It was standing room only at a City College of San Francisco theater Thursday night, when a dozen young local filmmakers screened documentaries about people they look up to in their neighborhoods. Often, it turned out, those people were former drug dealers, gangbangers and convicts who have turned their lives around and now work to help kids avoid making the same mistakes they made. The filmmakers are all part of ......

One of the loudest places in San Francisco has to be the inside a Muni bus leaving a public school on a weekday afternoon. The noise is deafening and often profane as throngs of students — basically unsupervised — vie for seats and blow off steam after a long day of watching the clock and being told what to do. I saw it last week while reporting a story about ......

Writer, caregiver, state parolee and lifelong meth addict Ernest Fisher goes by the nickname Bleu. “I had asthma as a kid, so I turned blue a lot,” he told me. Bleu, 48, has been in and out of prison for more than 20 years on drug charges and one burglary. He was released again 18 months ago and has two felony strikes against him. Since he got out, he has ......

Tuesday’s dust-up on the steps of City Hall between Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and a throng of protesting cab drivers made for good copy, but also brought the wrath of the Cab Driver Anti-Defamation League to the proverbial doorstep of The Bay Citizen. Shortly after our post hit the Web, San Francisco driver Brad Newsham fired off an email to our editor-in-chief, Jonathan Weber, and me. “I'm sure you and your ......