Blog » fix muni now
- July 14, 2010
Muni Reform Certified by San Francisco Department of Elections for November Ballot
BY BEN LOWE
[Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]
The San Francisco Department of Elections announced on Monday that the Fix Muni Now campaign had submitted enough voter signatures to qualify their Muni reform measure for the ballot.
The Department of Elections conducted a random sample of 2,248 signatures of the total 74,933 submitted and, based on this statistical sampling, determined there were more than the 44,382 signatures required.
The measure, if approved by voters in November, would require the Muni operators union, TWU-250A, to engage in direct negotiations for their wages and benefits, like every other public service union in San Francisco. Currently, operator wages and benefits are guaranteed in the City Charter to be, at a minimum, the second-highest in the country. TWU-250A is the only public service union in the city that has made no concessions during the recession of the past several years, opting instead to collect an automatic raise on July 1st, less than a month after Muni service was cut by ten percent.
By restoring collective bargaining as the method by which wages and benefits are determined, the City of San Francisco will be able to address inefficient operator work rules, which a recent audit by the City Budget Analyst estimates cost the city several million dollars per year.
Are you interested in helping the campaign? Click here to donate to the campaign, or click here to volunteer.
- July 2, 2010
Fix Muni Now Campaign and Supervisor Elsbernd Deliver Nearly 75,000 Petitions to City Hall
BY BEN LOWE
[Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]
For the past several months, SPUR has been working with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd and the Fix Muni Now campaign to get Muni reform on the November ballot. Later today, the campaign will submit to the Department of Elections nearly 75,000 petitions—about 30,000 more than needed to qualify for the November ballot. The signature-gathering effort relied heavily on the help of hundreds of volunteers from throughout the city who, over the course of the past two months, brought in thousands of signatures gathered from friends, co-workers, and family members.
Now that signature-gathering is complete, the next phase of the campaign will involve reaching out to neighborhood organizations, advocacy groups, and others in San Francisco who benefit from good public transit—in other words, nearly every group in the city—and letting them know how critical it is that this reform passes in November.
Are you interested in helping the campaign? We're looking for volunteers to help do everything from knocking on doors and making phone calls to writing letters to newspapers and speaking on the campaign's behalf to groups volunteers are active in. If you are interested in helping out, please send an email to info@fixmuninow.com.Tags: Fix Muni now, transportation - April 16, 2010
We Want to See San Francisco Through Your Lens!
BY COLLEEN MCHUGHWe are starting a new posting series with the hopes of engaging the creative points-of-view of the SPUR community. Each week we will feature a few photos from SPUR members and friends in a "Photos of the Week" blog. If you are interested in participating, please upload your images to our Flickr Group Pool. Include a caption, if applicable. For now, the theme is all things SPUR — San Francisco, public space, transportation, street culture, housing, sustainable development, etc. But in the future we may be asking you to share photos around a more focused theme.
To start things off, here are a few images from my own week:
Last Thursday the Fix Muni Now campaign launched with a slew of volunteers — along with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd and SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf — gathering petition signatures at West Portal. Here are a few images I snapped at the tunnel entrance, reminding me that sometimes a morning commute can be a beautiful thing. More photos from the campaign kick-off here.
A vacant lot down the street from the Urban Center at 524 Mission Street. The spring calendar at the Urban Center includes a series of forums discussing the use of stalled construction sites for public enjoyment. The next Leftover Lots forum is on May 5, with presentations from two projects in Hayes Valley.
A beautiful morning along the Embarcadero. The railings on the waterfront provide a picturesque frame for parked bikes, though they also suggest the Ferry Building may need to increase the capacity of their dedicated bike racks.
The corner of 3rd Street and Palou in the Bayview. A quote from Toni Morrison painted on this mural reads: "Part of this business of living in the world and triumphing over it has to do with the sense that there's some pleasure." And on that note, 3rd Street is hosting this weekend's Sunday Streets!
[Images: Colleen McHugh]
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