The Weekly Digest (April 2, 2023)
Happy Opening Day-week, Brionies! The Giants are expected to be terrible this season, so take solace in the fact that you’ll soon know all you need to about San Francisco politics this week and beyond:
City Hall
Monday, April 3 at 1:30pm: Regular Meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Item 1 – Ordinance to extend restrictions on evicting or imposing late fees on residential tenants who could not pay rent during COVID-19 emergency. We are, apparently, still living under the COVID-19 emergency. It will, apparently, never end.
Item 5 – Hearing to consider a report on repurposing commercial property for residential use. This is essentially a review of whether the City can convert many of its downtown commercial buildings into housing, which might be taken as a tacit admission that many downtown businesses will never recover.
Tuesday, April 4 at 1:30pm: Regular Meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Item 17 – An ordinance appropriating $25 million of General Fund General Reserves for street cleaning and graffiti abatement. It may behoove us to actually enforce laws prohibiting littering and graffiti, while we are at it.
Wednesday, April 5 at 10am: Regular Meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Legislation Under the 30-Day Rule – Ordinance appropriating $50 million of General Fund General Reserves to the Human Resources Commission to establish an Office of Reparations. Only $50 million?!? Thrifty!
Happenings around town
The Commonwealth Club presents “How Religion Shaped the Western World”
Tuesday, April 4 at 5:30pm, 110 The Embarcadero
Wednesday, April 5 at 6:30pm, 2505 Mariposa St.
The Federalist Society presents “A Conversation with Judge Carlos Bea (9th Circuit Court of Appeals)”
Thursday, April 13 at 6pm, Villa Taverna
SPARC Speaker Series featuring Congresswoman Michelle Steele (CA-45)
Tuesday, April 18 at 6:30pm, online
Saturday, April 22 at 6pm, Rohnert Park
Log Cabin Republicans of San Francisco present Spencer Klavan on “How to Save the West”
Wednesday, April 26, event details coming soon
What we’re reading
Law enforcement oversight was among the many police reforms that swept the country following George Floyd’s murder. But apparently interest is waning in San Francisco, where only one person showed up to a community meeting for the Sheriff’s Department’s new oversight board.
Most likely because of San Francisco’s anemic COVID-19 recovery, the City is facing a colossal budget deficit. And in the category of “things that sound awesome as your heavy metal band name, but not your city’s economic prognosis,” we have Doom Loop. Glass half full: perhaps we will stop giving out money to unaccountable nonprofits?
Supervisor Matt Dorsey continues his fight to change the City’s sanctuary law to exclude fentanyl dealers. Sometimes being right is a lonely place: the supervisor has no support on the board or elsewhere at City Hall.
Supervisor Dean Preston has attacked the mayor for allegedly not investing public safety resources in Lower Polk. Supervisor Preston, of course, has been perhaps the most vocal “defund the police” advocate in the City not named Hillary Ronen. We continue to be stunned by the abject shamelessness exhibited by our elected officials.
Speaking of Dean-o, Mayor London Breed went on Jon Stewart’s podcast and had some choice words to share about Alamo Square’s finest socialist.
In case you needed further convincing, San Francisco’s rent control regime is a bit of a racket.
Conservative Stanford Law students discuss their experiences on campus and re-hash their fellow students’ meltdown over a conservative federal judge’s temerity to accept a speaking invitation. Yes, the juice is worth the squeeze!
Quick hits
Drug dealers beat charges by claiming they were victims of human trafficking
SF Pays Big Bucks to Nonprofits, Fails to Properly Monitor Them
Brooke Jenkins has transformed San Francisco's crime policies. Here's what the data shows
Put Algebra 1 Back in Eighth Grade – It’s unbelievable that we’re still debating this.
SF homeless residents filing more claims over confiscated property
Moment of Zen