Civic

San Francisco has a new poet laureate, city native and child of local organizers Tongo Eisen-Martin. He reflects on national politics in the wake of the summer uprisings against police brutality and racism, the Jan. 6 capitol riot, and the presidential inauguration and talks about the role of poetry in political organizing.

Millions of Californians have gotten a push notification on their phones asking them to opt in to get warnings from their phones if they have been in close proximity to someone who later tests positive for the coronavirus, all while keeping everyone involved anonymous. We wanted to know more about how exposure notifications work and exactly how well privacy is protected. Gennie Gebhart with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties nonprofit, explains how the system works and what information is exchanged.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Monday that the state’s decision to lift an emergency lockdown order to contain the COVID-19 surge is “good news’’ and a “cause for celebration” with the city expected to lift restrictions on outdoor dining and other restrictions on Thursday.

San Francisco health officials have set an ambitious goal of vaccinating all 900,000 people who live and work in the city by the end of June, and took a step toward that goal Friday by opening a mass vaccination center at City College of San Francisco. The opening followed a hearing called by Supervisor Matt Haney earlier this week to answer outstanding questions about the city’s vaccination plan, where health officials and several representatives of private health care providers presented their plans to the supervisors. The main problem, they said, was not having access to enough supply of the vaccines.

As local mainstays — cafes, bars and restaurants — launch fundraisers to ask neighbors to help them survive indefinitely extended shelter-in-place orders, governments at all levels are offering up various forms of aid. In San Francisco, many of those supportive programs for businesses and workers come through the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Director Joaquín Torres returns to Civic to talk about how the city is trying to help.

If a police officer was found to have used deadly force or inflicted serious injuries on the job, until 2019, disciplinary records about that incident had been kept secret. That changed when SB 1421, authored by state Senator Nancy Skinner, went into effect. In 2020, she moved to expand the legislation to also grant access to records about officers who engaged in biased or discriminatory behavior or used excessive or unreasonable force. Skinner talks about the impacts of the original transparency law and how she intends to improve it.

San Francisco has a vastly different attitude toward Cannabis than it did as recently as the 1990s. That's when Dennis Peron was fighting to get marijuana to HIV and cancer patients. Despite being repeatedly arrested, he helped lead the effort to legalize medical marijuana. A new documentary screening at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival from February 4 to February 21 tells his story.

Every year, organizers with the Anti Police Terror Project mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day with public actions meant to reclaim King’s radical legacy. This year they have adapted those actions to the pandemic and are working in the context of the recent riot at the US capitol. On the morning of Friday, January 15th, activists announced their plans and cited some of King’s stances and ideas that have been erased from common narratives about his work.