DOJ Finds Decades of Staff Abuse in California Women's Prisons

Hal Brenner, Managing Editor

The thread connecting every desk this morning is documentation — an SFPD ledger, a DOJ finding, an inspector general's cash-cliff date, a DHS timeline that shifts by the paragraph — and in each case the paperwork ends up indicting the institution that produced it. It's 58 degrees and the clouds are sitting flat on the city today, which is about right for a morning like this.

Bex Connolly — Politics

Newsom signed AB 181 in July — it hands a governor's commissioner, not the elected superintendent, day-to-day control of California's $150 billion agency starting January 2027 — and the superintendent candidates have spent the summer campaigning as if that weren't the situation. In the Todd Stewart case, DHS's argument is that its detainer would have changed the outcome; the problem is that the agency's own records list two different dates for when it was filed.

• The Superintendent's Race Nobody's Watching Is for a Job the Legislature Just Gutted
• The DA Can't Try the Fairfield Graduation Shooting Suspect as an Adult. A Judge Will Decide That.
• San Jose Puts Zoom Back in Every Commission Meeting — and Quietly Drops Background Checks in the Same Vote
• California's Phone Law Hit Every District July 1. San Francisco Met It by Changing Nothing.
• At East San Jose's 'Affordable' Kirk, Two Homes Cost $300K. The Rest Approach $1.3 Million.
• More Money, Fewer Homes: Why 600 Santa Clara County Apartments Are Stuck Even as Washington Expands Housing Tax Credits
• …and 36 more from this desk — see them all

Devon Park — Tech

Corgi's lawyers killed the harassment ranking site in three days, but the part I keep returning to is that almost nobody who heard about it questioned whether the company had built it — which is a verdict on what Corgi's own marketing has told people about how it treats the women on its payroll. The CPUC's Advice Letter No. 4 meanwhile handed Waymo paid-fare rights across 18 California counties on Friday; the company operates in three, and is describing that gap as a gradual rollout.

• Corgi's Lawyers Killed a Site Ranking Its Female Staff. Its Own Marketing Is Why People Assumed It Built It.
• 'Innovation Campus,' Not 'Data Center': The Oakland Label That Could Dodge a Council Vote
• Waymo Just Won the Right to Charge for Robotaxis in 18 California Counties. It Runs in Three.
• Eight Buildings, One Checkbook: Mehta's Fillmore Roll-Up Adds a $8.6M Storefront

Casey Wong — Neighborhoods

Four permit filings since 2015, same three apartments, same gap on McAllister — this month's resubmission at 2740 Lone Mountain arrives without Stanley Saitowitz, the drawings handed to an engineering firm, and I think that substitution explains more about what San Francisco's permitting process does to a neighborhood lot than any citywide housing chart would. Across the Bay today, the Richmond Plunge turns 100 at 1 East Richmond Avenue: more than 170 windows, a pool that was on the demolition schedule fifteen years ago, and a birthday party this afternoon for what a neighborhood decided was worth the fight.

• An ICU Helicopter Moves In Among the Skydivers at Byron Airport
• At 2740 McAllister, a Lot Files Its Fourth Plan in Eleven Years — This Time Without the Star Architect
• The Richmond Plunge Was Slated for Demolition. Today It Turns 100.
• A Rave Beach on Highway 1 Reopens Monday as San Mateo County's First New Coastal Park in a Generation

Drew Bennett — Things to Do

The nonprofit papers are what changed: the San Francisco Improv Festival incorporated this year before mounting its first shows since 2019, which makes tonight's closing night at Silk Road Bar on Ellis Street something more than a weekend event — it's the first public data point on whether the organization can fund a second run. Jokeland applies the same free-room logic without the overhead, running monthly in a South Berkeley gallery at 2727 California Street with actual stage lighting, no two-drink minimum, and no cover — tonight, 8 p.m. And if you need something to save for September: Poolside's Daytime Disco is free and all ages in Union Square on the 20th, but it's RSVP-only and that's the step people skip.

• Jokeland's Free Comedy Night Turns a South Berkeley Art Gallery Into a Testing Ground
• The Sonoma County Fair Closes Sunday. The Ugliest Dog Already Won.
• SF's Improv Festival Is Back After Six Years. Tonight's the Last Night of Shows.
• Poolside Brings Its Free 'Daytime Disco' Back to Union Square on September 20

Jules Martinez — Food

Terra's permit was suspended Friday while every other tenant at Eataly Silicon Valley stayed open — the county found something specific to the third floor, not a building-wide problem, and Eataly's statement leans on that gap in a way worth scrutinizing before you accept it as reassuring. Danny Im's Anju at 206 Valencia is the week's other signal: three San Francisco restaurants in two years from one chef-owner, the third built around drinking rather than dining, is a data point about what a room has to be on that corridor right now to make the numbers work. Parche at 2295 Broadway is matching Sunday's empanada and cocktail sales for Colombia earthquake relief — small dollar volume, real community calculus.

• Anju Opens on Valencia, Danny Im's Third SF Room in Two Years
• Oakland's Parche Turns an Aug. 17 Empanada Night Into Colombia Earthquake Relief
• Terra Shut at Eataly Silicon Valley After County Suspends Its Permit for Vermin

Sal Moreno — Sports

Kyle Freeland threw eight innings of one-run ball into a line I laid -123, and I owe you the honest accounting: two bets against Colorado in six days, two losses, and the structural read I keep building around this Giants team is mine to own — they're not good enough to justify that number at home, and I knew it when I placed it. The piece worth your time this morning is Justin Buzzard at San Jose City College — a 47-year-old pastor who built a career telling founders to stop playing small walked on at the Bay's most invisible football program, and the fact that nobody is buying or selling the 1-9 SJCC roster is exactly what makes it worth watching.

• 0-1, Down Half a Unit: The Giants Couldn't Close It
• Freeland Threw Eight. I Keep Betting the Giants. That One's on Me.
• Risk or Rust: A 47-Year-Old Pastor Walks On at San Jose City College

Hal Brenner

The paperwork always tells you something the institution didn't mean to — that's the thread this morning, and it runs from a DHS filing date that can't decide when it existed all the way to a permit resubmission that quietly swapped out its own architect. Go find out what's worth the fight.