Day Around the Bay: SF Parking Meter Prices to Increase by 25 Cents an Hour

Local:

Reminder, folks, the 119th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake is tomorrow, and as San Francisco does, we will gather at Lotta’s Fountain at 5:12 am in our Edwardian-era finery. Though this year will be the final year that Donna Ewald Huggins, who has portrayed Lillie Hitchcock Coit at the ceremony for the last 50 years, will portray that role. [SF Downtown Partnership]
The SFMTA has approved a 25-cent-per-hour rate hike on parking meter fees, in hopes of tackling their massive budget deficit. There will also be a 10-cent convenience fee added for paying with your mobile phone, and the rate increases will go into effect in late May. [KGO]
Just two years after the last time they went on strike, Oakland teachers are threatening to strike again. They’re only threatening a one-day strike this time (it would be on May 1), as the teachers’ union is demanding more information from the district on their planned budget cuts and layoffs. [KTVU]
The site of the now-shuttered Pea Soup Andersen's in Buellton could be razed for condos, but might still retain some form of restaurant presence on the ground floor of whatever the developer ends up building there. [SFGate]

Yet another campus shooting Thursday, this time at Florida State University, where two people are dead and six more are hospitalized. The suspect is in custody, a 20-year-old son of a local sheriff’s deputy, who apparently had access to that deputy’s weapons. [NBC News]
President Trump fired 95% of staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (1,300 of 1,500 employees), in an obvious sop to his billionaire friends who like to do illegal shit. [Associated Press]
The latest Trump immigration horrorshow story comes from Florida, where a US citizen with a valid US birth certificate and Social Security card has been detained as an “unauthorized alien,” merely for entering Florida from Georgia. [Florida Phoenix]

With all of our attention to this Sunday’s Hunky Jesus Contest in Dolores Park and supposedly canceled Hippie Hill 4/20 that will totally still draw thousands of people anyway, it’s flying under the radar that this weekend is also the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown. The KTVU segment below gives you a taste of last weekend’s Japanese food, anime cosplay, and of course dazzling cherry blossom blooms, and the big parade is this Sunday, April 20, at 1 pm.

Image: Blossom tree in Golden Gate park of San Francisco during springtime day (Getty Images)