Good morning. It’s Wednesday, April 24.
- San Francisco tower sells for 11% of its 2016 value.
- Senseless tragedy on a Metro train in Los Angeles.
- And calling out bureaucratic bloat at U.S. universities.
Statewide
1.
PG&E, California’s main utility provider and a near monopoly, has been using ratepayer money to buy millions of dollars in television ads promoting itself as a champion of wildfire preparedness. The latest campaign, including a spot shown during a recent Golden State Warriors game, came as PG&E lobbied heavily to block new legislation that aimed to crack down on utilities pushing the cost of ads and lobbying onto customers. The bill died in committee. In a time of soaring utility bills, the Sacramento Bee editorial board wrote this week, “PG&E’s audacity clearly knows no bounds.”
2.
You can look down on North America’s tallest waterfall.
Most visitors enjoy leisurely views of Yosemite Falls, a vertical half-mile of cascading water, from the meadows of the valley below. The overhead vantage from adjacent Eagle Peak is hard to get to — 6 miles of switchback after switchback. But for those who tough it out, the crowds melt away and you get to see what some regulars contend is the most spectacular view in the park. Travel videographer Yongsung Kim posted a trip report with incredible views. 👉 YouTube
Northern California
3.
Even as cut-rate towers have grown commonplace in San Francisco, the recent sale of a vacant office tower in the city’s struggling Mid-Market neighborhood stands out as extreme. In a public auction on April 18, the historic 16-story building at 995 Market Street sold for $6.6 million, or about 11% of its $62 million sale price in 2016. Office vacancy in San Francisco rose to yet another high in March, nearly 37%, up from 4% in the first quarter of 2020. S.F. Chronicle | SFist
- Residential prices have also fallen. A Redfin analysis found that nearly one in five home sellers in San Francisco took a loss during the three-month period ending Feb. 29.
4.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a plan to force corner stores in the city’s Tenderloin to close up shop by midnight, a move designed to scatter the throbbing open-air drug markets that gather outside. “This is an idea for the community, from the community,” Breed said. Store owners are furious. “The problem is the drugs, not the stores,” said Ameer Ahmed, who works at the Hyde & Turk Market. S.F. Examiner | SF Standard
5.
Next year, it will become impossible for middle- and high-school students in one Bay Area school district to get an F. Embracing the shift toward so-called equity grading, Dublin Unified plans to banish failing letter grades along with the practice of awarding zero points on assignments. Some parents and teachers are up in arms. “We want to make our students college and career ready,” said Laurie Sargent, an eighth-grade teacher. “Nowhere in college do you get 50% for doing nothing. Nowhere in the world of work do you get 50% for doing nothing.” Mercury News
6.
Six weeks after the Caldor wildfire swept across nearly 350 square miles of forest just south of Lake Tahoe in 2021, destroying the town of Grizzly Flats, police arrested the father and son who had first reported the blaze. They accused Travis and David Smith of igniting the fire while shooting guns. The men insisted they were innocent. In January, a judge ruled that the evidence was insufficient to go to trial. This week, the judge went further, dismissing a gun charge in connection with the incident. “They suffered a lot, the Smith family,” their lawyer said. “Everyone in the community thought they were guilty.” CapRadio
Southern California
7.
Mirna Soza, 66, worked the night shift at a hamburger place in Los Angeles for years saving up money so she could move to back to Nicaragua, where her children and grandchildren are. “What kept her going was her plans. Her dreams,” her daughter said. Those were cut short just before 5 a.m. on Monday when Soza was stabbed to death on the train she rode every day. Half an hour later, police arrested a 45-year-old transient named Elliot Nowden on suspicion of murder. Court records showed he had a history of violent attacks. L.A. Times
8.
On April 15, video rolled as a fight broke out a couple blocks from a South L.A. high school. An adult could be heard: “Let them … fight. … I’m not breaking up shit. I don’t give a fuck.” That adult, multiple sources told the L.A. Times, was a member of a “safe passages” program designed to safely escort kids to and from school. Seconds after the fight began, shots rang out and a 15-year-old fell dead. The killing has intensified debate over district efforts to reduce the role of school police after the 2020 killing of George Floyd. L.A. Times | 2UrbanGirls
9.
An opinion column lampooning bureaucratic bloat at American universities included some eye-popping figures from Pomona College:
“In 1990, Pomona had 1,487 students, 180 tenured and tenure-track professors, and 56 administrators … As of 2022, the most recent year for which I have data, the number of students had increased 17 percent, to 1,740, while the number of professors had fallen to 175. The number of administrators had increased to 310, an average of 7.93 new administrators per year.” Washington Post
10.
Matthew Kenney is one of the world’s most famous vegan chefs, known for opening trendy restaurants like Plant Food + Wine in Venice Beach. But behind his glamorous lifestyle — which included renting a $20,000-a-month house in West Los Angeles — was a trail of burned investors, landlords, girlfriends, and employees. At least 17 of Kenney’s restaurants have shuttered since 2021. “Checks bounced all the time,” said Peter Cassell, who managed one of the restaurants. “Nobody that I know that has ever dealt with Matthew has ever gotten away clean.” N.Y. Times
11.
Even the seen-it-all crowd along Venice Beach’s colorful boardwalk had to do a double take on Monday when three apes showed up on horseback. Photos and video of the costumed characters ricocheted across social media, collecting millions of views, just as 20th Century Film surely hoped when it planned the marketing stunt for its upcoming film “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.” Santa Monica Closeup/YouTube
12.
Downtown Los Angeles was once anchored by a lush, welcoming park, pictured above in 1910. The 5 acres that later became known as Pershing Square was designed in a formal Beaux Arts style, filled with tropical vegetation and surrounded by cafes, bars, and hotels. In 1951, amid a general perception that the downtown had become blighted, the park was ripped out to make way for an underground parking garage and replaced by a thin layer of turf atop the concrete.
A revitalization effort in the 1990s that relied on brightly colored geometric structures fell flat. By 2013, wrote the L.A. Times architectural critic Christopher Hawthorne, the park was “a perfectly depressing symbol of L.A.’s neglected public realm.” Now the city is giving it yet another go. After nearly a decade of planning, bulldozers returned to Pershing Square last fall to revive a crucial element of the park’s old appeal: abundant greenery. Writing this month, Larry Gordon, the author of a book on L.A. walks, suggested this time may finally be the charm. “Whatever happens, at least those terrible pink cylinders from 1994 will be gone,” he wrote. L.A. Times
- See renderings of the planned makeover. 👉Agenceter.com
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