Late last year, Central States Pension Fund retirees, widows, and spouses were notified that their hard-earned pensions might be slashed by as much as 70 percent. These proposed cuts are made possible by the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, a law that torpedoes 40 years of established federal private pension law and could ultimately impact millions of American workers and their families. Between now and May 7th, the Treasury Department is expected to rule on Central States' dangerous proposal. Please stand with retired truck drivers, dock workers, office workers, spouses, widows and others who could be affected by the law by urging the Treasury Department to reject the unfair and ill-conceived cuts proposed by the Central States Pension Fund. If these pension cuts are approved, hundreds of thousands of lives would be affected, setting a dangerous precedent for future cuts in other multiemployer plans, affecting more than a million people.

Late last year, Central States Pension Fund retirees, widows and spouses were notified that their hard-earned pensions might be slashed by as much as 70 percent. These proposed cuts are made possible by the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, a law that torpedoes 40 years of established federal private pension law and could ultimately impact millions of American workers and their families. Please stand with retired truck drivers, bakery workers, dock workers, office workers, spouses, widows and others who could be affected by the law by urging the Treasury Department to reject the unfair and ill-conceived cuts proposed by the Central States Pension Fund. If these pension cuts are approved, hundreds of thousands of lives would be affected, setting a dangerous precedent for future cuts in other multiemployer plans, affecting more than a million people.

United To Save The Mission Coalition, an alliance of Mission District community groups working on saving our neighborhood from over-development and the complete displacement of existing residents, is expressing our strong opposition to the 1515 South Van Ness Avenue project by Lennar Corporation. The proposed project is to be situated at the corner of 26th and South Van Ness Avenue. This project is the largest new project that is currently under development. It consists of 165 units, of which only 20 are affordable. Among our concerns are: Loss of PDR Space: This project, if approved, would eliminate the sizable PDR space currently being used by McMillan Electric. The ongoing loss of light industrial spaces that preserve job opportunities and anchor the middle class is acute, as the Planning Commission has recognized with its intent to develop a plan for 1 to 1 PDR replacement for every Eastern Neighborhoods development. It is counterproductive and short sighted to expedite new residential developments in front of Commission efforts to ameliorate the negative impacts of new residential developments. Higher Affordable Housing Requirements Are On The Ballot: The voters of San Francisco will be weighing in shortly on higher inclusionary standards for new developments. While the outcome of Jane Kim's ballot measure remains to be determined, the wishes of the city's residents, should they choose to support higher affordable housing requirements and pass a measure implementing interim controls, should be respected by the Planning Commission and the city's political leadership. Sliding in massive new projects right before the election that come nowhere near to meeting the potential new interim standards, project disrespect for the democratic decision making process in the City. The Environmental Impact Report (EIR) Is Incomplete Regarding Calle 24 Cultural District Concerns: The City and the Commission recognized by creating the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District the unique character of the particular neighborhood bordered by 22nd Street, Cesar Chavez Street, Potrero Avenue and Mission Street. The 2014 designation addressed issues of design, architectural guidelines and neighborhood vision/direction for the benefit of all San Franciscans, and mentioned socioeconomic diversity as a key ingredient in the preservation of the District. A robust and responsible planning process requires full consideration of the design, architecture, traffic and socioeconomic aspects of 1515 South Van Ness Avenue and its compatibility or lack of compatibility with the intentions of the City for the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District. Superseding guidelines still under development renders all the good intentions behind the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District functionally moot. The stakeholders in the creation of the Latino Cultural District have had no opportunity to find out if any of these questions were examined in the EIR, or to review and respond to the EIR. Phase One of MAP 2020 Wraps Up In The Summer of 2016: Both the Planning Department and the Office of the Mayor are participants in the MAP 2020 process, which is expecting to wrap up Phase One planning in the summer of 2016 and move into Phase Two to put in place the policies, legislation, programs, and financing needed to implement the Plan. The stated intent of the plan is to “strengthen and retain low to moderate income residents and community serving businesses” (including PDR and non-profits). The MAP process may well identify both policy and legislation that would significantly alter projects like 1515 South Van Ness Avenue and add protections for affected residents and businesses that don't currently exist. Both the Planning Department and the Mayor's Office should take into account the MAP 2020 strategic plan and its possible impacts and not rush the project through without considering the MAP 2020 process underway. The Interim Controls Template Is Brand New: 1515 South Van Ness would be the firs project to go before the Planning Department under brand new interim controls. Stakeholders in the community haven't had an opportunity to see and review the Interim Controls template nor to see any reporting/response that Lennar Corporation has made regarding the project and the new template. A public review process should make these criteria transparently available to all stakeholders in the project including impacted residents and businesses. Lennar Corporation Has A Troubled Track Record: The history of Lennar and the City of San Francisco is so lengthy that a complete description here would be beyond the scope of this letter. But it should not be controversial to state that toxic issues at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard were significant and the Treasure Island redevelopment has also been a troubled process. The City of San Francisco has given much to Lennar in development opportunities in large swaths of the City, and we question whether this developer has earned yet more concessions from the City in this request to green-light this new development ahead of multiple civic planning processes to protect this area of the City and a ballot initiative on the June ballot. Given all of these factors, we would like the City to explore whether Lennar could transfer their interest in this property to the City for the construction of 100% affordable housing on the site. At a minimum, United To Save The Mission firmly requests delaying the approval of 1515 South Van Ness until: 1) Proposition C has been voted on by San Francisco's voters 2) 1 to 1 PDR replacement has been decided 3) Interim controls are in place and reviewed 4) The Calle 24 Latino Cultural Special Use District is in place 5) MAP 2020 is implemented 6) Negotiations with Lennar for possible site acquisition have been completed United to Save The Mission

Wisconsin was a landslide victory for Bernie Sanders and our superdelegates need to listen to their constituents.

The traffic situation in front of Wilson School has become increasingly dangerous to pedestrian, bus, and vehicular traffic. Please join the Wilson administration and PTA and sign this petition to Mayor Murray to ask for a crossing guard at the Buckingham/Pembroke intersection. Thank you.

The Democratic Party has an obligation to be democratic. The current system of nominee selection is unfair to the democratic voters of the United States of America and needs to be changed. The DNC needs to fix this system so that it better reflects the will of the people, not the will of the leadership. The superdelegates need to have their votes be somehow tied to the will of the voters in their districts.

Fracking is a type of drilling that injects millions of gallons of hydraulic fluids — a mixture of chemicals, water and sand — into a well to create pressure that cracks open rock underground, releasing natural gas or oil. This process can deplete and contaminate local water, damage the environment and threaten public health. The fugitive methane pollution from the hydrofracturing process is accelerating global warming. On a national scale, a growing body of scientific evidence is building that the climate benefits of switching from coal to natural gas were a total mirage, with the catastrophic Porter Ranch methane blowout the most visible and extreme example of a nationwide surge in methane leakage as a result of the domestic fracking boom promoted by the Bush and Obama administrations. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide on a twenty-year timespan. Fracking threatens our air and water. The toxic results of using hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas have led to the contamination of drinking water, and disposal of wastewater from fracking causes earthquakes. Oklahoma became the number one place for earthquakes on Earth this year because gas companies inject fracking fluid back into the ground. Toxic and carcinogenic fracking chemicals—as well as hazardous working conditions—are poisoning and killing workers in the fracking industry. Fracking is a large-scale industrial process that doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard or deserve exemption from laws that protect the health of our children and of our workers. That’s why communities all over the country from New York to California and Texas to Colorado have stood up to the oil and gas industry and said they don’t want fracking in their backyards. We have clean energy solutions to climate change, and fracking is not one of them. The Democratic Party needs to take a clear stand against dirty energy and for a climate-safe future - the party platform should call for an immediate moratorium on fracking everywhere.

All women are affected by unequal pay. This is a striking example of inequity.

By denying access to online voter registration, the clerk's office is making it less likely that many Cabell County residents will register to vote. We need to encourage voter participation, not hold it back.

It's time for Minnesota to seriously strengthen protections of its' natural resources and combat climate change by banning any proposed future pipelines. It's time to listen to the scientists and not the fossil fuel industry's Big Money.

The voters of Arizona have already approved, by initiative, the funding of the Arizona schools by billions of dollars more than the State Government has provided. The Arizona Supreme Court has already found, by a 5-0 ruling, that the State must correct this under-funding. Prop 123 reverses the voter initiative that approved this funding of the schools and sells off 3.5 billions of dollars of State Trust lands. This will permanently cost the schools $100 million in revenue every single year in the future at a time when the State government has hundreds of millions in surpluses that they plan to give away in tax breaks to their wealthy donors.

Petition started by “Greenwich Parents Against Crumb Rubber” The turf at Greenwich High School's Cardinal Stadium is due to be replaced in Summer 2016. We are calling for an immediate moratorium on the installation of crumb rubber infill for turf fields. When turf surfaces require replacement, organic alternatives such as coconut, cork or GreenPlay should be utilized. No new turf fields containing crumb rubber should be installed at Greenwich Public Schools or at town-owned park sites. WHY THIS MATTERS: Crumb rubber is made of ground-up old tires, which are classified as “special waste” in the State of CT, meaning they cannot be landfilled. Grinding them up into small pellets exposes children playing on turf surfaces to known carcinogens (such as Benzene, Arsenic & Carbon Black) through fume inhalation, ingestion and dermal absorption as tire crumbs can get into hair, ears, eyes, mouths and may even enter the skin through wounds (such as turf burn). The Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center has urged a moratorium on the use of recycled rubber tires on fields and playgrounds. A multi-agency investigation into the safety of crumb rubber is under way at the federal level. The EPA found that “existing studies do not comprehensively evaluate the concerns about the health rises from exposure to tire crumb.” Additionally, the Consumer Product Safety Commission no longer stands by an earlier assessment that crumb rubber is “safe.” MORE INFO: You can read more about the carcinogenic substances contained in crumb rubber from a Yale study here: http://www.ehhi.org/turf/findings0815.shtml You can read more about the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center's position on crumb rubber here: http://media.wix.com/ugd/fd0a19_f5aa0824698341499b4228ebabf90cb5.pdf A University of Washington soccer coach has been tracking nationwide cancer diagnoses in players, potentially linked to crumb rubber. So far, 217 have been diagnosed, some have died. An ESPN special report can be viewed at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91svvfuF7iY (NOTE: The authors of this petition have no financial interest in or affiliations with any providers or manufacturers)