$4 toast prompts housing petition 
 
 The Mill offers several freshly baked breads from partner Josey Baker, available as toast and/or as full loaves. The Mill offers several freshly baked breads from partner Josey Baker, available as toast and/or as full loaves. Photo: The Chronicle / Paolo Lucchesi 
 
 The Mill at 736 Divisadero in San Francisco. 
 
 The Mill at 736 Divisadero in San Francisco. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle 
 
 A rack of bread stands next to customers at the new bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero. A rack of bread stands next to customers at the new bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle 
 
 Britta Leijonflycht (left) serves customers at the new bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero. Britta Leijonflycht (left) serves customers at the new bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle 
 
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 Customers at the bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero in San Francisco. 
 
 Customers at the bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero in San Francisco. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle 
 
 Paris Hynes makes pour over karatina coffee from kenya at the bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero in San Francisco. 
 
 Paris Hynes makes pour over karatina coffee from kenya at the bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero in San Francisco. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle 
 
 Britta Leijonflycht (center) serves customers at the new bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero. Britta Leijonflycht (center) serves customers at the new bakery and coffee bar The Mill at 736 Divisadero. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle 
 
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 Photo: The Chronicle / Paolo Lucchesi Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close $4 toast prompts housing petition 1 / 9 Back to Gallery 
 
 Everybody has their own "Holy cow, I can't believe life in San Francisco is so expensive!" tale of woe. For Eddie Kurtz, it was reading about a $4 piece of toast. 
 
 Venture Beat recently published a blog post titled "$4 toast: Why the tech industry is ruining San Francisco," citing a $4 piece of toast at the Mill on Divisadero. Kurtz, political director for the Courage Campaign, cited it as an example of an increasingly unaffordable San Francisco that motivated his group to launch a petition calling on Mayor Ed Lee to do something. 
 
 Of course, the petition is really about pushing the mayor to fight for affordable housing, not affordable toast, but it's all linked in the realm of this city is crazy expensive. 
 
 "It feels like there's a widening sense that this is out of control," Kurtz said. "It feels like there's just a widening gap, and regular people who often don't think about these things are having sticker shock about trying to find an apartment and pay the bills." 
 
 The petition reads, in part, "Sign on and tell Mayor Lee: San Francisco became one of the greatest cities in the world because it valued the working class. Unless you change course, our vibrant, diverse city will become a memory." 
 
 Kurtz cited the mayor's boosterism of the 8 Washington luxury condo development - which voters rejected Tuesday - as a prime example of his off-kilter priorities. He also pointed to the increase in Ellis Act evictions and the dismal conditions for tenants at public housing around the city. (The Chronicle on Monday described broken elevators that constantly strand seniors and disabled people in their high-rise apartments.) 
 
 The Courage Campaign was founded in 2006 with an eye to being the California version of MoveOn.org. It's best known for its support of same-sex marriage. So far, the Lee petition has more than 3,000 signatures, and the campaign plans to deliver it to the mayor at some point. 
 
 Christine Falvey, Lee's spokeswoman, said that the campaign is simply misinformed and that the mayor's support of the tech industry has helped cut the city's unemployment rate in half and filled its coffers to help pay for parks, schools and social services. 
 
 - Heather Knight 
 
 Keep them in school: Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, a San Francisco grassroots advocacy organization, has launched a campaign against the city's school district in an effort to lower suspension rates, specifically among African American students. 
 
 But despite Coleman's ready-for-a-fight flyer announcing the Solutions Not Suspensions campaign, it is unlikely to face much opposition among school board members. 
 
 That's because the school board and superintendent pretty much agree that suspensions are bad and affect African Americans more than other students. 
 
 The district has implemented policies over the past several years to reduce suspensions. Those policies include restorative justice, which seeks to address the causes of behavior and have students make amends - write an apology, do community service and other methods - rather than kicking the kid out of school for a day or two. 
 
 Still, Coleman argues, such practices are hit-and-miss. They want the district to provide better data, ensure all schools use alternative discipline and end the disproportionate suspension of students of color. 
 
 They also - and here's where things might get a bit touchy - want to end suspension for "willful defiance." 
 
 Willful defiance can mean anything from refusing to take a hat off in school to a profanity-laced verbal assault on a teacher. 
 
 State law includes willful defiance as a valid reason to suspend a student, and legislative efforts to eliminate it have failed. Los Angeles Unified is among a small number of districts to end the use of willful defiance as a cause for suspension. Coleman wants San Francisco to join them. 
 
 About 40 percent of all San Francisco district suspensions are for willful defiance. School board member Matt Haney has picked up the mantle for Coleman and is drafting policies to codify the ideas. 
 
 "We should have ways in which we can deal with a student inside our schools without sending them home and losing instructional time," he said. "I think we have made a lot of progress around it and we want to build on it." 
 
 Principals and teachers, however, have balked about a ban on the use of willful defiance, saying it's one of several tools to help address serious behavioral issues. 
 
 Still, despite the petition drive and aggressive stand by Coleman advocates, even Haney doesn't expect much of a fight over the issue. 
 
 "The superintendent has been very supportive of all of this," he said. 
 
 - Jill Tucker ||||| Mayor Lee: Stop catering to the 1%. Start fighting for an affordable San Francisco 
 
 More than 60% of San Francisco voters just rejected Props B and C. In doing so, voters demonstrated that ritzy condo projects for the ultra-rich, like 8 Washington, are not what our community wants or needs. 
 
 The cost of living in San Francisco has spiraled out of control, but Mayor Lee refuses to take meaningful action. He's under the influence of the wealthy and well-connected, who continue to push expensive, new developments where only the richest San Franciscans can afford to live, driving up prices and forcing working families out of the city. 
 
 
 
 The mayor must start representing everyone who lives in San Francisco, not just the rich. He needs to start fighting for an affordable city. 
 
 Sign on and tell Mayor Lee: San Francisco became one of the greatest cities in the world because it valued the working class. Unless you change course, our vibrant, diverse city will become a memory. Mayor Lee please stop catering to the 1% and start fighting for an affordable San Francisco. ||||| SAN FRANCISCO — Speaking at today’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Mayor Ed Lee played the perfect politician, but he did give away one important crumb of actual information: San Francisco is aware that the tech boom in the city is creating even greater economic disparities in the community. 
 
 Sitting in front of the tech-only crowd, Lee chose to first focus on the positive, pointing out that the tech community has created more than 45,000 jobs in San Francisco proper and, along with other sectors, has helped get 31,000 unemployed folks back to work. 
 
 He also noted mid-Market and SoMa construction and renovation projects that are rejuvenating struggling districts and historic buildings. 
 
 But the meat of the conversation came when Lee was asked what he thought about articles like ours that complain the tech industry is having a negative impact on the city’s economics. 
 
 “We get these stories,” said Lee, “[that] the rent’s going up, there’s not enough space.” To counterbalance those realities, the city passed Prop C, a $1.2 billion building housing trust fund to build more affordable housing for San Francisco’s less privileged residents. 
 
 And that fact alone shows that Lee and the city’s government is planning for and trying to correct the disparity the tech industry has helped to create. 
 
 More from Lee: 
 
 In response to the transportation conflicts, the city is promoting its bike sharing program as well as ridesharing startups like Uber, Sidecar, and Lyft. 
 
 With regard to apps that record location and use facial recognition, resulting in very real privacy problems, Lee said, “We need more people discussing this very delicate issue. … We kind of don’t know where it’s going to go.” 
 
 With regards to a certain misogynist app built during the Disrupt hackathon, Lee opined, “We’re reminded by these brogrammers that we need to get more women in tech.” 
 
 More coming soon from TechCrunch Disrupt.
– A group in San Francisco has launched a petition urging the mayor to get the city's cost of living under control—and $4 toast is at the heart of it, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. This all started several weeks ago with a blog post in Venture Beat by Jolie O'Dell who complained about shelling out $6 for a piece of toast and a cup of coffee at a local eatery. O'Dell blamed the city's well-paid tech community for driving up prices at the expense of middle- and working-class families, laying out a cycle that involves the rise of "bourgie businesses." The concept of $4 toast has resonated since, and Eddie Kurtz of the group Courage Campaign said it inspired the recent petition. "It feels like there's a widening sense that this is out of control," he says. "It feels like there's just a widening gap, and regular people who often don't think about these things are having sticker shock about trying to find an apartment and pay the bills." The petition criticizes Mayor Ed Lee for not taking "meaningful action," though a spokesperson for Lee counters that his support of the tech industry will save the city, not doom it.