a retired city water-meter repairman accused of accepting $13,348 from a ... More >>

Sweet Job of the Week: LAFCo Seeks Diligent Hall Monitor at $100,000 Salary

Like Michael Myers, LAFCo can't be stoppedAs we've noted in these pages before, San Francisco's Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) -- a panel of leftist supervisors and their hand-picked enviro allies that influences city energy policy -- is the sort of organization whose existence is only ma ... More >>

S.F.'s tasty tap water about to get a little murkier

Dumping Improper Crap in an Outhouse Is a Federal Offense. Burning 21 of Them Is Not

Certainly it's caught your eye -- the ubiquitous notice in most outhouses that "dumping hazardous materials" down the loo is a federal offense. When juxtaposed with the interior of a porta-john, the verb "dumping" and the notion of "hazardous materials" have definitely inspired their share of laughs ... More >>

Green Scheme

The city's master plan for cleaner energy is fraught with risk. And, like it or not, you're already signed up.

Exhibit B: Good Biofuel or "Dump Your Used Holiday Grease Responsibly - For Free!"

By Meredith Brody If you fried up a whole lot of latkes (potato pancakes) or sufganyot (doughnuts) for Hanukkah, or sautéed sweet potatoes in oil or fried tamales in lard for Christmas, or maybe the turkey frier you hauled out for Thanksgiving is still lurking in the garage, full of congealed fat ... More >>

Burn Green Soiree

Will the new Hetch Hetchy plan wring San Francisco dry?

Some question conservation targets in water-system upgrade By Peter Jamison The $4.4 billion plan to upgrade the Bay Area’s aging water system — a vast public-works edifice that delivers water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park to San Francisco and surrounding cities — r ... More >>

Public Power Grab

Why some "progressives" are putting energy into a bad idea.

SF Government InAction: Summer SanFranSchitzophrenia Begins! We're Saving Water! Use More Water! Keep Elections Safe from Candidates!

Video: Adam Werbach Describes New Job

And the Primary Results are In

Shoot 'Em If You Got 'Em: Lake Merced Gun Club In Crosshairs

SF Drinking Water Now Without Hormones

Giant Bourgeois Spider Mounts San Francisco

San Francisco Taxi Rates To Rise Pending Health Care Plan: SFGovernmentInAction

A Bridge Too Costly

The city's way of contracting out public works construction is broken — so much so that companies are not bidding on important municipal projects and that could cost us billions

Oh, Shit

Is the San Francisco sewer system in dire need of repair, or is this just another way to get taxpayers' money? Find out where you stand!

The 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Public Relations

The envelope, please ... and the Pulitzer goes to -- Environmental Defense!

Big Dam Mess

The Environmental Defense Fund embarks on a national campaign to shame San Francisco into restoring the other great Yosemite valley, Hetch Hetchy. But is shame really a good political strategy?

Derailing the Jaye Train

Why Matt Gonzalez should stick with his progressive roots, and ignore pressure to act "responsibly"

When Do Losers Win?

When Willie Brown is mayor, and one of their limiteds is Angelo Tsakopoulos

Fecal Matters

When it comes to sewers, San Francisco just can't get its shit together

State and National Candidates