The Frisc

In recent years, San Francisco’s Great Highway has been the site of great drama, both manmade and natural. More is on the horizon. In November, the city will decide for a third time whether cars should have access to the stretch of the road now known as Sunset Dunes Park. Sometime around Election Day, the city’s rainy season should begin, and forecasters say there’s a good chance for heavy storms — the same kind that in past years battered the shore and ripped out chunks of the Great Highway.

It seems like just yesterday that downtown San Francisco’s main industry was the production of “doom loop” headlines. Now SF is switching from doom to boom, thanks to an unprecedented flood of venture cash for AI startups. A ton of that money is pouring into downtown leases. Get your key cards and happy hours ready. Office life is back.

On a cool spring day last May, Matt Mendoza was on the athletic field of Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, where he teaches physical education. Class was in session on the turf surface, which has a clear view of San Francisco’s iconic Ghirardelli Square rooftop sign. Suddenly, a student punched Mendoza three times without provocation, according to Mendoza and more than a dozen of his colleagues.

Last month Sup. Connie Chan, who’s running for Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat, released a campaign ad excoriating San Francisco’s AI boom. “AI data centers are driving up our utility costs, displacing our community, and jeopardizing our environment,” she said, standing in front of a public library. Chan’s not the only one raging against the machines. If elected, she’ll support a moratorium on new AI data centers penned by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

With squeaky giggles, a few of San Francisco’s youngest students took the mic last week to help school officials and other bigwigs open the city’s first new public school in 20 years. When the school year starts next Monday, Mission Bay Elementary will welcome three- through five-year-olds. The ribbon-cutting might well be the easiest task Superintendent Maria Su faces this year. Su took San Francisco Unified’s helm in late 2024 in mid-crisis.

Advocates for public services cheered San Francisco’s budget compromise earlier this summer. The final tally avoided $28.5 million in proposed cuts to City College and to nonprofits that serve immigrants, the homeless, and more. But when supervisors ratified the record $16.9 billion two-year budget last month, one longtime homelessness nonprofit still took a hit. Hospitality House, which turns 60 next year, received a $250,000 cut.

Among recent signs of San Francisco’s downtown revival, this one stood out: a deadline. Planning Director Sarah Dennis-Phillips last month warned dawdling developers to hurry up and break ground on approved commercial projects, or else the city might penalize them in favor of new proposals. After years of fear that downtown spaces would sit vacant indefinitely, the new tech boom isn’t just refilling those spaces, it’s raising expectations for new development.

On the 4th of July, San Francisco’s fog put a damper on an historic fireworks show. Adding to the summer bummer was a traffic meltdown, with stalled Waymo robotaxis in the middle of it all. The fiasco included long lines of Waymos blocking cars, shuttles, and Muni buses on one of the busiest days on SF streets. Transit officials said this week that they’re still sorting out the data to understand what happened.

Rachelle “Rocky” Henley has been chasing baseball dreams since the 1970s. She went from being the only girl on South San Francisco’s Little League team to covering third base professionally for the Colorado Silver Bullets. In 2014 she founded the San Francisco Bay Sox, now the largest all-girls baseball program in the country. Henley is breaking new ground again. She’s the only woman among four managers leading teams in the inaugural season of the Women’s Pro Baseball League.

San Francisco has more than 200,000 residents who rely on Medi-Cal, California’s public health insurance for low-income residents. City officials say at least 25,000 of them could lose coverage in the next year and a half. Mayor Daniel Lurie and other local leaders have known this was coming ever since Republicans in Congress passed HR 1, the so-called “big beautiful bill,” last July.