Sinéad O’Connor (Shuhada’ Sadaqat) has been remembered as somebody who managed to “change pain into beauty”, by her friend Liam Ó Maonlaí.

The life of the Irish singer was celebrated at a private ceremony by family and friends before the funeral cortege travelled past her former home in Bray, Co Wicklow so thousands of fans could pay their respects before a private burial.

Singer Bob Geldof, Irish president Michael Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were also in attendance, where Muslim funeral prayers were led by Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, an Islamic scholar and Chief Imam at the Islamic Centre of Ireland, who met the star in 2018, the same year she converted to Islam.

Sinéad O’Connor’s friends have shared moving tributes to her on the day of her funeral(The Washington Post via Getty Im)

In a eulogy he shared online after the ceremony, Dr Umar Al-Qadri said: “The more she sang and spoke about her own pain, as well as about the pervasive sins in society that she witnessed, the more her voice and her words resonated with listeners and touched their hearts. Sinead never stopped her search to know God fully, exemplifying a life marked with a deep communion with God.

“Gifted with a voice that moved a generation of young people, she could reduce listeners to tears by her otherworldly resonance.” He added: “I know that peoples of all faiths throughout the world will be praying for this beloved daughter of Ireland, among them will be countless Muslims praying for their sister in faith and humanity.

“Sinead’s voice carried with it an undertone of hope, of finding one’s way home. The Irish people have long found solace in song from the sufferings of this lower abode, and Sinead was no exception, and in sharing that solace, she brought joy to countless people the world over.” He continued: “May her family and loved ones find solace in the outpouring of love from the corners of this earth for this unique daughter of Ireland who moved so many hearts with her mighty voice and unflinching honesty as an artist, poet, and human being.

Thousands lined the streets to say goodbye to Sinéad (Getty Images)

“Sinead had a poet’s heart and, I believe, would share with us today the sentiments of the poet, Rumi when he said: ‘This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief’.”

Roads were closed so fans could line the streets to pay their respects as the hearse bearing O’Connor’s coffin passed by her former home on the seafront. As it stopped outside the property, Montebello, in the seaside town where she lived for 15 years, there was a moment of silence but for the rest of the procession, fans applauded and threw flowers. The coffin itself was covered in blue and pink flowers.

A Volkswagen camper van decorated with the Pride flag and the Rastafarian flag drove in front of the hearse, with O’Connor’s songs playing from speakers mounted on the roof including her biggest hit from 1990, Nothing Compares 2 U. Fans, some who travelled from around the world, started gathering early in the morning outside the home to wait for the cortege to pass by.

Liam Ó Maonlaí, a friend of Sinéad’s paid tribute while outside her former home(PA)

Karnamrita Dasi, 49, a singer from San Francisco, booked a flight to Ireland as soon as she heard the news of the Irish performer’s death. She visited tributes to O’Connor around Dublin and her former Irish home in the Co Wicklow town of Bray before taking part in the gathering for the funeral procession on Tuesday, singing her hits and sharing colourful roses with other well-wishers to throw on the hearse.

“The first time I heard it (news of O’Connor’s death), I didn’t believe it and I knew I had to be with people who felt as powerfully as I did about how much of an impact she made,” she said. “It feels these days like people say rest in peace on social media, and that’s the end of someone’s remembrance. I wanted to be here to offer more than that because she gave so much to me as a young girl and my generation.”

Isabelle Ferrer travelled from Dijon in France to say farewell to the singer. Speaking outside Sinead O’Connor’s former home on Tuesday morning, she told BBC News NI the singer was her “favourite ever”. “Representing women, she was far ahead of her time, a long ago,” she said.

Sir Bob Geldof (centre) attended the service for his late friend

Bono and Edge were also in attendance

Liam Ó Maonlaí, the lead singer of Irish band Hothouse Flowers, said Sinead O’Connor would be remembered as “a great artist”. She was “willing to shake the tree a little bit, to hold a mirror up to this so-called society that we’re in”, he said, “but was also somebody who changed pain into beauty”.

Despite being in Bray to pay his respects because he was friends with his fellow singer – that didn’t mean he was spared her famously direct opinions. “She was ballsy, you know,” he told the BBC. “She came to our first gig in London and she didn’t like it. She thought I was a poser, and she made it publicly known. But then she apologised to me. She was great fun, and rooted in what music means to the human identity,” he added.

Many fans laid flowers and handwritten notes, thanking O’Connor for sharing her voice and her music. One note said: “You are forever in my heart.” A pink chair was placed outside the pink-framed conservatory of the house, with pink flowers, candles and a photo of the singer placed at the base of the chair.

Campaigners for victims of church and state abuse also remembered Sinéad who was extremely vocal about abuse which was taking place and covered up(PA)

A heart-shaped floral bouquet featured a picture of the star and two Irish flags. One sign left at the wall of the property listed causes that the singer had expressed support for, including welcoming refugees. It read: “Where words fail, music speaks.”

A neighbour was also seen putting candles on the wall that separated the two properties. Since O’Connor’s death on July 26, people have been leaving flowers and paying their respects at the house, which the singer sold in 2021 and now lies empty.

The Grammy Award-winner was found unresponsive on July 26 by police at her south-east London home at the age of 56. At the time, a coroner’s court said no medical cause of death was given and a post-mortem would be conducted.

A picture of Sinéad was displayed by her coffin(AFP via Getty Images)

The results could take “several weeks” and a decision on whether an inquest will be needed will be decided when they are known, the court added. President Michael D Higgins issued a statement after confirming he was attending the funeral yesterday.

He said: “The outpouring of grief and appreciation of the life and work of Sinead O’Connor demonstrates the profound impact which she had on the Irish people. “The unique contribution of Sinead involved the experience of a great vulnerability combined with a superb, exceptional level of creativity that she chose to deliver through her voice, her music and her songs.

“The expression of both, without making any attempt to reduce the one for the sake of the other, made her contribution unique – phenomenal in music terms, but of immense heroism. However, achieving this came from the one heart and the one body and the one life, which extracted an incredible pain, perhaps one too much to bear. That is why all those who are seeking to make a fist of their life, combining its different dimensions in their own way, can feel so free to express their grief at her loss.”

O’Connor is survived by three children, Jake, Roisin and Yeshua.

The post Sinead O’Connor ‘modified ache into magnificence’ says pal in shifting tribute to late icon appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

• Commercial real estate landlords are abandoning once prestigious properties in San Francisco.
• A lack of hope among property owners is due to office vacancies, but crime also plays a role.
• Expect the downtown downturn to get worse before it gets better, Manus Clancy von Trepp said.

The crash of downtown San Francisco is progressing rapidly.

Landlords big and small are waving the white flag amid mounting pressures the city is facing, in part due to the downsizing of some of the largest employers and the inertia of remote work.

In May, foot traffic to San Francisco offices fell nearly 60% compared to 2019 — the largest shortfall among major urban centers in the US tracked by Placer.ai, and it shows. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s 18 million square feet of vacant office space is large enough to house 92,000 people.

Since April, the office tower at 350 California Street has sold for a worrying 75% less than its pre-pandemic estimate. The owner of the flagship Hilton San Francisco Union Square and nearby Parc 55 turned over the keys to his creditors instead of trying to pay off a $725 million loan. Days later, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and co-owner Brookfield returned San Francisco City Center to their lenders after the mall was down to just over half occupancy after retailers moved out.

The capitulation of some of the most sophisticated real estate players following tech job cuts and the increasing permanence of remote work is a dark omen for the city’s downtown. Property defaults have been expected for a long time, but not all of a sudden: Many investors thought they would happen when owners took out options to extend the terms of their loans, which could lengthen their losses.

Even more troubling, the loss of workers, the business travelers they are attracted to, and the stores they shop in is creating a vicious cycle that is unlikely to be broken anytime soon, said Manus Clancy, chief executive officer at Trepp, which tracks and manages the company commercial real estate debt.

“San Francisco is in a hole in the ground that’s getting bigger by the day,” Clancy, who lives in New York, told Insider. “Shop closures, crime and other quality of life issues are creating an epidemic of negative headlines that keep tourists and workers away. It will likely get worse before it gets better.”

A wave of downsizing by big tech companies like Snap, Meta, and Salesforce helped the city’s office vacancy rate jump to nearly 30% last quarter, up from less than 5% three years ago, according to CBRE. The workers who remain employed have resisted the long commutes that are common in the peninsular city, data from Placer.ai shows.

Last quarter, only 36% of workers commuting to San Francisco offices commuted more than 5 miles, with the lowest percentage of long-distance commuters making the return trip to cabins in Boston, Chicago, Houston, and New York. as the data show. But for workers who live closer to their San Francisco offices, the percentage who have to commute daily is relatively high.

The good thing about vacancies: Space for startups

Some of these workers are likely among the explosively growing generative AI startups in San Francisco, with about 22% of them concentrated in the region. The founders of Krea, which develops models for high-quality imaging and asset management services, packed their bags in Miami last year and headed to San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood, not far from Union Square, for a haven transformed for businesses like yours.

But because startups are inherently small, they can’t make up for the population drain. According to the Census Bureau, fleeing the city reduced the population by more than 65,000 people from April 2020 to July 2022.

As housing demand slumped, average house prices, which have been buoyed up during the pandemic, are down nearly 18% for the year through April, nearly three times the drop in Manhattan. As for rentals, landlord Equity Residential has “limited pricing power” in the downtown market and is making concessions to attract renters, the company’s chief operating officer said on a conference call in April.

Jeff Burg, a real estate investor who has been buying and renting small apartment buildings since 2002, said he has abandoned the city, citing onerous regulation.

“I sold all of my rentals in San Francisco over the past year and have finally moved out with my family,” Burg told Insider via LinkedIn. “After 23 years we move on with our lives. Whatever is going on in San Francisco, we have no interest in being a part of it any longer.”

The city is characterized by the fear of crime

Crime, or the fear of it, often creeps into conversations about San Francisco as well.

Thomas Baltimore, the CEO of Park Hotels & Resorts, which gave up Union Square hotels last week, said in a statement that “road conditions” were adding to record-high office vacancy rates, adding to the increased strain on properties. Some neighborhoods — including the Tenderloin District, which borders Union Square and Westfield Mall — had higher homicide rates this year, although San Francisco’s homicide rate is at the lower end of major cities citywide, according to ABC 7.

According to the San Francisco Travel Association, crime doesn’t seem to have held tourists back, with numbers up 29% last year to 21.9 million and expected to reach 23.9 million this year.

Still, there are signs of crime everywhere in San Francisco. Assaults and robberies have risen while rapes have fallen, ABC 7 recently noted. And social media posts, including one from Elon Musk denouncing “horrific” violent crimes following the stabbing death of tech executive Bob Lee in April, are adding to the fear.

A Whole Foods market in the Mid-Market District — also near Union Square — experienced a crime wave so widespread that managers simply closed the store in April after it opened last year had been opened. According to the New York Times, 568 911 calls were received from the store over a 13-month period, many related to violence and drug use.

A commercial real estate agent, who asked not to be named, told Insider that on a recent family trip to town, his tour guide said the tenderloin had become so poor that cops were being paid more to keep the beat. People affected by homelessness have long congregated in the Tenderloin neighborhood, while the number of homeless people across the Bay Area has risen 35% to 38,000 since 2019, McKinsey & Co. found.

Frank Scavone, a veteran commercial real estate debt investor who is now a managing partner of Third Point Real Estate Strategies, pondered why the workers weren’t coming back, but was more certain of the result — plummeting building values.

“I wonder what the reason for the openings in San Francisco is,” Scavone told Insider. “Is it because nobody feels safe in downtown San Francisco? Is it because the ground-level merchants and amenities associated with downtown have disappeared because of crime?”

He continued, “Is it because downtown San Francisco is a little harder to get to from the Marin County suburbs or the East Bay?”

“Taken together, these issues set the stage for workers to say, ‘We don’t want to be there because we don’t feel safe, it’s not a comfortable work environment anymore, or we feel like we’re entitled to another work week. ‘ design,” he said.

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Patients who were already victimized once by California’s forced sterilization program — and who are running out of time to claim state compensation — were nearly victimized again.

This time, it’s because of a data breach that exposed their personal and medical information.

Last December, a researcher looking into the sterilization of thousands of female patients and inmates — a practice that was sanctioned since the 1900s and had only ceased in 2013 — was viewing records from the California State Archives. Records 75 years and older are publicly accessible, but a digital copy of microfilm the researcher viewed was mislabeled and actually included more recent information, from 1948 to 1954.

The records were eventually pulled and redacted from the state Archives after the researcher told officials. But personal information, including patients’ full names, birthdates and family medical histories were exposed, as well as medical information such as diagnoses and dates of sterilization.

California’s secretary of state office, which oversees the state Archives, quietly posted a notice on its website on March 10 about what it called a “privacy incident of historical health records” and has been notifying those who have been affected. For those who suspect they are part of the breach, the secretary of state offered a FAQ with a few tips on identity theft. An office spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

These kinds of records are used by researchers to help verify victims and estimate the number of living survivors.

• Nicole Novak, co-director of the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab research team: “It’s remarkable that these archival records exist. When used appropriately and under the correct security standards and ethical guidelines, they are a really powerful resource for documenting the scope and scale of the state’s eugenics program.”

By 1979, long after the peak of the 1930s eugenics movement, California sterilized an estimated 20,000 people, deemed unfit to reproduce, without their consent. The practice ended in 1979 for state hospitals and in 2010 for state prisons, when eugenics laws were finally repealed. 

An exposé from The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2013 revealed 148 women were sterilized without proper approval from 2006 to 2010, and a separate state audit found that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation oversaw the illegal sterilization of 144 inmates from 2005 to 2013.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a compensation program that pays as much as $25,000 per patient. The program is budgeted at $7.5 million and ends Dec. 31. Despite public outreach to contact more patients, plus radio and TV ads, it’s unlikely that California will find and compensate all victims. Through February, about 60 claims had been approved, totaling $915,000.

• Lynda Gledhill, chief executive of the California Victim Compensation Board, to Capitol Weekly: “This is a very hard to reach population. The estimates are that there are maybe 600 of those people still alive. And as you can imagine, they are quite elderly. And if they were in state hospitals or were incarcerated, their relationship with state government is not that great so they can be very hard to reach.”

Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, a Los Angeles Democrat who authored the compensation law, said in an emailed statement to CalMatters that the disclosure of personal information is “concerning because we do not want to impose any additional trauma on these survivors whom have suffered enough.” 

But safeguards should prevent more problems, she added, and this incident should not distract from the compensation program itself.

• Carrillo: “As we set out to rectify these past wrongs, it is essential that we take all necessary steps to find and compensate survivors.”

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California’s water crisis, explained: Despite the series of atmospheric rivers and devastating floods, the state isn’t flush with water. CalMatters has a detailed look at how California might increase its water supply. And now, you can read it in Spanish.  

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Other Stories You Should Know

1
Who drives EVs in CA?

Electric vehicles parked at a home in Atherton on March 16, 2023. Photo by Martin do Nascimento, CalMatters

Who buys electric cars in California?

In the latest installment of CalMatters’ series “Race to Zero: California’s bumpy road to electrify cars and trucks,” environmental reporter Nadia Lopez and data reporter Erica Yee analyzed statewide data to reveal a strikingly homogenous portrait of who owns electric vehicles in California. 

The highest concentrations of electric cars are in ZIP codes where residents are at least 75% white and Asian. And they are congregated in Silicon Valley cities and affluent parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties. In contrast, electric cars are nearly non-existent in Latino, Black and low-income communities.

• Kevin Fingerman, an associate professor of energy and climate at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt: “It makes sense why we would see way more concentrations of EVs in densely urban areas or populated areas. The barriers to people owning electric vehicles across the demographics in the state are real. But they’re solvable.” 

The portrait reveals the enormous challenge that California faces to electrify the fleet. If people who buy electric cars are largely white or Asian, highly educated, wealthy suburbanites, will they be accessible to all Californians — no matter their race, income and location — in the coming decade? 

California’s ambition to battle climate change and clean up air pollution hinges on its ability to electrify its 25 million gas cars to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The next decade will be telling for the state as it enforces a historic mandate that requires 35% of cars sold in California, beginning with 2026 models, to be zero-emissions, ramping up to 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035. 

As part of the report, Nadia highlights the good and bad experiences of drivers in California, offering a glimpse into the challenges the state faces to meet the mandate.

• Urvi Nagrani, 35, an EV owner in Los Altos: “People living in Silicon Valley have home chargers. But we need to have better options for renters because it hasn’t gotten much better for me as a renter.” 

Her reporting indicates that state leaders face an array of obstacles that are causing the wide gaps in electric vehicle ownership: High upfront vehicle costs, lack of chargers for renters and inadequate access to public charging stations in low-income and rural communities.

• Christopher Bowe, 48, a Hayward EV owner: “The average person can’t afford to buy (an electric car) if early adopters like me don’t buy it. But by 2035? That’s a great aspiration, but it’s crazy. There’s no practical way it’s going to happen. The reality is that there is going to be inequity and that inequity is inherent.”

Have questions? Nadia and Erica’s story is the third in a series on California’s road to electrify cars and trucks. Starting in 2035, no new gasoline-powered vehicles will be sold in the state. Do you have questions about this transformation? Submit them here.

2
Tax board on chopping block?

State Assemblymember Phil Ting speaks at San Quentin State Prison on March 17, 2023. Photo by Martin do Nascimento, CalMatters

From CalMatters state Capitol reporter Sameea Kamal:

State lawmakers have already stripped the state Board of Equalization of many of its powers. But doing away with it entirely — and abolishing four elected positions in the process? 

That could prove a heavier lift. 

On Tuesday, Democratic Assemblymembers Phil Ting from San Francisco, Jacqui Irwin from Thousand Oaks and Cottie Petrie-Norris from Irvine proposed a bill that would ask voters to disband the board via a constitutional amendment in 2024. To get on the ballot, it would require two-thirds approval of both the Assembly and state Senate. 

The board was established in 1879 to make sure the then-powerful railroad industry paid its fair share of taxes. As Irwin noted during the Tuesday press conference: “The BOE is a vestige of the 19th century that existed before most people had indoor plumbing.” 

In recent years, the board has been plagued by a series of scandals and mismanagement. (Among the most notorious: The time former member Jerome Horton spent $130,000 on office furniture — or when actor Rob Lowe accused Horton of using an anti-Semitic slur during an income tax dispute).

In 2017 and 2018, the Legislature created two new tax agencies and gave them many of the board’s taxpayer advocate duties. Ting said the two agencies —  the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and the Office of Tax Appeals — have been more efficient. 

The board’s remaining duties are to oversee property taxes, alcoholic beverage taxes and insurance taxes, as well as the 58 county assessors’ offices. Under the proposed legislation, the remaining duties would be absorbed by other agencies. It currently employs 500 people.

Ting, chairperson of the Assembly budget committee who led the previous effort to weaken the board, said the move would save $27 million to 35 million a year, as the state is facing a projected $25 billion budget deficit.

• Irwin: “California no longer needs three taxing agencies.”

Ting made clear that the move was not in response to any of the current board members, just elected in November: Ted Gaines, Antonio Vazquez, Sally Lieber and Mike Schaefer, who won a second term despite being disbarred, convicted of spousal abuse and sued for being a slumlord. 

“Many of them are new and have only served a very, very short time,” Ting said. “This is about structurally what needs to be done.”

• Vazquez, the board’s chairperson: “This proposal would silence the voices of taxpayers and the underserved and underrepresented communities of color, replacing the elected Board accountable to all Californians with unelected bureaucrats.” 

Both the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the California Taxpayers Association also oppose the idea. 

• CalTax President Robert Gutierrez, in a statement: “This misguided proposal would force California’s property tax system into the shadows, reduce accountability, and give a dangerous level of power to political appointees. Our current system provides taxation with representation, and there is no need to eliminate Californians’ right to vote on these important positions.”

The last time California eliminated elected posts was in 1911, when the clerk of the Supreme Court, the state Printer and the Railroad Commission (later renamed the California Public Utilities Commission) became appointed offices, according to Alex Vassar, communications manager for the California State Library.

3
‘Dream,’ for some

A sale sign in front of a home in the Tower District in central Fresno on June 28, 2022. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

More Californians are leaving, well, California. The Public Policy Institute of California reported Tuesday that the main driver of recent population losses is the exodus to other states: 7.7 million left from 2010 through 2021, while only 5.8 million moved here from other states. The net loss is across all ages, education and income levels.

The report listed employment, family and — not surprisingly — housing costs as the top reasons people move away. Since 2015, 500,000 who left cited housing as the primary reason, according to Census surveys. 

And buying a home in California could get tougher if the state goes through with plans to scale back its loan program for first-time purchasers, reports CalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo.

Known as Dream For All and launching on March 27, the program aims to help low- and middle-income buyers by providing loans that pay for most upfront costs, such as down payments. Along with a full repayment of the initial loan, the state will also get a share of profits when the home is sold, refinanced or transferred.

The proceeds go back to the state, but will also help fund other borrowers down the line. The system works, but only if home prices keep climbing.

That’s a big but.

Thanks to a perfect storm of declining home prices, rising mortgage interest rates, a volatile housing market, a decline in personal income and a projected $22.5 billion budget deficit, Newsom is proposing to reduce funds for the program, which was supposed to be a 10-year, $10 billion investment. Instead of kicking it off with $500 million, it would now have $300 million — enough to help 2,300 buyers. 

Despite the proposed cuts, Toni Atkins, the Senate president pro tem who championed the program, remains optimistic.

• Atkins, a Democrat from San Diego: “Our state is about to launch a program that will help change people’s lives for the better, and make the dream of homeownership a reality.”

Other things worth your time

Some stories may require a subscription to read

Wiener introduces new bill to lay groundwork for single-payer health care // Los Angeles Times

California bill would ban police dogs from arrests and crowd control // Fox News

Newsom gives green light to S.F. housing tower delayed by supervisors // San Francisco Chronicle

Are kids collateral damage in California culture wars? // EdSource

Fight over ethnic studies spreads as requirement in California looms // San Francisco Chronicle

Strike shuts down LA Unified as families grapple with disruptions // EdSource

Balboa Park organizations oppose safe campsite for homeless residents // Voice of San Diego

Bay Area unemployment spikes to highest levels since pandemic // San Francisco Standard

LA police accidentally release photos of undercover officers // Los Angeles Times

In Los Angeles, a friendship grows out of housing strife // Capital & Main

How San Jose could save $23 million // San Jose Spotlight

UC San Diego to spend $1.1 billion on student center and housing // San Diego Union-Tribune

Families in Stanislaus County won’t get FEMA assistance for storm damage // Modesto Bee

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Drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area pay more at the gas pump than anywhere else in the country – with a gallon of gas near a record $ 4.84 as the nation remains gripped by an inflationary crisis.

The average price of a gallon of regular fuel in San Francisco on Monday was just a penny below the highest ever recorded average – $ 4.85 – which was hit on Saturday, according to the GasBuddy website.

Last month, the average price of a gallon of fuel in San Francisco was $ 4.64. A year ago, the average price was around $ 3.37.

“Drivers are paying $ 1.50 more per gallon than they were a year ago,” AAA spokesman Doug Shupe told CBS SF.

“That means the person who has a typical midsize sedan with a 14-gallon fuel tank is paying $ 21 more to fill that tank today than they were last year.”

The United States has seen gasoline prices rise sharply in recent months, with analysts saying rising crude oil prices, tighter gas supplies, and increased demand are driving gasoline prices higher.

The consumer price index for October rose 6.2 percent compared to the same month last year – the highest since 1990.

Gas prices rose a whopping 59 percent year-on-year and total energy prices rose 4.8 percent in October 2021 and are up 30 percent year-on-year.

Fuel prices at a Shell gas station in San Francisco, California are displayed on October 21 above

The average price for a gallon of regular fuel in San Francisco was $ 4.84, according to the GasBuddy website. It’s a dime less than the highest average ever recorded – $ 4.85 – hit on Saturday. The above picture is from October 21st

Meanwhile, the average price for a gallon of fuel in California remains nearly $ 1.30 above the national average, according to the American Automobile Association

Across the country, Americans took a little break as the average gallon settled at $ 3.41 – a penny less since last week

Last month, the average price of a gallon of fuel in San Francisco was $ 4.64. A year ago, the average price was about $ 3.37

The price of fuel in California remains well above the national average, according to the AAA

Heavy rains in Northern California have hampered manufacturing capacity to further aggravate the pain at the pump, according to the AAA.

The average price of a gallon of fuel in California remains nearly $ 1.30 above the national average, according to the American Automobile Association.

On Monday, the nationwide average of a gallon of fuel was $ 3.42 per AAA. In California, the average rises to $ 4.68 – the highest in the country.

Hawaii has the second highest gas price at $ 4.34 per gallon. Nevada; Washington; Oregon; Alaska; Utah; Idaho; Arizona; and the District of Columbia round out the top 10.

A year ago, the average price of a gallon of fuel in California was $ 3.18.

In 2008, the price of a gallon of regular fuel in San Francisco would have cost drivers only $ 1.78.

Nationwide, Americans took a little break as the average price of a gallon settled at $ 3.41 – a dime drop since last week.

Since October 30, the national average has declined on nine different days after rising steadily over the past 31 days.

The national average on Monday is 11 centers more than a month ago and $ 1.29 more than a year ago. That is 81 cents more than in 2019.

Production at California’s oil refineries has been disrupted in recent weeks by heavy rains in Northern California. The picture above shows a downpour in Marin City, California on October 24th

US jobless claims are falling to a pandemic low of 267,000 – but there are still 10 million jobs left across the country

Wednesday’s consumer price index report comes as the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell to a new pandemic low of 267,000 last week.

Unemployment claims fell by 4,000 last week, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, and the four-week average of claims, which offset weekly highs and lows, fell nearly 7,300 to 278,000, also a pandemic low.

Applications for unemployment benefits have largely steadily declined since the peak of 900,000 in early January, and are gradually approaching pre-pandemic levels of around 220,000 per week. The entitlements to a stand-in for layoffs have now decreased for six weeks in a row.

For the week ended October 30, 2.2 million Americans were on traditional unemployment benefits.

Yet companies across the country are reporting a labor shortage with 10 million vacancies.

Companies have now passed the cost of downsizing to consumers.

US consumer prices skyrocketed 6.2 percent last year as food, gasoline, automobiles and residential property catapulted inflation to its highest level since 1990.

According to the consumer price index, gasoline prices are up a whopping 59 percent year over year, while meat prices are up 24 percent.

Fuel prices also rose by 12.3 percent compared to September 2021 and by 59 percent last year.

Overall, energy prices rose by 4.8 percent in October 2021 and thus by 30 percent compared to the previous year.

They could rise even further, the Department of Energy warned, as temperatures plummet this year.

Food costs rose nearly 1 percent compared to September and 5.4 percent last year, with grain up 4.5 percent, bread up 24 percent, bacon up 20 percent and meat up 24 percent year over year.

Furniture prices rose 12 percent year-on-year, while washing machines rose 15 percent and sporting goods rose 8.7 percent.

Even used cars and trucks rose by 25 percent in just one month and by 26.4 percent over the year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s retail prices report found the cost of bone-in ribeye beef nearly doubled from $ 8.71 a pound in November 2020 to a staggering $ 16.99 a pound last week.

It found that filet mignon rose from $ 8.42 a pound to $ 10.28 while fillet rose $ 4 a pound and T-bone steaks were also up $ 1 a pound.

And another report from IRI Protein Practice, which examined meat prices throughout October, saw less sharp increases.

Beef sirloin rose 28 percent to $ 11.20 a pound, ribeye rose 41 percent to $ 14.48 a pound and brisket rose 36 percent to $ 4.80 a pound.

As prices rise, consumers seek cheaper cuts; Ribeye sales declined 36 percent in October 2021 from October 2020, while the price rose 40 percent, according to the IRI.

Beef innards, which fell 4 percent to $ 3.59 a pound, were more popular – sales rose 17.7 percent.

The high prices were felt across the country, but according to the Consumer Price Index, St. Louis, Missouri, and cities in Georgia and Arizona were hardest hit.

Prices in St. Louis rose 7.5 percent year over year, while prices in Atlanta, Sandy Springs, and Roswell, Georgia rose a whopping 7.9 percent.

Prices skyrocketed 7.1 percent in Phoenix, Mesa, and Scottsdale, Arizona.

US household debt has now reached a record high.

The Federal Reserve announced Tuesday that total household debt rose $ 286 billion to $ 15.24 trillion in the third quarter of 2021 after weakening for much of the pandemic.

The consumer price index rose 6.2 percent in October 2021 compared to the previous year – the highest level since 1990

The consumer price index shows a price increase in all categories from used cars, laundry, furniture to groceries

Mortgage balances, which make up the largest proportion of household debt, rose $ 230 billion to $ 10.67 trillion at the end of September, reflecting rapidly rising home prices.

Total non-residential balances rose $ 61 billion, including a $ 28 billion increase in auto loan balances as supply chain issues led to huge increases in the price of new and used vehicles.

The Labor Department also reported Tuesday that its producer price index – which measures inflation before it hits consumers – rose 0.6 percent last month from September, driven higher by soaring gasoline prices.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, wholesale inflation rose 0.4 percent in October from September and 6.8 percent year over year.

More than 60 percent of the total increase in producer prices from September to October was caused by a 1.2 percent increase in wholesale prices in contrast to services.

A 6.7 percent increase in wholesale gasoline prices also helped drive up commodity prices.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture retail price report released Friday found meat prices soaring

The price hike is being driven, at least in part, by the revival of the economy following widespread closures related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Many companies struggled to meet unexpectedly strong demand after the pandemic, creating labor, raw materials and goods and affecting traffic in ports and freight yards.

The result has been higher prices, and the supply shortage is expected to persist at least well into 2022.

The post San Francisco feels PAIN on the pump: Bay Space residents pay whopping $4.84 per gallon of gasoline appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

On the night of 3 September 2020, Sonya Mitchell got a call as she was leaving work. Her 23-year-old son, Daimon “Dada” Ferguson, had been shot in a drive-by outside his older sister’s home.

In the months before, Mitchell, 56, had been watching reports of shootings in her hometown of Vallejo, in the San Francisco Bay Area, with increasing concern. There was the shooting at a birthday party on 9 June that killed two women and injured a 10-year-old. Three separate shootings had rocked the city on 20 August, including a double homicide that left a 25-year-old man and his 24-year-old girlfriend dead in a car with their infant son.

Mitchell rushed to the house, expecting a crime scene, police cars and ambulances. Instead she found a group of bystanders, the car the shooters had crashed into the garage of a nearby house, and a man carrying her bleeding son. “What the fuck is going on? Where are the first responders?” Mitchell thought.

links to other pieces in the Guns and Lies series

Mitchell drove her son to the ambulance entrance of Sutter Solano medical center, but wasn’t let in because he didn’t arrive in an ambulance. She headed to the front of the hospital next, banging on the locked sliding doors.

“He couldn’t even talk at this point, and when I saw the blood I started banging my purse on the door and tried to break the glass,” Mitchell recalled. She pleaded with hospital security officers to help her son, who was bleeding on the pavement. Eventually a security guard came out with a wheelchair to take Ferguson inside. An hour later, a doctor told Mitchell that her son had died. She passed out.

Daimon Ferguson, Sonya Mitchell’s son, was one of 456 people violently killed across the greater San Francisco Bay Area last year. Photograph: Marissa Leshnov/Marissa Leshnov for The Guardian

Daimon Ferguson was one of 456 people violently killed across the greater San Francisco Bay Area last year, according to data reported to California’s department of justice.

Like other major cities in the US, the area witnessed a surge in gun violence during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Homicides across the 12 counties that make up the greater region rose 25% in 2020, compared with the previous year, a new Guardian analysis of census data and state homicide data shows. That’s 114 more homicides than the year before.

A detailed analysis shows that homicide rates across the region increased in nine out of 12 counties, but that the rise did not affect all cities and residents equally.

• The surge was most pronounced in cities that have historically borne the majority of the region’s gun violence, with Vallejo, Oakland and Stockton seeing the biggest rises.

• The increase hardly touched the Bay Area’s more affluent, suburban areas, where homicide rates barely increased.

• The overwhelming majority of victims were Black and Latino, with Black residents dying in homicides more than any other racial group.

• And the surge came after the region witnessed more than a decade of steady declines in gun homicide rates, a decrease that lasted right up until the onset of the pandemic.

Change in homicide rates in Bay area counties from 2015-2019 to 2020.

Most of the homicides were committed with guns, used not in mass casualty events that make the nightly national news, but in daily shootings on the region’s blocks, streets and in its parks.

Mitchell says that her son was a lifelong mama’s boy who she loved spoiling. He had played football throughout his childhood and adolescence and despite the stereotypes that follow young Black men who are murdered in their communities, her son had love for everyone around him, she said.

It feels like we’re losing groundSonya Mitchell

“It feels like we’re losing ground,” she said about the rise in shootings in her community. After several more peaceful years, Vallejo families are once again carrying an outsized burden of gun violence in the region. “We’re losing lives daily from Covid and murders and everything else that’s going on.”

More than a data point

The Guardian analyzed three years of homicide data reported by police and sheriff’s departments to the state of California, numbers that do not include police killings or deaths the state classifies as “negligent homicides”.

The analysis shows that most impacted by the surge in homicides in 2020 were three cities that have historically been hit hard by gun violence.

In Oakland, homicides rose from 78 in 2019 to 102 in 2020, the highest single-year increase in the region. The data shows Stockton, where the Bay Area borders the Central Valley, saw 55 homicides in 2020, compared to 35 in 2019. Vallejo, where Sonya Mitchell lives, recorded 27 homicides in 2020, compared to 12 the year before.

Across counties, differences were stark. Alameda county, where Oakland is located, saw 46 more homicides in 2020 than 2019. In Solano county, where Vallejo is, there were 19 more homicides in 2020 than 2019. Stockton’s San Joaquin county counted 32 more people killed than in the year before.

But the surge hardly touched two of the most affluent counties in the Bay Area. Napa and Marin counties recorded just one homicide apiece.

Map comparing the percentage increase in the number of homicides in the Bay Area in 2020 with the 2015 to 2019 average

Racial disparities in the burden posed by gun violence were stark. The overwhelming majority of homicide victims in the region in 2020 were Black and Latino, with 194 Black victims among the 450 killed and 150 Latino. Of the 345 Black and Latino victims, 293 were male. Their ages ranged from one all the way to 94.

That means that the Bay Area’s Black residents are still more at risk of succumbing to gun violence than members of any other racial group. Black residents make up just 5% of the region’s population, according to 2020 census data, but more than a third of its homicide victims.

The racial discrepancies were apparent even in the region’s safest counties. San Mateo county, home to the millionaire-machine of Silicon Valley, saw homicides go up in 2020, but the rise was not equally distributed. The county of 770,000 people recorded 16 homicides. Just one victim was white, despite most of the county’s residents being white.

Santa Clara county, where Google is based, reported 52 homicides among almost two million residents. At least 32 of the victims, or more than half, were Latino, though Latinos make up 25% of the county’s population.

One of the last victims in the Bay Area in 2020 was 19-year-old André Robinson Jr. André was the 99th homicide victim in Oakland that year, but his mother LaTanya wants him to be remembered as more than a data point. “André was a brother, a son, an uncle and friend to many. He was strong, honest, independent and dependable. He was more than just No 99.”

LaTanya affectionately refers to André Jr as her “Big Sun”, and a dog-loving prankster who was always able to lift her spirits. “He was a special kid and God blessed me with him.”

LaTanya and André Robinson wear necklaces in memory of their son André Robinson Jr, who was shot and killed on 8 November. Photograph: Marissa Leshnov/Marissa Leshnov for The Guardian

On the morning of 8 November, André’s girlfriend called LaTanya in hysterics. “André just got shot!” the teen cried into the phone.

LaTanya and her husband rushed to the Oakland home where André had brought his girlfriend breakfast and was shot in the back. LaTanya and her husband, André Robinson Sr, rushed to the home and pulled up at the same time as the ambulance.

The communities that were hit worst were the communities that were underserved in the first placeTashante McCoy

LaTanya’s husband briefly saw the couple’s son before he was carried into the ambulance and driven to Oakland’s Highland hospital. As André Jr was being pulled out of the ambulance, LaTanya told her son that she loved him and that she needed him to stay strong and fight. Less than an hour later, when LaTanya and André Sr learned their son had died, it felt like someone “ripped her heart out through the bottom of her stomach”.

Impact of the pandemic

The rise in gun violence in the Bay Area mirrored trends seen across the US. Nationwide, homicides leapt by nearly 30% from 2019 to 2020, according to FBI crime data released in September. About 77% of the killings involved guns and increases were found in every region in the US. California recorded 2,202 homicides, compared to 1,679 the year before – a 31% increase, according to the Guardian’s analysis of state homicide data.

The full dynamics behind the surge in shootings are still unclear, though researchers, violence prevention practitioners and law enforcement have all offered elements, including economic distress, the breakdown of social pillars in the community, and slowdowns in the courts.

Bar graph comparing firearm-related homicides to all other homicides in California, as well as in specific counties: Alameda, San Joaquin, Solano, Contra Costa and San Mateo

California was the first state in the nation to impose shelter-in-place protocols and one of the first to close schools to curb the spread of Covid-19. The fallout from record unemployment to student’s struggles to succeed under remote learning was almost immediately felt by majority Black and Latino communities. Achievement gaps widened as Black and Latino students fell off district radars, giving young people ample time without the supervision and structure that schools provide. Black and Latino people are also simultaneously overrepresented in fields such as food service where job losses were steep and essential sectors such as healthcare and grocery stores where infections and workplace stress were high.

The pandemic further exacerbated issues such as unemployment and housing insecurity that drive gun violence among lower-income Black and Latino residents, factors that added layers of stress onto already fragile communities. Meanwhile, the death of George Floyd reignited anger over police brutality and police killings, further eroding trust in law enforcement in some communities.

Chart compares Bay Area homicide rates by race and compares the 2015-2019 average to 2020

“There’s a lot we’re still teasing apart about how gun violence was impacted by the pandemic. But we do know higher rates of poverty, unemployment, police contact, and housing and food insecurity were there before [Covid-19],” said Dr Shani Buggs, a researcher with the Violence Prevention Research program at UC Davis who analyzes grassroots violence interruption. “Then the pandemic severed contacts to social safety nets as these health and social consequences of systemic racism worsened.”

“The communities that were hit worst were the communities that were underserved in the first place,” said Tashante McCoy, a manager with Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice and a violence prevention and victim advocate in Stockton.

McCoy had formed her own collective for mothers who’d lost their children to gun violence after her cousin was murdered in 2012. Over the years, it grew from seven people meeting for a somber Mother’s Day dinner in 2014 to an organization that came together for paint parties, wine tasting events and meditation sessions that attracted dozens.

The group was one of several gun violence prevention and victim support organizations launching in Stockton around that time. In fact, in the years before the pandemic, the Bay Area had become an incubator for innovative prevention programs.

The programs operated on city streets, in community centers, in urgent care units and public school campuses, often with little to no involvement from law enforcement, and over the past decade they have gained acknowledgement from experts and officials in playing an important role in driving homicide numbers to decade-lows.

In Richmond and Stockton, prevention workers with Advance Peace, many of them formerly incarcerated people, worked with the small population of the city that was most at-risk of being shot or shooting someone else and provided mentorship, work opportunities, and stipends. In Oakland, staff with Youth Alive! were showing up at the hospital bedsides of young people suffering from gunshot wounds, offering them resources to change their lives and exit the cycle of violence.

A 2019 Guardian analysis of homicide data in the Bay Area from 2007-2017 found that while homicides and gun violence remained persistent issues, homicides had gone down by 30% across the 12 counties of the region. Black residents, who had historically been overrepresented among homicide victims, experienced the most dramatic drop.

André Robinson Sr shows a tattoo on his arm in memory of his late son André Robinson Jr. Photograph: Marissa Leshnov/Marissa Leshnov for The Guardian

The decrease held in the years leading up to the pandemic. A fresh analysis of homicide data shows that the decline continued in 2018, when the region recorded 309 homicides, and in 2019, when it recorded 336. That increase from 2018 to 2019 pales in comparison to the almost 114 more homicides that would happen in the region in 2020.

“A lot was born in that time,” McCoy said about 2018 and 2019. “There was the inception of a lot of programs, and some of that contributed for sure to a downward trend in gun violence.”

You used to be able to go into the community and mediate. Covid messed with what we were able to doParis Davis

“Everything was down, from shootings to robberies,” recalled Paris Davis, the manager of Youth Alive!’s youth intervention program, who joined the organization after being shot in the stomach in 2017. “That time showed that our approach was working.”

The pandemic presented unprecedented challenges for the organizations’ models. As workplaces, schools, and community centers where violence interrupters were sure to find their program participants emptied, they were forced to switch to virtual meetings and regular phone calls. Many took on additional roles, delivering food, masks and hand sanitizer to homes.

“It had a hard impact professionally. You used to be able to go into the community and mediate. Covid messed with what we were able to do,” said Davis. “We had to start supporting clients virtually. But sometimes it wasn’t best for a client when they needed to see someone in person.”

Stockton’s McCoy said interventionists were still showing up and providing for victims as best as they could. “There’s an unspoken part of being a violence interventionist in a time like this: we can’t not come in there and hug people.” But in doing so, they were sometimes putting their lives on the line.

‘An endless cycle’

The increase in shootings have led to fresh fears about a “violent crime wave”, anxieties that were readily amplified by right-leaning groups and conservative media.

But even with the pandemic surge, homicides across the Bay Area have not reached the highs of the late 1990s and mid-2000s. And many neighborhoods have been minimally affected.

Still, police unions and tough-on-crime officials, too, have pointed at the rise to argue that efforts to shift away funding from law enforcement agencies was misguided. Others have held it up as an argument for officials to look outside of law enforcement, and scale up community-driven solutions that tackle the root causes of violence.

Responding to the surge, Joe Biden encouraged states and localities to use $350bn from the federal Covid relief package to hire more police. But he also earmarked $5bn in his infrastructure bill proposal to bolster and sustain community-based gun violence prevention, the most high-profile recognition of the importance of such programs in combating gun violence deaths.

This was a public health and safety system failureTashante McCoy

“I’m just as sad about this increase as I have been the years before, even when there were just over 70 murders,” said Antoine Towers, chair of Oakland’s Violence Prevention Coalition. “It just shows the endless cycle hasn’t been addressed yet. Those same conflicts were going on before the pandemic.”

Towers had been sounding the alarm about how generational differences and unaddressed trauma among those most impacted by violence, especially youth, was fueling gun violence in Oakland in the years before the pandemic hit. And even when the city was being celebrated for managing to drive down homicide rates, he knew that people were still struggling under the weight of social inequality and long term trauma.

Towers’ organization still isn’t funded through the city but with local schools reopening, he’s being called on by teachers to mediate tense, potentially fatal, conflicts between students. “I get calls from schools, and community members. And I’ll tell them, ‘I’m on my way.’”

McCoy, the Stockton activist, has continued pushing officials and decision makers to prioritize addressing the roots of violence. “This was a public health and safety system failure,” she said. “If we’re ever gonna create safety, you can’t do that without addressing the core needs of the community,” she said. “There’s a lack of investment in these communities and our system fails to fund essential services that are held by people who understand the dynamics of these areas.

‘No one knows this pain but us’

Data from major cities across the US suggests that homicides have continued to rise in 2021, though the increases were smaller than in 2020.

Since her son’s death, Sonya Mitchell has grown close with other grieving mothers. “The death of my son doesn’t affect just me, it affects so many other Black women who I’ve seen suffer; mothers who are my friends and we all buried our sons in 2020. We have to be there for each other because no one knows this pain but us.”

Sonya Mitchell holds a necklace containing a portrait of ‘DaDa’ Ferguson. Photograph: Marissa Leshnov/Marissa Leshnov for The Guardian

Her son’s last hours continue to haunt her. “I wish I could have sat on that curb with him, I didn’t know he was gonna die,” she said. “My son deserved to die hearing his mom telling him she loved him. Instead, he died hearing his mom scream for help. I should have never had to beat on a window and scream, ‘Let me in!’”

Sutter Health said in a statement it disagreed with Mitchell’s characterization of events. “Sutter Health extends our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of Mr Ferguson,” Sutter Health said. “Our care teams strive to deliver the highest levels of quality care possible.”

I have better days, but never good days. I just lost a piece of meLaTanya Robinson

Mitchell believes that the high blood pressure and other ailments she’s suffered from since her son’s death will eventually kill her. But she says she doesn’t mind that outcome, if it means she can see her son in heaven.

“I already know where my health is going and I’m not scared,” Mitchell said. “I wanna stay here for my daughters and grandkids, but my heart’s too broken. I used to have hella life, but I just don’t anymore.”

In December 2020, three months after Daimon Ferguson was killed outside of his sister’s home, Vallejo police arrested one man and two women in connection with the slaying.

LaTanya Robinson says she hasn’t had a good day since her son was slain. She’s been trying to move out of Oakland and has become more protective of her 13-year old son. She admits that she rarely lets him out of the house, except to football practice.

LaTanya Robinson reveals a tattoo in memory of her late son André Robinson Jr. Photograph: Marissa Leshnov/Marissa Leshnov for The Guardian

The entire family is receiving counseling and Robinson and her husband try to speak about their son and her family’s quest for justice at local rallies. The family is organizing a march in Oakland in November to commemorate André’s death. They still don’t know who killed him.

“I have better days, but never good days. I just lost a piece of me so I’m trying to get back to being me,” Robinson said. “I’ve been trying to speak at rallies and find a way to deal with it. I know my son’s death is gonna bring something positive and I’m gonna get justice one day.”

• The analysis of California homicide data looks at the year of each incident that caused the death, which can differ from when the victim died or when it was reported to the FBI. In addition, the analysis estimates city-by-city data by looking at the police jurisdiction that reported the homicide

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Downtown San Francisco feels like a grave.

Streets that are once overcrowded are deserted and only the sound of car traffic moves the air. Muni buses and BART trains run almost empty. The shop windows are boarded up or empty, from the 172-year-old Tadich Grill to the mussels of trendy juice shops and fitness clubs. Almost all offices have been closed for 11 months with no return date set. The crackling of the last few days made the mood even more gloomy.

The pain could continue beyond the pandemic.

The prospect of workers’ return soon – after elevators on site, after vaccines have been introduced, after schools reopened – has diminished and unnecessary workers remain banned from offices. Remote work, made necessary by the health crisis, is becoming an ongoing policy for many of the city’s largest employers. Once the burgeoning capital of technology, downtown San Francisco may never return to its hectic, busy state.

Salesforce, the city’s largest private employer, is the latest company to confirm that most of its 10,000 local workers will stay home for one or more days in the week following the pandemic. The company said it remains committed to the city.

“San Francisco is and will remain an integral part of our business strategy,” said Salesforce. “And when it’s safe, we look forward to opening our doors again.”

Google, another large office tenant with locations along the Embarcadero, is testing a flexible work schedule where most employees stay home twice a week after the offices reopen. Facebook, which occupies two Transbay towers near Salesforce, said it is not reducing its property holdings in the Bay Area, but rather giving employees more flexibility to work remotely.

Twitter, Dropbox and Levi’s are trying to give up some of their office space as workers stay at home – in many cases indefinitely, not just during the pandemic. Companies rely on remote or flexible work for many reasons, but the boss is competing for employees who care about cutting their commuting and housing costs.

Royal Exchange in downtown San Francisco is closed.

Roland Li / The Chronicle

Randi Weitzman, executive director of technology workforce services at recruiting firm Robert Half, said remote working is here to stay.

Not only have companies recognized that employees can be more productive and not micromanaged, they can also recruit from a larger pool. Providing flexibility is also key to attracting talent, and if it isn’t done, businesses are put at a disadvantage, she said.

“Trust was built. The technology is there to support this, ”she said.

“You don’t have to sit on the Autobahn for three hours or on BART for an hour and a half. You can do more work, ”she said.

It’s not clear how widespread home work will be after the pandemic. Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist, said the city’s current estimate is 25% remote work in all post-pandemic businesses, or the average employee who stays home a little more than a day a week. That estimate seems low when compared to the big tech companies’ flexibility plans, but not every employer is going to be as aggressively long-term remote working as they are willing to accept.

Any downsizing will have seismic effects on the local economy. Citywide sales taxes, a measure of corporate health, declined 43% year over year in the second quarter of 2020. The largest declines were in the city center, with losses of over 70% and restaurants and hotels hardest hit by the declines.

Pedestrian traffic is sparse in downtown San Francisco.

Roland Li / The Chronicle

A slew of downtown retailers are closing stores including H&M, Uniqlo, Gap, and Marshalls, which will continue to weigh on tax revenues and cut jobs. The timeframe for the return of tourism and business travel, the city’s largest economic engine, is unknown. A sprawling symbol of the epicenter of worldliness and the city’s technical convention, the Moscone Center hasn’t hosted an event other than contingency planning meetings and mass vaccinations in nearly a year.

In rare positive news, city officials reported a budget surplus of $ 125 million for the current fiscal year after improvements in property taxes and federal refunds. However, the long-term outlook remains bleak with a deficit of $ 653.2 million in fiscal years 2021-2023.

More than 600,000 people used public transport to get to work every day before the pandemic broke out. The need for more public transport in the face of booming jobs and the population was undeniable.

Now remote working has sparked a financial crisis in BART, Muni and Caltrain and messed up that assumption. The transit agencies have all seen a sharp drop in downtown driver numbers.

There were signs of life in the financial district on Thursday. A party was held at the Perbacco Italian restaurant for al fresco dining. A couple of people stood outside Fog City News to buy Valentine’s Day chocolate, a lifeline for the 20-year-old newspaper kiosk on Market Street.

Revenue is about half the pre-pandemic level, a slight improvement from the spring, said Adam Smith, owner of Fog City. “There has been some recovery. I don’t think it will go back. I think it will go on, ”he said. “I am optimistic.”

He was able to survive with nationwide shipping orders and some business from downtown residents who were more daring to venture after canceling orders for nationwide local accommodations.

“A pandemic is forcing small businesses to get creative and improvise,” he said. However, the staff was halved to two employees.

Shoppers wait in front of the Fog City News in downtown San Francisco.

Roland Li / The Chronicle

Smith believes many workers will want to return when it is safe, attracted by the urban vibrancy that will continue. “There’s also a growing number of people who say, ‘Hey, I don’t want to work from home entirely. I would like to come back to the offices every now and then, ”he said.

Salesforce does not offer its employees free meals in company cafeterias. Hence, fewer employees coming downtown after the towers reopen could hit restaurants and cafes so much harder.

“Salesforce’s office ecosystem is really important to small businesses,” said Lauren Crabbe, owner and CEO of Andytown Coffee Roasters. A café that opened in early 2019 at 181 Fremont, rented by Facebook, overlooks Salesforce Park. The Salesforce Tower is just a short walk away. But the cafe closed in March while Andytown’s two locations on Outer Sunset stayed open.

Crabbe remains optimistic and is committed to reopening this location.

“It obviously worries me a little. Maybe the offices never come back, ”she said. But she added, “People won’t want to work from home forever. For every person thriving from home work, 10 more pull their hair out and yell at their kids. “

Crabbe misses the energy of her Fremont cafe and said her staff do too.

“I miss being near tall buildings. The hustle and bustle of the people walking around you, ”she said. “I hope when everything opens up we can all get back together.”

Community groups hope to attract both tourists and locals to eat, drink and shop to offset a decline in workers following the end of the pandemic.

“Activating public spaces when it is safe and promoting the city center as a destination for visitors, residents and businesses are a priority for the organization,” said John Bozeman, executive director of the Downtown Community Benefit District, which promotes and provides security for the neighborhood – and cleaning services.

Founded in 2019, the group plans events that could include street fairs.

Enrico Moretti, an economics professor at UC Berkeley, said the qualities that made the Bay Area a desirable place to stay will endure: strong higher education, a talented workforce, and ample venture capital. Despite all the havoc in small businesses and low-income jobs, the stock market is near record highs and the largest tech companies are seeing profits rise. All of these factors will help the region recover, even if some workers stay away, he said.

Facebook, Google and Amazon continue to invest billions in planned expansions in the Bay Area.

“I think the underlying economic reasons why this used to be a dynamic economic region are still there,” he said. “This is a good place to come up with new ideas and new products.”

The pre-pandemic challenges in the region remain. High taxes and housing costs are acceptable for some businesses, but these expenses should be offset by well-managed public spaces. In San Francisco, some crimes like break-ins has increased during the pandemic.

“I think these are crucial considerations if you are not trying to compete at the expense,” said Moretti. “We should be much better at doing these things.”

Venga Empanadas co-owner Pablo Romano was scheduled to open a new location in the Salesforce Transit Center in March 2018 but was delayed after two cracked steel girders were discovered and later repaired. Its opening in March 2020 was stopped by the pandemic.

“It’s a blessing in disguise. If we had opened then it would have been a bigger mess, ”he said. Despite the challenges, he hopes to open by the summer.

“The city has recovered from fires, earthquakes and all sorts of things. I don’t think it will turn into a ghost town at some point, ”he said.

The San Francisco Chronicle staff, Tara Duggan and Mallory Moench, contributed to this report.

Roland Li is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf

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