City Issues: San Francisco
- Public Tranportation Nearly everyone agrees that the
city's public transportation system, the MUNI is not what it
should be. Enough people use the system that this has become an
important political issue. The mayor made fixing it one of his
campaign promises. After failing to deliver on his 100 day promise
to "fix the system" he has again renewed his pledge to deliver on
his promise. The city, which prides itself as a "Transit First"
city often gives more attention to the wishes of automobile
drivers at the expense of pedestrians, bicycle riders and those
who use public transit. The monthly "Critical Mass" bicycle event
gets criticized by a press which seems more interested in serving
the interests of the downtown department stores who fear a loss of
revenue from the event. FIX
THE MUNI
- High housing prices Those coming into the city are
usually shocked at the prices and limited availability of housing
in the city. Rents are high and rising. Quality apartments are
hard to find. Many report that it's best to know someone to find a
place. Current battles pit owners against renters over rent
control. "Owner move ins" have become a source of contention.
Reports continue of elderly and long term renters being evicted so
that rents can be raised. Rental prices have resulted in a
situation where many voters who are renters are unwilling to
approve city bonds if they know it will increase their rent.
- Taxi Cabs The number of taxi permits issued by the city
has become a divisive issue. Some argue for more permits while
current drivers worry that having more taxis on the street will
make it harder to make a living. Tourist and residents complain
about the difficulty of finding a cab. The biggest problem is that
everyone is having to pay to enrich the owners of current permits
to the tune of approximately $30,000 per year. Add your
comments here
- Election fraud Not much about this in the daily press
... Not surprising given that they backed the 49 stadium measure
that appeared to squeak through by a small margin. The problem is
that there seem to have been a number of irregularities in the
election. See: Election
fraud
- The News Media The two daily papers, the
Chronicle and Examiner, have been operating jointly
(sharing revenue and facilities) for the last few decades
resulting in a less than robust competition. They have a little
competition from the two Weeklies and several other local free
papers, but not the kind of competition which is necessary to
foster the kind of quality papers one might expect from a city
like San Francisco. The Examiner has shown a little more
willingness to take journalistic risks lately but lacks the
commitment (and perhaps resources) to make the paper a really
great paper. Both the Chronicle and Examiner run the
risk of continuing to loose market share as younger readers
gravitate to other publications. See: Local Media
- The Police Most San Francisco police you meet on the
street are friendly and do their job in a professional and
competent manor. San Francisco police as a general rule are not
looking for conflict. It's when the police get together that there
seem to be problems. E-media's report of police conduct regarding
Critical Mass bike rides is disturbing. See: Politically motivated police
violence in San Francisco It seems that the SFPD has done a
poor job of ridding the department of those who enjoy bashing
heads. From watching a recent "police action" to remove people
from the grass in civic center it struck me that whoever was
calling the shots was an incredibly stupid strategist. Nearly 100
cops, 30 or so arrests and 2 weeks latter they take down the
barriers. Perhaps the SFPD suffers from too many old timers in
management who need to retire. The Human
Rights Watch report on the San Francisco police department
mentions a 1996
investigative report by the San Francisco Examiner
found that the city was paying large amounts in civil lawsuits
following shootings but that the involved officers were not being
disciplined by the department, or criminally prosecuted. [links and comments]
- Homelessness and Poverty Anyone visiting the city
cannot help but notice the large number of people with shopping
carts on the street. It is estimated that there are 10,000
homeless in the city. There are groups trying to
help but so far no one has solved the problem of insuring that
everyone in the city has enough food and a place to sleep. The
shame is that there is a lot of wealth in the city and a number of
buildings being unused - yet people starve and sleep in doorways.
Public land is mot being used for the public good. Some who are
wealthy try to help but more consider the poor on the street
people to be avoided. Those who say that the city cannot solve the
problems of poverty alone have the task of explaining the
observation that the State and Federal governments do nothing
while continuing to spend money on activities that benefit the
already wealthy. [links and comments]
- Prostitution The San Francisco Task Force on
Prostitution reported in it's 1996
report that the city spends over 7.6 million dollars per year
on police, court and jail costs relating to prostitution. While
Terence Hallinan, the district attorney, said that "The
traditional practice of dealing with prostitution as a law and
order issue is costly and simply does not work" and campaigned on
a platform de-emphasizing the prosecution of prostitution there
still seems to be police resources spent to entrap and arrest
prostitutes and those seeking the service of prostitutes. The San
Francisco Police Department still has a vice crimes division and
continues to make arrests of prostitution. [City
targets, July 1998] But the city has avoided following
Oakland's questionably constitutional practice of seizing the
vehicles of suspected prostitution customers. [Beat
Feet, July 1998 ] [links and comments]
- Telecommunications City cable TV service from TCI is
poor. It's an old and antiquated system (at up to date prices).
For a city in the middle of the high tech revolution one would
think that the telecommunications infrastructure would be better.
While other cities such as Palo Alto to the south have
experimented with city owned fiber optic networks, San Francisco
has limped along with what Pac Bell and TCI have dished out. The
city leadership which had the foresight to bring water from the
Sierras has shown no such leadership in the tech sector - even
though many of the new jobs created in the city depend on
information infrastructure. [links and comments]
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