By J.K. Dineen, Staff Writer Feb 23, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)

Gift Article

John Weil stands inside 263 Summer St. in Boston, an office building being transformed into housing. It’s part of Boston’s successful office to residential conversion program, which Weil runs.Simon Simard/For the S.F. Chronicle

San Francisco and Boston are coastal cousins: a pair of historic cities full of character and culture, narrow alleys and stately avenues, seafood and salty waterfronts, old money and new, left-leaning politics sprouting from roots in ever-evolving ethnic neighborhoods.

And by early 2023 both cities were grappling with the same questions: What would it take to create housing out of the office buildings that had emptied out since the pandemic? How to revive hollowed downtown neighborhoods by injecting thousands of residents while also reducing the glut of ghosted office space that had crushed property values?

Both cities responded by launching office-to-residential programs around the same time. Three years later they are in very different places. Boston’s conversion program is a wild success. San Francisco’s has yet to get off the ground.

Since Boston’s program launched in 2023 the city has received 22 applications to convert 1.25 million square feet of office space into 1,517 units. From the city’s Seaport and Back Bay to the South End and Financial District, developers are snapping up historic buildings — many of them brick-and-beam structures with wood floors and arched windows — and reinventing them as living spaces.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, despite extensive efforts — the city has cut fees, sliced red tape, relaxed zoning restrictions and eliminated both affordable housing requirements and transfer taxes — not one conversion project has started construction. One project announced in January of 2024, Forge Development Partners’ 124-unit conversion of the Humboldt Bank building at 785 Market St., stalled out due to lack of financing. The developer now hopes to start construction in 2027. Another, a conversion of the Warfield office building on Market Street, was foreclosed on by its lender before construction started and sold to a nonprofit.

So why is Boston’s conversion program generating so much housing while San Francisco is still waiting for applications to come in? There are a couple of obvious reasons.

One is that Boston’s strong mayoral system allowed Mayor Michelle Wu to move fast to offer financial incentives for conversions, without passing local or state legislation. In July of 2023, Wu announced that developers willing to convert downtown office buildings to housing would be eligible to receive a 75% property tax abatement over 29 years.

Adam Burns, who heads up Pinnacle Development, which last year completed Boston’s first conversion and has two others in the pipeline, said the tax abatement is helpful — but the finances have to make sense. 

“It doesn’t turn a bad deal into a good deal,” he said. “You still can’t pay someone $600 a foot for a vacant office building, but it can move the needle from something that is marginal to something that really does work.”

In contrast, what Wu did with the swoop of a pen has taken San Francisco more than a year of complicated political and legislative maneuvering.

Last week, Mayor Daniel Lurie signed a bill establishing a downtown financing district. Eligible projects in the district — it covers the Financial District, Union Square, parts of SoMa and the Market Street corridor from the Embarcadero to Civic Center — will receive annual incentive payments over 30 years to offset development costs of converting office buildings to residences. The payments are backed by the increases in future property tax revenue that will be generated once the struggling office buildings become apartments or condos.

While city planners estimate the payments will amount to about $100,000 per unit for a typical project, establishing the program was not easy. It required both the state Assembly and the board of supervisors to approve legislation. An independent board of directors was formed to oversee the district and sign off on qualified projects.

“The city is doing all the right things to get there, but boy did it take a long time,” Forge Development CEO Richard Hannum said after the vote. 

Lisa Follman, an architect with San Francisco’s Skidmore Owings & Merrill said she hopes the new financing district “will ignite a fire” under building owners who have considered converting but not done it.

“Boston did three years ago what San Francisco did last week,” Follman said. “It takes time for those financial incentives to play out.”

But, beyond the political advantages, Boston has another secret weapon: A senior level manager who is in charge of personally ushering every project through every step from pre-application to construction permitting.

That person, John Weil, is a former real estate developer who pounds the pavement looking for potential conversion candidates. Rather than submitting plans to all the relevant departments — public works, fire, building — developers only have to hand the application to Weil.  Once a project qualifies for the program, he takes over.

“We have one point of contact, it sounds silly and mundane but it’s actually very important,”  said Prataap Patrose, senior advisor to the chief of planning for Boston. “It’s truly one stop. John is that one person to call.”

Weil started in the summer of 2023 after a consultant had studied 380 buildings that would qualify for the program. He looked into how much debt there was on each property, what the ownership structure was, how much of it was leased and for how long. He sought out owners who might be interested in selling and developers who might be interested in buying.

“I try to come at this from a developer’s mentality. I spent my days walking the buildings, calling the owners, and saying, ‘What else do you own? ’” he said. “My card has my cell phone number on it. I expect it to ring seven days a week — and it does.”

Weil encouraged developers and building owners to come to the city early in the process. 

“Don’t wait until you have a fully baked concept to call me,” he said. “Call me literally when you have a street address and I will walk you through what I know about that building, whether I think it’s a good candidate for conversion.”

And there are so many good candidates. In Boston’s Seaport District, Burns is converting an old dry goods warehouse on 263 Summer St. with its famous “Boston Wharf Co. Industrial Real Estate” red neon rooftop sign. It will yield 77 apartments. 

Then there is the 11-story, 255-unit conversion project in the pipeline next to the South Meeting House on Washington St., where Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty hatched a plan to dump 342 chests of British East India Co. tea into Boston Harbor in 1773. Next to the Custom House Tower and a pocket park, 18 units are being built out at 150 Milk St.

“It’s definitely one of those ‘Paul Revere slept here’ buildings,” Weil said. “You come out on a snowy evening and squint and it feels like it’s 150 years ago.”

Burns said the buildings for conversions tend to be naturally affordable because they lack the yoga rooms and rooftop fire pits and gyms that add to the cost of modern residential high-rises. His first project, and the first to be completed under Boston’s program, leased up right away.

“It’s the sort of building where you look up at the beams and see the names of the guys who framed it or the ship that it came off of,” Burns said.

While San Francisco is far behind Boston’s conversions progress, local developers and architects say it’s not for lack of trying. The city has eliminated planning code requirements and streamlined permitting and approval processes. Former Mayor London Breed successfully passed Proposition C in 2024, which waived transfer tax fees for office-to-residential conversions once the building is converted to housing.

“I have been practicing in San Francisco for 20 years now and I have never seen as much movement as I have in the last 18 months,” Follman, the architect, said. “The planning code has been rewritten. The zoning has changed. One of the huge barriers (to conversions) is people don’t know how much the city has done.”

Still, San Francisco has unique challenges. Construction costs are the highest in the country and many conversions will require seismic upgrades — something Boston doesn’t have to worry about.

Jacob Bintliff, manager of economic recovery initiatives for the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said recently that interest in the city’s conversions program has grown as the financing district got closer to launching. 

“We have been fielding a couple of inquiries a week over the last few weeks. People are saying, ‘Let me see if I understand this right, I am interested. I am looking at buildings,’ he said. ‘We are encouraged by the level of interest and the level of detail that people are asking about.’

There are about 518 buildings within San Francisco’s new financing district, about 50 of which the city has identified as being good candidates for conversion. If they were all to be converted to housing it would produce about 4,400 units.

Once the math makes sense it can be an efficient way to produce housing with tons of character in the heart of the city, Burns said. While his Boston firm has mostly built new multifamily complexes, conversions are appealing because they provide “compression on the rate of return” — basically, new housing can be delivered faster so revenue starts rolling in sooner.

“If you already have a foundation, you already have a utility structure, you already have a facade, roof, windows — all that saves time,” he said. “The faster we can purchase something and bring it online the better our returns are.”

Feb 23, 2026

J.K. Dineen

Reporter

J.K. Dineen covers housing and real estate development. He joined The Chronicle in 2014 covering San Francisco land use politics for the City Hall team. He has since expanded his focus to explore housing and development issues throughout Northern California. He is the author of two books: “Here Tomorrow” (Heyday, 2013) and “High Spirits” (Heyday, 2015).

All nine counties of the Bay Area had robust streetcar systems at the start of the 20th century. In the East Bay, rumors swirl about how and why the Key System failed.

by Dan Brekke | KQED Feb. 23, 2026 (Berkeleyside.org)

At the turn of the 20th century, streetcars crisscrossed the Bay Area.

For many people, they were the primary way to get around town — and to San Francisco for work. People would walk out their doors in Berkeley, Alameda, Oakland, hop on a streetcar that would take them to a ferry and be in downtown San Francisco in about 40 minutes. Remnants of these lines can be seen in many Bay Area streetscapes.

But what happened to the streetcars?

The history and disappearance of the Key System, which once served East Bay residents, has captured the imagination of many transit aficionados. 

It’s a story that touches on a disputed piece of both East Bay and national transportation history, a conspiracy theory that involves some of the nation’s most powerful corporations and the role they played — or didn’t play — in the disappearance of streetcars in the East Bay. The story also encompasses a real-estate development scheme that shaped Berkeley and Oakland, the rise of suburban sprawl, and the dawn of the motor vehicle age.

Streetcars fundamentally shaped urban development

Streetcars were essential to the growth of cities in the Bay Area and across the United States in the final years of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th. Electric railroads — either streetcar networks connecting neighborhoods or interurban lines connecting towns and cities — served all nine Bay Area counties in the early 20th century.

The place where that electric streetcar legacy is most obvious is San Francisco, where several electric lines that operated in the 1920s — Muni’s J, K, L, M and N routes — are still essential parts of the city’s transportation system. Two other lines, the E and the F, feature tourist-oriented service using historic streetcars.

For the first four decades of the 20th century, the East Bay was served by two major electric streetcar systems: one run by Southern Pacific and a competitor known popularly as the Key System. Southern Pacific’s system, initially called the Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley Lines, ran transbay service using ferries that left from long causeways, or moles, in West Oakland and Alameda.

The Key System was a collection of East Bay streetcar and transbay lines built or purchased and consolidated by Francis Marion Smith, known as “Borax” Smith because of his success mining and marketing the all-purpose mineral in the deserts of Nevada and southeastern California. Starting in the 1890s, Smith created a network of lines that eventually stretched from Richmond to San Leandro.

But creating a transit system wasn’t Smith’s main objective. He and partner Frank Havens had purchased about 13,000 acres, more than 20 square miles, under the aegis of a separate enterprise known as The Realty Syndicate. The streetcar and transbay train system Smith created was designed to serve the new neighborhoods that would be developed on the syndicate’s properties.

Oakland historian Mitchell Schwarzer said the streetcar network fundamentally changed the shape of the city. In his 2021 study of Oakland’s development, “Hella Town,” he said that by 1912, property subdividers had created more than 50,000 new residential lots close to streetcar routes.

The effect on what had been a compact East Bay community focused on downtown was dramatic, with streetcar lines triggering a sprawl of new neighborhoods in every direction and the creation of commercial districts like Grand Lake, Rockridge, Piedmont Avenue and along stretches of San Pablo Avenue and East 14th Street, now International Boulevard.

The streetcar “affected everything — it affected where the residential areas developed, it affected where the commercial areas developed, it affected where industry moved pretty much,” Schwarzer said. Alongside the automobile, streetcars shaped the form Oakland took to this day, “both where things are located, how they’re distributed, how they’re built, what’s built, where they’re built,” Schwarzer said.

He adds that this early episode of sprawl also helped shape Oakland’s future demographic and class profile. The city’s vast residential expansion “allowed for the wealthier people to live on larger lots and to live separately and to erect barriers to minorities moving into their communities. Without the streetcar, they couldn’t have done that.”

Financial failures

Although the Key System and other streetcar operations were useful in driving real estate development and despite the fact that they carried more than 100 million passengers a year at their peak in the 1920s, they were, for the most part, failures as money-making enterprises.

The Key System was in deep financial trouble by 1913. According to the late transportation reporter and historian Harre W. Demoro, the Key’s early money troubles could be traced directly to Borax Smith’s risky and chaotic business practices. With the company deeply in debt, Smith was forced out in 1913. A series of crises ensued, with the company teetering on the edge of failure and being foreclosed on and reorganized in 1923 and 1930.

By this time, private automobiles had become a major presence in cities across the country, including those in the Bay Area. The growing popularity of car ownership is reflected in a steep decline in ridership for both the Southern Pacific and Key System after a peak recorded in the mid-1920s.

Drivers weren’t the only ones who were drawn to new motorized modes of transport. Starting before 1920, transit systems began to convert some of their train service to bus lines. By the mid-1920s, the Key System had joined in that trend, which accelerated through the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941.

Demoro found in a 1979 study of the Key System published in the National Railway Bulletin that by 1937, its buses accounted for more than half of the company’s business in terms of miles of service delivered. “From then on, the bus dominated” Key’s operation, Demoro wrote in his two-volume history of the transbay service.

The decline accelerated after the Bay Bridge opened to drivers in November 1936. The planned railroad service on the bridge wasn’t ready when the bridge opened, creating an opportunity for East Bay residents to enjoy the ease of car travel. When train service on the bridge’s lower deck finally began in January 1939, it did little to reverse the ridership slump.

And it’s right here that the conspiracy theory mentioned earlier becomes part of the Key System story. Because as the car was becoming king, companies related to the automobile industry bought up dozens of streetcar lines and replaced them with buses. That effort was intended, the story goes, to undermine mass transit to such an extent that riders would desert it in preference for automobiles.

A kernel of truth to the myth

General Motors, Standard Oil of California (now known as Chevron), Firestone Rubber and Phillips Petroleum really did invest in a company called National City Lines and a pair of subsidiaries that were in the business of buying mostly financially troubled streetcar systems and immediately converting them to bus systems. That happened in 46 cities across the country, including a few big ones, like Los Angeles, St. Louis, and yes, Oakland.

The government really did take National City Lines, GM, its partners and their executives to court. In 1949, a jury in Chicago really did convict them of one count of violating federal antitrust law by conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses, fuel, tires and other supplies to the transit systems that National City Lines and its subsidiaries had taken over. The companies were acquitted on a second count alleging they had conspired to block competitors from doing business with the National City companies. In other words, the defendants were found guilty of trying to control the purchase of supplies that newly “motorized” transit agencies would need, not of any broader conspiracy to wreck mass transit.

The penalties the judge imposed were trivial: $5,000 for each corporate defendant — about $68,000 in 2026 dollars — and $1 for each of the executives who had played a part in the conspiracy.

But the story is more complex than the National City Lines case, said Ethan Elkind, who directs the climate program at UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. “It’s really a story of technology change.”

The electric streetcar systems that started appearing everywhere in the 1890s were a big leap in speed and performance compared to the horse-drawn omnibuses and cable cars they replaced. But then the next big innovation in transportation arrived.

“In the early 20th century, the big, disruptive technology was the automobile, and people adopted it en masse very rapidly, and it made these streetcars for a vast majority of the population essentially obsolete,” Elkind said. Cars not only competed for riders, they also competed for space on the streets.

“When you throw the automobile into that, and everybody’s driving now, these streetcars are getting stuck in traffic,” Elkind said. “They’re not really enjoyable for people to ride. And people are frustrated by the poor service, high fares, and they wanted the freedom and mobility that automobiles, private automobiles, represented.”

The argument that GM’s National Cities gambit was chiefly responsible for the collapse of electric railways across the county has been widely criticized as little more than a myth, one that ignores other factors that made many streetcar systems vulnerable by the 1930s, including their often poor physical and financial condition and the fact that, as shown by the Key System, bus transportation was becoming steadily more popular and economical well before National City Lines appeared on the scene.

The Key System’s slow demise

After struggling through most of the 1930s, a surge in wartime ridership had made the company profitable and by 1945, it was sitting on a sizable surplus. Although it had struggled to upgrade its cars and tracks before the war, it had begun making plans to revamp service.

The company began to follow through on all of these initiatives, contracting for new streetcars and moving ahead with the purchase of trolley buses to run on College Avenue and on the Arlington Avenue-Euclid Avenue service in the Berkeley Hills.

Then suddenly, all that work stopped. In May 1946, Key System management sold the company to National City Lines for $3 million ($52 million in 2026 dollars). By the end of the year, the company’s new owners decided to scrap all the remaining streetcar lines and replace trains with motor buses. The only trains the Key System still operated were the half-dozen transbay lines operating across the Bay Bridge.

In 1955, the company applied to the state Public Utilities Commission to abandon transbay service. The last trains ran over the bridge to San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal in April 1958. The Key System, now an all-bus operation, was purchased by a new public transit agency — AC Transit — in 1960.

The evolution of the Bay Area’s transit system

Looking back on those events in 1979, Demoro speculated that without the National City Lines takeover, the East Bay’s transit system would likely have evolved into a hybrid featuring streetcars, trolley buses along with motor buses. Whether the transbay service would have survived was less clear, he said, because of the state’s interest in reconfiguring the bridge to accommodate more motor vehicles — a goal realized when the Key System tracks were removed.

But he also marveled that the region managed to build BART, an agency created in the 1950s as the Key System trains were in their twilight years and both California and the rest of the United States went all in on highway spending. “That accomplishment … seems astounding today, he wrote.

But in one sense, the Key System hasn’t gone away. When AC Transit took control of the Key’s bankrupt all-bus operation in 1960, it continued an East Bay transit legacy that stretched back nearly a century. AC Transit continues to be a vital transportation link for hundreds of thousands of East Bay residents, much the way the Key System was in its peak years. And for those who travel between the East Bay and San Francisco, BART now serves the riders the way the Key System’s trains and ferries once did, although maybe a lot less romantically.

It’s still possible to ride some of the few surviving Key System trains at Solano County’s Western Railway Museum, on Highway 12 between Fairfield and Rio Vista. Muni offers a daily vintage streetcar experience on its F trolley car line, running along Market Street between the Castro and Steuart Street downtown.

​​Berkeleyside is a media partner of KQED, a listener-supported public radio station serving Northern California. Berkeleyside occasionally republishes KQED stories we believe will be of interest to our readers.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California Feb 23, 2026 THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB This fireside chat will feature the various Democratic candidates running to be California’s next governor in conversation with Nancy Tung, who is currently serving as the chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, about the biggest issues facing the state of California. This conversation is taking place as delegates from throughout California arrive in San Francisco for the Democratic Party Convention weekend. Delegates will be evaluating the candidates and casting their votes on whom to endorse for governor as part of our special CADEM coverage of the state convention. Gubernatorial candidates will each have a 15-minute period to share their vision for the future of the Golden State one-on-one with Chair Nancy Tung. February 20, 2026 Speakers Xavier Becerra Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Former California Attorney General; Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Ian Calderon Former State Assemblymember (D-57th District); Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Matt Mahan Mayor of San Jose; Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Katie Porter Former U.S. Representative (D-California 47th District); Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Tom Steyer Entrepreneur; Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Eric Swalwell U.S. Representative (D-California 14th District); Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Tony Thurmond California Superintendent of Public Instruction; Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Antonio Villaraigosa Former Mayor of Los Angeles; Former Speaker, California State Assembly; Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Betty Yee Former California State Controller; Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor Moderator: Nancy Tung Chair, San Francisco Democratic Party Program Partner: San Francisco Democratic Party Speaker photos courtesy the speakers. Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.

Nobody wanted to buy the Port of San Francisco’s dilapidated, derelict drydocks. So it’s budgeting $61M to demolish them — lest they sink and triple the cost.

by JOE ESKENAZI February 23, 2026 (MissionLocal.org)

San Francisco’s weather, of late, has resembled the opening credits of “Gilligan’s Island.” Yes, it’s getting rough. 

It’s also getting expensive: After the storms of November, the 900-foot Drydock No. 2 at the Port of San Francisco’s Piers 68-70 experienced “significant hull tearing at the waterline and uncontrolled flooding in ballast compartments.” This left the massive vessel dangerously listing to the side like the U.S.S. Yorktown after the Battle of Midway. 

This city has had its fair share of experience with building-sized structures sinking and tilting. But it warrants mentioning that, at just 645 feet, Millennium Tower is dwarfed by Drydock No. 2. If things, quite literally, go sideways at the Port of San Francisco, it would be a catastrophe. Recovering a two-block-long structure from underwater would be costly — and the environmental consequences would be dire. 

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The port declared an emergency in December. February’s ten thousand thundering typhoons have been more than a trifle anxiety-inducing. 

A floating drydock is a large U-shaped vessel resembling a shoebox that is designed to be partially sunk and then raised with a ship within it. It is then drained, and repairs can be done to the ship. 

Drydock No. 2, which was built in 1970, once had the capacity to hoist a ship as large as 54,800 tons. The adjacent drydock Eureka, which was built in 1945, is 528 feet long and could lift up to 17,500 tons. As it has no bow or stern — and therefore no port nor starboard — Port of San Francisco officials simply say Drydock No. 2 is listing “to the east.”

In response, this month the port fast-tracked $18.5 million to keep the drydock above water. Contractors have been hired and there is now 24/7 video surveillance of the faltering Drydock No. 2; automated pumps kick into gear when its 40 hulking ballast tanks begin taking water. 

There is steel reinforcement being undertaken on metal that was once perhaps an inch thick. Mission Local is told the hull is now paper-thin in places. Photographs shared by the port reveal that, like the Dude’s car, the primary hue of the drydocks appears to be “brown rust coloration.” 

Maritime staff at the port admit that the present weather is scary. They are candid that the drydocks’ alarming condition has necessitated an “all hands on deck operation.” 

And that costs money: That emergency appropriation of $18.5 million from the port’s revenue is a mere down payment on an estimated $61.2 million to dispose of the aging drydocks. 

Think of it as palliative care for elderly infrastructure: The steep upfront costs are merely a bridge payment to ensure the drydocks last long enough to be demolished later — in an orderly fashion rather than simply falling apart. If the drydocks were to sink, the port estimates the price tag could triple or even quadruple. It would also unleash an environmental disaster. 

If the docks sink to the bottom of the bay, this will necessitate an expensive reclamation and release fuel into the water. And perhaps other toxins as well: While the port says it has found no indications of harmful material within the docks’ ballast tanks, shipyards are notoriously dirty sites. The sediment within those tanks would comprise the dregs from nearly 50 years of sucking in and pushing out the local waters.   

The port is an “enterprise agency,” which generates its own revenue. So this is not city money, per se. But it’s still not fun to have to spend scores of millions of dollars to demolish assets that nobody wanted to lease or buy and have now become a liability. Yet there was little the city or its port could do to stave off this day. 

This eventuality was inviolable the moment that the Hawaiian Merchant, the first containerized ship to visit San Francisco Bay, sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge in 1958. The monumental drydocks that helped fuel and maintain San Francisco’s status as a maritime powerhouse, now corroding in disuse and on the verge of slipping beneath the waves, serve as massive metaphors for the end of a San Francisco era. 

https://videopress.com/embed/PnpiiNjB?cover=1&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=1&hd=0The drydocks at Piers 68-70 today. Video by Vicent Woo.

“San Francisco has changed,” says Gavin Elster in the film “Vertigo.” “The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast.”

Of note, “Vertigo” also came out in 1958. Little did its scriptwriters know it, but the city was sitting atop the precipice of a roller coaster and getting ready for some real change. And nowhere changed more than the city’s waterfront. To start: A study from the mid-1960s estimated that close to 12 percent of all the city’s jobs — that’s around one job out of every seven or eight — “is supported by the activity directly and indirectly associated with the port.”

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Like crime stats in the 1970s or real-estate prices in the 1940s, this is a figure that is difficult for present-day San Franciscans to grasp. 

What happened? A lot, but, in a word, containerization. It doomed this city’s port. The boats were too damn big. They required too much damn land. Heavy federal subsidies helped the Port of Oakland — which is sprawling and can accommodate giant ships — quickly catch and pass San Francisco in the 1970s. 

The loss of thousands of jobs on the docks, in warehouses and in transportation triggered a blue-collar diaspora from San Francisco. Black people made up 13 percent of San Franciscans in 1970; that number was 5.6 percent in 2020. The stevedores, warehousemen and drivers were replaced by white-collar workers, contributing to an explosion in the price of residential real estate. The city has replicated this cycle ever since, substituting wealthier and wealthier white-collar workers. 

The Port of San Francisco is now — and long has been — a real-estate holding company. The rusting, listing drydocks jutting out of the water are holdovers from a different time.  

It’s amazing, in retrospect, that a working shipyard was operating at Piers 68-70 and employing hundreds of workers until a decade ago. 

BAE Systems — the British aerospace, munitions, information security and Muni hybrid engine behemoth — abandoned the site in 2016, unloading it for a dollar (and a $38 million pension liability) to a smaller operator called Puglia Engineering. 

Puglia sued BAE in 2017, alleging fraud — in large part based upon the ragged condition of the drydocks, which it claimed was concealed. That case dragged on for years and ultimately resulted in a settlement. Puglia declared bankruptcy and the port received a roughly $5 million settlement from BAE to maintain the shipyard, which has been deserted since 2017. As recently as 2022, port workers say that you could wander through and see jackets and helmets eerily hung up on pegs, as if it was a Friday before a Monday. 

The port did not receive any takers to run the shipyard, and potential deals to sell the drydocks fell through. A Turkish outfit had thoughts of scooping them up, “but their inspectors came to assess the material condition,” says Dominic Moreno, the port’s assistant maritime director. “They deemed it non-viable.” 

For the vast majority of San Franciscans, the idle drydocks are out of sight, out of mind. The last time they were in the news may have been when the 650-foot Drydock No. 1 came unmoored in a storm in 2002 and took itself on a trip to Treasure Island (it was later scrapped and replaced by Eureka). People will notice, though, if the cranes atop Drydock No. 2 collapse, which the port warns could well happen if the 900-foot vessel leans further to the side. 

If you’re wondering why the drydocks can’t simply be floated to the Farallons to be scuttled amid the veritable “graveyard of ships,” including some packed with radioactive waste, Moreno notes that “we don’t sink ships in the ocean anymore.” Also: it would be a challenge to tow the drydocks that far without a significant risk of first sinking in a navigation channel. Even if we did do that anymore.

Despite their status as an environmental and financial sword of Damocles hanging over the port, Moreno describes the pending loss of the drydocks as “bittersweet.” Right up until the shipyard’s closure in 2017, the place hosted hundreds of union jobs. Moreno’s own uncle used to work around here. 

But things change, and the decline and fall of the port as the economic engine of San Francisco was nothing short of transformational. It was, perhaps, the most significant factor in the metamorphosis of the city from what it was to what it is — and what it will be. 

The drydocks’ journey from asset to menace is a coup de grâce for the working-class city that was already underway when the Hawaiian Merchant sailed into the Bay and “Vertigo” sailed into theaters. And it’s a continued inversion of San Francisco: The city once served the economic needs of its all-important waterfront. But, now, the waterfront’s economic role is circumscribed — and it serves the needs of its city. 

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JOE ESKENAZIMANAGING EDITOR/COLUMNIST

getbackjoejoe@gmail.com

Joe is a columnist and the managing editor of Mission Local. He was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.

“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.

He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.

The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi

• By Patrick Hoge | Examiner staff writer
• Feb 20, 2026 (SFExaminer.com)

This weekend is a big one for state Democrats, several thousand of whom will converge on Moscone Center in San Francisco to try to decide who to endorse for races for governor down to the Board of Equalization.

The 3,500 delegates and others will be treated to speechifying from party leaders and elected officials, discussions of causes and policy, hospitality suites for schmoozing and workshops and training, including panels on organizing in the “Age of AI” and “Virtual Volunteer Engagement.” 

Events around town include a walk at Sunset Dunes Park on Friday afternoon, a California Young Democrats reception at the Hibernia SF on Friday night, a Saturday LGBTQ happy hour at The Alchemist, and a large Saturday night dinner at a local hotel honoring U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is not seeking reelection.

Kicking the weekend off, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee Friday afternoon will host what is billed as a series of fireside chats with all nine major Democratic candidates for governor at the Commonwealth Club on The Embarcadero. About 400 people are expected to attend the event, for which in-person tickets are sold-out. The event will also be streamed online (enter SFDCCC for free admission).

“Where can you see all nine candidates and be able to draw the comparisons right away between all of them, except for this one special occasion?” said Nancy Tung, chair of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee. “So it should be really exciting.”

The likelihood of any of the candidates for the state’s top office walking away with a party endorsement is widely considered to be slight, given the number of people in the race and the requirement for getting 60% of delegate votes.

“What makes it really exciting this year is that we have such an open field of gubernatorial candidates,” Tung said.

“With a field as big and diverse as what we have with these nine candidates, it’s unlikely for anyone to really walk away with endorsement,” but the convention is an opportunity to gain momentum for their campaigns, she said.

In contrast, state Sen. Scott Wiener is a virtual lock to win the California party’s endorsement to succeed Pelosi as the representative for congressional District 11, which covers most of San Francisco.

Wiener got 77.5% of online preconference delegate votes in January, or 117 votes. San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan had 19.9%, or 30 votes, while no votes went to Saikat Chakrabarti, a thus-far largely self-funded former Stripe engineer who was a top staffer to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Wiener said in a statement that the pre-conference votes he received reflected “strong support from grassroots Democratic Party activists” in San Francisco.

David Campos, vice chair of the state Democratic party and a former San Francisco supervisor, has not taken a position in the District 11 congressional race, but he said he’s hoping to mobilize support for candidates in “10 or so” other congressional districts in the state with an eye to flipping control of the House of Representatives.

“That’s the only way that we can check the power, the unlimited power that [President Donald] Trump has,” said Campos, who characterized the convention as an important galvanizing event for marshaling unity and party energy to win at the ballot box.

Campos identified priority issues as affordability and defending “constitutional protections” from a “corrupt” president who “is out of control.”

“I think that what happens this weekend in California will be critical to whether Democrats will be successful at the national level in November,” Campos said.

Candidates not on the convention’s endorsement consent list like Wiener must try to win enough support before the final vote Saturday night by working the crowd at Moscone Center, where exhibitors will include candidates and a wide variety of interest groups, including unions, environmentalists, pro-housing development advocates and others.

While the convention’s central focus will be the Saturday night voting for candidate endorsements, San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said it was fortuitous for other reasons that the event should be held in The City. 

Mahmood said that with crime down and a new mayor and Board of Supervisors majority getting results, such as the recently passed Family Zoning Plan, which aims to accommodate more housing development, The City is “showing how a Democratic city can function.” 

“We are showing every day now in San Francisco that our progressive values are not in conflict with good governance,” Mahmood said.

Among the hospitality suites at Moscone, billionaire environmentalist and gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer, who is promising to make life in the state more affordable, will host a “California You Can Afford” lounge with “food, quick games, conversation and a chance to share ideas and be a part of making change happen,” according to the convention agenda.

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West will have a hospitality suite of its own to promote its proposal for a ballot initiative to impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires in California. The union is currently collecting signatures to qualify a measure for the November ballot.

Renée Saldaña, a union spokesperson, said SEIU-UHW expects to host nearly 50 delegates and others with food and drink and a message about “how California voters can have the chance to make billionaires pay their fair share to help prevent a health care collapse.” The union will also have a booth. 

Quick on the heels of the state Democratic Party’s endorsement convention, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee will meet Wednesday and possibly consider whom to endorse in the upcoming June primary election in several races for local office as well as what positions to take on two ballot measures.

The races the committee may take action on include those for supervisor for District 2 and District 4, a seat on the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education and a superior court judge seat.

Ballot measures include a $535 million bond measure for earthquake safety and emergency response and a charter amendment that would change the current limit of two consecutive terms for mayor and supervisors to a lifetime limit of two terms, whether or not successive.

In March, the local party committee is expected to consider two more competing local tax measures likely headed for the June ballot. One is a union-backed initiative that would increase The City’s Overpaid Executive Tax, which levies charges on large companies at which the highest-paid manager makes more than 100 times the median of what employees are paid in San Francisco.

The other, a competing measure backed by business groups, would exempt most businesses that have up to $7.5 million in San Francisco gross receipts from The City’s gross-receipts tax and Overpaid Executive Tax. It would also accelerate an increase in the Overpaid Executive Tax rate that is scheduled for the 2028 tax year so that it would apply in the 2027 tax year.

By Roland Li, Staff Writer Feb 21, 2026

Gift Article

Dressed as invertebrates, protesters from the artist-activist group No Joke urge governor candidates Saturday to “grow a spine” during the 2026 California Democratic Party Convention at Moscone Center.Erik Castro/For the S.F. Chronicle

Around 100 protesters marched outside the California Democratic Convention in San Francisco on Saturday, urging politicians to stand up to the Trump administration to protect health care, transgender rights and other causes.

The march was one of two protests Saturday targeting California’s Democrats, who are meeting at Moscone Center through Sunday in an effort to advance the party’s goals, showcase candidates for upcoming elections, and strategize challenges to President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

“When trans kids are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back,” attendees chanted, waving rainbow and trans flags.

They held signs reading “Your Laws Kill” and “Patients Before Politics.”

Protesters target California Democratic Convention in S.F.: ‘Grow a spine’

Protesters target the California Democratic Convention a Moscone Center in San Francisco.Erik Castro/For the S.F. Chronicle

The afternoon march was organized by progressive group Indivisible SF and LGBTQ nonprofit Rainbow Families. It wound its way through Yerba Buena Gardens, the pedestrian bridge next to Moscone Center and up Fourth Street.

Activist and Stud bar co-owner Honey Mahogany spoke at the event, calling on protesters to continue speaking out and uniting with other disenfranchised groups, including Black people.

“We thought this fight was over. We thought we had already done this, and yet the fight continues,” Mahogany said.

The march comes amid a crowded race to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Trump administration’s efforts to block gender-affirming care nationwide.

Marching protesters target California Democratic Convention in S.F.

Protesters target the California Democratic Convention a Moscone Center in San Francisco.Erik Castro/For the S.F. Chronicle

Separately, the No Joke arts collective sent around a dozen members to the event dressed up as various spineless invertebrates, including a slug and insects. 

The effort was meant to “urge gubernatorial candidates to grow a spine and stand up for the rights of immigrant, trans, and working class Californians,” according to the group.

“Our next governor needs a spine,” one sign read.

Feb 21, 2026

Roland Li

Business Reporter

Roland Li covers commercial real estate for the business desk, focusing on the Bay Area office and retail sectors.

He was previously a reporter at San Francisco Business Times, where he won one award from the California News Publishers Association and three from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

He is the author of “Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports,” a 2016 book on the history of the competitive video game industry. Before moving to the Bay Area in 2015, he studied and worked in New York. He freelanced for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other local publications. His hobbies include swimming and urban photography.

From administration officials and key donors to the president and perhaps first lady, the millions of documents released by the DOJ make clear why the White House fought so hard to keep them hidden.

Team Zeteo Feb 22∙Preview

Photographs provided by the US Department of Justice on Jan. 30, 2026, as part of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Photo by Martin BUREAU / AFP via Getty Images

“It’s really a Democrat problem.”

That was Donald Trump, commenting on the Epstein files a few weeks ago, denying any GOP or MAGA ties to the dead child sex offender.

Of course, he was lying as usual. Republicans – including the president – are not just mentioned in the documents and emails released so far by the Department of Justice, their names are all over them.

Upgrade to paid

Here are 11 people, tied to the president and starting with the president, whose names appear in the DOJ’s Epstein library. There is no hard evidence of criminality on their part, but some on this list are accused of shocking behavior, while others have lied about their ties to the late pedophile.

1. Donald Trump

Epstein and Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 22, 1997. Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images

Never one to be outdone, the president leads the pack in file mentions. Having access to the unredacted Epstein files, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that his search yielded “more than a million” references to Trump. According to the New York Times, more than 5,300 of the redacted files contain over 38,000 references to Trump, his wife, his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and other related phrases, making it quite the close and intimate relationship between Trump and Epstein.

More troubling, the president’s name appears in an FBI tip sheet several times in abuse allegations. This tip sheet contains multiple instances of alleged sexual abuse by Mr. Trump.

2. Howard Lutnick

Howard Lutnick testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on Feb. 10, 2026. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Last fall, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told the New York Post that in 2005, when he lived next door to Epstein’s townhouse, he and his wife decided they would “never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again” after Epstein showed them his “massage room.”

But Lutnick, who suggested in the same interview that Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” was clearly not disgusted enough by what he saw to write the sex offender off.

The latest Epstein files show Lutnick and Epstein were in business together as recently as 2014. Their relationship wasn’t limited to business though, as Lutnick and his family, including his kids(!), visited Epstein’s island in 2012…

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• Holly Otterbein

February 22, 2026 (axios.com)

Top Democratic officials who worked on the party’s still-secret autopsy of the 2024 election concluded that Kamala Harris lost significant support because of the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The Democratic National Committee’s research on what went wrong in 2024 has been under lock and key since party leaders decided last year to hide it from the public — a reflection of how explosively it could resonate within the party and beyond.

• Progressive and moderate Democrats are particularly divided over Israel, with the left more critical of that nation’s actions against Palestinians in Gaza and many questioning the U.S.’s unwavering support for Israel.

Zoom in: During her brief campaign Harris sought to strike a balance, showing strong support for Israel while calling for a ceasefire and expressing sympathy for Palestinians under attack in Gaza as well as the hostages being held by Hamas.

Driving the news: DNC aides putting together the report on Harris’ loss to Donald Trump had a closed-door conversation with a pro-Palestinian group about the Israel-Gaza conflict.

• Activists from the IMEU Policy Project told the DNC that the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel was a factor in the party’s losses because it drained support from some young people and progressives.
• Hamid Bendaas, a spokesperson for the IMEU Policy Project, said that during the meeting “the DNC shared with us that their own data also found that policy was, in their words, a ‘net-negative’ in the 2024 election.” Two other senior aides at the pro-Palestinian organization also said the DNC had drawn that conclusion.
• Axios independently verified that Democratic officials conducting the autopsy believed the issue harmed the party’s standing with some voters.

The intrigue: The IMEU Policy Project is now accusing the DNC of withholding its report in part because of its findings on Israel.

• DNC spokesperson Kendall Witmer denied that.
• When DNC officials announced last year that they wouldn’t release the audit, they said it was because they didn’t want the report to distract from the work of winning elections.

What they’re saying: The DNC confirmed that it spoke with the IMEU Policy Project and hundreds of others as part of its analysis and said it was grateful for the conversation but didn’t provide additional details about it.

• Bendaas said the DNC should share its findings on Israel widely throughout the party ahead of the “critical” midterms.
• DNC officials have said they’re integrating their research from the audit into discussions with candidates and campaigns.

Asked for comment, a Harris aide pointed to the former vice president’s recent comments about the war in Gaza on a tour stop for her memoir, “107 Days.”

• “We should have done more as an administration,” Harris said at the event, adding “we should have spoken publicly about our criticism” of how Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu executed the war.

Flashback: Harris said in her book that President Biden’s unpopularity, which she argued was partly because of “his perceived blank check” to Netanyahu, harmed her in 2024.

• Harris wrote that she privately “pleaded” with Biden to show more empathy for civilians in Gaza. But during her campaign, she declined to publicly break with him over Israel.

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President Donald Trump said he would send a US military “hospital boat” to Greenland in a social media post on February 21, 2026. 

(Illustration from President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

“It will be a no thanks from here,” said the Greenlandic prime minister. “We have a public health service where treatment is free for citizens… It is not like that in the USA, where it costs money to go to the doctor.”

Jessica Corbett

Feb 22, 2026 (CommonDream.org)

Shortly after the Danish military evacuated a crew member of a US submarine off the Greenlandic coast for urgent medical care on Saturday, President Donald Trump pledged to send a “hospital boat” to the self-governing Danish territory—but officials from Greenland and Denmark declared it unnecessary, given the island’s publicly funded universal healthcare system.

“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there. It’s on the way!!!” said Trump, who in December named the Republican governor as his envoy to Greenland while threatening to take over the island.

RECOMMENDED…

Experts Warn of ‘Disastrous’ Climate Impacts If Trump Seizes Control of Greenland

US Military Helping Trump to Build Massive Network of ‘Concentration Camps,’ Navy Contract Reveals

Trump has called the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency a “con,” but global warming is opening up potential shipping routes and access to natural resources in and around Greenland. He has claimed that if he doesn’t seize the island, China or Russia will do so—though last month he announced a “framework of a future deal” for security, temporarily easing fears of a US invasion.

In his Truth Social post late Saturday, Trump shared an illustration of a Navy hospital ship, the USNS Mercy.

“As of late January, the 1,000-bed hospital ship was firmly in drydock at Alabama Shipyard in Mobile, where it has been undergoing scheduled maintenance since July 2025,” according to the maritime industry news website gCaptain. “The USNS Mercy, commissioned in 1986, departed San Diego last July for a one-year scheduled maintenance period at Alabama Shipyard under an $18.7 million firm-fixed-price contract for a 153-calendar day mid-term availability, including drydocking.”

Responding to the US leader on social media Sunday, Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said: “It will be a no thanks from here. President Trump’s idea of sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted. But we have a public health service where treatment is free for citizens. It is a conscious choice. And a fundamental part of our society.”

“It is not like that in the USA, where it costs money to go to the doctor,” he added. “We are always open to dialogue and cooperation. Also with the USA. But now talk to us instead of just making more or less random outbursts on social media. Dialogue and cooperation require respect for decisions about our country being made here at home.”

X post: https://x.com/DarrigoMelanie/status/2025394261437386851?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2025394261437386851%7Ctwgr%5E7a6bebaf366794efe86b409b9814d1cb6938d475%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fgreenland-healthcare

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen somewhat indirectly pushed back against Trump with a social media post, saying that she is “happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all. Where it’s not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment. You have the same approach in Greenland. Happy Sunday to you all.”

Denmark’s defense minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, similarly told Danish broadcaster DR: “The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs. They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialized treatment, they receive it in Denmark.”

“It’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland,” he added.

The Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers website states that in “a number of services are provided, which are free at point of use to everyone with permanent residence in Greenland. If a doctor has prescribed treatment, and the service is not available nearby, you have the right to have the transport covered to the nearest hospital.”

The site also notes that island’s health service is “challenged by a shortage of staff, particularly in the most sparsely populated areas.”

Aaja Chemnitz, one of the two Greenlandic politicians in the Danish Parliament, said on social media: “Another day. Another crazy news story. Donald Trump wants to send a poorly maintained hospital ship to Greenland. It seems rather desperate and does not contribute to the permanent and sustainable strengthening of the healthcare system that we need.”

“Since the last election, where I campaigned for closer healthcare cooperation… we have succeeded in allocating DKK 35 million annually, and this year an additional DKK 185 million, for treatment of Greenlanders in Denmark,” she continued. Those figures in US dollars are roughly $5.5 million and $29 million, respectively.

Chemnitz added:

I believe there is one thing we are missing in our understanding of health and welfare in Greenland. We should have equal access to doctors, cancer treatment pathways, and healthcare assistance like those available in Denmark. Our healthcare system is deeply challenged—more so than what is seen in Denmark.

And this is best solved together with Denmark, as one of the richest and most highly educated countries, for example in the healthcare sector. Not the United States, which has its own problems with healthcare.

This requires closer and more committed efforts from Denmark in the field of healthcare in Greenland.

More doctors from the Danish regions taking a turn in Greenland. Faster access to treatment in Denmark. And a crystal-clear prioritization of children and young people, cancer and heart diseases, and a significant improvement in psychiatry.

Is Denmark ready for that?

The United States has often ranked dead last among peer nations on metrics such as access to care and health outcomes, fueling Americans’ demands for a transition from the current for-profit healthcare system to one that is publicly funded and universal.

Massive cuts to the social safety net in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by Trump last July and federal Republicans’ failure to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that helped tens of millions of people afford health insurance premiums—before they expired at the end of December—have further fueled calls for Medicare for All.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jessica Corbett

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

By Adrienne Fong

Not back posting on a regular basis.

RESOURCES:

 UPDATES WITH BAY RESISTANCE and get plugged to actions you can support, text “Resist” to 888-850-0928

GI HOTLINE (877) 477-4497

  – Share this number to people who know active duty service members

There are events listed on Indybay that might be of interest to you(many listings in the South, North & East Bays and beyond the bay area)

Please post your actions on Indybay: https://www.indybay.org/calendar/?page_id=12

See list of Calendar of Events on Palestine from AROC: https://www.araborganizing.org/events/ 

   If your post is about Palestine you can also list your action on the AROC calendar

Bay Area Progressive Action Calendar: ATW Bay Area / NorCal — Action Together West

ARTICLES

A. Native American scholar Nick Estes exposes the truth about Kristi Noem – February 21, 2026 Turn on your sound

https://www.instagram.com/p/DU_En_TjODY/

B. THE SUICIDAL FOLLY OF A WAR WITH IRAN February 21, 2026

The Suicidal Folly Of A War With Iran – PopularResistance.Org   

  See Petition # 1

C. Shutdown stalemate deepens as White House, Dems dig in on DHS funding – February 20, 2026

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/20/shutdown-stalemate-deepens-as-white-house-dems-dig-in-on-dhs-funding-00789614

  See Action Alert #` 2Ac 1

D. ‘Totally Illegal,’ Says Senate Dem as Trump Pledges $10 Billion in US Funds for His Board of Peace – February 19, 2026

‘Totally Illegal,’ Says Senate Dem as Trump Pledges $10 Billion in US Funds for His Board of Peace | Common Dreams  

  See Petition # 2

E. Trump officials plan to build 5,000-person military base in Gaza, files show – February 19, 2026

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/19/trump-gaza-military-plan

F.  “Reforms” Didn’t End Police Violence in 2020 and They Won’t End ICE Violence Now – February 19, 2026

“Reforms” Didn’t End Police Violence in 2020 and They Won’t End ICE Violence Now | Truthout

G. The Anti-Imperialist Imperative: Confronting Globalized Fascism – February 18, 2026

The Anti-Imperialist Imperative: Confronting Globalized Fascism | Black Agenda Report

5 PETITIONS

1. Tell Congress: Prevent Trump From Taking Unilatral Military Action Against Iran

  SIGN: Tell Congress: Prevent Trump From Taking Unilateral Military Action Against Iran

2, Tell Congress to Block Trump’s $10 Billion Taxpayer Scam to Fund the So-Called “Board of Peace”

  SIGN: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/stop-trump-from-using-taxpayer-money-for-his-scams/?link_id=2&can_id=962c4404b45a61a436564263a38e5b34&source=email-no-oversight-10-billion-full-control&email_referrer=email_3109379&email_subject=no-oversight-10-billion-full-control&&

3, Block ICE’s Warehouse Prison Expansion

  SIGN: Block ICE’s warehouse prison expansion | Demand Progress

4.  Demand ICE release ALL the children from its concentration camps ASAP!

  SIGN: actl.ink – Demand ICE release ALL the children from its concentration camps ASAP!

5. Tell Congress to Investigate the IRS’s Disclosure of Immigrant Tax Data to DHS

  SIGN: Tell Congress to Investigate the IRS’s Disclosure of Immigrant Tax Data to DHS

1. ALERT DHS FUNDING (Briefly)

February 2^nd  the Senate voted to block DHS Funding.

The Senate failed to invoke cloture (52-47 vote) on the Motion to Proceed to H.R. 7147, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026, missing the 60-vote threshold.

The U.S. Senate won’t be back in session till Monday, Feb. 23. No vote on DHS funding due to snow storm.

possible vote on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 5:00pm ET, I don’t have time to put anything else out today on this. Please make calls to your senators

CALL your Senators to say NO FUNDING FOR DHS – ICE & CHP

The money would expand detention and raids instead of investing in what our communities actually need: jobs, schools, housing, and healthcare.

Capitol Senate Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 

Senator Alex Padilla

  (415) 981-9369 – SF

  (202) 224-3553 – DC

Senator Adam Schiff

  (415) 393-0707 – SF

  (202) 224-3841 – DC

2. Action Alert:  To Prevent Mumia From Going Blind 

As of February 2026, Mumia has yet to receive eye treatment for diabetic retinopathy and aggressive glaucoma. Although his vision has been restored to some degree with the secondary cataracts removed, the serious eye diseases which could rob Mumia of the sight he has, have not been addressed. We need the Pennsylvania Dept of Corrections (PA DOC) and Wellpath to obtain ophthalmologists to treat the diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma.

We ask the public to resume calls, emails, and letters to SCI Mahanoy (the prison) and the Secretary of the PA DOC this week.

Operation hours are Monday thru Friday 9:00am to 4:00pm Eastern Standard Time

SCI Mahanoy Superintendent (Bernadette Mason): 570-773-2158

PA Department of Corrections Secretary (Dr. Laurel Harry): 717-728-4109 or 717-728-2573    

PA DOC Secretary email (Dr. Laurel Harry): ra-crpadocsecretary@pa.gov

Bernadette Mason, SCI Mahanoy, 301 Grey Line Drive, Frackville PA 17931

Basic Script: 

“Hello, my name is ————- and I’m calling to request that Mumia Abu-Jamal, number AM 8335, be seen and treated by specialists who treat diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, serious eye diseases that can cause permanent blindness. He also needs to be examined for new glasses. 

Due to his congestive heart disease, Mumia must have a heart healthy diet, filtered water and regular exercise, indoors and out. “

EVENTS / ACTIONS

Monday, February 23 – Thursday, February 26

Monday, February 23

1, Monday, 12:30pm – 1:30pm,

Tesla Dealership, SF (outside)
999 Van Ness Ave. (& O’Farrell)
SF

No Monarch’s Monday (the butterflies are ok)

Join us to stand up for democracy, civil liberties, and the planet, and against the fascist/authoritarian Trump Regime!
ABOLISH ICE!
Bring a sign if you have one.

This is a peaceful protest.

Info: No Monarch’s Monday: Weekly Protest at Tesla in San Francisco : Indybay

Wednesday, February 25

2. Wednesday, 10:30am – 12:30pm, Memorial demonstration for US Airman Aaron Bushnell!

Israeli Consulate
456 Montgomery St. (between Sacramento & Calif. Sts)
SF

To honor US Airman Aaron Bushnell on the 2nd Anniversary of his self-immolation and death in protest of US complicity in genocide,

Please bring drums, whistles, pots & pans, and other noisemaking objects, as well as kefiyehs, Palestinian flags, signs & banners.

The Israeli consulate is NOT welcome in the Bay Area.  

Please join us this coming WEDNESDAY!

US & Israel Out of Palestine!  No US military bases in Palestine!” 

Hosts: Noisemakers Against Genocide (NAG)* will collaborate with Veterans for Peace (VFP), SF and Monteray chapters for this special event. 

*Noisemakers Agaiinst Genocide, an autonomous group of pro-Palestine activists, along with the Revolutionary Love Brigade street chalk artists, have been holding weekly vigils at the israeli consulate for many months to oppose the ongoing US-Israeli led genocide in Gaza.    Justin Loza, President of the Monterey Chapter of Veterans For Peace, will do a public reading of Aaron Bushnell’s last words. 

Check Indybay for future posting of event.

3. Wednesday, 11:00am – 12:30pm, Day of Remembrance Interfaith Vigil 2026

ICE Field Office
630 Sansome
SF

We invite you to join us for a public vigil of prayer, song, and testimony as we remember the incarceration of Japanese Americans 80+ years ago and stand in solidarity with immigrants and asylum seekers facing violence and persecution today. We lift our prayers for protection, justice, and community for all.

MAY WE STOP REPEATING HISTORY!

MAY WE CLOSE ICE DETENTION SITES!

MAY ALL FAMILIES BE FREE!

Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUuQVw2kTc7/?img_index=1

4. Wednesday, 12:00Noon – 1:00pm, $ave SF’s Climate Action Plan! Rally at City Hall to Demand

No Cuts to SF’s Env. Dept 

SF City Hall
1 Dr. Carleton B. Goodlett Pl
SF 

The situation is urgent. The mayor is proposing such drastic cuts to SF Environment Department’s budget that:

• Critical climate work to reduce emissions will stop.
• Staff with years of climate-action expertise will lose their jobs.
• Millions in future grants are at risk.

Since 2022-23, SF Environment Dept. (SFE) has brought in $29 for every $1 invested. Spending on SFE is leverage, not overhead.

People expect San Francisco to lead – but in the climate crisis we are going backwards. San Franciscans need to know what’s really happening.

The buck stops with Mayor Lurie. Remind him!

WHO WE ARE: SF Climate Emergency Org.
We are a coalition of individuals who belong to various environmental groups across the city, all sharing the same ultimate goal: saving our planet and our community from catastrophic climate change. 

View Indybay post to see list of people participating from a variety of groups

Info: $ave SF’s Climate Action Plan! Rally at City Hall to Demand No Cuts to SF’s Env. Dept. : Indybay

5. Wednesday, 2:00pm – 3:00pm, People Power Anniversasry

SF Philippine Consulate
477 Sutter St. (nr. Powell St.)
SF

Join Filipinos across the Bay Area in commemorating People Power and the ousting of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. When the filipino people come together, they become an unstoppable force!

Let us honor this history and recognize the need to continue the struggle for genuine democracy in the Philippines— holding corrupt bureaucrat-capitalists in power accountable for their crimes against the people— and to carry forward the fight for genuine democracy and national liberation!

Host: BAYAN, Malaya Movement

Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/DU_aXTekgp3/ 

6. Wednesday, 2:30pm (PT); 5:30pm (ET), While Iran Boils, Trump’s “Peace Plan” Threatens Palestinian Existence

Register online: While Iran Boils, Trump’s “Peace Plan” Threatens Palestinian Existence

US imperial intervention has denied Iranians and Palestinians self-determination for 75 years.

Coupled with President Trump’s threats against Iran, the “board of peace” promises a new, dangerous, and unaccountable stage of US/European/Israeli policy in the Middle East.  

Jeremy Scahill and Rami G. Khouri assess the causes and possible responses

Info: Webinar: While Iran Boils, Trump’s “Peace Plan” Threatens Palestinian Existence : Indybay

7. Wednesday, 6:30pm – 8:00pm, Fighting Modern McCarthyism: Lessons from Yesterday

In person:

New Valencia Hall
747 Polk St.
SF

online participation, register at: https://bit.ly/FightMcCarthyism
Donation $3-5/session

Wednesdays, February 11- March 18, 6:30pm

Fighting Modern McCarthyism: Lessons from Yesterday
McCarthyism never died — it evolved. Today a familiar playbook comes roaring back. A new wave of suppression by the Trump regime adds terrorist-baiting and demands loyalty to every tenet of white supremacy, patriarchy, xenophobia, and transphobia. In this discussion group, we will study the history of resistance to McCarthyism to arm ourselves with strategies for today. Together we will answer: How do we go on the offense against government attacks to our rights and our lives?

At the third session, on February 25, participants will discuss how McCarthyism was related to attacks on labor unions and why LGBTQ+ people have been targets of McCarthyist attacks.

 The readings on these themes are available through these three links:
“From anti-labor legislation to anti-communism,” pp. 161-178 in https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1344328W/100_years_of_labor_in_the_USA? edition=key:/books/OL4491545M

https://socialism.com/fs-article/gay-resistance-the-hidden-history-part-vi/
https://socialism.com/fs-article/gay-resistance-the-hidden-history-part-vii/

Host: Freedom Socialist Party

Info: Fighting Modern McCarthyism: Lessons from Yesterday : Indybay

Thursday, February 26

8. Thursday, 9:30am – 11:00am, Show Up to Court Hearing, Lawsuit Against the Navy Over Toxic Contamination of Shipyard

Meet in front of:

Old Federal Building
450 Golden Gate Ave.
SF

Greenaction for Health & Environmental Justice is back in federal court as part of our lawsuit against the Navy. A judge will hear Greenaction’s Motion for Summary Judgment in the lawsuit against the U.S. Navy over toxic contamination and the failed cleanup t the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site.

This is a major moment in the fight for:
– Truth about contamination
– Accountability for harm
– Protection of community health
– Environmental justice for BVHP

Your presence shows the court that the community is watching.
Your presence shows we will not be ignored.
Your presence strengthens the fight for justice.

Info: Show Up to Court Hearing, Lawsuit Against the Navy Over Toxic Contamination of Shipyard : Indybay

9. Thursday, 6:00pm, 11^th Angelversary of Amilcar Perez Lopez

Site where Amilcar was executed
Folsom St. Between 24^th & 25^th Streets
SF

Please hold Amilcar’s family in Guatemala in your thoughts.

Who Was Amilcar Perez-Lopez? Amilcar Perez-Lopez was a 21-year-old Ch’orti’ Mayan immigrant from Guatemala. He arrived in the U.S. when he was 17.

 He was a worker at construction sites and restaurants throughout San Francisco. Friends and coworkers remember him as a hardworking, thoughtful, generous young man. Amilcar was a provider for his family, sending remittances back home, fruit of his hard labor. He was affectionately called “Mica” by his close family and friends.

SFPD plainclothes officers Craig Tiffe and Eric Reboli killed Amilcar Perez-Lopez.  SFPD told reporters that Amilcar had been trying to steal someone’s bike and then lunged – with a knife in his hand –  at plainclothes officers before the officers opened fire.  A key witness testifies that Amilcar Perez-Lopez was unarmed when killed by the SFPD 

The autopsy report, released on April 24, 2015, reveals that Perez-Lopez was shot six times – 4 in the back, 1 in the arm and 1 in the head – after having dropped a knife and while attempting to run away from police, contradicting police statements that they were being attacked by Lopez and acted in self-defense.

Excerpts above from: https://justice4amilcar.org/amilcar-story/

Info for Vigil from Dwight