Free Republic

A powerful San Francisco group is unleashing $10 million this year to kill taxes that they say will destroy the city’s fragile economic recovery — and potentially increase the price of food and goods for already cash-strapped residents. Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a moderate advocacy group, plans to beat back a wave of lefty initiatives and candidates this year that they say will derail years of progress in liberal San Francisco, according to its director Jay Cheng. One of the group’s main targets is a so-called “CEO tax” — a June ballot measure backed by progressives and labor...

After five hours of printing T-shirts, Henry Reyes’ arms got tired. All day, a steady stream of locals filed into Fleetwood Fine Goods, the small shop in the Inner Richmond where Reyes works. They came with T-shirts, crop tops and bandanas in their hands. One by one, Reyes laid the garments out on the store’s screen printing press, squeezed paint onto a screen and, applying force with his arms, dragged a rubber squeegee across it. When he was done, the words “F—K ICE” were printed in bold capital letters.

San Francisco's beloved mall will finally shut its doors after years of harrowing decline and fears of crime and homelessness. San Francisco Centre, formerly known as the Westfield Mall, will permanently close on January 26, an employee for the disgraced shopping center's lone remaining store told the San Francisco Chronicle. The iconic mall began spiraling downward with the rest of the Democrat run city after the COVID-19 pandemic. Rumors of the closure have circulated for months as sprawling homeless encampments deterred tourists and locals alike. As downtown foot traffic decreased, the mall saw fewer and fewer customers. Its flagship Nordstrom...

A man is in custody on suspicion of a prolific spree of Bay Area vehicle break-ins: Over 100 in the course of two days, San Jose police said. From Nov. 8-9, 114 vehicles were burglarized at apartment complexes, police said in a press release. Vehicles were hit in residential parking garages on the 300 block of Crescent Village Circle, 3400 block of Iron Point Drive, 3700 block of Casa Verde Street and 100 block of Baypointe Parkway. Witnesses reported seeing an adult male, but the suspect disappeared before police arrived. The individual was captured on CCTV, however, and the San...

OAKLAND, Calif. - A proposal to create "ICE-free zones" within Alameda County in response to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement actions, is heading for a vote before the full Board of Supervisors. The Alameda County Together For All ad hoc committee heard several hours of testimony and public comment on Thursday, before the two committee members Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas and Supervisor Elisa Marquez voted to forward the proposal to the board. At the meeting What they're saying: At the meeting, the committee chair Fortunato Bas, Alameda County Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson, and Public Defender Brendon...

And then there were none. The Panda Express in the basement food court of downtown’s San Francisco Centre, the city’s largest mall, has closed, leaving the woebegone retail destination without any restaurants. A sign informs visitors that the Panda Express location is permanently closed and that they can visit other locations in the city for its orange chicken and other Chinese American dishes. […] The mall’s new owners, a group of lenders associated under the name DBJPM 2016-SFC Emporium, bought the mall’s debt in November. Earlier this month, they sent unlawful detainer notices to three of the mall’s remaining tenants...

California is once again at the center of a high-stakes debate over taxes, population trends and the future of the state’s economy, as a prominent tech investor warns that a new wave of residents could leave within the next year. The warning lands at a moment when official data shows modest population growth returning, even as moving companies and demographers track persistent outflows to other states. The question is not whether people are leaving, but whether policy choices in the coming months will turn a steady trickle into the kind of large-scale relocation that reshapes communities and tax bases. The...