“As an adjudicated insurrectionist, Trump is an illegitimate president according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and therefore every official act as president will be illegitimate.”
–Mike Zonta, co-editor of OccupySF.net
The 14th Amendment states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Call your Congressperson and your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121
by Randy Shaw on February 9, 2026 (BeyondChron.org)
IKEA failed to revive Mid-Market
Is Retail Decline Permanent?
Last week I questioned San Francisco’s top strategy for revitalizing struggling neighborhoods (See “San Francisco’s Top Neighborhood Revival Strategy Isn’t Working”). I called for less emphasis on one-time events and for prioritizing strategies that sustain ongoing retail.
I got an overwhelmingly positive response. But one longtime neighborhood business advocate raised a good point—why should we expect San Francisco’s brick and mortar retail to match pre-online shopping days?
Consider: Many of us saw IKEA’s August 2023 opening in Mid-Market as a game-changer. The wildly popular store would return pre-Covid foot traffic to the area, triggering new retail openings nearby.
That hasn’t happened. After all, customers can order IKEA products online. They don’t need to come to 6th and Market.
Reviving San Francisco’s struggling neighborhoods requires accepting that many spaces will not be filled with traditional retail. Instead, permanent art installations that attract pedestrians can fill these spaces.
San Francisco’s Retail Decline
San Francisco’s ground-floor retail decline preceded Covid. In 2017 I urged the city to allow ground floor spaces under new housing construction to be housing rather than retail (See “Should the Internet Change How SF Uses Land?,” February 7, 2017).
Describing the retail decline as a “national trend,” I wrote:
An intriguing recent story out of New York City found that despite the economic upturn, vacancy rates are up in every Manhattan retail corridor. Some argue that unlike past downturns, this one is not cyclical. Brokers believe that “brick-and-mortar retailers will shrink dramatically during the next few years, so supply of retail space will outweigh demand for it.”
Those brokers were right.
Covid primarily impacted large retailers at the former Westfield Center or those occupying lower Powell Street leading to Union Square. The city’s post-COVID retail decline was then worsened by work form home and City Hall’s allowing open-air drug markets in the Central City.
It increasingly appears that the small business retail spaces that flourish in North Beach, Cow Hollow, Noe Valley, the Inner Richmond, Inner Sunset and other thriving neighborhoods are often not sustainable in Mid-Market, the Tenderloin, Downtown or around Union Square.
The city needs new strategies for bringing ground-floor spaces to life in these areas.
Can Public Art Revitalize Neighborhoods?
Housing is the most economically sustainable replacement for ground floor retail. But housing is not always feasible. And blocks whose ground floor spaces are all used for housing do not attract pedestrian traffic.
We see a lot of such blocks in the Tenderloin. Mid-block retail is absent in many areas, which has always hampered the neighborhood’s economy. This absence puts a premium on filling spaces in the few blocks that have consistent retail, which is why reviving Little Saigon is so essential.
Efforts are ongoing to fill Little Saigon vacancies. But if another year passes with so many vacant storefronts, Little Saigon’s capacity to again attract small businesses must be reconsidered.
Gibson’s mural was funded by the Downtown Development Corporation and Yerba Buena Partnership community benefit district. According to the DDC’s Executive Director Shola Olatoye, “Public artworks like Gibson’s can quickly change how a place feels, especially when a property is in transition.”
While a Mission Street mural might not help Mid-Market, the DDC’s jurisdiction includes Mid-Market. With $60 million raised so far, the DDC is positioned to support art spaces in the critical row of vacant Market Street retail spaces between 7th and 5th Streets.
A row of dynamic public art would get people walking down Market Street again.
The Tenderloin is not covered by the DDC so must find another funding source for public art. Chris Larsen’s generous $5 million donation to revive Little Saigon will hopefully encourage others to support the cause.
Property owners obviously prefer a rent-paying retail tenant. But public and private sources can help incentivize non-retail ground-floor uses.
There are spaces on Market and in Little Saigon that have been vacant for years. At some point owners have to take a more realistic approach to their property.
And if pedestrian traffic is drawn to these areas to see art, whose to say that it won’t encourage new retail businesses? We need to get people to come down to Mid-Market and Little Saigon on a regular basis to then return for dining and entertainment.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the U.S. for places to hold more immigrants.
A man takes photos of a warehouse as federal officials tour the facility to consider repurposing it as an ICE detention facility in Belton, Mo., on Jan. 15.Charlie Riedel / AP
With tensions high over federal immigration enforcement, some state and local officials are pushing back against attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to house thousands of detained immigrants in their communities in converted warehouses, privately run facilities and county jails.
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Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the U.S. for places to hold immigrants as they roll out a massive $45 billion expansion of detention facilities financed by Trump’s recent tax-cutting law.
The fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota have amplified an already intense spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing scrutiny of its plans for new detention sites.
A proposed ICE facility just north of Richmond, Virginia, drew hundreds of people last week to a tense public hearing of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors.
“You want what’s happening in Minnesota to go down in our own backyard? Build that detention center here, and that’s exactly what will happen,” resident Kimberly Matthews told county officials.
As a prospective ICE detention site became public, elected officials in Kansas City, Missouri, scrambled to pass an ordinance aimed at blocking it. And mayors in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City — after raising concerns about building permits — announced last week that property owners won’t be selling or leasing their facilities for immigration detention.
Meanwhile, legislatures in several Democratic-led states pressed forward with bills aimed at blocking or discouraging ICE facilities. A New Mexico measure targets local government agreements to detain immigrants for ICE. A novel California proposal seeks to nudge companies running ICE facilities out of the state by imposing a 50% tax on their proceeds.
The number of ICE detention sites has doubled
More than 70,000 immigrants were being detained by ICE as of late December, up from 40,000 when Trump took office, according to federal data.
In a little over a year, the number of detention facilities used by ICE nearly doubled to 212 sites spread across 47 states and territories. Most of that growth came through existing contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service or deals to use empty beds at county jails.
Demonstrators hold a vigil in tribute to Renée Nicole Good and Jean Wilson Brutus outside Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, N.J., on Jan. 18. Brutus, a Haitian migrant, died in detention at Delaney Hall.Apolline Guillerot-Malick / Sipa USA via AP file
Trump’s administration now is taking steps to open more large-scale facilities. In January, ICE paid $102 million for a warehouse in Washington County, Maryland, $84 million for one in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and more than $70 million for one in Surprise, Arizona. It also solicited public comment on a proposed warehouse purchase in a flood plain in Chester, New York.
Federal immigration officials have toured large warehouses elsewhere, without releasing many details about the efforts.
“They will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards,” ICE said in a statement, adding: “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”
State and local governments can decline to lease detention space to ICE, but they generally cannot prohibit businesses and private landowners from using their property for federal immigrant detention centers, said Danielle Jefferis, an associate law professor at the University of Nebraska who focuses on immigration and civil litigation.
In 2023, a federal court invalidated a California law barring private immigrant detention facilities for infringing on federal powers. A federal appeals court panel cited similar grounds in July while striking down a New Jersey law that forbade agreements to operate immigrant detention facilities.
After ICE officials recently toured a warehouse in Orlando, Florida, as a prospective site, local officials looked into ways to regulate or prevent it. But City Attorney Mayanne Downs advised them in a letter that “ICE is immune from any local regulation that interferes in any way with its federal mandate.”
Officials in Hanover County also asked their attorney to evaluate legal options after the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter confirming its intent to purchase a private property for use as an ICE processing facility. The building sits near retail businesses, hotels, restaurants and several neighborhoods.
Although some residents voiced concerns that an ICE facility could strain the county’s resources, there’s little the county can do to oppose it, said Board of Supervisors Chair Sean Davis.
“The federal government is generally exempt from our zoning regulations,” Davis said.
Kansas City tries to block new ICE detention site
Despite court rulings elsewhere, the City Council in Kansas City voted in January to impose a five-year moratorium on non-city-run detention facilities. The vote came on the same day ICE officials toured a nearly 1-million-square-foot (92,903-square-meter) warehouse as a prospective site.
Manny Abarca, a county lawmaker, said he initially was threatened with trespassing when he showed up but was eventually allowed inside the facility, where a deputy ICE field office director told him they were scouting for a 7,500-bed site.
Abarca is trying to fortify Kansas City’s resistance by proposing a countywide moratorium on permits, zoning changes and development plans for detention facilities not run by the county or a city.
“When federal power is putting communities on edge, local government has a responsibility to act where we have authority,” he said.
Protesters demonstrate outside a warehouse as federal officials tour it to consider repurposing it for an ICE detention facility in Kansas City on Jan. 15.Heather Hollingsworth / AP file
Kansas City is looking to follow a similar path as Leavenworth, Kansas, which has argued that private prison firm CoreCivic must have an operating permit to reopen a shuttered prison as an ICE detention facility.
As other ICE proposals have surfaced, officials in Social Circle, Georgia, El Paso, Texas, and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, all have raised concerns about a lack of water and sewer capacity to transform warehouses into detention sites.
Nationally, it remains to be seen whether local governments can effectively deter ICE facilities through building permits and regulations.
“We’re currently in a moment where it is being tested,” Jefferis said. “So there is no clear answer as to how the courts are going to come down.”
New Mexico targets existing ICE facilities
The Democratic-led New Mexico House on Friday passed legislation banning state and local government contracts for ICE detention facilities, sending it to the Senate. Similar bills are pending in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.
The Otero County Processing Center, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from downtown El Paso, Texas, is one of three privately run ICE facilities that could be affected by the New Mexico legislation. The facility includes four immigration courtrooms and space for more than 1,000 detainees. The county financed its construction in 2007 with the intent to use it as a revenue source, and plans to pay off the remaining $16.5 million debt by 2028.
Otero County Attorney Roy Nichols said the county is prepared to sue the Legislature under a state law that prevents impairment of outstanding revenue bonds.
Republicans warned of job losses and economic fallout if the legislation forces immigrant detention centers to close.
But Democratic state Rep. Sarah Silva, who voted for the ban, and said her constituents in a heavily Hispanic area view the ICE facility as a burden.
“Our state can’t be complicit in the violations that ICE has been doing in places like Minneapolis,” Silva said. “To me that was beyond the tipping point.”
On Monday, lunch time in the plaza outside the Zuckerberg SF General Hospital and Trauma Center turned into a symbolic stage for a different type of surgery: a call to strip away a controversial name, and instead replace it with a name that reflects legacy and care.
Sasha Cuttler, former supervisor Gordon Mar, and many other healthcare workers and community leaders gathered for this figurative renaming of San Francisco’s primary safety-net hospital. The new proposed name: “Pretti Good SF General.”
Sasha Cuttler, a retired nurse and PhD who has spent years in the very walls of the hospital, argued the ethical values behind Meta, particularly privacy rights and the social platform’s role in polarization within politics, don’t reflect San Francisco values.o
While this name was in place during the symbolic renaming, Cuttler and others said they hope the public will have the opportunity to vote on whether to adopt the name permanently or keep the existing name. That would require a ballot measure—and a supervisor to sponsor it.
The name “Pretti Good” is a clever play on words, but within that is a tribute to Alex Pretti, a VA nurse, and Renee Good, a queer poet. Both died at the hands of ICE in Minneapolis, fighting for social justice.
Cuttler and others sought to contrast the bravery of frontline workers with the corporate greed of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
To someone passing by the spirited chant “You say Pretti… I say Good…Pretti Good” might have sounded like a simple slogan. To those standing in the plaza the weight of the names defined a mark for justice. The call and response transcended the names of the fallen activists into a demand for better, and a more ethical tribute to the hospital’s name.
This event marks a revived escalation of a battle that began in 2015, when the hospital was renamed following a $75 million donation from Zuckerberg. The taxpayers of San Francisco put up $1 billion to rebuild the hospital.
Mar said that “a public institution does not serve as a billboard for a billionaire.”
To everyone in the crowd, it was clear that it was time to get “Zuck Off’ the hospital.
While each speaker provided the crowd with political context, the energy of the event was driven by love. As the chants continued, the crowd took the symbolic transformation to the actual sign of the hospital.
Brother Sin blesses the new name
Sasha placed the letterings over the actual sign to spell out “Pretti Good,” Brother Sin from The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence blessed the new sign and anointed it:
“May this hospital remember that it existed long before Zuckerberg bought his way on to this sign, and it will heal long after his empire crumbles. We cleanse this space of the delusions that wealth equals virtue, and restore it to the people who actually keep these patients alive.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long sought regime change in Cuba, and new reporting from Drop Site News on Monday suggested he may be intentionally misrepresenting the Trump administration’s current policy in the communist country to achieve his goal.
The outlet reported that, based on the accounts of five Cuban and US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the “deal” that President Donald Trump has said is likely to be finalized soon is not being pursued in any high-level, official diplomatic discussions.
Soon after issuing an executive order that labeled Cuba an extraordinary threat, accused it of harboring terrorists, and threatened other countries with sanctions if they provide oil to the Cuban government, Trump said his administration is “talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens.”
But one senior White House official explained to Drop Site that “he’s saying that because that’s what Marco is telling him.”
If the public and the president himself believe that high-level negotiations are taking place, “in a few weeks or months, Rubio will be able to claim that the talks were futile because of Cuban intransigence,” Drop Site reported, asserting that Rubio is “deliberately” blocking Trump from the talks and misleading him.
A lie like the one Drop Site‘s sources alleged, said reporter Ryan Grim, “would be a defining scandal in any other administration.”
The idea that talks are taking place has been “accepted as fact” in Washington, DC, reported the outlet, which pointed to Politico‘s recent reporting that said the son of former Cuban President Raúl Castro traveled to Mexico for talks with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Politico‘s article was sourced to a Cuban dissident blogger and a “single, fantastical Facebook post made by a Spain-based Cuban journalist.”
Drop Site noted that while Trump is currently threatening Cuba’s economy and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people with an oil blockade, having cut off the Venezuelan oil supply to the island after ordering an invasion of the South American country over a month ago, he doesn’t appear to be driven by an “ideological confrontation with Cuba” and in fact holds potential financial interests in normalizing relations with the country because he holds a registered trademark for a Trump property in Havana.
Rubio, whose family immigrated to the US from Cuba before the Cuban Revolution—but didn’t flee Fidel Castro’s takeover as he claimed early in his political career—has long called for regime change in the country.
The US State Department refuted the accounts of Drop Site‘s five sources and told the outlet that diplomatic talks—which Cuban leaders have said they are entirely open to holding—are taking place, but did not provide evidence or details.
“As the president stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal. Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil,” the State Department press office said.
That claim contradicted a comment from Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, who told CNN last week that the government has had “some exchanges of messages” with the White House.
“We cannot say we have set a bilateral dialogue at this moment,” he said.
Drop Site News’ reporting indicates, said Cuban-American organizer and New York City Council candidate Danny Valdes, that “Marco Rubio is personally overseeing the starvation of an entire nation,” while Cuban leaders “want dialogue and a way forward, without surrendering their sovereignty.”
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Filmmaker Tadashi Nakamura wipes sweat off the face of his father, Robert Nakamura, during the making of “Third Act,” the movie headlining Films of Remembrance.Courtesy Tadashi Nakamura
An upcoming film showcase will observe the lives of the more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent who were forcibly detained and sent to American concentration camps during World War II.
Japantown’s AMC Kabuki 8 movie theater will host Films of Remembrance on Feb. 21, screening 10 movies that day. The Nichi Bei Foundation hosts the annual event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. this year. The foundation is a charitable and educational nonprofit dedicated to informing people about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during the 1940s.
Films of Remembrance started in San Francisco in 2012, expanding into a touring four-city undertaking last year. For the 15th edition of the organization’s annual showcase, screenings are taking place in The City, in San Jose on Feb. 22, and in Los Angeles and Gardena in March.
Organizers said the curated selection of films will elevate an overlooked part of American history, while also reminding viewers of the ways in which people’s constitutional rights, freedoms and protections are still being challenged today.
Foundation president Kenji Taguma said Nichi Bei’s event “comes at a time when many feel that civil liberties are under siege.”
Films of Remembrance commemorates Executive Order 9066, which President Franklin Roosevelt signed in February 1942 to authorize the mass removal of Japanese Americans. Similar events are taking place today, Taguma said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to “justify the current roundup of immigrants,” he said.
The federal law is the same one that was “used to justify the forced removal and incarceration of our community during World War II,” Taguma said.
Audiences will see incarceration play out from different perspectives, including “directly from former incarcerees, some by descendants of the camps and even by students who are trying to erect a monument to memorialize the experience in their community,” Taguma said.
The 10 films include eight short documentaries and two short films. In the short “9066: Fear, Football and The Theft of Freedom,” former Cal and NFL linebacker Scott Fujita links his family’s history in the country back to forced internment. Organizers are also screening “Hello Maggie!,” which San Francisco native Willie Ito animated.
Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Tadashi Nakamura will be this year’s headliner, presenting audiences with the feature-length “Third Act.” The film chronicles the career of his father, Robert Nakamura, who died in June. The senior Nakamura was one of the earliest filmmakers whose works dealt with wartime incarceration, and his films are said to have inspired others. “Third Act” also highlights Robert Nakamura navigating his own diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.
In a statement, Nakamura said making the film helped him understand how his father’s “life and career have been shaped by coming to grips with the mass incarceration of WWII.”
“I realize that I have inherited the legacy of that government betrayal, the historical trauma, which is intergenerational,” he said.
Community members’ connectivity with each other is a central theme that Taguma said Films of Remembrance will explore with its selected presentations.
“In 1942, there were too few people who stood up for us,” he said.
Since then, descendants have learned how important it is “to speak out for others who are targeted by racial scapegoating today,” Taguma said.
Films of Remembrance was able to return to a touring format this year thanks to a presenting sponsorship from the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, he said. The pair established the foundation in 1986 with Tomoye’s sister, Martha Masako Suzuki, seeking to preserve Japanese American culture through arts and education.
Robert Nakamura — the father of director Tadashi Nakamura — was one of the first filmmakers whose works dealt with the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.Courtesy Tadashi Nakamura
San Francisco artist Masako Takahashi, whose parents helped establish the foundation, was born in a concentration camp situated in the Utah desert. Takahashi said her parents lived in The City before the war and returned once it was over. Her family grew up near the intersection of Post and Buchanan streets, before homes and businesses were torn down as part of city officials’ redevelopment plans.
When her family “returned to San Francisco, a welcoming enclave existed in The City’s Japantown,” Takahashi said. She said she hopes viewers will come away from the series rejecting divisive rhetoric and work toward ensuring that The City remains a safe space for all residents.
“San Francisco was a city where people of all backgrounds could find a place,” Takahashi said. “I fervently wish it to be so in the future.”
In an aerial view, an inmate walks through the courtyard at the Bluebonnet Detention Center on May 13, 2025, in Anson, Texas
(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Department of Homeland Security is using a repurposed $55 billion Navy contract to convert warehouses into makeshift jails and plan sprawling tent cities in remote areas.
In the wake of immigration agents’ killings of three US citizens within a matter of weeks, the Department of Homeland Security is quietly moving forward with a plan to expand its capacity for mass detention by using a military contract to create what Pablo Manríquez, the author of the immigration news site Migrant Insidercalls “a nationwide ‘ghost network’ of concentration camps.”
On Sunday, Manríquez reported that “a massive Navy contract vehicle, once valued at $10 billion, has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ agenda.”
It is the expansion of a contract first reported on in October by CNN, which found that DHS was “funneling $10 billion through the Navy to help facilitate the construction of a sprawling network of migrant detention centers across the US in an arrangement aimed at getting the centers built faster, according to sources and federal contracting documents.”
The report describes the money as being allocated for “new detention centers,” which “are likely to be primarily soft-sided tents and may or may not be built on existing Navy installations, according to the sources familiar with the initiative. DHS has often leaned on soft-sided facilities to manage influxes of migrants.”
According to a source familiar with the project, “the goal is for the facilities to house as many as 10,000 people each, and are expected to be built in Louisiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Utah, and Kansas.”
Now Manríquez reports that the project has just gotten much bigger after a Navy grant was repurposed weeks ago. It was authorized through the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract (WEXMAC), a flexible purchasing system that the government uses to quickly move military equipment to dangerous and remote parts of the world.
The contract states that the money is being repurposed for “TITUS,” an abbreviation for “Territorial Integrity of the United States.” While it’s not unusual for Navy contracts to be used for expenditures aimed at protecting the nation, Manríquez warned that such a staggering movement of funds for domestic detention points to something ominous.
“This $45 billion increase, published just weeks ago, converts the US into a ‘geographic region’ for expeditionary military-style detention,” he wrote. “It signals a massive, long-term escalation in the government’s capacity to pay for detention and deportation logistics. In the world of federal contracting, it is the difference between a temporary surge and a permanent infrastructure.”
He says the use of the military funding mechanism is meant to disburse funds quickly, without the typical bidding war among contractors, which would typically create a period of public scrutiny. Using the Navy contract means that new projects can be created with “task orders,” which can be turned around almost immediately, when “specific dates and locations are identified” by DHS.
“It means the infrastructure is currently a ‘ghost’ network that can be materialized anywhere in the US the moment a site is picked,” Manríquez wrote.
Amid its push to deport 1 million people each year, the White House has said it needs to dramatically increase the scale of its detention apparatus to add more beds for those who are arrested. But Manríquez said documents suggest “this isn’t just about bed space; it’s about the rapid deployment of self-contained cities.”
In addition to tent cities capable of housing thousands, contract line items include facilities meant for sustained living—including closed tents likely for medical treatment and industrial-sized grills for food preparation.
They also include expenditures on “Force Protection” equipment, like earth-filled defensive barriers, 8-foot-high CONEX box walls, and “Weather Resistant” guard shacks.
Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, said the contract’s provision of materials meant to deal with medical needs and death was “extra chilling.” According to the report, “services extend to ‘Medical Waste Management,’ with specific protocols for biohazard incinerators.”
The new reporting from Migrant Insider comes on the heels of a report last week from Bloomberg that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used some of the $45 billion to purchase warehouses in nearly two dozen remote communities, each meant to house thousands of detainees, which it said “could be the largest expansion of such detention capacity in US history.”
The plans have been met with backlash from locals, even in the largely Republican-leaning areas where they are being constructed:
This month, demonstrators protested warehouse conversions in New Hampshire, Utah, Texas and Georgia after the Washington Postpublished an earlier version of the conversion plan.
In mid-January, a planned tour for contractors of a potential warehouse site in San Antonio was canceled after protesters showed up the same day, according to a person familiar with the scheduled visit.
In Salt Lake City, the Ritchie Group, a local family business that owns the warehouse ICE identified as a future “mega center” jail, said it had “no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government” after protesters showed up at their offices to pressure them.
On January 20, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) joined hundreds of protesters outside a warehouse in Hagerstown, Maryland, that was set to be converted into a facility that will hold 1,500 people.
The senator called the construction of it and other detention facilities “one of the most obscene, one of the most inhumane, one of the most illegal operations being carried out by this Trump administration.”
Reports of a new influx of funding from the Navy come as Democrats in Congress face pressure to block tens of billions in new funding for DHS and ICE during budget negotiations.
“If Congress does nothing, DHS will continue to thrive,” Manríquez said. “With three more years pre-funded, plus a US Navy as a benefactor, Secretary Kristi Noem—or any potential successor—has the legal and financial runway to keep the business of creating ICE concentration camps overnight in American communities running long after any news cycle fades.”
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The Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee will hold a hearing Thursday/12 on the recent PG&E blackouts—and will also hold a vote to reaffirm the city’s mandate to take over the private utility’s assets in San Francisco.
PG&E will send a representative, who will say how terrible the company feels and how it’s making amends and upgrading the system and will pay businesses for lost revenue—the usual line.
Sure, complain about the blackout—or do something about it
And Sup. Alan Wong, who represents the Sunset, where the damage was the worst, will ask some questions, and get the usual answers, well-honed by PG&E’s high-paid communications experts.
The next item will be far more interesting. The resolution by Sup. Connie Chan states, among other things:
WHEREAS, Meanwhile, PG&E continues to prioritize the enrichment of senior management even as the company continues to cause death and destruction across California, with notable examples including the 2012 state investigation that concluded that PG&E illegally diverted more than $100 million from funds designed for safety operations to executive compensation and bonuses; and
WHEREAS, In 2022, at the end of PG&E’s five-year probation following the San Bruno gas pipeline explosion, Federal Judge William Alsup concluded that “While on probation, PG&E has gone on a crime spree and will emerge from probation as a continuing menace to California” after setting at least 31 wildfires, burning nearly 1.5 million acres of land and over 24,000 structures, killing 113 Californians, and failing its commitment to prioritize safety over profit for its executive management; and
WHEREAS, The City and County of San Francisco has sought to provide electric service to all of San Francisco since at least 1913, has provided electric service to City facilities since 1918, and launched CleanpowerSF to provide electric service for more than 380,000 residential and commercial customers since May of 2016; and
WHEREAS, The City and County of San Francisco is already providing more than 75% of the electricity consumed in San Francisco through CleanPowerSF and its Hetch Hetchy Power municipal utility, which includes all of the City’s major infrastructure, including the San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the San Francisco Zoo, public libraries, Muni, the General Hospital, San Francisco City College, the DeYoung and Asian Art Museums, the Ferry Building and other port facilities, public schools and public parks; and
WHEREAS, In a letter dated January 14, 2019, Mayor London Breed asked the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to prepare an analysis of the options for ensuring safe and reliable electric service within the City, including the possibility of acquiring the PG&E electric distribution and transmission infrastructure assets that serve the City (PG&E Assets) ….
RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco re-affirms its support for the City’s efforts to acquire the PG&E assets necessary to provide clean, green and affordable electric power delivery and service in San Francisco.
Mayor Daniel Lurie has not taken a public position on municipal power, and his pal Gov. Gavin Newsom is making sure the state PUC is slow-walking the process of establishing the value of the PG&E grid in San Francisco, which the city says it needs to move forward.
After costs, PG&E’s statewide, systemwide profit is about $5 billion a year. San Francisco has about ten percent of PG&E’s customers.
As a dense city, the costs of providing service are the lowest in the system. So at the very worse, San Francisco would be clearing at least $500 million in profit from a public power system; at the very worst, based on today’s rates, the interest on a $3 billion revenue bond (more than the city says the system is worth) would be less than $200 million.
So the city would get at least $300 million a year in extra revenue. That would more than pay for teacher pay equity, a lot of affordable housing, and a big chunk of the deficit.
At a certain point, the city needs to stop waiting for Newsom’s CPUC to act. Just file an eminent domain action, seize the property, and use revenue bonds to buy it. PG&E will challenge the valuation in court, but that’s going to happen anyway, not matter what the CPUC does.
It will be interesting to see what position Lurie takes on the resolution.
The full Board of Supes will vote on a measureTuesday/10 that would give away $40 million in tax abatements to a private luxury hotel company—and that, as far as I can tell, is illegal.
Sup. Connie Chan was dubious about this deal in committee, and at her suggestion, it went to the full board without recommendation. But nobody has raised what seems to me is a critical question:
Under the Sunshine Ordinance, the city can’t give money to a private entity for a development project unless that developer gives the city, and the city makes public, all its finances—profit and loss projections, financing costs, audited financial statements, the whole deal. From Section 67.32:
The City shall give no subsidy in money, tax abatements, land, or services to any private entity unless that private entity agrees in writing to provide the City with financial projections (including profit and loss figures), and annual audited financial statements for the project thereafter, for the project upon which the subsidy is based and all such projections and financial statements shall be public records that must be disclosed.
We know the developer has given that information to the city. I have asked the Mayor’s Office, the office of sponsor Sup. Matt Dorsey, and the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development for the data. I don’t have it.
Perhaps one of the supes will at least request that the city abide by the Sunshine Ordinance before voting to give away $40 million in taxpayer money—without the public knowing how much is needed or where it will go.
the installation of a new AT&T Wireless Macro Wireless Telecommunications Services (WTS) Facility on an approximately 104-foot-tall monopole located at the rear of the San Francisco Police Academy. The WTS facility will consist of twelve (12) new antennas, nine (9) new remote radio units, three (3) tower mounted DC-9 surge suppressors, one (1) GPS unit mounted on proposed outdoor equipment cabinet, one (1) walk-up cabinet, and one (1) 30kw DC generator with a 190-gallon diesel fuel tank on a concrete pad. The ancillary equipment will be surrounded by an 8′ chain link fence.”
Translation: A giant cell phone tower with a huge fuel tank, in a residential area where it’s often very windy. Wind and tall electrical facilities can spark fires—right next to a huge diesel fuel tank.
The city says the project needs no environmental impact report.
The Diamond Heights Neighborhood Association notes:
First, the Project is proposed on a site with a history of seismic activity and within a known landslide zone that is already impacted by foreign soil and infill material, creating potential landslide risks. The Project may exacerbate risks of future landslides and impact nearby structures as the required depth of digging to erect and stabilize the 104′ heavy monopole and bulky macro tower will disturb the earth in an already geographically sensitive area with a history of earth-disturbing activity. Additional analysis should be performed regarding the Project’s implications on seismic activity, potential for landslides, the state of the aquifers below the project area, and potential measures that may mitigate any seismic and landslide safety concerns. Second, the Project poses direct and significant fire risks and hazards given its proposed location in a fire-sensitive area and proximity to combustible materials. Wireless monopoles are known to carry significant fire risks and this Project specifically proposes a 190-gallon diesel fuel tank and proximity to highly combustible trees and vegetation in a location classified as an Urban Wildfire Interface risk area that further augment any inherent risk. The Project’s potential fire impacts are especially concerning in light of the Project site’s proximity to residences, businesses, Glen Canyon Park, and recreational areas.
The Planning Commission was not unanimous on this; the 4-3 vote showed that the issue of environmental review is not trivial.
Yimbys hate the California Environmental Quality Act, which can be used to delay housing development. But in this case, housing is not the issue. It’s AT&T’s profits. And AT&T is one of the most powerful political players in the state.
Planning Commissioner Teresa Imperiale noted that “this is all about the needs of AT&T.” How many supes will stand up to the telecom behemoth?
That hearing begins at 3pm.
Mayor Daniel Lurie has been awfully quiet about ICE operations in San Francisco. But that doesn’t mean ICE is staying away—and we can expect more action in the future. The lessons of Minneapolis can be something of a guide.
Former Sup. Dean Preston has put together a policy guide to how the city can protect its residents. You can read it here.
Among the key suggestions:
Mayor Lurie can issue an executive order–and the Board of Supervisors can pass legislation–directing SFPD to investigate and document alleged illegal activity by ICE agents and refer violations to the District Attorney for prosecution. This is exactly what Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson did last week.
To show they are serious, Mayor Lurie and DA Jenkins must finally break their silence about the incident on July 8 in which federal agents rammed their car into protesters. Their silence is in sharp contrast to Broadview, IL, where the mayor and police immediately announced a felony criminal investigation for a similar incident where ICE rammed an SUV into protesters.
ICE is entirely dependent on their SUVs to detain and box in protesters and move through the city. In San Francisco, we control our streets, not the feds. ICE vehicles routinely violate local laws by parking illegally, disobeying traffic laws, and using bogus plates. The City should tow ICE vehicles the minute they break the law.
City Hall should adopt an eviction ban that automatically activates when ICE surges here. We banned evictions during COVID lockdown, because displacing people in an emergency is cruel and destabilizing. People who are afraid to go to work because federal agents are terrorizing the community shouldn’t lose their homes.
Again: Noting from the Mayor’s Office.
48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.
Keir Starmer on Feb. 2, 2026. Photo by Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images
The departure of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the Peter Mandelson scandal exposes Starmerism for what it is: a political project built on deception, created by people guided only by an insatiable desire for power and a belief in their own invulnerability.
Since its inception, Starmerism has been presented as a boring, bureaucratic project – a necessary return to ‘sensible, grown-up politics’ after a period of irresponsible populism under Jeremy Corbyn. The suspension of members, the proscription of organizations, the purges, the disciplinary innovations, the legal threats, the message control – these were all measures designed to return the party to “electability.”
But Starmerism was never about winning elections. It was about destroying the Labour left – and with it, any hope of a socialist government running one of the world’s largest economies. But the tactics required for the success of such a project – stealth, deception, ruthlessness – are now helping to bring about its collapse.
After 2017, the Labour right confronted a problem. They needed to get rid of Corbyn and replace him with a leader who could dismantle the party’s internal democracy and destroy the Labour left forever. But they had to stage their coup from within the Party’s democratic structures. In other words, they needed members to vote for their anti-member project.
Thanks to the disastrous 2019 election result, no one questioned the need for a new leader. But Corbyn’s policies – public ownership, stronger labour rights, higher taxes on wealth – remained extremely popular; not just among members, but across much of the electorate. So, the Labour right developed a plan to present their candidate as the successor to Corbyn’s democratic socialist project – as the “Corbynism without Corbyn” candidate.
Starmer was the natural choice. He had been close enough to Corbyn to give him legitimacy among much of the left, without ever really laying his ideological cards on the table. His “Corbynism without Corbyn” platform was epitomised by his 10 pledges, from promoting public ownership, to raising taxes on the rich, to investing in a Green New Deal.
The Team
Starmer clearly never planned to follow through on these pledges – they were convenient lies told to win the Labour leadership after the largest expansion of the Party’s left wing in modern history. In this sense, Starmer’s team required a very specific set of skills, like stealth, ruthlessness, and intimidation. They needed to be proficient bureaucrats, capable of leveraging party rules to their advantage – not skilled electoral operators.
Starmerism was built by deeply cynical, power-hungry people who would happily lie, cheat, and dissemble to get their way. Few figures embodied that tradition better than Peter Mandelson, long nicknamed the “Prince of Darkness.” This nickname stuck because he understood something fundamental about British politics: you don’t need to be popular to be powerful – only the ruthlessness and guile to destroy your enemies.
Starmer speaks to Peter Mandelson on Feb. 26, 2025. Photo by Carl Court/AFP via Getty Images
As soon as Starmer took power, he immediately set about doing just this. Starmer’s team managed selections, destroyed internal democratic processes, and invented reasons to purge the left. They defined an entire ideological tradition – the tradition upon which the Labour Party was founded – as illegitimate within the Party.
The speed and comprehensiveness of their success would have been impressive, were it not for the fact that they were playing politics on easy mode. The British establishment fully backed Starmer’s agenda. Moves that would have been criticised as ‘Stalinist’ in any other context were welcomed by the British press. And the donations just kept flooding in. For a while, Starmerism seemed unstoppable.
The Pride Before the Fall
The latitude given to the destroyers of the left bred a dangerous complacency among Starmer’s top team. They came to believe that they were completely untouchable. And why wouldn’t they? For years, they had been able to lie, cheat, and deceive without consequence. They marginalised their critics, protected their allies, and managed the media with ease.
All this success made Starmer’s team forget the underlying fragility of their project. Starmerism derived coherence from its war on the Labour left. Once the enemy had been defeated, his coalition lost its unifying purpose. What remained was not a movement but a managerial network – one held together by a shared history of deceit, rather than any ideological coherence.
With their main enemy defeated, Starmer’s acolytes began scrambling for status. Figures who had once been protected suddenly became expendable. Controversies that had been covered up were deployed opportunistically to take down former allies. In other words, Starmer’s team began using their well-worn anti-left tactics against each other – each believing that they would never be the victim.
The Collapse
In the end, Mandelson and McSweeney were ruined by their own hubris. Mandelson’s Jeffrey Epstein links were common knowledge when he was appointed – but McSweeney still advised Starmer to go ahead with it, because his experience had led him to conclude that supporters of Starmer were beyond reproach.
Having consummately destroyed their internal enemies, these people truly believed that they were invincible. They didn’t anticipate that, with the Labour left destroyed, they would outlive their usefulness. And once they outlived their usefulness, the skeletons they had been hiding for decades – with the full permission of the entire political and media establishment – were suddenly revealed for all to see.
Tell your Members of Congress: Stop the ICE terror machine. Congress is scrambling to pass a DHS funding bill by Friday, and we need to make it loud and clear that our senators and representatives must oppose any bill that hands ICE and Border Patrol more funding or fails to include strict safeguards to protect our communities. Use the link above to email your Members of Congress, then be sure to call your senators during business hours.
P.S. The announcement of our first slate of endorsees means Indivisible’s 2026 election work is officially underway. We need your help building a better Democratic Party during the primaries and then organizing toward a historic wave in the midterms. If you can, chip in to help power our election ground game here.
UPDATE: DHS funding deadlines
Department of Homeland Security funding runs out on Friday.
Democrats have pledged to withhold their votes from any funding bill that fails to include significant restrictions on ICE and Border Patrol. Despite Americans being killed in the streets, Republican leaders don’t seem ready to pass anything to address ICE and CBP terror.
Four things could happen this week:
Dems cave fully and pass a bill that doesn’t do much to rein in ICE and CBP;
Dems cave partially and agree to another temporary funding bill;
Republicans cave and we win;
There’s no agreement, and there’s a partial government shutdown.
Despite Republican posturing, the politics are on our side. The vast majority of Americans think ICE’s actions have gone way too far. Republicans are obviously feeling the heat — that’s why they’re willing to negotiate at all.
Our job: Keep up the pressure on both parties. Republicans need to agree to rein in ICE. Dems must not agree to anything that falls short — including another continuing resolution that would kick the funding battle down the road and continue the untenable status quo of deadly ICE/CBP violence.
Dems are doing the right thing, for now. So the ball’s in the Republicans’ court. If there’s a partial government shutdown this weekend, it’ll be for one reason: because Republicans refused to do the bare minimum to protect Americans from a lawless, masked paramilitary force. And we’ll make sure their constituents know it.
Around 11 a.m. on Feb. 9, 2026, some 80 teachers of A.P. Giannini Middle School and Sunset Elementary School walked from campus to Sunset Boulevard and Rivera to picket with other Sunset public schools. Photo by Junyao Yang.
As the sun rose on Monday, many thousands of San Francisco public school teachers and students were anywhere but in a classroom.
After a lengthy stalemate, teachers today commenced the district’s first educator walkout since 1979. Teachers, along with principals, administrators and other unionized district employees, are walking picket lines outside their schools.
Mission Local has reporters across the city covering today’s actions. Check back for updates all day.
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Educators at César Chávez Elementary School cheer as passing cars honk in support of the strike on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Mariana Garcia.
Mayor Lurie preps parents for 2nd day of strikes, and negotiators dig in
Mayor Daniel Lurie issued a statement Monday at 5:30 p.m., telling families what they already know: Schools will remain closed on Tuesday.
The city is standing up even more resources for those looking for a place to send their children, he said.
“We are expanding programming at 55 sites around the city, so more students have a welcoming and safe place to go.” Parents should reach out to community nonprofits they’re connected to, and “see what additional childcare services are available.”
Meanwhile, negotiations have started up again at the War Memorial Veterans Building. District and union officials are at the table for what’s expected to be a long night. Read more here about where there’s agreement, and where the sides are still far apart.
Educators rally by the thousands outside San Francisco City Hall
Thousands gathered at Civic Center at 1 p.m. today for a centralized rally in support of the strike. Educators flocked from morning pickets outside their school sites to attend.
Speaker after speaker echoed the same message: The strike will continue until the teachers’ demands are met.
Natalie Hrizi, vice president of substitutes for the United Educators of San Francisco and a teacher librarian, said families and others joined educators on picket lines at about 130 work sites across the city.
People march to San Francisco City Hall for a rally on the first day of the teachers’ strike on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Alice Finno.Natalie Hrizi, vice president of substitutes at United Educators of San Francisco, speaks at a rally in front of City Hall on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Alice Finno.
“The time is now,” Hrizi said. “If we have to march to their houses, we’ll march to their houses, and no one sleeps until we get the agreement our students and our educators deserve.”
David Goldberg, president of the statewide California Teachers Association, the parent union, said the strike follows decades of disinvestment, and exhorted people to continue striking. “You have already won,” he said.
Supervisor Jackie Fielder also spoke in support of the teachers: “If you can win sanctuary schools, we can win wages and benefits you deserve.”
—Alice Finno
Makenna Ixchell, 6, joins her brother and mom for the SFUSD educator strike at John O’Connell High School on Feb. 9, 2026. Ixchell’s brother is a student at the high school. Photo by Mariana Garcia.
Negotiations start, teachers bring toothbrushes, expecting a late-night
At 2:25 p.m. Board of Education president Phil Kim and vice president Jaime Huling arrived at the War Memorial Veterans Building, where negotiations between the union and district were set to start.
It was an unusual appearance; for the past week, negotiations have only been attended by the district’s four-person bargaining team and Superintendent Maria Su, who joined on Saturday. The school board acts as an oversight and advisory board to the district, and is, technically, the “boss” of the superintendent.
Commissioners sitting in on the meeting comes as pressure mounts to come to an agreement. Earlier this morning, commissioner Matt Alexander joined protesters at Mission High, speaking out in solidarity with the union.
When asked if the superintendent is concerned about the move earlier this morning, she responded that commissioners are “free” to express their own opinions.
Teachers were instructed to bring toothbrushes in case bargaining went all night.
At 3 p.m., Superintendent Maria Su and the distinct’s bargaining team met with the union to sit back down at the bargaining table.
—Marina Newman
A child and an adult are painting red and black letters outside of San Francisco Board of Education’s building at 555 Franklin St. on the first day of the SFUSD teacher strike on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Béatrice Vallières.
All SFUSD schools to be closed Tuesday as well
An email sent out by Superintendent Maria Su at 1:50 p.m. announced that all schools across the district will be closed on Tuesday.
“We will share more information and resources later today,” wrote Su, before directing parents to the district’s resources page. On Monday morning, Su announced that she would announce to families whether schools would open the next day every day at noon.
Picket signs rest on the fence at Cesar Chavez Elementary School on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Mariana Garcia.
War Memorial Building hosts bargaining sessions
“We cannot afford for this to continue,” said Superintendent Maria Su at a 9:30 a.m. press conference at the War Memorial Building, where the union and district staff will continue bargaining at noon.
“I am ready to sit back down and I will stay here all night — as long as it takes to get to a full agreement.”
The union is expected to present its counterproposal to the district this afternoon.
When asked what the district intends to do if the union does not concede to a lower salary increase than its longstanding demand and the district’s offer of only partially funded family health care, Su would only reply, “I look forward to seeing the counterproposal today.”
—Marina Newman
Deirdre Fitzgerald, a third-grade teacher at the Tenderloin Community Elementary School, pickets outside her school on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Béatrice Vallières.
Tenderloin Community Elementary School
In front of the Tenderloin’s elementary school, 40 people held signs that read “On Strike” and “We can’t wait.” They paced Turk Street and Van Ness Avenue as drivers honked in support.
Deirdre Fitzgerald, a third-grade teacher at Tenderloin Community Elementary School, said the main reason she’s striking is the “disarray” of the special education department, which she said affects all students.
She also highlighted the low wages, which she said have not been enough to keep up with recent increases in the cost of living in the city.
“What we’re asking for is what every worker in the city should be getting,” she said. “We should be getting a livable wage. We should be getting an organization that is well organized and efficient. We’re just not seeing that right now, and we’re not seeing them come to the table with anything that we can really accept moving forward.”
—Béatrice Vallières
Families and teachers picket outside Jefferson Elementary School at 19th and Irving, Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Junyao Yang.
Jefferson Elementary School
At Jefferson Elementary School at 19th Avenue and Irving Street, teachers started setting up for the strike at 6:15 a.m.
At 8:50 a.m., almost nonstop, cars, buses, big rigs and fire trucks honked in support as they drive down the thoroughfare. With “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz playing in the background, some 40 teachers walked the picket line with signs reading “on strike for our students” in English, Chinese and Spanish.
“The energy is so high, we have so many students and parents here with us,” said Kirsten Surber, a kindergarten teacher and site captain at Jefferson. “We thoughts it’s only gonna be teachers, but no. That feels so great.”
One teacher told his student there may be substitute teachers; the response was, “Mr. Peterson, if you’re not here, I’m not here.”
“I’m just disappointed they haven’t been serious. They are dragging their feet,” said Steven O’Reilly, a special education teacher at Jefferson.
Josseline and Johanna, who are in fourth and first grade, were walking the picket line with their parents, who are both nurses. Josseline’s favorite subject is social studies, she said, and she just learned about how missionaries would christianize Native American people.
“I can’t teach her that!” said her mom, Justine Sibuyan. The latest knowledge she came home and shared with her parents was that some turtles can breathe through their butts, Sibuyan recalled.
“I just can’t relive COVID again. Zero quality of teaching. And maybe why they’re so addicted to their iPad,” Sibuyan said. “Our caretakers need to be taken care of.”
—Junyao Yang
United Educators of San Francisco president Cassondra Curiel speaks at a demonstration outside Mission High on Day One of the teachers strike, Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Alice Finno.
Mission High School
At Mission High on Monday morning, parents and educators were joined by a handful of young students who sleepily raised signs reading “On Strike!” One union member wearing an inflatable bear costume with dangling camo pants bopped up and down as his partner chanted into a megaphone, “We need a fair contract!”
The roughly 50 students and staff were joined by union president Cassondra Curiel and school board member Matt Alexander.
“I am so proud of these educators for standing up for what is right,” said Alexander. “This fight is righteous and necessary.”
Over the weekend, the union and the district came to a tentative agreement on the district’s sanctuary-school policy, but not on any of the unions other demands, which include a 9 percent wage increase and fully funded family health care.
In just hours, the union and the district are scheduled to meet again. Both Mayor Daniel Lurie and Rep. Nancy Pelosi have beseeched the union and district to come to an agreement.
Standing on the steps of Mission High, Curiel said that she had frequent talks with the mayor. “He supports our demands,” she said.
—Marina Newman
Families and educators gathered for a demonstration outside Sanchez Elementary School on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Alice Finno.
Sanchez Elementary School
Cameron Korving and Mariana Fuentes, paraprofessionals for special-education classes, were picketing in front of Sanchez Elementary School on Sanchez between 16th and 17th on Monday morning.
“We’re short-staffed in my classroom,” Korving said.
Milo McCarter and Henry D., third and fourth graders at Sanchez Elementary School, join the teachers’ strike with their parents on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Alice Finno.
Teachers have been fighting for higher salaries so that children with special needs can get additional support, she added. “It’s hard for us to make sure each of them is getting a quality education.”
“We just need to be able to survive in this city,” Fuentes said. “I’ve been living here for my whole life, and the rent is going really high.”
Parents and children also joined the strike to show support for their teachers.
—Alice Finno
Around 11 a.m. on Feb. 9, 2026, some 80 teachers of A.P. Giannini Middle School and Sunset Elementary School walked from campus to Sunset Boulevard and Rivera to picket with other Sunset public schools. Photo by Junyao Yang.
A.P. Giannini Middle School
At around 11 a.m., some 80 teachers from A.P. Giannini Middle School and Sunset Elementary School walked from campus to Sunset Boulevard and Rivera to picket alongside other Sunset District public schools.
“Education is a right,” the organizer chanted. “That is why we gotta fight!” The crowd responded.
As teachers walked along Sunset Boulevard, construction workers perched atop a half finished building on the campus St. Ignatius College Preparatory, chanted across the six-lane road — first only with their voices, and then with a bullhorn — “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (the people united will never be defeated) to cheers from the teachers.
By 11:10 a.m., teachers occupied all four corners of Sunset Boulevard and Rivera Street in the Outer Sunset. Protesters hailed from Lincoln High School, Dianne Feinstein Elementary School and Ulloa Elementary School among others.
“When teachers are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
—Junyao Yang
Shireval McClain, a paraeducator at McKinley Elementary School, joins the educator strike at John O’Connell High School on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Mariana Garcia.
John O’Connell High School
At John O’Connell High School in the Mission, around 50 educators chanted on the picket line: “Union power! Union power!”
Michelle Cody, a regional strike captain and teacher at Bessie Carmichael Elementary School in SoMa, chatted with around five staff members who were planning on crossing the picket line. “I was educating the people that were tempted to cross the line, and let them know what we’re fighting for.”
Cody successfully convinced at least one woman not to cross, but later, when district staff opened the gate to the school, a group of women, some paraeducators, others “noon monitors” hurriedly crossed through the picketers and onto school grounds, to which they were met with boos by educators.
“They were being threatened by their supervisors over the phone,” Cody said, adding that she was told the workers’ supervisors told them they would be fired if they didn’t report for duty on Monday.
Educators at John O’Connell High School are on strike on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Mariana Garcia.
Elena Royale, department head of special education at O’Connell, said she is on strike to fight for “safe and stable” schools for her students.
Royale said special-education classes are overcrowded, with up to 25 students in classrooms that should only have around 12.
“Our kids with the highest needs are being packed in the classrooms,” she said, “and not provided the right amount of educators.”
—Mariana Garcia
SFUSD headquarters, 555 Franklin St.
Earlier this morning, outside the administrative offices of the San Francisco Unified School District, the atmosphere was festive.
About 50 demonstrators chanted and marched on the street, accompanied by music and percussion. A group of protesters painted the phrase “We can’t wait” in yellow, red and black on the floor right at the building’s entrance.
“The energy today has been very high,” said Yajaira Cuapio, a social worker and member of the executive board of the United Educators of San Francisco teachers union. “I’ve also been hearing and getting videos from school sites all across San Francisco where students are out, where parents are out. The community is out.”
The rally also featured representatives of other labor unions that came out to show solidarity with UESF, including SEIU 1021, the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 39, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 21.
“We feel it’s super important to let UESF know, and also to let the public know, that, as labor unions, we all stand together with each other and no matter what happens, we’re here to help them and support them,” said Dave Pankenier, a member of the SFUSD chapter of IFPTE Local 21.
Local 21 is currently conducting its own contract negotiations with SFUSD. “It’s been challenging, I gotta say,” Pankenier said. “When we meet for contract negotiations, I feel as though the district isn’t giving us their full attention, and this is because there are obviously other contract negotiations going on with bigger unions.”
For now, he said, it doesn’t look as though Local 21 is headed for a strike of its own. “Our contract negotiations are ongoing, and we hope to resolve those in a way that makes everyone feel good.”
—Béatrice Vallières
Ten-year-old Ellie Early King joins the picket line at Everett Middle School with her mum on the first day of the teachers’ strike. Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Alice Finno.
Everett Middle School
In the Mission District, about 70 people — including teachers, social workers, students, and parents from Sanchez Elementary School and Everett Middle School — gathered to picket outside Everett. The group marched and chanted on the sidewalk, cheering each time a passing car honked to show support.
Annie Bartkowski, who teaches English to immigrant students at Everett Middle School, said she was glad the teachers secured sanctuary protections against ICE in their contract. Still, she said she hopes the district will do more to support unhoused students.
Bartkowski said she was unsure how long the strike would last. “We don’t want it to go on for a while, but we’re really serious in fighting for what our students deserve.”
Ellie Early King, 10, joined the picket line in front of Everett with her mom, a social worker at the school.
Early King said she likes going to school, but she understands the importance of the strike. “It’s good that we’re going on strike because teachers deserve to have the things that they want, and the district isn’t giving them that,” she said.
—Alice Finno
“No one’s here. The whole place is closed,” said Gabriel, a senior at Lowell High School on Feb. 9, 2026. Photo by Junyao Yang.
Lowell High School
At Lowell High School, three students gathered outside the school entrance a little before 1 p.m. They came to school for drone practice. And they were the only ones.
The school site is ostensibly open as one of the eight “staff centers” where the school district directed teachers, principals and others to report to on Monday morning, the day of the first city educator walkout since the 1970s.
Evidently, not many district employees chose to staff the staff center.
“No one’s here,” said Gabriel, a Lowell senior. “The whole place is closed.”
Teachers gave them materials to study before going on strike, they said, and a test will happen as soon as the strike is over. “A lot of them are unsure about the future, about how long the strike will go on,” said Audrey, a sophomore at Lowell.
“Teachers are really torn, because they want to be a part of the strike, they need to make a living, and then they also really care about their students,” Gabriel said. “They are walking a really thin line between respecting the union and trying to do their best for us.”
—Junyao Yang
Construction workers atop a partially completed building at St. Ignatius College Prep serenade striking public school teachers marching past by shouting “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (the people united will never be defeated). Photo by Junyao Yang.
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On February 12, we’ll get actionable lessons on organizing in moments of crisis, corporate pressure tactics, rapid response, and nonviolent community defense from the awe-inspiring practitioners doing this work day in, day out in Minnesota. Register here >> We hope to see you there! In solidarity, Indivisible Team
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We protest Heritage Foundation EVERY MONDAY (Join us!!!!) By admin | September 2, 2025 | Uncategorized Cliff Cash Comedy Premiered Jul 26, 2025 Every Monday at The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Ave. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza Every Friday at Fox News D.C. 400 N. Capitol St. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza We are... Continue reading →
The Milk Club February General Membership Meeting Date: Tuesday, February 17th Time: 7-9 PM Location: SF LGBT Center, 1800 Market Street, San Francisco Zoom Link: Click here
One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism Virtual Event · Hosted by No Kings Time Wednesdays 8 – 9:30pm EDT Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Across the country, authoritarian forces are getting bolder and more dangerous. Trump and his allies are not hiding their agenda: mass deportations,... 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 →
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