Randy Shaw gets it—the collapse of San Fran is due to the government not holding people responsible for their acts. What he does not get is that it is the Progressives that have created lack of responsibility as a government policy. He has the right cause, the wrong perpetrators.
“San Francisco has troubles. This is not news to Tenderloin or SOMA residents, to regular readers of my stories on open drug markets or to Twitter followers of @Twolfrecovery or @bettersoma. The San Francisco Chronicle ran several stories on a June poll confirming that most San Franciscans share this negative perception.
But the Chronicle missed the common theme underlying San Franciscans concerns: the city’s reluctance and even refusal to hold wrongdoers accountable. The city establishment routinely criticizes enforcement efforts. While poll respondents blamed the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Breed, no city institution has been more wedded to the Chesa Boudin tolerance for lawlessness than the San Francisco Chronicle.”
You will not stop the economic collapse of San Fran until criminals and others are held responsible for their actions. Until then go to San Fran and understand the risks.
WHAT’S REALLY BEHIND SAN FRANCISCO’S TROUBLES?
by Randy Shaw, Beyond Chron, 10/3/22
City Establishment Rejects Accountability
San Francisco has troubles. This is not news to Tenderloin or SOMA residents, to regular readers of my stories on open drug markets or to Twitter followers of @Twolfrecovery or @bettersoma. The San Francisco Chronicle ran several stories on a June poll confirming that most San Franciscans share this negative perception.
But the Chronicle missed the common theme underlying San Franciscans concerns: the city’s reluctance and even refusal to hold wrongdoers accountable. The city establishment routinely criticizes enforcement efforts. While poll respondents blamed the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Breed, no city institution has been more wedded to the Chesa Boudin tolerance for lawlessness than the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chronicle regularly blames “progressives” for the city’s problems. But on Boudin and other policy issues including homelessness the paper is in lockstep with those it criticizes.
Jenkins Demands Accountability
Voters recalled DA Chesa Boudin in a landslide because they recognized his policies were wrecking the city. Yet the Chronicle was so committed to continuing Boudin’s reign of lawlessness that it editorialized against his recall a month in advance. Since her appointment it has never stopped attacking District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
Why are the Chronicle and other Boudin backers so angry at Jenkins? It’s her demand for accountability. That strikes at the heart of the agenda pushed by the Chronicle and many supervisors. That agenda blames government failures for all problems involving the poor. It makes heroes or victims of those who break rules, seeing enforcement of laws as reactionary and/or inhumane.
The last thing the Chronicle and many politicians want is for a high-profile official to talk seriously about accountability. Or to suggest prosecuting fentanyl dealers for murder, as the courageous Brooke Jenkins has done. The Chronicle and most city politicians backed Boudin’s refusal to charge dealers with felonies. Now we have a DA who has logically concluded that people selling murderous drugs should be held responsible for causing these deaths!
No wonder the San Francisco Democratic Party endorsed Public Defender John Hamasaki over Jenkins. Party delegates are threatened by her framing of what’s happening in the city. The Party majority believes that an international drug cartel selling its murderous product in San Francisco’s working-class, multi-racial Tenderloin is a public health challenge, not a crime or public safety crisis.
The city’s establishment does not see the sale of murderous drugs and related violence as a crisis that merits a police presence necessary to protect Tenderloin families.
A public health challenge? Would those opposing prosecuting fentanyl dealers for felonies feel the same if they were selling rat poison? Or would the dealers of rat poison be similarly defended as victims of a system of social injustice whose arrests worsen mass incarceration?
Boudin backers have never offered a viable, alternative non-police focused strategy for ending open dealing in the Tenderloin. The June Chronicle poll shows the public has not been fooled.
Reframing the Public Debate
Jenkins is doing nothing less than reframing San Francisco’s political debate. Even opponents of the school board and DA recalls realize the public is demanding accountability.
Jenkins’ first campaign ad is titled “Holding Drug Dealers Accountable”—something Boudin refused to do. She has been so insistent on holding dealers accountable that she has put her opponents on the defensive. Now even Hamasaki’s website asks people to “Join our campaign to hold everyone accountable — from those selling fentanyl in the Tenderloin to those selling influence at City Hall!”
I loved Leighton Woodhouse’s tweet describing Jenkins as the “anti-establishment candidate.” She is. The city has never had a District Attorney or any highly placed public official so publicly committed to reducing open drug dealing. And to highlighting the protection of Tenderloin families. Her winning in a landslide in November will further change the political dialogue about how San Francisco should respond to those who violate its laws.
San Francisco residents are tired of politicians and reporters making excuses for wrongful conduct.
And this goes beyond drug dealers. San Franciscans also are demanding accountability about the unhoused.
Who’s to Blame for Street Homelessness?
Chronicle reporters Trisha Thadani and Joaquin Palomino did a story last spring charging the organization I head, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, with allowing vermin to take over a tenant’s hotel room. The reporters framed their entire story around this falsehood despite being told that the tenant refused all extermination services, had assaulted a fellow tenant, and was causing public health risks in her building.
Instead, they lied to readers and omitted those critical facts. That’s why their subsequent SRO stories say THC won’t talk to them—we have demanded they first publicly admit their lies.
I mention this because the Chronicle and some supervisors believe that government or nonprofit organizations serving the unhoused are always to blame. Thadani and Palomino later returned to this theme on a story about evictions. They absurdly blamed Mayor Breed for offering housing to unhoused people and then allowing their evictions after they proved violent or caused public health hazards.
Offering housing to the unhoused means the tenant should not be evicted if they violently attack neighbors?
Of course, if nonprofits did not evict violent tenants the Chronicle would do a story attacking the nonprofit for jeopardizing the safety of other tenants.
We see a similar refusal to hold people accountable on city streets.
Federal court rulings allow the unhoused to stay in tents if shelter or housing is unavailable. But should San Francisco allow people who refuse shelter to pitch tents that block sidewalks and create health hazards? The poll results appear to offer the public’s resounding “No.”
But many of our supervisors treat those refusing shelter as if it were not offered. Not wanting to hold any of the unhoused accountable for refusing shelter in favor of tents (from which drugs are more safely sold), they promote the myth that the problem is a lack of outreach, not the refusal of many to accept services. Many supervisors prioritize those choosing tents over shelters over the small businesses and working class families hurt by the impact of illegal tent dwelling.
To this day San Francisco refuses to force people who refuse shelter or housing to permanently leave the area where they have pitched tents. Or to prevent them from opening tents elsewhere.
I think the greater public is fed up with this approach. We’ll see if a resounding victory by Jenkins in November pushes the city to reassess its priorities.
