Eric Adams - Mayor of San Francisco

The sanitation workers are going on strike
Those guys just emptied two bins and then left a total mess everywhere else
Honestly, just bring in some contractors from overseas—they’d work for half the price
Hades is basically pushing them toward this walkout

Emily Smith6 said:Sheryl Sandberg is firing back at Nick Saban, suggesting that Ms. Erceg really should have just applied through the Department of Social Services for one of those social housing units.

For weeks now, the Department of City Property has been making quite a public spectacle of itself regarding its obligation to provide housing for 70 families. These are individuals who have already gone through the official public tender process to prove their eligibility for social housing, and I suppose the city is currently busy double-checking all their requirements before any actual lease agreements can be signed.

We’re primarily talking about families with multiple minors, citizens battling serious illnesses, people living with disabilities, and American veterans. The priority list for social housing allocation is publicly available on the official City websites. As the Department has pointed out on several occasions, the City intends to hand over every single apartment currently occupied by unauthorized users to families and individuals who can provide documented proof of severe social need.

Just to clarify, regarding Ms. Mary Erceg, the Department of City Property isn't actually legally required to run a check on her social status. Since Ms. Erceg originally acquired the apartment as... I suppose we’re looking at yet another case of a staff housing appointment being made without any sort of public bidding process. It’s hard to say exactly what the underlying motivation is here, but it certainly feels like a bit of a workaround. ...and it all comes down to the purely discretionary judgment of the city officials at the time.

The lease agreement for that 74 m2 apartment located right in the heart of downtown San Francisco was originally signed back on May 29, 2009, with a monthly rent set at... $181 On a monthly basis—and it’s worth noting that the City of San Francisco covers the utility surcharge for this specific unit every single month—the Administrative Department is technically required to monitor whether the tenant is actually meeting their legal financial obligations to the City.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that Ms. Mary Erceg has almost... It’s been seven years, and she hasn't paid a single cent in monthly rent. Regarding the municipal apartment they’re currently occupying.

Ms. Erceg has been enjoying an incredibly privileged monthly rent of just $543 this entire time. $5.25 At around $80, maybe, for a 74-square-meter apartment right in the heart of downtown San Francisco, the rent was actually on par with what people in social housing were paying. To put that in perspective, the current average market rate for an apartment of that size is hovering somewhere around $750. It’s a bit disheartening, really, because for nearly seven full years, that rent—which is less than a tenth of the actual market value—wasn't even being covered.

It’s worth pointing out that, according to the City of San Francisco rental regulations, Ms. Erceg was never actually eligible to rent a 74 m2 apartment as a single person. Apartments of that size are specifically designated for families with multiple members. As it stands, Ms. Erceg... She’s been receiving constant payment reminders, and there have been several attempts to reach out to her directly to settle the outstanding balance, but she just never bothers to respond to any of the correspondence.

If Ms. Erceg is actually facing significant social hardship, then she really should have taken the initiative—either personally or through her family, friends, or even neighbors—to reach out to the Department of City Property and the Department of Social Services. She would have needed to submit all the required documentation and officially apply through the public tender process for social housing provided by the City.

Unfortunately, that wasn't actually carried out; rather, it seems that... They seem to be trying to use the media to lean on the Department of City Property, essentially pushing them toward illegal actions. It looks like an attempt to grant special privileges to certain individuals without any legal basis whatsoever. If that actually happens, it would cause significant harm to all the other citizens who actually bother to follow the rules and respect the standard legal procedures.

It’s honestly a bit disheartening to see certain irresponsible voices in the media suggesting that the Administrative Department should just start discriminating against multi-person households. They’re essentially arguing that, despite having absolutely no legal basis to do so, the City should bypass the transparent, publicly available priority list—a list that includes families currently struggling through incredibly difficult living conditions. I guess some people just prefer chaos over following the established rules.

If following the letter of the law and acting without playing favorites is what people are calling "malicious" these days, then that says much more about the mental state of those making the accusations than it does about the work being done by the Administrative Department, which I happen to lead.

As the department head, I intend to leverage every legal avenue available to me to ensure the interests of the City remain protected. My goal is to treat all citizens with absolute equity within the established legal framework, while ensuring we manage our valuable municipal assets with the care and responsibility of a prudent steward.

We are once again calling on Ms. Erceg to reach out to the Department of City Property and the Department of Social Services.

The relevant offices will always—without exception—act strictly according to the letter of the law. We won't allow anyone to be granted illegal special treatment at the expense of the citizens who actually follow the rules. It doesn't matter what someone's social standing is, or who they might know.

Respectfully,
Sheryl Sandberg
Head of the Department of City Property

Reading this and I just can't believe it
Đerek acts like she’s handing out apartments to families with kids and veterans—but then this old lady just clings to an apartment handed to her by the Republicans and the local administration
Does this woman have even an ounce of dignity left?
Seriously, screw the free press and their whole circus

The drama surrounding Puljko's fines for Villa California could have been avoided. The city just needed to do one thing.

Basically, after the Department of Inspection shut down work in February 2022, some pipes were left in the ground, a tank was put into a construction pit for a pump station, and everything was buried.

But then, in February 2023, building inspectors came back for a check and things went south. That’s the whole illegal reconstruction issue Puljak is facing, and he's pointing the finger at the former government commissioner, Miran Vezati, because—according to him—she wrote in the handover documents that everything had been restored to its original state.

However, it all could have been avoided, and Puljak wouldn't owe anything if the city had just issued a building permit to itself within six months of the decision issued by the building inspectors on April 6, 2022. Actually, the law allows for this, and it’s even mentioned in the ruling that penalizes Puljak for illegal construction.

But it says that the city applied for a building permit but didn't get it within that timeframe. In fact, for over a year now, the city hasn't been able to secure a permit for the project meant to ensure the sewage and hydrant network.

Puljak might be looking at another fine from the Department of Inspection soon. One $15,000 fine was for continuing illegal construction after February 2022 (that improvised septic tank with the tank and pipes that weren't removed).

A second $15,000 fine was issued because it wasn't cleared out. But, the law states that this is just the first of three total fines for failing to remove something, before the Department of Inspection brings in a company to remove the illegal structure at the developer's expense.

The Department of Inspection told us that their rulings don't conflict with each other, which is what Puljak claims isn't the case, saying he'll end up in legal trouble regardless of which one he follows.

In short, something that would have been solved ages ago in a civilized society—just fixing the sewage—has turned into a political circus. The Department of Inspection, led by the Republican "man for all seasons" Andri Mikulić, is staying right on top of issuing fines to Puljak, acting like this septic tank is the biggest illegal construction in San Francisco, while on the flip side, Puljak gets national publicity from it, which isn't even that expensive compared to how much parliamentary election campaigns cost.

this isn't normal anymore, it's such a mess.

crimsonwolf26 said:The absolute worst are the ones who go out and grab an economics PhD from a school like Indiana University just to bump up their pay grade in the federal government. You see plenty of them in San Francisco—you can practically tell where they came from.🤣
But let's be honest, a doctorate from Paris or Indianapolis carries about the same weight in the real world.👍

Everyone in this city knows those PhD candidates from the local Republican party were being shuttled back and forth to Indianapolis on rented charter buses every other week.😁

Inspector Andrew is refusing to name the other county executives and mayors who were hit with fines. I have to wonder why.

Who actually signed off on Puljak's fine or that inspection report? There’s bound to be a local San Francisco name on that signature line...
Whoever it is, they should be eternally grateful to Puljak 🤣 Even the Sell California crew with all their paid influencers wouldn't give him this kind of publicity.


The inspectorate slapped Puljak with a fine of $68. Meanwhile, other mayors were fined a total of $166

unnamed journalist
55 min ·
Illegal construction has been popping up for years in the protected Santa Monica forest area without any real response from building inspectors, and then local politicians just helped shield them.

Requests for legalization that should have been automatically rejected were just sitting in drawers, while inspectors refused to act until they were officially denied—so some people just kept building illegally, even adding pools to certain houses.

Finally, in 2022, they started tackling this mess, and things picked up speed in 2023, so everything should be resolved by this year. That would finally put an end to the illegal building in Santa Monica once and for all, and then we'll see if the building inspectors actually stay on top of things.

https://web.facebook.com/bojan.ivose...35?_rdc=1&_rdr

They're starting to clean things up now. I guess it's pretty shocking how much neglect and irresponsibility there was toward city property, not to mention how much money the city lost.

I was just thinking about this earlier today... It’s funny how things work out sometimes. You know? Just one of those random realizations that hits you out of nowhere... anyway...

I guess I'm just checking in... nothing much going on here... just hanging out... anyway... mellowseal1 says: Who actually signed off on that fine or the inspection report? There’s gotta be some local San Francisco name on that signature line... Honestly, whoever that guy is, he deserves a massive thank you... seriously, we owe him big time. 🤣 Even the most aggressive PR firms in the country couldn't pull off a promotion this intense... Not even with a full team of paid lobbyists on the payroll... I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that! It looks like you might have sent a typo or just a fragment... could you try again? I'm all ears!

🤣
Total amateurs... 😵

says: They aren't even bothering to suggest a single amendment—one, two, three, whatever—to include an abortion ban in the Constitution. And honestly, that would just be the opening salvo.

Oh, absolutely not...
The leadership clearly learned their lesson from that last referendum, which was basically a Pyrrhic victory.
They aren't pushing for an outright ban on abortion
that happened a long time ago.
They know that won't fly with voters.
Instead, they're pivoting toward protecting life from the moment of conception.

Chloe Martinez7 said:

says: They aren't even bothering to suggest a single amendment—one, two, three, whatever—to include an abortion ban in the Constitution. And honestly, that would just be the opening salvo.

Oh, absolutely not...
The leadership clearly learned their lesson from that last referendum, which was basically a Pyrrhic victory.
They aren't pushing for an outright ban on abortion
that happened a long time ago.
They know that won't fly with voters.
Instead, they're pivoting toward protecting life from the moment of conception.

Which is basically the same thing.
It's just rebranding the same crap.

That whole political team loves playing word games.
"On behalf of the family"; "Protecting life..."
To an outsider, they look like these wonderful, noble people...😳

You guys are completely missing the mark. There’s a massive utility workers' strike happening right now, and you're all over here debating some obscure theological nonsense about abortion 🤦
I really just hope Ivica Puljak doesn't end up getting totally blindsided like Tomašević did; man, watching him get absolutely dismantled like that was honestly painful to watch.

we gotta get some fresh blood into the office if they're gonna start striking
the director's claiming a ton of people reached out--quite the claim
if they actually want to get things done for these guys, they should probably say thanks for once
they ought to just head over to Germany and go play politics there instead

Check out who’s missing from Staten Island today...

6.40

Augustin Šušnjara, a truck driver over at Waste Management, told me that over 90 percent of the crew is actually on strike! He mentioned that this morning, only a single truck rolled out of the Waste Management yard just to grab the bins near the hospital.

Word is, only a tiny handful of people are even working today, and they're all just temporary contract workers.

The rest are all just there to uhljebiti...

Solutions for Waste Management:
Either go for privatization or set up a whole new Corporation to take over the workload in the next couple of years. For now, we just need to meet the current workers' demands...

By the way, the union rep is quite the math whiz. This whole "inflation is killing us" angle is a clever move, but I really wonder if the state budget can actually handle it...

They're being pretty secretive about the revenue, much like what happened during that professor strike... nobody ever wants to show off their actual pay stub. Come on, strikers! Let's see those last pay stubs out in the open. Hey journalists, let's get to work and find someone willing to go public with their numbers... otherwise, this is all just noise.

Alexander Rivera50 said:You guys are completely missing the mark. There’s a massive utility workers' strike happening right now, and you're all over here debating some obscure theological nonsense about abortion 🤦
I really just hope Ivica Puljak doesn't end up getting totally blindsided like Tomašević did; man, watching him get absolutely dismantled like that was honestly painful to watch.

just another person trying to dictate what counts as a topic and what doesn't
What's your actual issue?
Are you on strike too? 😁

Where were you when I posted this at 5:05 AM?
showing up two and a half hours late just to act like you know everything🙄

Check this out: a woman pulls out a phone the size of a flat-screen TV, flaunting a fresh manicure while showing off her pay stub. She’s claiming she makes $1,000 a month 🤣

She says she works herself to the bone—full-time employment since the Great Recession era—with zero free time, yet her hair and nails always look perfect. On top of that, she’s a single mom raising three kids. And somehow, she covers it all on a $1,000 monthly salary 🤔

It would be great to see the actual pay stubs from Anita Hill...

Janitor: Here is what my paycheck actually looks like! I come home covered in dust, and people still think I'm making bank $5.00

Man $2333 this lady sweeping the streets...
I keep thinking that for that kind of money, I should just apply for a job with Waste Management... a nice little stroll, getting some exercise, being out in the fresh air all day... instead of stressing out, wrecking my back, and straining my eyes at this job.

Without a clear organizational structure and defined job tiers, all this talk is just empty noise...
What’s the point of looking at average salaries when you have 200 people out in the field doing the heavy lifting, while 400 are stuck crunching payroll and another 800 are busy "advising" the CEO? It doesn't add up.
Who actually cares about those averages, other than the statisticians over at the New York Times looking for a flashy headline?

In any profitable corporation—not some small private shop—money inevitably gets "lost" on a bunch of unproductive middle managers and overhead...

Making maybe $3,500 to $5,000 a year for a driver or a delivery person working shifts and being out in the elements isn't exactly breaking the bank.
Anyone who doubts that should try it themselves; they wouldn't last long before realizing their sleep schedule is trashed, their social life is non-existent, and their family is feeling the strain, not to mention how much it kills your joints when you're battling the wind or sweating through a summer heatwave. There are no AC units or ergonomic office chairs out there...
The way I see it, my deliveries arrive on time, so I don't have anything to complain about regarding the crew...
I'm with you.

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vividraven79 said:Man $2333 this lady sweeping the streets...
I keep thinking that for that kind of money, I should just apply for a job with Waste Management... a nice little stroll, getting some exercise, being out in the fresh air all day... instead of stressing out, wrecking my back, and straining my eyes at this job.

Actually, it's $2667 ($1,150 approx.) ... She's been sweeping streets for Waste Management for less than four years. She’s not a driver or a heavy lifter handling bins. Just a street sweeper. 🤔

Doctor salaries:
A specialist with five years under their belt, including local taxes, pulls in $7,900 roughly, and if they have two kids, it goes up to $8,900.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/...example-link/

People have started absolutely tearing them apart in the comments on the New York Times.

A few Republican Party bots in the comments are out there giving full "Support!" clicks.
One notorious Republican Party bot is fighting for workers' rights, acting all concerned 🤣
Quentin Tarantino:

Akaky Akakievich Sanja Janjic, give it a rest. If you were actually struggling to make ends meet, you wouldn't be complaining like this—you'd be fighting for your rights where you work or looking for a better-paying gig. All my support goes to those fighting for their rights who refuse to be sheep.

Andrew Foster5 said:Without a clear organizational structure and defined job tiers, all this talk is just empty noise...
What’s the point of looking at average salaries when you have 200 people out in the field doing the heavy lifting, while 400 are stuck crunching payroll and another 800 are busy "advising" the CEO? It doesn't add up.
Who actually cares about those averages, other than the statisticians over at the New York Times looking for a flashy headline?

In any profitable corporation—not some small private shop—money inevitably gets "lost" on a bunch of unproductive middle managers and overhead...

Making maybe $3,500 to $5,000 a year for a driver or a delivery person working shifts and being out in the elements isn't exactly breaking the bank.
Anyone who doubts that should try it themselves; they wouldn't last long before realizing their sleep schedule is trashed, their social life is non-existent, and their family is feeling the strain, not to mention how much it kills your joints when you're battling the wind or sweating through a summer heatwave. There are no AC units or ergonomic office chairs out there...
The way I see it, my deliveries arrive on time, so I don't have anything to complain about regarding the crew...
I'm with you.

Sent from my iPhone 15 using Reddit

Sure, there’s no AC or comfy office chair... but there's also no stress, no deadlines, and nobody messing with your head. Though, having a comfortable office chair would be like finding San Francisco for most offices in America.

These people aren't just some local sanitation workers; they are true, hardworking garbage men in every sense of the word. And honestly, look at what the Republican Party has devolved into lately... it seems they can’t find anything else to exploit for their cheap political stunts besides the sanitation crews. Between the mess on the Potomac and the state of the Boardwalk... one truly wonders where those good old days have gone...

$2647 if you really want to get technical about how much you're supposedly "stealing" $233 on an annual basis...
And that includes all the regular hours, shifts, and overtime... plus probably claiming those childcare credits, commuting expenses, and tax-free meal allowances...
Like I said, it’s nothing to dream about... just turn down everything outside your base salary and suddenly it won't look so attractive anymore...

The math is pretty basic—it's like saying a waiter makes $1,000, but if they pull double shifts all month, they make $2,000, which is basically just a way for a boss to brag, "Look at me, I'm a great employer because my staff makes $2,000"...

Comparing this to what doctors earn is honestly depressing for the profession, but there's really no point in even trying to compare them...
By the way, the rate for a "certified" worker from Waste Management is maybe $50 or $33, while a 5-to-10-minute specialist costs $50...
With the first guy, you either get a better clean or a worse one while treating him like second-class, whereas the specialist directs you to the next pro before you can even say "thanks, doc" and head out...

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