Progressive H May 31, 2025 Sam Rosenthal from ProgressiveHub.net and RootsAction talks to DNC Chair Ken Martin about the future of the Democratic Party.
Progressive Hub May 31, 2025 For the past three decades, Zogby has served in leadership roles in the Democratic National Committee including sixteen years on the executive committee and eleven years as chair of the party’s resolution committee. Watch Dr. Zogby explain why the reforms they put together ultimately never materialized. Watch Progressive Hub’s livestream coverage of the DNC Executive Committee Meeting , featuring Norman Solomon, Judith Whitmer, Dr. James Zogby, Senator Nina Turner, Ryan Black, India Walton, and Ro Khanna: • LIVE Coverage of DNC Executive Committee M…
Status Coup News Jun 7, 2025 LOS ANGELES Independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg covered ICE raids in Los Angeles where ICE officers unleashed a brutal military campaign against protesters—and journalists—shooting them with tear gas, pepper spray, less lethal ammunition, and more. While reporting for Status Coup, Berg was hit with tear gas and pepper spray. We need more viewers to SUPPORT US AS PAYING MEMBERS in order to continue funding this important independent ON-THE-GROUND reporting. JOIN US for $5 bucks a month: https://statuscoup.com/join/
An observatory high on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano that measures carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reported its highest ever seasonal peak concentration of the greenhouse gas.
For the first time, the May average exceeded 430 parts per million, reported scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
“Another year, another record,” said Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO2 Program. “It’s sad.”
Experts say the U.S. military often responds to events being made worse by climate change.
Carbon dioxide and other gases function like a blanket around the Earth, holding in heat and warming the atmosphere above the surface, scientists say. A broad consensus of international scientists say the rise in carbon dioxide concentrations is responsible for the globe’s changing climate, helping to make natural weather events such as rainfall, drought and heat waves more extreme.
Last year, the average level of carbon dioxide rose faster over the previous year than at any other point since the recordings began, Scripps reported in January. The average readings for the 12 months was 3.58 parts per million higher than the previous year’s average, breaking a record set in 2016.
In both years, the climate pattern El Niño played a role, Keeling said in January. “Although this El Niño event ended early in 2024, it is often the case that El Niño events are associated with higher than normal CO2 growth extending into the northern hemisphere summer following the El Niño event.”
Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have risen by a third since 1958, according to measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory by the Scripps Institution … Show more
PROVIDED BY SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY AT UC SAN DIEGO.
The historic 67-year-old laboratory at elevation 11,141 feet is the global benchmark location for monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Its measurements represent the average state of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere.
Scripps scientist Charles David Keeling, Ralph Keeling’s father, began monitoring CO2 concentrations there in 1958. He was the first to realize CO2 levels peak in May in the northern hemisphere, fall during the growing season and rise again after plants die in the fall, according to Scripps. The fluctuations were presented in a record that became known as the Keeling Curve, which demonstrated carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were increasing every year.
Professor Ralph Keeling demonstrates how a sample of air is collected into a Keeling flask in order to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at … Show more
PATRICK T. FALLON, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
NOAA initiated daily measurements at Mauna Loa in 1974 and has maintained a complementary, independent measurement record ever since. A global network that includes NOAA and Scripps, forms a dataset used by climate scientists internationally. Eruptions at Mauna Loa caused an interruption to power at the observatory in 2022, NOAA said. Scientists established a temporary measurement site at Mauna Kea nearby.
Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, covers climate change, wildlife and the environment. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
Solidarity with LA and all communities resisting ICE
Sunday June 8
6pm
ICE Building in SF 630 Sansome Street (near Montgomery BART) SF
– Stop the Kidnappings
– Defend Our Neighbors
– We Keep Us Safe
We will not wait for the Feds to descend on our communities. We are taking action now, before it’s too late. It is time to seize the moment and show this regime we will not go quietly.
See articles below graphic
Graphic & above info from NorCalResist
3 ARTICLES
KQED
President Trump Moves to Send National Guard to LA Amid Immigration Demonstrations, Newsom says
The LA Pride Parade is the oldest, largest, and longest-running Pride Parade in Southern California! We are proud to serve and celebrate Los Angeles, the Greatest. City. In. The. World.
Over 100,000 LA Pride family, friends, and fans will be descending on Hollywood to cheer our iconic LGBTQ+ procession down Hollywood Blvd. For this, our 55th year, we’re planning extra performances, music, and celebrity surprises.
Grand Marshals for 2025
We are honored to announce our Grand Marshals for 2025:
Vanguard Grand Marshals: Niecy Nash and Jessica Betts. The Emmy Award-winning actor and her BET Hall of Famer spouse are individually and jointly the multi-hyphenates we’ve loved and admired for years, who made history as the first same-sex couple to grace the cover of Essence magazine, garnering a nomination for a GLAAD Media Award.
Celebrity Grand Marshal: Andrew Rannells. One of our favorite award-winning actors for his roles on Girls, Welcome to Chippendales, and Girls5Eva! The Grammy Award-winning and two-time Tony Award nominated veteran of stage and screen is thrilled to be joining us.
Community Grand Marshals: TrinoxAdam. Influencers and activists who inspire us with their uplifting message of love. With over 1.1MIL social media followers, this gay Chicano couple is shattering stereotypes!
Parade Route
The route will proceed start at Sunset and Highland Ave, proceed north to Hollywood Blvd, travel east to Cahuenga, turn south at Cahuenga, and end at Sunset.
How to Watch
IN -PERSON: The best Parade viewing spots are along the middle of Hollywood Blvd, or on Highland, opposite the ABC7 broadcast area. Step-off is at 11AM sharp, so get there early to get a good spot.
ON TV, STREAMING: If you can’t be with us in person, you call still enjoy the 120+ contingents in all their Pride glory! Hosted by ABC7’s own Gio Benitez, Ellen Leyva and Coleen Sullivan, the Parade will broadcast live from 11AM to 1PM, with reporters David González, Sophie Flay and Kevin Ozebek, reporting directly from the parade route.
They’ll also simulcast on ABC7’s streaming and digital platforms, Hulu and ABC News Live.
ABC7 is SoCal’s most-watched television station, and won an L.A.-area Emmy® Award for their coverage of the 2022 LA Pride Parade. We can’t wait to see them do it again!
Street Closures:
Staggered closings info coming soon.
But wait, there’s more!
Also on Sunday, find us at LA PRIDE VILLAGE, (formerly “Block Party”), our free Hollywood Blvd street fair from Argyle to mid-Bronson Ave. This year is going to be bigger and better than ever with live performances on two stages, tons of sponsor activities and giveaways, nearly 90 vendors and exhibitors, and scores of food trucks, carts, and stalls. Two bars for 21-and-over, too.
All the details and news coming soon!
Avoid traffic, street closures and Go Metro.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is activating station “take-overs” in honor of LA Pride. The stations servicing both the Pride Parade and Pride Village will be renamed and wrapped in Pride colors. Hollywood/Highland will be renamed LA PRIDE NATION, and Hollywood/Vine will be renamed HOLLYWOOD & PRIDE.
For the Parade, take the B/D Line to “LA Pride Nation,” or to “Hollywood & Pride” for Pride Village festival.
__________________________________
Prefer to drive? SpotHero has all the best parking options for you.
We recommend booking convenient and affordable parking in advance through SpotHero, the nation’s leading parking reservations app. To reserve your parking spot for the LA Pride Parade, visit the LA Pride SpotHero Parking Page.
A car burns during a protest in Compton, Calif., Saturday, June 7, 2025, after federal immigration authorities conducted operations. The Department of Homeland Security said recent ICE operations in LA resulted in the arrest of 118 immigrants. (Eric Thayer/AP Photo)
Protesters and Immigration Authorities Face Off for a 2nd Day in LA Area After Arrests
A man helps an injured woman during a protest in the Paramount section of Los Angeles, Saturday, June 7, 2025, after federal immigration authorities conducted operations. | Eric Thayer/AP
Newsom blasts deployment of National Guard to LA as ‘purposefully inflammatory’
Border Patrol personnel deploy tear gas during a demonstration over the dozens detained in an operation by federal immigration authorities a day earlier in Paramount section of Los Angeles Saturday, June 7, 2025. The Trump administration planned to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Eric Thayer/Associated Press
Newsom says Trump to send 2,000 National Guard Troops to LA
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks at the White House on Jan. 21, 2025, after donating $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
OPENAI HAS ALWAYS said it’s a different kind of Big Tech titan, founded not just to rack up a stratospheric valuation of $400 billion (and counting), but also to “ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”
The meteoric machine-learning firm announced itself to the world in a December 2015 press release that lays out a vision of technology to benefit all people as people, not citizens. There are neither good guys nor adversaries. “Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole,” the announcement stated with confidence. “Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.”
Early rhetoric from the company and its CEO, Sam Altman, described advanced artificial intelligence as a harbinger of a globalist utopia, a technology that wouldn’t be walled off by national or corporate boundaries but enjoyed together by the species that birthed it. In an early interview with Altman and fellow OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, Altman described a vision of artificial intelligence “freely owned by the world” in common. When Vanity Fair asked in a 2015 interview why the company hadn’t set out as a for-profit venture, Altman replied: “I think that the misaligned incentives there would be suboptimal to the world as a whole.”
Times have changed. And OpenAI wants the White House to think it has too.
In a March 13 white paper submitted directly to the Trump administration, OpenAI’s global affairs chief Chris Lehane pitched a near future of AI built for the explicit purpose of maintaining American hegemony and thwarting the interests of its geopolitical competitors — specifically China. The policy paper’s mentions of freedom abound, but the proposal’s true byword is national security.
OpenAI never attempts to reconcile its full-throated support of American security with its claims to work for the whole planet, not a single country. After opening with a quotation from Trump’s own executive order on AI, the action plan proposes that the government create a direct line for the AI industry to reach the entire national security community, work with OpenAI “to develop custom models for national security,” and increase intelligence sharing between industry and spy agencies “to mitigate national security risks,” namely from China.
In the place of techno-globalism, OpenAI outlines a Cold Warrior exhortation to divide the world into camps. OpenAI will ally with those “countries who prefer to build AI on democratic rails,” and get them to commit to “deploy AI in line with democratic principles set out by the US government.”
The rhetoric seems pulled directly from the keyboard of an “America First” foreign policy hawk like Marco Rubio or Rep. Mike Gallagher, not a company whose website still endorses the goal of lifting up the whole world. The word “humanity,” in fact, never appears in the action plan.
Rather, the plan asks Trump, to whom Altman donated $1 million for his inauguration ceremony, to “ensure that American-led AI prevails over CCP-led AI” — the Chinese Communist Party — “securing both American leadership on AI and a brighter future for all Americans.”
It’s an inherently nationalist pitch: The concepts of “democratic values” and “democratic infrastructure” are both left largely undefined beyond their American-ness. What is democratic AI? American AI. What is American AI? The AI of freedom. And regulation of any kind, of course, “may hinder our economic competitiveness and undermine our national security,” Lehane writes, suggesting a total merging of corporate and national interests.
In an emailed statement, OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois declined to explain the company’s nationalist pivot but defended its national security work.
“We believe working closely with the U.S. government is critical to advancing our mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity,” Bourgeois wrote. “The U.S. is uniquely positioned to help shape global norms around safe, secure, and broadly beneficial AI development—rooted in democratic values and international collaboration.”
OPENAI’S NEWFOUND PATRIOTISM is loud. But is it real?
In his 2015 interview with Musk, Altman spoke of artificial intelligence as a technology so special and so powerful that it ought to transcend national considerations. Pressed on OpenAI’s goal to share artificial intelligence technology globally rather than keeping it under domestic control, Altman provided an answer far more ambivalent than the company’s current day mega-patriotism: “If only one person gets to have it, how do you decide if that should be Google or the U.S. government or the Chinese government or ISIS or who?”
He also said, in the early days of OpenAI, that there may be limits to what his company might do for his country.
“I unabashedly love this country, which is the greatest country in the world,” Altman told the New Yorker in 2016. “But some things we will never do with the Department of Defense.” In the profile, he expressed ambivalence about overtures to OpenAI from then-Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who envisioned using the company’s tools for targeting purposes. At the time, this would have run afoul of the company’s own ethical guidelines, which for years stated explicitly that customers could not use its services for “military and warfare” purposes, writing off any Pentagon contracting entirely.
In January 2024, The Intercept reported that OpenAI had deleted this military contracting ban from its policies without explanation or announcement. Asked about how the policy reversal might affect business with other countries in an interview with Bloomberg, OpenAI executive Anna Makanju said the company is “focused on United States national security agencies.” But insiders who spoke with The Intercept on conditions of anonymity suggested that the company’s turn to jingoism may come more from opportunism than patriotism. Though Altman has long been on the record as endorsing corporate support of the United States, under an administration where the personal favor of the president means far more than the will of lawmakers, parroting muscular foreign policy rhetoric is good for business.
One OpenAI source who spoke with The Intercept recalled concerned discussions about the possibility that the U.S. government would nationalize the company. They said that at times, this was discussed with the company’s head of national security partnerships, Katrina Mulligan. Mulligan joined the company in February 2024 after a career in the U.S. intelligence and military establishment, including leading the media and public policy response to Edward Snowden’s leaks while on the Obama National Security Council staff, working for the director of national intelligence, serving as a senior civilian overseeing Special Operations forces in the Pentagon, and working as chief of staff to the secretary of the Army.
This source speculated that fostering closeness with the government was one method of fending off the potential risk of nationalization.
As an independent research organization with ostensibly noble, global goals, OpenAI may have been less equipped to beat back regulatory intervention, a second former OpenAI employee suggested. What we see now, they said, is the company “transitioning from presenting themselves as a nonprofit with very altruistic, pro-humanity aims, to presenting themselves as an economic and military powerhouse that the government needs to support, shelter, and cut red tape on behalf of.”
The second source said they believed the national security rhetoric was indicative of OpenAI “sucking up to the administration,” not a genuinely held commitment by executives.
“In terms of how decisions were actually made, what seemed to be the deciding factor was basically how can OpenAI win the race rather than anything to do with either humanity or national security,” they added. “In today’s political environment, it’s a winning move with the administration to talk about America winning and national security and stuff like that. But you should not confuse that for the actual thing that’s driving decision-making internally.”
The person said that talk of preventing Chinese dominance over artificial intelligence likely reflects business, not political, anxieties. “I think that’s not their goal,” they said. “I think their goal is to maintain their own control over the most powerful stuff.”
“I also talked to some people who work at OpenAI who weren’t from the U.S. who were feeling like … ‘What’s going to happen to my country?’”
But even if its motivations are cynical, company sources told The Intercept that national security considerations still pervaded OpenAI. The first source recalled a member of OpenAI’s corporate security team regularly engaging with the U.S. intelligence community to safeguard the company’s ultra-valuable machine-learning models. The second recalled concern about the extent of the government’s relationship — and potential control over — OpenAI’s technology. A common fear among AI safety researchers is a future scenario in which artificial intelligence models begin autonomously designing newer versions, ad infinitum, leading human engineers to lose control.
“One reason why the military AI angle could be bad for safety is that you end up getting the same sort of thing with AIs designing successors designing successors, except that it’s happening in a military black project instead of in a somewhat more transparent corporation,” the second source said.
“Occasionally there’d be talk of, like, eventually the government will wake up, and there’ll be a nuclear power plant next to a data center next to a bunker, and we’ll all be moved into the bunker so that we can, like, beat China by managing an intelligence explosion,” they added. At a company that recruits top engineering talent internationally, the prospect of American dominance of a technology they believe could be cataclysmic was at times disquieting. “I remember I also talked to some people who work at OpenAI who weren’t from the U.S. who were feeling kind of sad about that and being like, ‘What’s going to happen to my country after the U.S. gets all the super intelligences?’”
SINCERITY ASIDE, OpenAI has spent the past year training its corporate algorithm on flag-waving, defense lobbying, and a strident anticommunism that smacks more of the John Birch Society than the Whole Earth Catalog.
In his white paper, Lehane, a former press secretary for Vice President Al Gore and special counsel to President Bill Clinton, advocates not for a globalist techno-utopia in which artificial intelligence jointly benefits the world, but a benevolent jingoism in which freedom and prosperity is underwritten by the guarantee of American dominance. While the document notes fleetingly, in its very last line, the idea of “work toward AI that benefits everyone,” the pitch is not one of true global benefit, but of American prosperity that trickles down to its allies.
The company proposes strict rules walling off parts of the world, namely China, from AI’s benefits, on the grounds that they are simply too dangerous to be trusted. OpenAI explicitly advocates for conceiving of the AI market not as an international one, but “the entire world less the PRC” — the People’s Republic of China — “and its few allies,” a line that quietly excludes over 1 billion people from the humanity the company says it wishes to benefit and millions who live under U.S.-allied authoritarian rule.
In pursuit of “democratic values,” OpenAI proposes dividing the entire planet into three tiers. At the top: “Countries that commit to democratic AI principles by deploying AI systems in ways that promote more freedoms for their citizens could be considered Tier I countries.” Given the earlier mention of building “AI in line with democratic principles set out by the US government,” this group’s membership is clear: the United States, and its friends.
In pursuit of “democratic values,” OpenAI proposes dividing the entire planet into three tiers.
Beneath them are Tier 2 countries, a geopolitical purgatory defined only as those that have failed to sufficiently enforce American export control policies and protect American intellectual property from Tier 3: Communist China. “CCP-led China, along with a small cohort of countries aligned with the CCP, would represent its own category that is prohibited from accessing democratic AI systems,” the paper explains. To keep these barriers intact — while allowing for the chance that Tier 2 countries might someday graduate to the top — OpenAI suggests coordinating “global bans on CCP-aligned AI” and “prohibiting relationships” between other countries and China’s military or intelligence services.
One of the former OpenAI employees said concern about China at times circulated throughout the company. “Definitely concerns about espionage came up,” this source said, “including ‘Are particular people who work at the company spies or agents?’” At one point, they said, a colleague worried about a specific co-worker they’d learned was the child of a Chinese government official. The sourced recalled “some people being very upset about the implication” that the company had been infiltrated by foreigners, while others wanted an actual answer: “‘Is anyone who works at the company a spy or foreign agent?’”
THE COMPANY’S PUBLIC adoration of Western democracy is not without wrinkles. In early May, OpenAI announced an initiative to build data centers and customized ChatGPT bots with foreign governments, as part of its $500 billion “Project Stargate” AI infrastructure construction blitz.
“This is a moment when we need to act to support countries around the world that would prefer to build on democratic AI rails, and provide a clear alternative to authoritarian versions of AI that would deploy it to consolidate power,” the announcement read.
Unmentioned in that celebration of AI democracy is the fact that Project Stargate’s financial backers include the government of Abu Dhabi, an absolute monarchy. On May 23, Altman tweeted that it was “great to work with the UAE” on Stargate, describing co-investor and Emirati national security adviser Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan as a “great supporter of openai, a true believer in AGI, and a dear personal friend.” In 2019, Reuters revealed how a team of mercenary hackers working for Emirati intelligence under Tahnoun had illegally broken into the devices of targets around the world, including American citizens.
Asked how a close partnership with an authoritarian Emirati autocracy fit into its broader mission of spreading democratic values, OpenAI pointed to a recent op-ed in The Hill in which Lehane discusses the partnership.
“We’re working closely with American officials to ensure our international partnerships meet the highest standards of security and compliance,” Lehane writes, adding, “Authoritarian regimes would be excluded.”
Visitors view the downtown skyline from Alcatraz Island Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco.Jed Jacobsohn/Associated Press
Despite years of talk and the adoption of policies aimed at spurring the conversion of underused offices into homes, San Francisco has no wave of such projects under construction, even as others are occuring in cities across the nation.
That could change as San Francisco officials are close to creating a downtown district in which tax money from conversions could be used to offset development costs. The initiative would be the third of three major policy levers that city officials will have pulled at the urging of numerous designers, architects, contractors and nonprofit urban planners who say the changes are needed to make such projects financially possible.
“You add those together, and you actually do get to feasibility,” said Marc Babsin, president of the Emerald Fund, a real-estate developer, concerning the addition of the financing-district proposal to earlier incentives adopted by The City.
The widespread hope is that such conversions will help produce badly needed housing and revive a downtown wounded since the COVID-19 pandemic by high office and retail vacancies.
City voters already approved a limited waiver of transfer taxes for conversions in March 2024 and elected officials recently approved a major waiver of other requirements, notably inclusionary housing fees.
100 Van Ness Ave. apartment building in San Francisco as seen on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024.Craig Lee/The Examiner
Without the special financing district, though, Babsin said conversions simply haven’t made sense for the numerous buildings his firm has studied in recent years. Babsin’s company in 2015 completed the conversion of 100 Van Ness Ave. into 418 housing units, but construction costs have risen substantially since then, he said.
No big post-pandemic conversion projects have started construction, though one which would create 124 apartments in the historic Humboldt Bank building at 785 Market St. is in the design phase and reportedly getting close. Another project that would have converted offices to housing in the historic Warfield Building at 988 Market St. stalled and the building was sold.
Richard Hannum, founder partner at Forge Development Partners, which is converting the Humboldt Bank building, said the proposed financing district and other policy changes are making The City more attractive to investors
“It’s a great step. It’s on the path to getting us where we all need to go,” Hannum said.
From left: Supervisor Matt Dorsey, then-Mayor London Breed, and CEO Richard Hannum of Forge Development Partners are seen in front of the Humboldt Bank building at 785 Market St.Craig Lee/The Examiner
The Board of Supervisors took a big step toward potentially breaking the deadlock Tuesday by giving initial approval to legislation that opens the door for creating a Downtown Revitalization and Economic Recovery Financing District, in which increased tax revenue from office properties converted to residences could be used to offset project costs for 30 years.
Once the legislation is approved, a detailed financing plan and regulations must still be adopted. Developers of conversion projects would have until 2032 to enroll.
The proposed district would cover The City’s core downtown office and commercial areas, including the Market Street corridor from the waterfront to Civic Center, the Financial District, Union Square and in the East Cut, Rincon and Yerba Buena areas south of Market Street.
A preliminary analysis identified 50 properties that could be suitable candidates for conversion, representing a potential 4,400 residential units, based on factors such as age, size, condition and current vacancy rate, according to Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office.
Lurie is a sponsor of the legislation, which he said in a statement provided to The Examiner would help create “a vibrant, 24/7 downtown.”
“Together, we’re working to revive our downtown economy and create housing to ensure the next generation of San Franciscans can afford to raise their kids here,” Lurie said.
The initiative is made possible by California Assembly Bill 2488, which former Assemblymember Phil Ting and the Bay Area Council, a business-supported public policy advocacy organization, sponsored. The law passed last year.
A similar, pioneering tax incentive in New York City led to the conversion of obsolete office space into more than 12,000 units in lower Manhattan over 10 years from the late 1990s to early 2000s, Lurie’s office said.
New York’s conversion program is credited by many with helping that city become a national leader in terms of post-COVID 19 economic recovery. By contrast, San Francisco, which has very little housing downtown, has among the least recovered downtowns.
Even after New York City’s initial tax program ended, thousands of conversions continued to happen, evidence that a desirable neighborhood had been created, said Kate Collignon, a managing partner at HR&A Advisors, an urban design consulting firm.
Kate Collignon, a managing partner at HR&A Advisors, an urban design consulting firm, has contributed to research about office to residential conversions in San Francisco and multiple other cities.Courtesy of HR&A Advisors
“It wasn’t just that it reduced costs. It created the visibility of lower Manhattan for residents and made it a great place to live, so that you no longer needed to have those abatements going forward,” Collignon said.
HR&A was one of several companies and nonprofits that in 2023 produced multiple reports about the viability of office-to-residential conversions in San Francisco and called for city code changes and a reduction of fees.
“The economics just weren’t there to make conversion feasible,” Collignon said. “The City has done a lot since then to try and chip away at that math problem.”
Collignon, who also credited The City with streamlining permitting requirements, went on to contribute to case studies of a half-dozen other cities sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and done with Gensler, the Brookings Institution and Eckholm Studios.
Holly Arnold, who leads the residential practice for the architecture firm Gensler’s northwest region, said she had heard from developers that the tax financing district could be what “tips the scale” to make conversions feasible.
“We’re really excited about it,” Arnold said. “We have studied office to residential conversion a great deal, and we see in the cities that are successful with the conversions, there’s a more direct incentive to developers.”
Holly Arnold, who leads the residential practice for the architecture firm Gensler’s northwest region, said she had heard from developers that the tax financing district could be what “tips the scale” to make conversions feasible. Courtesy of Gensler
Arnold pointed to New York City, where Gensler helped convert an office tower in Manhattan’s Financial District into the 588-residence Pearl House, opened in late 2023, which involved creating a light well in the building’s center and adding five floors to the top.
“We think there’s an incredible potential for a lot of very cool [San Francisco] buildings to find new life,” Arnold said.
The advance of the downtown financing district legislation follows the Board of Supervisors’ approval of a Lurie-supported ordinance exempting up to 7 million square feet of residential conversions downtown from an assortment of fees and requirements, including The City’s inclusionary housing fee to fund affordable housing. City officials said those fees typically added $70,000 to $90,000 per residence.
Previously, voters in March 2024 approved Proposition C, which waived real-estate transfer taxes on first-time sales of up to 5 million square feet of commercial properties converted to residential use.
In addition, the board and former Mayor London Breed enacted an ordinance in July 2023 waiving certain planning code requirements for downtown residential conversions.
Since COVID-19, the Big Apple has also renewed efforts to promote office conversions, and other cities have eased regulations and offered incentives as well, with conversion projects playing a pivotal role in revitalizing downtowns and helping to reduce record-high availability of office space, according to a report released Tuesday by CBRE.
The total amount of U.S. office space planned for conversion or demolition this year in the rest of the country is on pace to far exceed the amount of new office space delivered this year, though not all of it will be residential, CBRE said.
While no big office to residential conversion projects are yet underway in San Francisco, the amount of U.S. office space being converted to other uses or demolished is on pace to exceed new office space deliveries, the real estate company CBRE reports. Office conversions are playing a “pivotal role” in revitalizing downtowns and shaping cities, the company said. Courtesy of CBRE
The U.S. office-conversion pipeline reached 81 million square feet of planned and underway projects across 44 markets as of May 2025, accounting for 1.9% of total U.S. office inventory, up 0.2 percentage points from six months earlier, CBRE said.
Just over 70% of planned and active office conversion projects by square footage are for multifamily housing projects. Office-to-multifamily conversions have delivered more than 28,500 housing units nationally since 2018, with another 43,500 planned, according to CBRE.
Manhattan and Washington, D.C.currently lead the nation in total square footage of conversions underway or planned, with 10.3 million square feet and 9.2 million square feet, respectively, CBRE said.
Cleveland, which has longstanding experience with repurposing underperforming office buildings, had the highest share of its office inventory, (8.4%) either undergoing or planned for conversion, the company said.
Motorists protest in vehicles to obey social distancing guidelines at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office on Tuesday, March 31, 2020, in San Francisco. Ben Margot/Associated Press
Federal immigration officers arrested at least 15 people — including children under the age of 10, one as young as 3 — in San Francisco during their routine check-ins Wednesday according to attorneys, city officials and advocates for immigrant rights.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement took the people into custody at a federal field office at 630 Sansome St. where the people were checking in about their ongoing immigration cases, the officials and advocates said. Some could be deported as soon as Thursday.
ICE did not respond to The Examiner’s request for comment prior to press time.
“It was very unusual, very unprecedented,” said Milli Atkinson, the director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the San Francisco Bar Association, of Wednesday’s arrests.
The arrests came a little more than a week after ICE detained four asylum seekers at a San Francisco courthouse and amid a push to ramp up deportations during the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. Axios reported May 29 and multiple outlets subsequently confirmed that two officials in President Donald Trump’s administration had demanded ICE start arresting 3,000 immigrants without legal authorization per day.
The San Francisco Rapid Response Network said Wednesday night that all of the at least 15 people arrested were marked for immediate deportation, including a 3-year-old. Sanika Mahajan of the organization and Mission Action told The Examiner they were residing in Contra Costa and San Mateo counties and had arrived in the U.S. from countries including Guatemala, Brazil and Vietnam.
They arrived at 630 Sansome St. for routine check-ins and to update their contact information as they appealed their immigration cases, Atkinson said.
“This has generally been the practice and policy, because it takes a lot of resources to detain people who are in the middle of their legal processes,” she said. “There’s generally not a safe or humane way to detain families while their cases are on appeal, or they’re trying to make plans to return voluntarily.”
Atkinson said those without children were taken in for “a custody redetermination” and moved to detention facilities in Arizona and Oregon. ICE has “not been responsive” about the locations of the families with children.
Atkinson and others became aware of the situation when the San Francisco Rapid Response Network, a hotline and immigration-attorney resource with affiliates throughout the Bay Area, was activated yesterday to send legal representation to those affected.
“Attorneys were dispatched in each of the cases to follow up and see if there is any legal recourse that can be taken,” Mahajan said.
Immigration advocates demonstrated outside 630 Sansome St. on Wednesday night following the arrests, she said, as they knew those arrested were being held there at least for most of that day.
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“We weren’t sure when they were being moved,” Mahajan said.
Supervisor Jackie Fielder, whose district includes a large undocumented population, shared a statement late Wednesday night that called for Mayor Daniel Lurie to increase funding in The City’s budget for immigrant legal services and support, “which the Mayor has not increased to address the growing need.”
“I encourage the Mayor and Budget Committee to increase funding for our immigrant communities to meet the moment and guarantee ALL San Franciscans their constitutional rights to due process,” she said. “We have the ability to stop the deportations, defend our families, and demand their release NOW!”
The Mayor’s Office did not respond to The Examiner’s request for comment as of press time.
Jen Kwart, with City Attorney David Chiu’s office, told The Examiner on Thursday that while San Francisco’s sanctuary-city policies prevent local law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration enforcement “except in very limited circumstances,” those policies do not preclude federal officers from operating in The City.
Kwart encouraged community members to stay informed and access services regardless of immigration status, as The City will not ask for people’s status nor deny resources because of it.
“Targeting immigrant San Franciscans impacts all of us,” she said. “When people don’t feel safe going to work or school, it harms all of us.”
Atkinson said Wednesday’s arrests and those on May 29 are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to scare people from attending their immigration hearings.
“These are people who should not be detained and who are in the process of applying for asylum,” she said.
Atkinson said that it has led to some in the community being too afraid to show up, abandoning their cases, and getting removal orders in absentia.
“We really do want to make sure that it’s clear … before people miss an immigration-court hearing out of fear, they really should reach out to their local Rapid Response Network,” Atkinson said. “We have volunteers who will go to court with them to make sure that they’re safe.”
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c Wednesday, June 25 | 6:30pm PDT SF LGBT Center, 1800 Market St Join the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (SFDCCC) for its June meeting at the SF LGBT Center—a space that reflects our city’s commitment to inclusion and equity. These meetings are where local Democratic leaders shape policy and... Continue reading →
SF Green Party Showing events after 3/27. Look for earlier events Wednesday, April 20 7:30pm SF Green Party Council Meeting WhenWed, April 20, 7:30pm – 9:00pm WhereEl CafeTazo, 3087 16th St, San Francisco, CA 94103 (map) Description: This elected group is the equivalent to other political parties Central Committee. The San Franciso... Continue reading →
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 AT 2 AM – 4 AM PDT How to create trust in a group? Details Event by Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circles online EMPATHY CAFE Duration: 2 hr Public · Anyone on or off Facebook How to create trust in a group? This is the question that arose in our... Continue reading →
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 AT 2 AM – 4 AM PDT How to create trust in a group? Details Event by Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circles online EMPATHY CAFE Duration: 2 hr Public · Anyone on or off Facebook How to create trust in a group? This is the question that arose in our... Continue reading →
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89325451708?pwd=ZZjqKd83bqoQbnYgOA18E4TyDlwdqo.1 Dome breached, missiles rule. Hard to stop rain of terror When you started it. No Kings, they proclaimed. As SCOTUS prepares to bow to Emperor D. Assassination. Manhunt in Minnesota. Fake cop, real bullets. The Guard’s still Trump-ized. Ninth Circuit stays sanity. Governor gutted. We’re all death destined. Sooner... Continue reading →
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 AT 2 AM – 4 AM PDT How to create trust in a group? Details Event by Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circles online EMPATHY CAFE Duration: 2 hr Public · Anyone on or off Facebook How to create trust in a group? This is the question that arose in our... Continue readingJun27Fri5:00 pm Trans March @ Dolores ParkTrans March @ Dolores ParkJun 27 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pmTrans March Friday, June 27, 5pm Dolores Park, more info here.Jun28Sat5:00 pm Dyke March @ Dolores ParkDyke March @ Dolores ParkJun 28 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pmDyke March Saturday, June 28, 5pm Dolores Park, more info here.Jul3Thu10:00 am Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circle @ Online via ZoomExtinction Rebellion Empathy Circle @ Online via ZoomJul 3 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm