The Weekly Digest (March 24, 2024)
Happy Sunday, Brionies!
Here’s what you need to know about San Francisco politics this week and beyond:
City Hall
Monday, March 25 at 10am: Regular meeting of the Rules Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Item 1 – Annual report of surveillance technology by the Committee on Information Technology. You may be surprised to learn that licence plate readers and security cameras are just the tip of the iceberg in San Francisco’s arsenal of surveillance technologies. We learned by reading this report that the Board of Supervisors have approved 87 technologies and 52 technology policies, used by a variety of city departments. Security cameras at, say, the Asian Art Museum sound uncontroversial, but we would like to learn more about the “Social Media Monitoring Technology” used by several departments, such as the Office of Civic Engagement and Government Affairs and the Office of Transgender Initiatives.
Tuesday, March 26 at 2pm: Regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Item 23 – Resolution urging the district attorney and police department to release investigation reports, witness accounts, and video information related to the death of 71-year old Yanfang Wu on July 3, 2023. Mrs. Wu died two days after she was shoved to the ground and seriously injured near a bus stop in the Bayview district. The SFPD concluded the death was an accident, but on Monday, March 4, 2024 the same person of interest in Mrs. Wu’s assault allegedly attacked another elderly Asian woman. The Asian Justice Movement and a coalition of civil rights groups have demanded that the SFPD re-open the Wu case as a homicide investigation and potential hate crime. Among other things, these critics note that the percipient witness was an elderly monolingual Cantonese speaker, and it is not clear that a Cantonese-fluent (versus Cantonese-certified) interviewer was present and conducted the interview of that witness.
Item 24 – Resolution by Supervisor Preston calling for a full-service grocery store in the Tenderloin. The majority of Tenderloin residents do not have access to a car, and find it difficult to shop for groceries. Unfortunately, the departure of Whole Foods from Civic Center and troubles at the Fillmore Safeway show that rampant crime makes it difficult to run a grocery store in this town. In an acknowledgement that the private sector may not be interested, Supervisor Preston’s resolution notes with approval that “Chicago recently announced that it is considering opening a municipally- owned grocery store which would make it the first large U.S. city to do so, while smaller cities like St. Paul, KS and Baldwin, FL have opened successful municipally-owned grocery stores.” Counterpoint: this Moscow grocery store in 1989.
Thursday, March 28 at 10am: Regular meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here):
Item 3 – Hearing to consider neighborhood and community impacts of Permanent Supportive Housing facilities. The city is spending $30 million on a 42-unit apartment building at 1174 Folsom Street to provide permanent supportive housing to homeless people aged 18-24, but neighbors are worried that the site, adhering to the “Housing First” philosophy, will not require sobriety and will not screen tenants on the basis of criminal history. Supporters of the project, including an organizing director with the Coalition on Homelessness, dismissed these concerns: “Yeah, there are some kids that will use and adults that will use … So let’s address the first issue, which is housing.”
Item 4 – Update on implementation of the Place For All Ordinance, a policy that San Francisco would provide sufficient shelter and housing to end street sleeping.
Happenings around town
Community Meeting with Leaders of the “Amend Prop. 47” Ballot Initiative
Monday, March 25 at 6pm, online
San Francisco Police Department Station Captain’s Community Meetings
Mission Station, Tuesday, March 26, 5-6pm
Richmond Station, Tuesday, March 26, 5-6pm
Larry Baer, San Francisco Giants CEO: Betting Big on the City
Tuesday, April 2 at 12pm, the Commonwealth Club
What we’re listening to
Michele Steeb returned to the Briones Society podcast for a deeper dive into the failures of the Housing First approach to homelessness (see above) and to offer her perspective about what actually does work to bring people out of homelessness and help them to live fulfilling lives.
What we’re reading
Brionies in the news! Jennifer Yan collected more votes than any other candidate for Republican County Central Committee, so it’s no surprise that the Standard wanted to get to know this star of the Briones Society slate: “There are many Asian Americans who are the ‘silent majority,’” Yan said in Chinese. “But now, they are participating in politics.” Indeed! The success of the Briones slate also caught the eye of the Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli, who profiled our president and co-founder Jay Donde. “What we want to do is revitalize the Republican Party so voters have better choices at election time,” Donde said.
Sanjana Friedman at Pirate Wires has done it again, writing another fearless expose of the perverse incentive regime that props up a seemingly permanent system of open drug use and homelessness in San Francisco. Among the eye-opening details: certain nonprofits offer tent-to-tent delivery of drug parapharnalia; fentanyl is dramatically cheaper in SF than in Los Angeles or other cities; the Coalition on Homelessness aggressively protects the right to camp; and an array of financial and other services are available to all comers. Oh, and between 2023-2024 the city paid out $132,000 to settle 24 complaints by homeless individuals who claimed that their tents had been cleared in sweeps, an average of $5,500 per plaintiff.
Quick hits