Urban Forest Fund, with dedicated long-term funding through some combination of parcel tax and budget baseline, will be conditioned on city taking back responsibility for deteriorated street trees and provide permanent funding for both street trees and park trees

San Francisco - Today, Supervisor Scott Wiener requested that the City Attorney begin preparing a ballot measure - for either 2015 or 2016 - to provide an overdue, long-term, sustainable funding solution for San Francisco's under-funded, neglected, and deteriorating urban forest. The ballot measure will create a dedicated Urban Forest Fund to ensure proper and consistent maintenance, as well as expansion, of our street trees and park trees.

Resolution introduced today would have San Francisco join statewide good government group working to replace privately-owned, "black box" software voting systems with publicly-viewable and shareable open source technology

San Francisco - At today's Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Scott Wiener will introduce a resolution calling for San Francisco to join the California Association of Voting Officials (CAVO), an organization formed to push for the creation of free, open source voting systems for elections. Open source voting means that the technology used to administer elections is publicly available, allowing for greater accountability and transparency. The current system consists of private vendors holding proprietary software that is unavailable for public review.

Having your car stolen is a painful process, and the city is not making it any easier on victims by making them pay large fees when these stolen cars are towed. These fees are set in a contract between MTA and Auto Return -- the private entity that runs the tow yards. This contract is up for renegotiation in 2015, so I have called for an oversight hearing now to explore how MTA, SFPD and Auto Return handle stolen vehicles and what we can do to make this process less onerous on victims of car thefts. One idea is to explore longer periods of time for victims of auto theft to be able to reclaim their cars free of charge.

Today, Supervisor London Breed and I introduced legislation at the Board of Supervisors to strengthen public power in San Francisco by granting the SF Public Utilities Commission the right of first refusal to sell power, at retail, to new public and private projects in San Francisco. This will expand the PUC's customer base, which will provide more money for the almost $900 million in capital need, including streetlight infrastructure need.

Ordinance will grant the SF Public Utilities Commission the first right of refusal to provide clean, hydroelectric Hetch Hetchy power to new public and private developments, which will increase clean energy distribution and allow for enhanced infrastructure investment for the nearly $900 million in capital needs

San Francisco, CA - Today, Supervisors Scott Wiener and London Breed will introduce clean energy legislation to increase the electric customer base for San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission. An expanded PUC customer base will bring more clean hydroelectric power to San Francisco residents and businesses and generate significantly more revenue to fund neglected infrastructure and capital needs, including the city's streetlight system and the system that brings hydroelectric power from Hetch Hetchy to San Francisco.

Wider streets create longer crossing distances and faster speeds. Wider streets divide our neighborhoods. As elected policy-makers, we need to be clear in our policy priorities, and consistent in our delivery of public projects. Recently, the Fire Department and the Department of Public Works attempted to widen the street clearance at the new development at Hunters Point. After a public hearing and public pushback, the departments have been working towards a compromise that will ensure both pedestrian safety and fire safety. I'm happy to hear a compromise is within reach.

Today I introduced a resolution at the Board urging Muni drivers to end their sick-out and return to the arbitration process. Muni drivers have a tough job, and they deserve good pay and benefits as well as respect for their service to our city. Similarly, Muni riders deserve to have a functional system to get to work, school, doctor's appointments, the grocery store, and elsewhere. Muni drivers need to end the sick-out, get the system back up and running, and go through the charter-mandated arbitration process to arrive at a contract.