Here's what's happening in the Bay Area, as curated by KALW News:
Troubled SF transit project puts public on hook to Goldman Sachs // SF Chronicle
The over-budget Transbay Transit Center is so stretched for cash that officials have been forced to take out a short-term loan from Goldman Sachs that puts the public on the hook for $37 million just in fees and other charges.
That money goes straight into Goldman Sachs’ pocket. What’s left from the $171 million bridge loan — $134 million — goes toward bailing out the troubled transit center project.
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Income Inequality Increases Across Bay Area // East Bay Express
"Bay Area cities topped the charts in a recent report revealing that income gains in California largely went to the highest-income households during the past 25 years, while the remaining medium- and low-income households saw little to no income gains."
"The California Budget & Policy Center, an independent policy research center based in Sacramento that released the study, found San Francisco to have the highest income inequality ratio, where the average wealthiest household ($3.6 million in 2013) earns 44 times the average income of the bottom 99 percent ($81,094). San Francisco also had the highest share of income going to the top 1 percent, with 30.8 percent of the region’s income going to its highest earners in 2013."
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ICE agent loses gun in SF // SF Examiner
"A U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent lost a pistol Friday morning in San Francisco, police said."
"Just before 9:30 a.m., a San Francisco police officer at the Ingleside District Station took a call from the agent who said he lost his pistol at 6 a.m."
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PTSD in Oakland: Gun Violence Victims, Families Suffer Continuous Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder // NBC Bay Area
"Post-traumatic stress disorder is usually associated with soldiers returning home from war. But experts in psychological trauma say they now see the condition in residents of Oakland and other American cities with high rates of gun violence. Unlike soldiers returning home from the battlefield to relative safety, though, there is no safe place to escape for those traumatized by violence in their own community."
"While business may be thriving downtown, now home to high tech tenants such as Uber and Pandora, residents living in marginalized Oakland neighborhoods east and west of downtown say their communities are seeing little of that economic growth, and worry a lack of opportunity means no escape from the cycle of violence and trauma."
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The Western Addition Community Technology Center Bridges The Digital Divide // Hoodline
"James Rabb is a PC guy."
"Rabb, the technology director of the Western Addition Community Technology Center (CTC), a non-profit on Turk between Gough and Laguna that offers free computer use and classes to the less-tech-savvy public, works mostly with average Joe Blows when it comes to computer literacy. Every Monday and Wednesday afternoon, he teaches a class called Basic Computer."
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Eye on the East Bay: County election video goes all Jedi on voter apathy // Contra Costa Times
"THE FORCE OF DEMOCRACY: A long time ago, in a county elections office not so far away, someone recognized that voter apathy was spreading faster than the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run and decided an innovative approach was needed to combat it."
"Taking a cue from popular culture and the big screen, the Contra Costa County Elections Office has produced a "Star Wars" themed video to recruit volunteers to its electoral rebellion and restore order to democracy across the land ... or at least the eastern reaches of the Bay Area."
