Class War, Fascism, Democrats & the Lessons Of Minneapolis With Kip Hedges
Report From Minneapolis Battle Against ICE Occupation & CFA President Margarita Berta Avila
UC Berkeley partners with California-Israel research program funded by wealthy Israel supporters
This summer, UC Berkeley partnered with nonprofit organization California-Israel Collaborations in Research, an organization funded by wealthy…
www.dailycal.orgCalifornia’s billionaire tax divides unions against their leaders
https://sfstandard.com/2026/10/26/california-s-billionaire-tax-divides-unions-their-leaders/
Despite opposition to Prop. 40 from Gavin Newsom and several major labor groups, teachers in San Francisco and Los Angeles are …among the local groups backing the tax.
A speaker stands at a podium with signs reading "YES on 40 NO on 41 42" and "Save Lives Tax Billionaires," with a backdrop saying "Billionaires It's a Moral Choice."
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at the "Ballots Over Billionaires" rally on Oct. 5 in Los Angeles. Prop. 40, which would enact a one-time tax on billionaires’ assets, has seen an influx of late support from labor unions. | Source: Jason Armond/LA Times/Getty Images
A smiling man with short light hair, light skin, and blue eyes wears a white shirt with small blue dots against a plain white background.
By Dustin Gardiner
Senior Politics Reporter
Published Oct. 26, 2026at6:00am
A handful of powerful statewide unions broke with the larger labor movement to oppose a proposed tax on California billionaires. Now, their own locals are rebelling in support of the measure.
Proposition 40 divided labor groups from the start, a rift opponents seized upon as a sign that the measure’s organizers could not line up support on the left. But Prop. 40 supporters argue the latest divisions tell a different story: union locals and rank-and-file members are at odds with their Sacramento leaders, who have joined establishment Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech billionaires in opposing the measure.
Teachers’ unions in San Francisco and Los Angeles recently defied statewide leaders of the California Teachers Association to endorse the billionaire tax. The CTA, one of the most formidable unions in Sacramento, had bucked much of organized labor by siding with Newsom and others opposing the billionaire-tax measure.
Adding to the teacher revolt in two of the state’s largest cities, several local affiliates of the State Building & Construction Trades Council have also broken with their statewide leadership to back the tax.
“As more and more union members found out about Prop. 40 … it galvanized support,” said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation, the state’s largest umbrella group of unions, which has endorsed Prop. 40. “The labor movement should always be a ground-up movement — and that just shows in what’s happened recently.”
The CTA and the Building Trades oppose Prop. 40 alongside unions representing firefighters and domestic workers. They argue the tax would drive billionaires like Google co-founder Sergey Brin out of state and, in turn, harm California’s budget, a case that hasn’t held sway with many in organized labor.
But unions opposing Prop. 40 say a few defections are to be expected and don’t signal widespread dissent.
“The majority of our members are not revolting on this; the majority of our members are no on 40,” said Chris Hannan, president of the California Building Trades. “For a few [local unions] to see it differently — those things happen.”
Several people wear sunglasses and hold signs reading “NO on 40” and “PROTECT OUR JOBS NO-40” at a protest or rally.
Building Trade union members attend a rally against Prop. 40 at the Iron Workers Apprenticeship Training Center on Oct. 5 in La Palma. | Source: Eric Thayer/LA Times/Getty Images
Beyond the local unions, Prop. 40 has drawn a late wave of support from the broader labor movement. In recent months, the statewide Labor Federation, California Federation of Teachers (a separate educator union that had been neutral), National Union of Healthcare Workers, and California Nurses Association have all endorsed the measure.
Prop. 40 would impose a one-time, 5% tax on the assets of California billionaires, including the large share of their wealth held in stock and other investments. SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, which proposed the measure, projects it would raise roughly $100 billion over five years, most of which would offset the Trump administration’s cuts to healthcare programs, including the fiscal cliff facing Medi-Cal, the health insurance program for millions of low-income Californians.
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A man speaks passionately at a podium with a microphone, raising his hand in front of a large banner that says "Billionaire Tax Now" and voting information.
Economists are feuding about the impact of Prop. 40's billionaire’s tax
Four adults stand side by side, with two men wearing suits and glasses, one man bald with a beard, and one smiling woman in a casual shirt.
PODCAST
Decoding the ballot: Governor’s race, billionaires’ tax and Pelosi’s seat
A recent study(opens in new tab) by economists at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank, estimated Prop. 40 would collect only about $30 billion, while costing California $39 billion in lost income tax revenue over time due to billionaire flight from the state.
Polling suggests voters are closely split over the measure, and support from rank-and-file union members could be crucial in the final week before Election Day on Nov. 3. A recent Citrin-POLITICO poll found(opens in new tab) Prop. 40 has a slight lead among likely voters, with 46% in favor and 43% opposed.
SEIU-UHW and its leader, Dave Regan, a firebrand who has often clashed with other labor leaders, have drawn criticism from other unions for crafting the tax without input from the rest of the labor movement. Critics also object that only a small share of its revenue would go to schools.
Still, Prop. 40 has seen growing support from local unions that argue the tax, although imperfect, is better than inaction. The split from local unions representing teachers in San Francisco and L.A. is perhaps the most stinging rebuke. United Teachers Los Angeles is the second largest union of its kind in the country (behind New York City), and represents about 35,000 teachers and staff.
Alex Schmaus, political organizer for the United Educators of San Francisco, which represents about 6,500 teachers and staff, said his local considers the CTA’s stance against the billionaire tax “an error.” He said the local union’s leadership endorsed Prop. 40 unanimously, without any opposition statements.
“We’ve got to find a way to take on these billionaires,” Schmaus said. “I don’t think you can have democracy and solidarity in a world run by billionaires.”
A spokesperson for the CTA didn’t directly respond to questions about the split with local unions. The CTA, in a statement in June, said its state council “determined that this policy will not provide the sustainable and long-lasting funding that our schools and communities deserve.” The CTA also has its own priority on the November ballot: Prop. 3(opens in new tab), a permanent extension of California’s existing tax on top-income earners, a major source of school funding.
Leaders of the statewide teachers’ union say they fear Prop. 40 could complicate the question for voters if they get confused or frustrated by having too many tax measures on the same crowded ballot. Schmaus, however, said San Francisco teachers expect voters frustrated by growing wealth inequality will support both Props. 40 and 3.
The split among California’s Building Trades has also been a source of division within the labor movement. While the statewide union opposes the billionaire tax, rebelling locals include the San Diego Building Trades Council, which represents over 35,000 construction workers, and Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 104, which represents about 10,000 members in the Bay Area and Northern California.
Vince Sugrue, state legislative director for the Sheet Metal Workers’ local union, said support for the tax was “very overwhelming” among his membership. He added, “the healthcare conversation was too big of a deal for us to not weigh in.”
Hannan, of the California Building Trades, said the union worries that Prop. 40 will, in the long run, undercut state tax revenues that fund building projects, including infrastructure and school construction that provides countless jobs. He added, “Our members are working on these jobs all across the state.”
But growing support for Prop. 40 within the labor movement has been noticeable in recent weeks. On top of local unions making endorsements that defy their top brass in Sacramento, there has been a rush of more informal support for the billionaire tax.
For example, many of the Building Trades’ local union leaders supported Prop. 40 when they voted on the California Labor Federation’s endorsement at its convention in August. And while the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council hasn’t taken a stance, its local leader, Rudy Gonzalez, is an outspoken supporter of the tax.
Prop. 40 supporters have been quick to point out the split, arguing that the Sacramento leaders of the CTA and the Building Trades are out of touch with their members.
“A few staff people have lent their organizations’ logos to the billionaires,” said Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff at the SEIU-UHW, Prop. 40’s lead sponsor. “It is deeply disappointing that [they] would put their organizations’ names and credibility at the service of billionaires.”
Despite opposition to Prop. 40 from Gov. Gavin Newsom and several major labor groups, teachers in San Francisco and Los Angeles are backing the tax.
sfstandard.comWho Bought Scott Wiener & Zionist Crimes In Palestine & The US
https://youtu.be/tFnULcIZ3Yw
The techno fascist billionaires are putting millions into the campaign of San Francisco Senator and Democratic candidate for Congress. At a canvassing event, protesters challenged …Wiener's record of supporting the apartheid state and supporting SB 715 that banned discussion of Palestine in education and allowed retaliation against teachers. He is also a big supporter of more police, Flock cameras, drones and data centers.
This event took place on 10/24/26.
Additional Media:
Zionist & Billionaire Developer Shill CA Senator Scott Wiener Protested At KQED Congressional Debate https://youtu.be/YkqNzPKNSpc
No Genocide By Israel In Gaza According to SF Demo Party Politician Scott Weiner
https://youtu.be/upXMZeEomzY
UCSF Dr. Rupa Marya Targeted By Zionist Scott Weiner & Fired For Opposing Genocide In Palestine
https://youtu.be/Yr1DDEphSQE
Weiner Supporters Go Crazy At Jane Kim Rally In SF-There Is No Working Class Housing Crisis In SF?
https://youtu.be/o_1xxLF35fw
SEIU California un-endorses Scott Wiener for Congress
https://missionlocal.org/2026/04/sf-congress-scott-wiener-seiu-union/
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
Who Bought Scott Wiener & Zionist Crimes In Palestine & The US
Apple Protesters Demand No Blood For Tech! Stop Apartheid, Genocide & Slavery in Palestine & Congo
https://youtu.be/nrTrBl05M_k
As part of an international day of action on October 23rd against Apple's support for the genocide in
Gaza and Palestine and the child slave …labor in the Congo rallies were held around the world. In San
Francisco at the Union Square Apple store activists, journalist and professor Sang Kil from CSU San
Jose spoke out about the role of Apple and other companies who are using tech for targeting people
including journalists and also using slave labor in the the Congo to mine cobalt.
It was sponsored by Apples Against Apartheid.
Additional Media:
"Say No To Blood Tech" At Apple With Fired Apple Worker & Organizer Tarik Ra’ouf
https://youtu.be/uAfrfA4YxZM
Congo Child Labor In Cobalt Mines & Apple's Crimes For Profit Exposed At 2024 Apple World Launch
https://youtu.be/WKmiZM2GTVs
On Apple 2024 Launch Protest Against Corporate Crimes From The Congo To Palestine
https://youtu.be/EyaIpBZd2HI
New documents show top Trump officials disregarded concerns by State Dept. staff in relaxing sanctions on Israeli "Blood Diamond" magnate
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dan-gertler-sanctions-trump-officials-israeli-businessman-blood-diamonds-congo/
No More " Protective Orders" To Silence Apple Whistleblower Ashley Gjovik & Other Workers
https://youtu.be/_OAIWUr-IfE
AI, Labor, Tech Workers & The Future Of SF & The World
https://youtu.be/aizaKTB9eVo
Strange Hecklers At Press Conference About Secret Apple Semiconductor Center
https://leftcoastrightwatch.org/articles/strange-hecklers-at-press-conference-about-secret-apple-semiconductor-center/
Apple Fab Toxic Cover-up In Santa Clara Exposed At Press Conf-Apple Security Say They Work For 49ers
https://youtu.be/TeHOyevjtuw
Apple Toxic Crimes, The Santa Clara FAB and The EPA With Fired Apple Whistleblower Ashley M. Gjøvik
https://youtu.be/0j8m9Fs2VjU
Apple's Secret Silicon Fab Next to Thousands of Homes
https://www.ashleygjovik.com/3250scott.html
Apple Whistleblower Ashley Gjøvik On Retaliation, Toxics & Corruption-Poisoning The People & Workers
https://youtu.be/9hj0HSkCnL0
The Union Busting War On Apple Workers & NLRB Ruling For Fired Apple Worker Ashley M. Gjøvik
https://youtu.be/ycxIbfO-pG0
US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh: Stop US DOL OSHA Whistleblower Corruption Now
https://www.change.org/p/marty-walsh-stop-us-dol-osha-whistleblower-corruption-now
http://justiceatapple.com/
Apple Toxic Is It Above The Law? With Whistleblower Ashley M. Gjøvik
https://youtu.be/cvxNLu7BhaI
Part II: My personal hellscape of conflicts of interest, obstruction, & arbitrary denials of due process continues…
https://ashleygjovik.substack.com/p/field-notes-on-regulatory-capture-c08
Apple Wanted Her Fired. It Settled on an Absurd Excuse
https://gizmodo.com/apple-wanted-her-fired-it-settled-on-an-absurd-excuse-1847868789
Apple Employee Blows Whistle on Illegal Spying and Toxic Working Conditions
https://truthout.org/articles/apple-employee-blows-whistle-on-illegal-spying-and-toxic-working-conditions/
For More Info:
Applesagainstapartheid.com
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
15 leaders in 18 years: How CCSF’s chancellor job has become ‘so toxic’
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/ccsf-chancellor-timeline/
Investigations, budget battles and brief tenures have become hallmarks of the chancellor’s job at City College of San Francisco. Here’s …a look at two decades of turmoil.
City College of San Francisco, which has lost enrollment and revenue since the 2010s, has faced two decades of tumultuous leadership. Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
By Nanette Asimov | Updated Oct. 25, 2026 10:51 a.m.
City College of San Francisco has hired more chief executives in the past two decades than any other community college district in California. Few stayed long.
The public college has employed 15 leaders in 18 years. Of its six permanent chancellors, two were investigated by the Board of Trustees and a third — its current leader — is under investigation. Another was pushed out. One pleaded guilty to three felony counts of misusing public funds. Another retired early for medical reasons.
“It does seem to be a cursed position,” said professor John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University’s Lam College of Business, just up the road from City College.
Of the nine interim heads, eight stayed an average of 14 months. The ninth, acting Chancellor David Yee, was appointed Oct. 6 when Chancellor Kimberlee Messina was placed on paid administrative leave. Messina herself arrived just over a year ago.
The continuing volatility at City College has surprised even former trustees who saw the school through some of its most troubled times.
“Being the chancellor of a California community college is a really good job in academia — but there is not a single worse chancellor’s job than being the chancellor of City College of San Francisco,” said Tom Temprano, a trustee from 2017 to 2022 who is now managing director of the nonprofit Equality California. “Would you want to go to the place that had 15 leaders in 18 years? Because of the turnover, the position itself has become so toxic that qualified chancellors are not even seeking it.”
San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a trustee from 2013 to 2018, agreed. City College has a “reputation for being a difficult place,” he said. “When it opens a (chancellor) search process, it often is not drawing the best and the brightest.”
Robin Pugh, president of the American Federation of Teachers Local 2121, said the “increasing politicization of the college board is not helpful to the college.”
Logan pointed to a “complete breakdown in trust between the college leadership and faculty and staff, a lack of transparency in finances, and in general a succession of weak leaders who haven’t — or haven’t been able to — run the college in the interests of the people who matter most — the students.”
Both City College and Logan’s school, San Francisco State, have lost enrollment since the 2010s — and with it, revenue — as the city has grown increasingly expensive. Yet San Francisco State has had three leaders during the time City College has had 15.
There are 73 community college districts across California. The 14 Bay Area districts apart from City College have employed an average of five chief executives since 2008. Two of the districts — Peralta in the East Bay and Contra Costa — each had nine leaders in 18 years. None has had fewer than three.
Now, as San Francisco voters prepare to elect new trustees to three open seats on City College’s seven-member board overseeing the school of 43,000 students, the Chronicle took a look back over two decades of tumultuous leadership to see how dysfunctional it’s been.
David Yee, acting chancellor
Kimberlee Messina, permanent
Mitchell Bailey, interim
David Martin, permanent
Dianna Gonzales, interim
Rajen Vurdien, interim
Mark Rocha, permanent
Susan Lamb, interim
Arthur Q. Tyler, permanent
Guy Lease, special trustee
Robert Agrella, special trustee
Thelma Scott-Skillman, interim
Pamila Fisher, interim
Don Griffin, permanent
Philip Day, permanent
OCT. 6, 2026, TO PRESENT
David Yee, acting chancellor
David Yee was named acting CCSF chancellor on Oct. 6. He is the 15th leader since 2008..jpeg
David Yee Nanette Asimov/S.F. Chronicle
Base salary: “Not yet finalized”
A City College physics student in the 1980s, David Yee returned to teach in the School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math and became dean. He was named vice chancellor for academic and institutional affairs in 2024. As acting chancellor, Yee inherits a balanced budget of $626 million (including a $296 million general fund). But the current budget also shows that the college expects to spend more than it takes in for the remainder of the decade and projects a $24 million deficit by 2029-30.
JULY 1, 2025, TO OCT. 6, 2026 (ON PAID LEAVE PENDING OUTCOME OF INVESTIGATION)
Kimberlee Messina, permanent
Kimberlee Messina was selected as CCSF chancellor in July 2025 and put on paid leave Oct. 6, 2026..jpeg
Kimberlee Messina City College of San Francisco
Base salary: $350,000
The trustees hired Kimberlee Messina, then president of Washington’s Spokane Falls Community College, in a surprise decision after announcing they had hired Carlos Cortez, a former chancellor in San Diego. But the board had never voted for Cortez. When the Chronicle reported that Cortez had been arrested the year before on suspicion of driving under the influence, support dwindled and Messina won the spot.
Last month, Messina’s executive assistant sent a letter to the trustees alleging seven instances of financial misconduct. The board placed Messina on paid administrative leave and hired an investigator to look into the matter.
JULY 1, 2024, TO JUNE 30, 2025
Mitchell Bailey, interim
Mitchell Bailey became interim CCSF chancellor on July 1, 2024, the 13th leader since 2008..jpeg
Mitchell Bailey Nanette Asimov/S.F. Chronicle
Base salary: $330,000
The trustees chose Mitchell Bailey, a former vice chancellor of the San Mateo Community College District, at a precarious time for City College. Accreditors had recently placed the school on warning and were demanding stable leadership. Although “warning” is the least severe of three sanctions imposed on community colleges that violate accrediting standards, City College nearly lost its accreditation a decade ago and administrators were loath to repeat that disaster. Without accreditation, schools must close.
Separately, lawmakers were about to freeze City College’s state allocation at that year’s level for seven years. Only an unlikely 8% enrollment increase would free up additional funding.
Bailey added his name to the hat for consideration as permanent chancellor. On June 27, 2025, the accreditors gave him good news: They had reaffirmed the school’s accreditation and removed its warning status. But that wasn’t enough to land him the job. Bailey had fallen out of favor with the new majority of union-backed trustees for belt-tightening measures the union disagreed with.
NOV. 1, 2021, TO JUNE 2024
David Martin, permanent
David Martin was CCSF chancellor from Nov. 1, 2021, to June 2024. .jpeg
David Martin City College of San Francisco
Base salary: $315,000
Seeking stability after an epic five-year battle to keep the college accredited in the mid-2010s, and after watching enrollment plunge during the pandemic, the trustees hired City College’s former chief financial officer to right the ship. A certified public accountant and fraud examiner with a doctorate in higher education leadership, David Martin had board support to reduce expenditures in line with shrinking enrollment. That changed when the faculty union fought back and secured a majority on the Board of Trustees in early 2023. The union then filed an unfair labor practice charge against Martin, saying he presented data during contract talks that made college finances appear worse than they were. The trustees let Martin’s contract lapse, and he took a job at Sierra College in Placer County.
APRIL 2021 TO SEPT. 30, 2021
Dianna Gonzales, interim
Base salary: $250,000
A college administrator who served briefly as City College’s chief financial officer, Dianna Gonzales presided over the closure of the school’s Fort Mason art campus and faced demonstrations by angry art students during her six-month pandemic-era tenure.
MARCH 2020 TO MAY 2021
Rajen Vurdien, interim
Rajen Vurdien became interim chancellor in March 2020, the 10th leader since 2008..jpeg
Rajen Vurdien Association of Community College Trustees and Rajen Vurdien
Base salary: $340,000
Hiring Pasadena City College’s retired president was a rescue mission for City College “at a time of crisis and need,” board President Shanell Williams said when the trustees approved Rajen Vurdien’s one-year contract in June 2020. Not only had the pandemic emptied out classrooms, but accreditors were also sniffing around again, three years after City College survived the chaos that nearly shut it down.
In September 2020, the watchdogs told Vurdien they were placing City College on “enhanced monitoring” because salaries still ate up an unacceptable 92% of expenditures, deficit spending was up, and cash reserves were down. They also complained about “multiple leadership turnover” at the school.
Vurdien responded by canceling hundreds of classes, slashing even more instructors and cutting employee pay. When the state’s fiscal crisis team stepped in and threatened a state takeover unless more was done to stabilize the college, the trustees asked Vurdien as his contract was ending in May to stay through September while they looked for a permanent replacement. He agreed — in exchange for $35,000 a month, rather than the $28,333 he had been receiving.
The faculty union pounced, noting that the demand for a 23.5% pay hikecame as Vurdien cut instructors’ pay by 14%. The trustees withdrew their offer two days later, and Vurdien was gone.
JUNE 2017 TO MARCH 2020
Mark Rocha, permanent
City College of San Francisco trustees named Mark Rocha as the college's chancellor on June 14, 2017..jpeg
Mark Rocha City College of San Francisco
Base salary: $340,481
A battered City College, fresh from a successful five-year fight to remain accredited, hired a New Yorker with a doctorate in literature and a master’s in engineering as its first permanent chancellor in two years. Mark Rocha had earned praise from state officials — but also votes of no confidence from students and faculty in 2013 when he led Pasadena City College. As the City College trustees approved Rocha’s contract, many in the standing-room-only audience waved red flags in opposition.
“With all respect to you trustees, are you out of your minds? Have we not been through enough hell?” Janet Lohr, an art instructor, told the trustees.
Their fears were not unfounded, although the problems took two years to surface. During that time, a new collaboration with the mayor’s office, “Free City,” waived all college fees for San Francisco residents. But while the city-funded program was popular, the enrollment boost was not enough to rescue college finances. In 2019, as Rocha prepared to eliminate hundreds of classes to close a $32 million budget deficit, he said he was “not cutting classes” but “reallocating resources.” Soon, however, there was no denying the obvious.
Months later, Rocha quietly persuaded the trustees to double the salaries of some executives and approve double-digit raises for others, slipping the change into the appendix of the 105-page budget for 2019-20 one day before the trustees voted on it.
“Shame, shame!” more than 100 protesters chanted as they stormed Rocha’s office after learning about it. The college’s top lawyer said the last-minute pay hikes appeared to violate public disclosure rules. Rocha at first arguedthe big executive raises had not been finalized, then urged support for them. Ultimately, the trustees reduced the raises from 23% to 10%.
Soon afterward, in January 2020, auditors declared the college in such bad financial condition that they had “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”
The trustees placed Rocha on paid administrative leave on March 23, 2020. He resigned five days later.
JUNE 2015 TO JUNE 2017
Susan Lamb, interim
Interim Chancellor Susan Lamb asks students and faculty, upset by an accelerated plan for cutbacks at City College, to leave a monthly closed-door meeting between her and school administrators on Dec. 2, 2016. Under Lamb's leadership as interim chancellor from June 2015 to June 2017, the college secured its accreditation, which had been in jeopardy..jpeg
Susan Lamb Paul Chinn/S.F. Chronicle
Base salary: $265,880
The decision to elevate Susan Lamb from head of academic affairs to interim chancellor did not fall to the trustees, who had been suspended nearly two years earlier for jeopardizing City College’s accreditation — its license to operate. Instead, state officials chose the popular administrator to lead the school. During her tenure, Lamb penned essays in the Chronicle about the status of the troubled college and wrote that City College could not afford the 18.19% raises the faculty wanted.
Ultimately, it was Lamb who led City College across the accreditation finish line, capping a five-year, nail-biting period in which the threat of closure cost the public millions of dollars in legal fees and state subsidies, led San Francisco to defend its namesake college in court, and prompted hundreds of students and instructors to demonstrate in defense of their school. On Jan. 13, 2017, Lamb announced that accreditors had withdrawn their threat and extended City College’s seal of approval for seven years.
“This confirmation is a major accomplishment,” she said. “It is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the entire City College community who came together to meet — and even exceed — the standards of our accreditors. Congratulations!”
NOV. 1, 2013, TO JUNE 5, 2015
Arthur Q. Tyler, permanent
Arthur Q. Tyler was appointed CCSF chancellor in 2013 by state officials controlling the school, which was in danger of losing its accreditation. After 19 months on the job, Tyler stepped aside without explanation to run the college’s facilities department through the end of his contract..jpeg
Arthur Q. Tyler Brant Ward/S.F. Chronicle
Base salary: $289,284
As City College teetered on the brink of losing accreditation in 2013, the state officials controlling the school chose a military antiterrorism expert with a doctoral degree from the University of Phoenix to take the helm. Arthur Q. Tyler had held administrative jobs in the Houston Community Colleges. Hopes were high that he would be the steady hand City College needed
Instead, after 19 months on the job, Tyler stepped aside without explanationto run the college’s facilities department through the end of his contract in July 2016.
A Chronicle investigation subsequently found that Tyler had been billing the school for thousands of dollars spent at high-end restaurants and for travel he rarely documented, even as he asked voters to approve a parcel tax to save the college from bankruptcy (it passed). Tyler traveled so often that he was absent from campus for roughly a third of his tenure, often adding extra days to visit family in Texas. He also created a new “president” position for a former colleague. She billed the school for cross-country and international travel with another colleague to recruit students, but none was documented as having enrolled. These actions appeared to support accreditors’ findings of “weak internal fiscal controls.”
As the Chronicle made inquiries, interim Chancellor Lamb initiated an investigation into Tyler’s activities. The story broke Dec. 26, 2015, and Tyler resigned within days.
FEBRUARY 2015 TO DECEMBER 2016
Guy Lease, special trustee
Guy Lease was appointed by state officials as the second successive special trustee to run City College, serving from February 2015 to December 2016..jpeg
Guy Lease PPL Inc.
Base salary: $216,000
With the trustees on suspension and leadership unstable, state officials appointed the second successive “special trustee” to run City College. Guy Lease, who commuted from his home in the Sierra Nevada, had earned a statewide “distinguished administrator” award after nearly two decades running the Lake Tahoe Community College District.
Yet City College students and faculty were less than welcoming on the day Lease introduced himself at a public meeting. “Booo! Go home! No dictatorship!” they shouted as Lease shrugged it off.
Lease retained veto power over all college decisions even after the trustees returned to power in July 2015.
JULY 2013 TO JAN. 31, 2015
Robert Agrella, special trustee
With CCSF's accreditation in jeopardy, Robert Agrella took over as special trustee with veto power on accreditation-related decisions in July 2013. After controversy over his proposed pay hikes for top administrators, dubbed "“Salary Gate" by faculty, he resigned in January 2015..jpeg
Robert Agrella Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Base salary: $264,000
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, a no-nonsense group with the power to shut down errant schools, had threatened to do just that if City College didn’t repair an array of management and structural problems in just eight months. That was mid-2012. Now, with half the time eaten up, the trustees voted to hire Robert Agrella as special trustee with veto power on accreditation-related decisions. Over objections from students and faculty, Agrella, the former head of the Sonoma County Junior College District, took over as the state suspended the trustees from power.
Six months into the job, Agrella announced a 19% raise for vice chancellors and associate vice chancellors, declaring it necessary to satisfy the accreditors’ demand that City College beef up its decimated administration.
Faculty quickly dubbed it “Salary Gate” as Agrella handed 4% pay cuts to other administrators and instructors. Agrella withdrew the 19% pay hike. A year later, he resigned.
NOV. 1, 2012, TO OCT. 31, 2013
Thelma Scott-Skillman, interim
Thelma Scott-Skillman served as interim CCSF chancellor from November 2012 to October 2013, hired to guide the school through a tough struggle to keep its accreditation..jpeg
Thelma Scott-Skillman Folsom Lake College
Base salary: $276,000
Four months after accreditors threatened to shut down City College within a year, the trustees had already lost their first interim chancellor. Their second, Thelma Scott-Skillman, was hired to guide the school through its monumental struggle to stay open and accredited.
One trustee said of Scott-Skillman: “She was the best” choice. She was also one of just two candidates seeking the job and had been hired at City College two months earlier to head student services.
She used her year at the helm to encourage worried students to “continue pursuing your dreams at City College” and promised that it was, indeed, still accredited.
MAY 1, 2012, TO OCT. 31, 2012
Pamila Fisher, interim
Pamila Fisher served a six-month tenure as interim chancellor starting in May 2012, steering CCSF through the early phase of a struggle to stay accredited..jpeg
Pamila Fisher Liz Hafalia/S.F. Chronicle
Base salary: $276,000
When the Montana education consultant was hired to replace retiring City College Chancellor Don Griffin, no one told her that the college was undergoing an accreditation review, much less that it wasn't going well. She quickly found out.
Pamila Fisher was on the job two months when the accrediting commission placed City College on “show cause,” its most severe sanction, and gave Fisher until March 15 — just eight months — to prove the college should not be shut down. Fisher steered City College through the beginnings of a take-no-prisoners overhaul to save the school. But she had always planned to stay just six months, and she stuck to it.
MARCH 2008 TO APRIL 2012
Don Griffin, permanent
Don Griffin served as interim, then permanent CCSF chancellor from March 2008 to April 2012..jpeg
Don Griffin City College of San Francisco
Base salary: $324,200
A licensed psychologist, Don Griffin joined the faculty of City College in 1969 and eventually joined the administration. Thoughtful and even-tempered, Griffin was tapped as chancellor in 2008 — first as interim but soon permanent. His four-year tenure marked a rare period of calm.
In February 2012, Griffin announced he would retire in the fall. But in April he received a tough diagnosis: He had a brain tumor. Griffin stepped down immediately, and the trustees hired Fisher as interim chancellor.
JULY 30, 1998, TO MARCH 2008
Philip Day, permanent
After leading CCSF from 1998 to 2008, Philip Day pleaded guilty on Sept. 19, 2011, to three felony counts of misusing public funds related to his actions as chancellor..jpeg
Philip Day S.F. Chronicle
Base salary: Unknown
Philip Day pleaded guilty on Sept. 19, 2011, to three felony counts of misusing public funds related to his actions as chancellor. Day admitted to illegally shifting $100,000 in funds meant for City College into a campaign for college bond measures, the Chronicle reported. He paid $30,000 in fines and was sentenced to five years of probation. Day’s lawyer said at the time that the charges would be reduced to misdemeanors after he paid the fines and restitution to City College.
Thirteen years later, when the trustees were looking for an interim chancellor in 2024, they considered Day for the job but hired Bailey instead.
Investigations, budget battles and brief tenures have become hallmarks of the chancellor’s job at City College of San Francisco. Here’s a look at…
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‘Possible Love’ Review: The Lives of Others & Class Struggle
In his first movie since his celebrated drama “Burning,” the South Korean director Lee Chang-dong focuses on two couples from very different worlds.
…https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/movies/possible-love-review-the-lives-of-others.html
An image of a man, child and woman looking outside from a window.
From left: Sul Kyung-gu, Jeong Seop, Jeon Do-yeon in “Possible Love.”Credit…Netflix
Manohla Dargis.webp
By Manohla Dargis
Oct. 22, 2026
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“Possible Love” is an absorbing, humane drama with a lacerating political edge. It was directed by the filmmaker Lee Chang-dong, whose movies include “Burning” (2018), about a fatal love triangle and other catastrophes, natural and not. “Possible Love” involves two couples in South Korea whose lives overlap first with smiles and then shivers of violence. One couple is wealthy and the other is struggling badly, and their circumstances are so dissimilar that they might as well live on separate planets. They don’t, which makes this story — about some people who break and others who do the breaking — a tragedy for these times.
Some movies announce their intentions with self-important flourish, slathering on their ideas and themes with a trowel. Lee takes a more discreet, nuanced approach in “Possible Love,” easing into the narrative obliquely with slices of life that are rich in incisive, resonant detail. It opens on a naturalistic scene of a husband and wife heading to a funeral with their son. The father tells the boy to tie his shoelaces, the neighborhood comes into view — there are modest houses, some sporty passers-by — and the mother sighs, burdened by an unspoken weight. Once at the funeral, the husband and wife argue about his drinking, while a woman, who’s making a documentary on the fate of laborers, records them on camera.
YouTube video thumbnail: Possible Love | Official Trailer | Netflix.jpeg
The story emerges unhurriedly, with a lifelike steadiness that Lee punctuates with flares of emotion. The filmmaker, Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), is looking to make her mark and, to that self-interested end, has decided to focus on workers, a topic that she doesn’t think receives enough attention. When she pitches her movie to some backers she sounds enthusiastic, if mostly about the promise of her project. Awareness of her subjects, or something like it, only comes long after she meets the bickering couple from the funeral, which was for the colleague of the husband, Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu). Several years before, he and the colleague had been on a strike that the government violently squashed, crushing a movement and destroying futures.
Written by Lee and Oh Jung-mi (they did “Burning” together), the movie soon narrows in on the two couples, though, most crucially, Ho-seok’s wife, Mi-ok (a tremendous Jeon Do-yeon). Although Ho-seok doesn’t want to be interviewed for the documentary, she eagerly volunteers. She’s a bright, curious and vibrantly alive woman; unlike her husband, the light in her eyes hasn’t been extinguished. Mi-ok works in a small company that makes surgical masks, and the documentary gives her something to do other than punch the clock and care for her family, including a son of around 10, Cheol (Jeong Seop). It also brings her in contact with people whom she would likely never meet unless she was working for them.
Image
An image of two families at a dinner table.
From left: Zo In-sung as Sang-woo, Cho Yeo-jeong as Ye-ji, Jeon Do-yeon as Mi-ok, Sul Kyung-gu as Ho-seok.Credit…Joo Jae-bum/Netflix
“Possible Love” builds on parallelisms in sharply distinct spaces, with the watchers and the watched, the exploiters and the exploited, the stubbornly alive and the nearly dead. Ye-ji’s husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), pulls into the complicated mix, arriving early and conspicuously in a Porsche. A tall man with the untroubled face and casually domineering physicality of frictionless wealth, he could be one of the guests milling about in the background of “The Great Gatsby.” Sang-woo towers over everyone, and he dazzles Mi-ok, who’s openly taken with him. If he scarcely seems to notice her at first, it’s because he doesn’t seem especially interested in other people. He and his wife are careless people, to borrow again from Fitzgerald. (“There are many so Gatsbys in Korea,” one character tells another in “Burning.”)
“Possible Love” opens with the biblical injunction “thou shall not covet,” suggesting a way into what follows. (The final credits also include a nod to “The Decalogue,” the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s epic meditation on the Ten Commandments.) There’s a lot of coveting in “Possible Love,” some of it humorous and much of it expressed by the women. Soon after Mi-ok agrees to be interviewed for the documentary, she clandestinely looks up the price of one of Ye-ji’s purses, eyes widening in near-cartoonish shock. That the poor couple has something that Ye-ji covets, in turn, is evident each time she turns on the camera and records another strike participant’s pained memories, smiling in sympathy as she laps every tear.
The strike is crucial to “Possible Love,” and introduces a transactional world that has nearly destroyed Ho-seok, hollowing him out. It’s a relationship that Ye-ji replicates, wittingly and not, on a far smaller scale while making her documentary. Lee doesn’t push this resemblance too hard, but instead incorporates it into a constellation of ideas involving the dignity of work, the imperative of self-worth, the hunger for authenticity and the stories we tell ourselves and others. Ye-ji’s single-minded focus on making her documentary can be appallingly insensitive, yet she — like Ho-seok — finds purpose in work. That she, though, needs to parasitically borrow from other lives to find meaning is pathetically, poignantly modern.
Lee adds layers upon layers in “Possible Love,” thickening its realism with pungent details, like an old whistle that Sang-woo cherishes as a memento. He keeps it on a shelf in his family’s seaside home, a mansion that the couples visit one tumultuous weekend. It’s there amid the lush grounds, over glasses of pricey wine and drunken karaoke that everything — desires, grievances, class differences and bitter histories — converges with a howl. Sang-woo’s grandfather used the whistle when he was a policeman (implicitly in Japanese-occupied Korea); when Sang-woo was a child, he blew it to summon the caretaker’s son. “He would come running,” Sang-woo says. That boy grew into a smiling servant who you see at the mansion. He looks as if he has never raised a fist in solidarity like Ho-seok once did, much less learned — like Mi-ok — to say no with the crystallizing power of self-determination.
Rated R for language and a brief sexual scene. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 44 minutes. In theaters.
In his first movie since his celebrated drama “Burning,” the South Korean director Lee Chang-dong focuses on two couples from very different…
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"Say No To Blood Tech" At Apple With Fired Apple Worker & Organizer Tarik Ra’ouf
https://youtu.be/uAfrfA4YxZM
The role of Apple from Palestine to the Congo was the focus of an interview with Apples Against Apartheid organizer Raif Ra'ouf. He was fired at Apple for …having a button on Palestine and organizing an international campaign to stop Apples support for the genocide and IDF. Apple pays the full salaries of all Apple workers who go into the IDF to carry out the occupation and genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
He also talks about the connection with the mining of cobalt by child labor in the Congo and the need to link up with communities and workers around the world. Ra'ouf also talks about an international day of action on October 23, 2026 at Apple stores around the world. Rallies will be held at Barcelona, Spain
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Lier, Lier Pants On Fire! SF Mayor Lurie Lying About Ballot Propositions Funded By SF Techno Fascist Billionaires-Prop F Would Allow Him Complete Control Of Police Commission
S.F. Mayor Lurie blasted a message to voters about police oversight. It was wrong
By Michael Barba,
Staff… Writer
Oct 21, 2026
Standing alongside Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during a July 29 news conference to promote three ballot measures he is pushing to overhaul the City Charter.
Standing alongside Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during a July 29 news conference to promote three ballot measures he is pushing to overhaul the City Charter.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is promoting a November ballot measure that would allow him to unilaterally remove mayoral appointees whose performance he no longer supports from the police commission, diminishing the independence of a body tasked with disciplining officers.
But that’s not what he is telling voters about Proposition F.
In a mailer circulated ahead of the Nov. 3 election, Lurie’s “Clean Up City Hall” campaign made three promises in all-capital letters. Among them: “Fully independent watchdogs.”
“Prop F keeps the Ethics Commission and Police Commission fully independent of the Mayor and Supervisors to ensure strong oversight,” reads the mailer, alongside a portrait of Lurie.
This isn’t true — and is one of at least five instances identified by the Chronicle when Lurie or his campaign incorrectly suggested that Prop F would not impact the police commission’s independence.
Lurie’s official argument for Prop F, submitted on his behalf in August and printed in the information guide sent to San Francisco voters, states, “Watchdog commissions like Ethics and police oversight remain fully independent.”
Under current city law, mayors cannot remove their own appointees to the police commission without approval from the Board of Supervisors. Prop F would change that.
Prop F would also strip the commission of a separate power to fire the police chief; only the mayor would continue to hold that authority.
In response to questions from the Chronicle, Lurie’s political adviser, Max Szabo, said the campaign supporting Prop F had made mistakes in a “handful of communications.” He said the campaign should have used “clearer terminology” and would clarify its language in the future.
Asked whether Lurie intended to change the police commission removal process through Prop F, Szabo said that he did and that the mayor stands by his position today.
He noted that Prop F also gives the commission — instead of the mayor — the new power to appoint the director of the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability, which independently investigates misconduct complaints against officers.
“Proposition F creates a clear line of accountability,” Szabo said. “Elected officials are responsible for the commissioners they appoint, and voters can hold those officials accountable for the consequential public safety policies their appointees enact.”
The proposed changes to the police commission are a small but significant part of Prop F, which itself is one of three measures Lurie put forward to overhaul the City Charter, arguing he needs more power to deliver on campaign promises to improve the city bureaucracy.
The measures have been supported by millions in contributions from local billionaire donors Michael Moritz, Chris Larsen and John Pritzker.
A mailer circulated by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s ballot measure committee wrongly stated that Proposition F would keep the San Francisco Police Commission “fully independent.”
A mailer circulated by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s ballot measure committee wrongly stated that Proposition F would keep the San Francisco Police Commission “fully independent.”
The Chronicle
Christin Evans, a small-business owner opposing Prop F, said she was not surprised that the Lurie campaign had misrepresented a piece of its charter overhaul, because the measures include sweeping changes crafted without adequate opportunity for public feedback.
“There may be some good stuff in here, but it’s mixed in with a lot of problematic stuff too,” Evans said. “It shows a lack of respect for good public processes. This mayor and these billionaires, they are drunk on power and they are overstepping and overreaching constantly.”
Prop F would allow the Board of Supervisors and the mayor to remove their appointees to a number of boards and commissions without cause. However, a few “watchdog bodies,” including the ethics commission, would be exempted from this change.
The police commission, like the ethics commission, serves a quasi-judicial role. Its members not only set police policy but hear testimony and evidence in police misconduct cases, deciding whether to fire officers.
The idea is to ensure the “fox isn’t guarding the henhouse,” said Supervisor Shamann Walton.
That’s why the ACLU and other police reformers in 2003 asked voters to remake the structure of the police commission, arguing that mayoral appointees needed to be shielded from political interference to fairly impose discipline against officers. Opponents, including the police union, derided the measure at the time as a power grab by the Board of Supervisors.
Voters adopted the change, expanding the police commission from five members — all of whom served at the pleasure of the mayor — to seven, with four members nominated for appointment by the mayor and three members appointed by the Board of Supervisors. Today, all seven members serve at will, and all removals must go through the board.
Last year, for instance, Lurie needed board approval to oust Max Carter-Oberstone, a former police commission vice president who split philosophically from former Mayor London Breed after she appointed him and was seen as having gone “rogue.”
Contacted by the Chronicle this week, the current president of the police commission, also a Breed appointee, said he had been unaware that Prop F would allow the mayor to unilaterally remove him.
But Don Clay, a retired judge, said he supported Prop F because it would “level the playing field” between Board of Supervisors and mayoral appointees and allow City Hall to rein in rogue appointees.
“You can’t come on a commission and think it’s your commission, that you have this ultimate power, you just do whatever,” Clay said. “It is political, and you have got a political appointment either from the mayor or the Board of Supervisors.”
Clay said police commissioners should be able to vote impartially on officer discipline regardless of the ease with which they could be removed. “If you have the courage of your convictions, you are going to do what is right,” he said.
Among those who signed the official argument for Prop F was Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, even though he had, months earlier, supported a resolution “affirming the importance of independent civilian oversight of the San Francisco Police Commission.”
Mandelman had reservations about the resolution at the time, arguing that the commission should not be independent from the mayor when it comes to setting police policy. But he also made a case for the commission remaining independent in disciplinary matters.
“We do not want police commissions dispensing discipline to members of the police department with the fear that if they make a politically unpopular call, they’re going to get fired the next day,” Mandelman said at an April committee meeting.
Reached by the Chronicle last week, Mandelman said he was aware that Prop F would change the police commission removal process and there were “compelling arguments on both sides.”
“On balance, I think Prop F is a significant improvement on the status quo,” he said.
Oct 21, 2026
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Michael Barba
ACCOUNTABILITY & PUBLIC SAFETY REPORTER
Spouse of UPTE UCSF social worker killed at S.F. General Hospital sues city, alleging ‘unreasonable failure’
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-general-hospital-stabbing-husband-lawsuit-22484692.php
By Annie Vainshtein,
Staff Writer
Oct 21, 2026
Stuart …Moulder, husband of the UCSF social worker who was slain while working at S.F. General Hospital, poses for a portrait at the home they shared together in San Francisco. Moulder has filed a lawsuit against the city.
Stuart Moulder, husband of the UCSF social worker who was slain while working at S.F. General Hospital, poses for a portrait at the home they shared together in San Francisco. Moulder has filed a lawsuit against the city.
Gabrielle Lurie/S.F. Chronicle
The spouse of a UCSF social worker who was killed in December by a patient at San Francisco General Hospital’s HIV clinic filed a lawsuit against the city Wednesday morning, alleging officials’ “unreasonable failure” to provide security at the hospital contributed to the man’s death.
Stuart Moulder, spouse of 51-year-old Alberto Rangel, is accusing city officials of negligence, breach of mandatory duties and dangerous conditions.
His lawsuit alleges city officials failed to provide desperately needed — and previously requested — security measures at a public hospital that has dealt with troubled and volatile patients, high rates of violent incidents, years of warnings by whistleblowers and sanctions by state regulators over dangerous conditions.
“This wasn’t simply an unforeseeable act of violence,” said Nick Casper, Moulder’s attorney. “It was a tragedy preceded by years of warnings and multiple missed opportunities to prevent it.”
In a statement, Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city attorney’s office, said the office would review the lawsuit and respond in court.
“Mr. Rangel’s death is a tragedy, and our thoughts are with his loved ones,” said Kwart.
The lawsuit, which calls for a jury trial, lays out previously unknown details about the hours that led up to Rangel’s death on Dec 4., 2025. His alleged attacker — Wilfredo Tortolero-Arriechi, who was a patient — is facing a murder charge in connection to the stabbing.
Staffers at Ward 86 and another sexual health clinic, San Francisco City Clinic, had already raised concerns to their superiors and security staff about Tortolero-Arriechi in the weeks leading up to the killing. They reported he had been exhibiting “elevated behaviors” and seemed violently fixated on his physician, an internal San Francisco Department of Public Health audit found.
On the morning of the killing, Tortolero-Arriechi visited the City Clinic again at around 8 a.m. exhibited “odd behavior” and engaged in “psychotic talk,” according to the lawsuit. He repeatedly demanded to see his doctor so he could “give him something,” but when asked by staff to leave, he threatened to “keep coming back until I find him,” according to the suit.
Alarmed and afraid, City Clinic staff, including the doctor Tortolero-Arriechi was allegedly stalking, again called San Francisco General Security Director Basil Price for assistance at Ward 86, where Tortolero-Arriechi indicated he was headed next. Price said officials attempted to make contact with Tortolero-Arriechi but were unsuccessful.
Instead of issuing an urgent security bulletin to hospital staff, Price requested a single sheriff’s deputy to station himself at Ward 86. The deputy, Runyi Li, arrived around 1 p.m., but was positioned far away from the elevator and allegedly was focused on “petting a patient’s dog,” according to the complaint. Less than half an hour later, Tortolero-Arriechi walked into the clinic.
There were no metal detectors on the ground floor, and any security guards at the building’s entrance appeared unaware of the danger, records show.
After a receptionist told an agitated Tortolero-Arriechi that his physician was not at the clinic, Rangel approached and led him back to the elevator, records show. Within seconds, Tortolero-Arriechi allegedly began stabbing Rangel with a 5-inch kitchen knife, as his colleagues ran to pry the attacker off of him, records show.
Ward 86 staff said the deputy, who was far down the hallway at the time of the stabbing, appeared “frozen in place.” He eventually took Tortolero-Arriechi into custody.
Rangel was stabbed in his neck, chest, arm and abdomen, according to the lawsuit. His left lung and bowels were penetrated, and his left subclavian and other arteries were completely severed, leading to extensive strokes on both sides of his brain. He died after two days in the intensive care unit.
Days after the stabbing, the city implemented sweeping security measures around the hospital that staff had asked for, including metal detectors and hiring more security guards. The public health department also pledged $15 million a year to improve security and hired four people on its security team, a department that previously had a single employee: Price.
In the aftermath of the killing, the city was also hit with a record fine — $130,600 — by CAL/OSHA, which found the hospital was wholly unprepared to deal with increasing issues of violence against its staff.
City officials were previously fined $26,660 by state safety regulators after a psychiatric patient in the emergency room at San Francisco General in October 2019 attacked a nurse, punching her in the face and grabbing her “by the eye sockets.” The nurse was so shaken she never returned to emergency room work, according to the complaint.
But even after the 2019 attack, “assaults continued unabated,” the complaint said. From September 2023 to October 2024, the department logged 256 incidents of physical violence against front-line workers at San Francisco General by patients — a rate of nearly 20 per month, records show. In a survey of front-line workers at the hospital conducted between 2019 and 2025, 90% reported being assaulted by patients, and more than 60% said they had suffered assaults or threats more than 10 times.
After Rangel’s killing, the department’s internal audit validated those findings, reporting that front-line workers were violently assaulted around six times per month.
The complaint alleges city officials didn’t just refuse to provide additional security measures at the hospital in the years leading up to the killing, but also retaliated against workers who expressed concerns about security. From October 2024 to October 2025, the violent incidents increased to 324, records show.
“What makes Rangel’s death especially heartbreaking is that he was simply trying to help someone, as he had done throughout his career,” Casper said. “And he was doing so in a workplace where the people responsible for security had already been warned about that very danger.”
Rangel had worked at Ward 86 since 2021. Vigils for him drew dozens of colleagues, friends and loved ones. He was described as a deeply caring, optimistic and artistic person who was drawn to helping those who felt abandoned by the world.
Born in Texas and raised in Iowa, he studied art and dance in college but found his calling in the Bay Area, where he trained as a licensed marriage and family therapist. In the early 2000s, he met Moulder, who was living in Australia at the time but eventually moved to San Francisco, where the two made a home together in Corona Heights.
At Ward 86, he and his colleagues became a kind of second family, Moulder said.
“It was hard, hard work, and he did find it tiring at times,” Moulder said. “But he never, ever once complained about it.”
In early December, Rangel and Moulder had just returned from a vacation to Nepal and India. It was the longest Rangel had ever been on vacation, Moulder said. They arrived home the day before he was stabbed to death.
Oct 21, 2026
Photo of Annie Vainshtein
Annie Vainshtein
The stabbing death of a UCSF social worker at San Francisco General Hospital’s HIV clinic “wasn’t simply an unforeseeable act of violence,”…
www.sfchronicle.comSpouse of UPTE UCSF social worker killed at S.F. General Hospital sues city, alleging ‘unreasonable failure’
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-general-hospital-stabbing-husband-lawsuit-22484692.php
By Annie Vainshtein,
Staff Writer
Oct 21, 2026
Stuart …Moulder, husband of the UCSF social worker who was slain while working at S.F. General Hospital, poses for a portrait at the home they shared together in San Francisco. Moulder has filed a lawsuit against the city.
Stuart Moulder, husband of the UCSF social worker who was slain while working at S.F. General Hospital, poses for a portrait at the home they shared together in San Francisco. Moulder has filed a lawsuit against the city.
Gabrielle Lurie/S.F. Chronicle
The spouse of a UCSF social worker who was killed in December by a patient at San Francisco General Hospital’s HIV clinic filed a lawsuit against the city Wednesday morning, alleging officials’ “unreasonable failure” to provide security at the hospital contributed to the man’s death.
Stuart Moulder, spouse of 51-year-old Alberto Rangel, is accusing city officials of negligence, breach of mandatory duties and dangerous conditions.
His lawsuit alleges city officials failed to provide desperately needed — and previously requested — security measures at a public hospital that has dealt with troubled and volatile patients, high rates of violent incidents, years of warnings by whistleblowers and sanctions by state regulators over dangerous conditions.
“This wasn’t simply an unforeseeable act of violence,” said Nick Casper, Moulder’s attorney. “It was a tragedy preceded by years of warnings and multiple missed opportunities to prevent it.”
In a statement, Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city attorney’s office, said the office would review the lawsuit and respond in court.
“Mr. Rangel’s death is a tragedy, and our thoughts are with his loved ones,” said Kwart.
The lawsuit, which calls for a jury trial, lays out previously unknown details about the hours that led up to Rangel’s death on Dec 4., 2025. His alleged attacker — Wilfredo Tortolero-Arriechi, who was a patient — is facing a murder charge in connection to the stabbing.
Staffers at Ward 86 and another sexual health clinic, San Francisco City Clinic, had already raised concerns to their superiors and security staff about Tortolero-Arriechi in the weeks leading up to the killing. They reported he had been exhibiting “elevated behaviors” and seemed violently fixated on his physician, an internal San Francisco Department of Public Health audit found.
On the morning of the killing, Tortolero-Arriechi visited the City Clinic again at around 8 a.m. exhibited “odd behavior” and engaged in “psychotic talk,” according to the lawsuit. He repeatedly demanded to see his doctor so he could “give him something,” but when asked by staff to leave, he threatened to “keep coming back until I find him,” according to the suit.
Alarmed and afraid, City Clinic staff, including the doctor Tortolero-Arriechi was allegedly stalking, again called San Francisco General Security Director Basil Price for assistance at Ward 86, where Tortolero-Arriechi indicated he was headed next. Price said officials attempted to make contact with Tortolero-Arriechi but were unsuccessful.
Instead of issuing an urgent security bulletin to hospital staff, Price requested a single sheriff’s deputy to station himself at Ward 86. The deputy, Runyi Li, arrived around 1 p.m., but was positioned far away from the elevator and allegedly was focused on “petting a patient’s dog,” according to the complaint. Less than half an hour later, Tortolero-Arriechi walked into the clinic.
There were no metal detectors on the ground floor, and any security guards at the building’s entrance appeared unaware of the danger, records show.
After a receptionist told an agitated Tortolero-Arriechi that his physician was not at the clinic, Rangel approached and led him back to the elevator, records show. Within seconds, Tortolero-Arriechi allegedly began stabbing Rangel with a 5-inch kitchen knife, as his colleagues ran to pry the attacker off of him, records show.
Ward 86 staff said the deputy, who was far down the hallway at the time of the stabbing, appeared “frozen in place.” He eventually took Tortolero-Arriechi into custody.
Rangel was stabbed in his neck, chest, arm and abdomen, according to the lawsuit. His left lung and bowels were penetrated, and his left subclavian and other arteries were completely severed, leading to extensive strokes on both sides of his brain. He died after two days in the intensive care unit.
Days after the stabbing, the city implemented sweeping security measures around the hospital that staff had asked for, including metal detectors and hiring more security guards. The public health department also pledged $15 million a year to improve security and hired four people on its security team, a department that previously had a single employee: Price.
In the aftermath of the killing, the city was also hit with a record fine — $130,600 — by CAL/OSHA, which found the hospital was wholly unprepared to deal with increasing issues of violence against its staff.
City officials were previously fined $26,660 by state safety regulators after a psychiatric patient in the emergency room at San Francisco General in October 2019 attacked a nurse, punching her in the face and grabbing her “by the eye sockets.” The nurse was so shaken she never returned to emergency room work, according to the complaint.
But even after the 2019 attack, “assaults continued unabated,” the complaint said. From September 2023 to October 2024, the department logged 256 incidents of physical violence against front-line workers at San Francisco General by patients — a rate of nearly 20 per month, records show. In a survey of front-line workers at the hospital conducted between 2019 and 2025, 90% reported being assaulted by patients, and more than 60% said they had suffered assaults or threats more than 10 times.
After Rangel’s killing, the department’s internal audit validated those findings, reporting that front-line workers were violently assaulted around six times per month.
The complaint alleges city officials didn’t just refuse to provide additional security measures at the hospital in the years leading up to the killing, but also retaliated against workers who expressed concerns about security. From October 2024 to October 2025, the violent incidents increased to 324, records show.
“What makes Rangel’s death especially heartbreaking is that he was simply trying to help someone, as he had done throughout his career,” Casper said. “And he was doing so in a workplace where the people responsible for security had already been warned about that very danger.”
Rangel had worked at Ward 86 since 2021. Vigils for him drew dozens of colleagues, friends and loved ones. He was described as a deeply caring, optimistic and artistic person who was drawn to helping those who felt abandoned by the world.
Born in Texas and raised in Iowa, he studied art and dance in college but found his calling in the Bay Area, where he trained as a licensed marriage and family therapist. In the early 2000s, he met Moulder, who was living in Australia at the time but eventually moved to San Francisco, where the two made a home together in Corona Heights.
At Ward 86, he and his colleagues became a kind of second family, Moulder said.
“It was hard, hard work, and he did find it tiring at times,” Moulder said. “But he never, ever once complained about it.”
In early December, Rangel and Moulder had just returned from a vacation to Nepal and India. It was the longest Rangel had ever been on vacation, Moulder said. They arrived home the day before he was stabbed to death.
Oct 21, 2026
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Annie Vainshtein
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