Your Government & Your City

San Francisco is the most tax procrastinating city in the country, according to a recent TurboTax report.

President Barack Obama's campaign has opened a first-of-its-kind technology field office in San Francisco. It hopes to lure the San Francisco Bay Area's many web designers, software engineers, programmers and other tech workers to volunteer for the campaign.

As you hunt for a job, don't overlook the help and resources available at the San Francisco Public Library, including resume-writing workshops, computer time earmarked for job-seekers and online video tutorials

San Francisco's Sunday Streets program closes off streets to car traffic and lets pedestrians. bicyclists and skaters take over and enjoy free activities.

New laws in 2012 that may affect you include San Francisco's minimum wage rate (now the highest in the US) and state laws barring you from buying alcohol at supermarket self-checkout lanes and mandating car seats for kids until age 8

SFO has opened the first yoga room in any airport in the world, an oasis in the bustling, bright terminal. The San Francisco International Airport is a pioneer on several other fronts, too, and has many attractions and services that you might not know about.

The holidays are the season of charity and volunteering. But San Francisco charity and non profit organizations need more than Thanksgiving and Christmas meal volunteers. They rely on individuals, corporate staffs, schools and other entities to volunteer year-round and serve meals, tutor, garden, play soccer and do myriad other things. Look...

Instead of drinking and driving on New Year's in San Francisco, there are other ways that you can get home after partying--ways that are safe and free.

A guide to voting in the high-stakes San Francisco election of November 2011, including voters registration, different ways to vote, deadlines, the ranked choice system and how to properly mark the San Francisco ballot.

San Francisco interim mayor Ed Lee is endorsed by MC Hammer and other celebrities in a hip, flashy video funded by an independent expenditure committee

The Ed Lee Story, a book promoting the interim San Francisco mayor, is being distributed around town even though Ed Lee is widely considered the front-runner among the 16 candidates for San Francisco mayor.

San Francisco is the greenest of 27 major US and Canadian cities, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit study. Our mandatory recycling and composting law is especially effective, the study found.

The breadth and depth of the San Francisco Public Library's programs is impressive--and more so during the summer, when our brains tend to go on vacation.

During Memorial Day weekend, veterans' groups and local military units hold ceremonies in San Francisco to honor Americans who died in military service, which is the original purpose of the holiday.

San Francisco Garbage Sorting - What to Recycle, Compost and Trash in San Francisco

San Francisco’s successful Art in Storefronts program is seeking artists to beautify Market Street, which gives the artists one-of-a-kind visibility and aims to boost neighborhood morale and safety.

Although San Francisco food banks and food pantries had more to give out in 2010, they still had to turn away 30 percent of the people asking for food. A U.S. Conference of Mayors report examines hunger and homelessness in San Francisco and two dozen other cities.

San Francisco Parks - Extracurricular Activities for All

Given San Francisco's sizable Asian American and Pacific Islander populations, there are several festivals and events to mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

With San Francisco a hub of human trafficking, the city, private organizations and service agencies are banding together to fight the exploitative industry. Their coalition aims to increase public awareness, develop effective policies and help victims.

San Francisco has a reputation of being lenient toward the homeless, but are its homeless laws actually "mean"? A national report says in its homeless laws and general climate toward the homeless, SF is the 7th-meanest city in the U.S.

We already have the highest recycling rate in the country, but the city is determined to get even greener by requiring every home and business to sort its garbage. That means you have to think before you throw: is it recyclable, compostable, or plain old trash?

Got a gripe? Contact the mayor or your area supervisor.

A guide to registering to vote and voting, in PDF format, from the city's Department of Elections.

Information on government agencies at municipal, state and federal levels.

How to pay parking tickets and traffic citations.

San Francisco is attempting something that no other US city has: To provide universal health coverage for its residents. The Healthy San Francisco (HSF) program, funded by the city, employer contributions and participant fees, is reaching people who need it. But, like other universal health care plans, it has its critics.

Cleverly done 3-D maps take San Francisco crime rates and depict them topographically, as humps and mountains of various heights. For many categories of crime, the highest incidence rates in San Francisco appear in the Tenderloin and the Mission.

Confused by all of the green choices out there? Consult SF's Approved List of environmentally preferable (i.e., green) products.

Stressed? Of course, you huff, who isn’t?! A study confirms that San Francisco is economically stressed--but less than many of our neighbors.

San Francisco is in the middle of the country's biggest metro areas, stress-wise, according to a new report.

A guide to voting in the California election in November 2010, including voter registration, polling places and other information.

Voting and voter turnout in the Nov. 2 election are crucial to San Francisco. At stake is the city's future direction--the bent of the Board of Supervisors and the mayor, and the shape of the city budget. And there are important races at the state and national levels, too.

We're a smart city, according to a Daily Beast study, which ranks the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area third among the smart cities of the US. The dumbest city is Las Vegas.