Thread by @michelletandler on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Here is what confuses me about San Francisco. We have the most liberal, left-wing government & population in the country. We have a $13B budget. And we have 8,000 people sleeping in the rain this week. Can someone please explain this to me?
What do progressives stand for, exactly? I thought it was about making things more fair. About standing up for the little guy. About human rights, equality (equity?), compassion. San Francisco (to me) looks like the least compassionate city on the planet.
The slums of Mumbai look cleaner than the streets of downtown SF... what I see in SF - if this what Progressive stands for - I want the opposite. The words used here: "harm reduction", "housing first", "criminal justice", "social justice", "equity" -- they don't align with what I'm seeing at all. Our strategy might as well be called "harm increased", "housing last", "victim injustice", "social injustice", "unfairness"...
I'm starting to develop a seriously dark view of the Progressive politicians in charge of our town. They have absolute power - act like a regime, and talk often of how "broken" the system is. Are the homeless their foot soldiers? Mascots? Mercenaries? You have to wonder, with the funds we have as a city, state & nation - is this situation... on purpose? We saw what SF was capable of when pandemic hit. We had testing sites up in days. Hotels converted into shelter. Funds flowing. Yet here we are...
Is this nefarious? Progressives tend to blame Republicans for almost everything. Yet here we are - not a Republican in sight - and I think we may be the most deranged city on the planet. Nowhere is there such inequality. I have never seen destitution at this scale...
We are in crisis. And - yes, we voted for this. We know. We probably have more "Black Lives Matter" signs up than any city in the nation. 40% of our homeless people are Black. Do their lives matter...? Or is this just about virtue signaling and moral grandstanding?...
I'd also like to know why the loudest voices right now against changing our approach are all white progressive women. We have Kate Chatfield from the DA's office, Jennifer Friedenbach from COH, Hilary Ronen of D8. All yelling about defunding the police. What is this about? Meanwhile our Mayor, who grew up in the projects of SF - and our Chief of Police (@SFPDChief) - two of the most thoughtful, kind & pragmatic people in SF - are asking for funds & help. And they are getting shouted down as racists? This is nuts!...
San Franciscans believe they are righteous because they pledge allegiance to the righteous tribe - Democrats. They believe they are moral because they believe in higher taxes. They believe they are virtuous because they believe in big Government. I am just so confused. If Progressives believe in big government then why aren't they doing the bare minimum - the minimum that even F.A. Hayek spoke of in "The Road to Serfdom" in 1944? He is a famous Libertarian, and believed in providing food, shelter & clothing
So what is going on here? Is this all due to tribalism? Are San Franciscans so desperate to fit in, that they blindly follow the liberal/left-wing causes - even when they make no sense? The book Hate, Inc. suggests as such...
I get messages almost daily from ppl who say they are afraid to speak up for fear of professional ramifications. Some say they are even afraid to like my tweets. I'm afraid to ask questions about the vaccine on Twitter... What kind of "freedom" do we stand for out here?
In college I studied totalitarian governments and how they came to power. The similarities I see to many elements of society today are harrowing. The cancel culture, the "wrongthink", the adulation of "experts", the cultishness towards "science", the blind support by party. We're more worked up over gerrymandering than we are about people dying in our streets. My friends in SF read article after article about Trump - and don't even know who their supervisor is. Since when did local politics become so "pedestrian" so as to not warrant attention?
I've been critiqued for showcasing SF's problems - told that I'm "fueling" the "Fox News Narrative." Accused of using "Trump-like" messaging to rile people up. Am I traitorous for drawing attention to our issues? Is my critique of Progressives unwarranted? I've been tweeting about SF for about two years now. For a long time people kept asking me what my "goal" was. That question died down a while ago. Perhaps it's become clear? In case it isn't - my goal is to inspire civic engagement & interest in local politics. My goal is to draw attention to San Francisco's government, issues & policies - because I think we can do better. This is my hometown. I think it's a very special place. San Francisco used to mean something. It stood for something. I was proud to be from here. But today I feel ashamed...
What does it look like to study the other side? To challenge your beliefs? Why have I never learned about the case for gun rights? Or about the values of Islam? What are the arguments against abortion? Why do so many people not want to take the vaccine? Why am I not allowed to ask these questions without being accused of "doing harm"?"
Meme - "Look at this mural in the occupied West Sank! Actually this is next to the freeway on ramp in San Francisco"
California Task Force for Reparations Considers $640 Billion in Payments - Bloomberg - "California is moving closer to determining what eligible Black residents are owed for generations of discriminatory practices, a key step toward potentially becoming the largest US jurisdiction to pay out billions of dollars in reparations. The California Reparations Task Force will meet over the next two days in Sacramento to assess how reparations should be distributed, which could include direct payments and investments in education, health care and homeownership for Black communities... California’s task force has yet to say who would pay these sums. After years of budget surpluses, the state’s financial fortunes are turning, with a projected $22.5 billion budget deficit. The technology sector is laying off workers, stock market declines are hurting the incomes of top earners who pay a large share of taxes, and the state already has some of the highest taxes in the nation... Some California cities, including Los Angeles, have started their own reparations task forces outside of the state effort. In San Francisco, one notable proposal involves a $5 million lump-sum payment to each eligible Black resident."
The gravy train will never stop. Good luck to taxpayers, who will continue to be excoriated as racists who aren't doing enough
Bruce’s Beach Was a Reparations Model. Then the Family Sold It. - The New York Times - "On a bright day last summer, Anthony Bruce stood on a patch of grassy land perched on the Pacific Ocean. As deep blue waves gently dissolved onto the shoreline behind him, the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder handed Mr. Bruce a document transferring this piece of oceanfront property to his family — 95 years after they lost it. Anthony Bruce raised the deed above his head in celebration. “It was shocking,” he said. The moment was the culmination of a nearly hundred-year battle for restitution. Anthony’s great-great-grandparents, Charles and Willa Bruce, were Black entrepreneurs who purchased the land and built a thriving business there, until the government seized it... Then, in January, the heirs to Bruce’s Beach announced that they were selling the land back to Los Angeles County for $20 million. The Bruces’ decision to sell has stirred fresh debate about the goals and methods of reparations, just as those efforts have been gaining traction at universities and local governments. Activists who had helped the Bruces secure the land, and other observers, were disappointed that the family decided not to hold onto it and try to reclaim the vision of their ancestors... The Bruce family themselves have grappled with whether the return of the land was truly reparations... In 1924, the city of Manhattan Beach decided to use eminent domain powers to condemn and seize the Bruce property — and those of other Black families. Officials claimed that the city needed the land for a park, but the Black landowners said the seizure was motivated by racial animus. Willa and Charles surrendered their property in 1927 and spent years fighting the condemnation in court before settling for a $14,500 sale price, or the equivalent of around $254,000 in today’s dollars... Though the property was once again legally theirs, they could not develop it under existing zoning restrictions, and it might take years of litigation to overcome that obstacle. Family members initially agreed to lease the land to Los Angeles County for $413,000 a year while they decided what to do. “We wanted to keep the property,” said Derrick Bruce, who is 65. But he added, “We thought it would be a long and arduous journey.” He said he could not imagine learning to become a developer and a contractor at this stage of his life. “We had to be able to come to a decision that was acceptable to everyone in the family,” he said. “And so it just didn’t seem practical that we could keep the land and not have to drastically change all of our lives.”"
In another 95 years they can sue to get possession of the property again, claiming that they were forced to sell, and then sell it back again
Woman accidentally runs over and kills man trying to steal her catalytic converter - "This story comes just a week after one of the most noticeable vehicles in the US was targeted by catalytic converter thieves. Yes, the iconic Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was hit by thieves on 9 February while it was sitting stationary in the car park of Sonesta Suites on Paradise Road in Las Vegas."
Airbnb 'squatter' checks out of Palm Springs condo - "After an arduous two months, Cory Tschogl finally has her condo back. Maksym Pashanin, who attracted nation media attention about a month ago when he quite publicly refused to leave Tschogl's apartment in north Palm Springs that he rented via the Airbnb vacation rental listing site, has left the apartment in the Palm Springs Villas gated community. Tschogl confirmed Wednesday afternoon, that Pashanin has left her condo, without incident. The apartment has no apparent damages, she said after a walk-through... The case called attention to California's generous renter protections, which can be abused. Because Pashanin had been in the home for 30 days, the "squatter" — as he was referred to in numerous media reports and online chatter — was protected under California tenant law, which requires a landlord to pay a relocation fee to tenants they wish to evict."
Pee-repellent paint aims to halt public urination - The Globe and Mail - "Public urination has gotten so bad in San Francisco that the city has painted nine walls with a repellent paint that makes pee spray back on the offender. It's the latest effort to address a chronic problem in a city where the public works director calls himself Mr. Clean: Walls are coated with a clear, liquid repellent material that goes on much like paint. Hit with urine, it splashes back on a person's shoes and pants... Signs hanging above some walls read: "Hold it! This wall is not a public restroom. Please respect San Francisco and seek relief in an appropriate place."
'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco - "Frustrated by high failure rates in eighth-grade algebra, San Francisco Unified decided in 2015 to delay algebra till ninth grade and place low, average and high achievers in the same classes. The goal was to improve achievement for black and Hispanic students, preparing more for advanced math. That didn't happen, concludes a study by a team of Stanford professors. "Large ethnoracial gaps in advanced math course-taking . . . did not change."... A proposed new California math framework encourages other districts to copy San Francisco's math reforms, for which the district claimed success... Test data from 2015 to 2019 shows that racial "achievement gaps have widened," wrote Tom Loveless last year. The district "is headed in the wrong direction on equity." Black and Hispanic 11th-graders in San Francisco earned "appalling" scores on the state math test, "about the same as or lower than the typical fifth-grader" in the state. The district had bragged that algebra failure rates had dropped. Families for San Francisco, a parent group, analyzed the data: Failure rates dropped after the district dropped the end-of-course exam. "Algebra for none" made it harder for achievers to succeed without helping low achievers... Families face a "nightmare of workarounds" to get their high-achieving children on track for advanced math... "Families with resources turn to fee-required online algebra 1 courses in eighth grade, outside the public school system, or enroll their kids in private schools," they write. Those who can't afford it must take a compression class that combines advanced algebra and pre-calculus or take a year of double math to get on track for AP Calculus. The district "will take credit for my granddaughter’s mathematical success as proof their policies work," one of the authors writes. "In reality, this took two of her summers and nearly $2,000." A group of parents have filed a lawsuit against San Francisco Unified charging the math policy violates state law by denying access to advanced math to disadvantaged students"
Clearly the solution is to ban private tutors
Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading - "“It was literally inequitable,” he said. “As a teacher you get frustrated because what you signed up for was for students to learn. And it just ended up being a conversation about points all the time.”... The changes Moreno embraced are part of a growing trend in which educators are moving away from traditional point-driven grading systems, aiming to close large academic gaps among racial, ethnic and economic groups. The trend was accelerated by the pandemic and school closures that caused troubling increases in Ds and Fs across the country and by calls to examine the role of institutionalized racism in schools in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. Los Angeles and San Diego Unified — the state’s two largest school districts, with some 660,000 students combined — have recently directed teachers to base academic grades on whether students have learned what was expected of them during a course — and not penalize them for behavior, work habits and missed deadlines... Traditional grading has often been used to "justify and to provide unequal educational opportunities based on a student’s race or class," said a letter sent by Yoshimoto-Towery and Pedro A. Garcia, senior executive director of the division of instruction, to principals last month. "By continuing to use century-old grading practices, we inadvertently perpetuate achievement and opportunity gaps, rewarding our most privileged students and punishing those who are not," their letter said, quoting educational grading consultant Joe Feldman... West Contra Costa Unified, which is majority Latino, issued a memo encouraging secondary teachers to give students a five-day grace period to turn in work and eliminate zeroes in grade books. Placer Union High School District, where a majority of students are white, has directed teachers to base grades on "valid evidence of a student's content knowledge and not...on evidence that is likely to be influenced by a teacher's implicit bias nor reflect a student's circumstances."... The district's guidance says academic grades should not be based on attendance, including unexcused absences, late work, engagement or behavior, which can be reflected in separate "citizenship" or "work habits" marks that do not count toward a student's GPA. Students earning Ds and Fs should also have the opportunity to take an incomplete grade in order to have extra time to improve their grade or retake the course for a better grade or credit recovery."
The point of grading is literally to be inequitable, based on merit
In the workplace, if you miss a deadline or behave badly, just claim you're a victim of racism
Of course we'll still pretend that school closures were necessary for public health
"When you can't set the bar any lower, you remove the bar."
Whole Foods workers at shuttered San Francisco store witnessed knife attacks, a deadly fentanyl overdose, customers trying to defecate on the floor, and other chaos, report says - "Whole Foods' recently closed flagship store in San Francisco was the site of thefts, assaults, and a deadly overdose in the 13 months it was open. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the store was the scene of hundreds of calls to emergency services and 14 arrests, according to police reports. Last September, a man died due to an overdose of fentanyl and methamphetamine... Visitors to the store also threatened security guards with knives and, in one case, sprayed employees with foam from a fire extinguisher, according to the Times. In another case, a customer tried to "defecate on the floor"... Thefts were also common, with patrons stealing alcohol, food from the hot bar, and even hundreds of hand baskets meant to be used while shopping in the store... Whole Foods closed the store last month, just over a year after it opened. While the grocer did not specifically cite crime, it did say that it closed the store "to ensure the safety of our team members." The store was located on Market Street, one of the busiest roads in downtown San Francisco. It was meant to be part of a revitalization of the area... Bill Scott, San Francisco's police chief, told the Times that his department sent plain-clothes police officers to the Whole Foods store in an effort to limit crime before it closed. Other retail chains in San Francisco and other large cities have closed locations, citing crime or safety."
California couple arrested after they 'left bikes in their yard to lure thieves, only to beat them' - "A California couple has been arrested for a string of assaults tied to a baiting scheme where they would allegedly beat would-be bike thieves with bats. Corey Curnutt, 25, and 29-year-old Savannah Grillot were detained... the assault were shared onto YouTube by the couple."
When the police cannot act, people take the law into their own hands
A $15.8 million mistake: Why S.F. can’t pay its teachers on time - "Charles Sylvester has been a special-education teacher for over 20 years in San Francisco Unified School District. He’s seen plenty of ups and downs during that time, but in 2023 he encountered a career first. The district misreported his taxes. Thousands of dollars of payments were effectively missing. “Are you kidding me?” Sylvester said was his reaction when he saw his returns... In 2022, the school district transitioned from a 17-year-old payroll system to a new system dubbed EMPowerSF. Almost immediately, hundreds of employees reported payroll issues. Over a year later, those issues still persist, despite the district spending over $30 million on the new system. That’s almost $10,000 per teacher."
CNN reporter reveals her crew was robbed in San Francisco while covering city's rampant crime: 'Ridiculous' - "Lah wrote their hired security guard "tried to grab the crooks" but ended up taking a photo of the license plate of their getaway car... Lah warned travelers in the what she was told by a TSA officer, "if you fly out of Oakland, know the gas stations are being hit around the airport. Teams here in Oakland say passengers show up crying bc their bags are all stolen, all in seconds.""
San Franciscans line up at board meeting to sing and shout their support for a reparations plan - "San Francisco residents lined up at a city board meeting last night to share their full-throated support of a wide-eyed reparations plan that would award every black resident $5million, wipe their personal debt, guarantee $97,000 incomes for 250 years and $1 homes. But no one at the emotional meeting - where residents burst into song and begged to be made 'whole' - asked how the struggling, debt-addled city might pay for it... Many say they are owed not just for the time their ancestors were enslaved, but also for generations afterwards, because African Americans have been incarcerated at disproportionately higher rates than white Americans. The proposals put forward in San Francisco last night are among some of the most generous to be heard to date... Some said they were shocked at critics, who said it was financially ruinous. 'Those of my constituents who lost their minds about this proposal, it's not something we're doing or we would do for other people. 'It's something we would do for our future, for everybody's collective future,' said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, whose district includes the heavily LGBTQ Castro neighborhood... Even supporters of the plan, like Melgar, admit they have not worked out how to fund it - but insist that does not make it unreasonable... In 2020, California became the first state to form a reparations task force and is still struggling to put a price tag on what is owed... Critics of the plan say the payouts make no sense in a state and city that never enslaved black people, and taxpayers who were never slave owners should not have to pay money to people who were not enslaved."
Journalist Goes On Quest To Debunk Blue City’s Bad Reputation, Instead Writes About It ‘Spiraling’ Out Of Control - "A journalist and San Francisco resident set out to debunk the frequent stories portraying the city as dangerous and largely abandoned, but her investigation led her to write a piece revealing how the city is “spiraling” out of control. Elizabeth Weil detailed the crime, homelessness and human misery on display in San Francisco compared to the city’s pre-pandemic prosperity in a Wednesday article in New York Magazine. Her story included an apology to her fellow San Francisco residents for contributing to the barrage of stories about the city’s collapse... San Francisco has seen an explosion in homelessness which worsened considerably during the pandemic; its homeless population ballooned from 12,249 to 19,086 between 2016 and 2020, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, citing city government data. The city has also struggled with rampant crime, open drug use and brazen organized shoplifting which has forced many retailers in the city to close up shop. The tech industry the city was once known for has made massive layoffs and drastically cut back on office space in San Francisco since 2020, and among tech CEOs, “everyone with brains” has left, Weil wrote. CashApp founder Bob Lee had moved to Miami, but was stabbed to death while visiting San Francisco in April. The mass exodus of workers from city centers and the ensuing collapse of downtowns was dubbed a “doom loop” by NYU finance professor Arpit Gupta, according to NY Magazine, and San Francisco may be seeing the worst loop: while cell phone activity in downtown New York is 75% of what it was pre-pandemic, it’s only 32% in San Francisco. As workers have abandoned downtown San Francisco, crime and rampant homelessness have emerged, and the city no longer has an eye towards fixing its problems, according to Weil. A security guard told Weil the high end stores he worked for did not want him to attempt to stop shoplifters, described “junkies” roaming the streets and their bodies rotting in plain view and said one store he worked for asked him to refer to a man he removed from the premises for smoking fentanyl as “an unhoused guest.” Weil also described frequent run-ins with homeless people, many of whom struggle with substance abuse and mental problems, who would behave erratically and scream obscenities on public transportation. “The social contract had ruptured, and we’d ceased to believe we could fix it. The city often seemed to operate like an incompetent parent, confusing compassion and permissiveness, unable to maintain boundaries, producing the exact opposite result of what it claimed to want,” Weil wrote."
L.A. Spent $7,500 on a Prototype Bus Shade That Doesn't Shade Anything - "When the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) officials held a celebratory press conference last week for a pilot bus shelter design, Twitter users and bloggers began doing what the bus shelter could not: casting shade. Commenters were quick to note that the thin, perforated "La Sombrita" structure would do little to keep the single person that would be able to stand underneath it out of the sun. Its minimal benefits in terms of light and shade are outweighed by both the pilot's costs of at least $7,500 per shelter and $200,000 for the full program (which was funded by a private grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). The fact that there were more officials there to celebrate La Sombrita than could fit beneath it was an illustration of the out-of-proportion ratio of bureaucratic input to infrastructure output. In response, both LADOT and Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI)—the nonprofit that designed the shelter—argued that their paltry La Sombrita designs needed to be narrow in order to slide through the cracks of the bureaucratic process that prevents the construction of larger, more adequate structures. Anything that touched the sidewalk or was wide enough to actually shade people required input from many additional government departments. "Typical bus shelters often cost $50k or more and require coordination among 8 departments. La Sombrita (in its most expensive, prototype form) costs approximately 15% of the price of a typical bus shelter and can be installed in 30 minutes or less," wrote KDI on Twitter... Public agencies fail to coordinate with each other and have become too reliant on nonprofits and consultants to get anything done. Too many departments, stakeholders, and layers of government have a say in new projects, which slows things down even more. What is needed then is deeper structural reforms that will shore up "state capacity" by streamlining processes, centralizing decision making, making greater use of off-the-shelf designs, widening sidewalks to create more space for shelters, and more. Some of these are good ideas. They're all hard to implement. Layers of process and inefficiency persist because interest groups, whether that's individual politicians, bureaucratic agencies, or nongovernmental contractors and consultants, benefit from them. Being able to say "no" is a valuable commodity that no one wants to give up for free. The day after LADOT celebrated La Sombrita, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a series of reforms to California's environmental review law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which strangles both public and private projects in red tape. CEQA's problems are well-known and widely acknowledged... The problem is that the La Sombrita shelters, even as a marginal solution, are laughably inadequate. It's hard to see how they improve on a bad status quo at all. Instead of relying on these quick fixes or waiting for the political system to reform itself, perhaps Los Angeles bus riders should take individual initiative and provide their own shelter and light."
I saw people bashing the government wasting taxpayers' money, but this is not paid for by that
California Bill Would Require Occupational Licenses for Porn Actors, Strippers, Cam Girls - "police in Florida have conducted sting operations on handymen as part of their enforcement of that state's contractor licensing laws. As Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown has covered extensively, sex workers have plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about the expansion of the regulatory state. It's true also that regulatory seeds, once planted, tend to grow. It's conceivable that the bill's current two-hour training requirement could be expanded to become more onerous over time."
From 2020
Who counts as a real Dem in S.F.? Infighting on left hits new lows - "are she and her political allies really Democrats — or are they Republicans playing pretend? This is the ludicrous question that has emerged in San Francisco where many liberal leaders have chosen to embrace zero-sum politics rather than a shared opportunity to fix the city’s biggest problems... party members rebuffed them over a host of ill-defined concerns: They invited Supervisor Joel Engardio, a leader in last year’s school board recall movement, to an event! Their members include some well-off families! They say they’re Democrats, but what if they’re actually closeted Republicans? What if Republicans are funneling dark money into their bank accounts? In the most out-of-nowhere chatter of all, some party members speculated that the club co-founders are racist. “My mouth was agape,” Wang said, expressing a shock shared by many San Franciscans these days over the meanness in local politics and the political orthodoxy in some progressive circles... San Francisco politics have long been toxic, but the blue-vs.-blue infighting has grown particularly nasty in recent years. Too often, debate jumps from what would be a small disagreement anywhere else to, “You’re a Republican-backed, Trump-supporting monster!” Common ground has been ceded to groundless accusations... “It’s that ‘You can’t sit with us’ mentality that makes me very uncomfortable with the state of San Francisco politics,” Li said. “It’s very, ‘You’re not even allowed in.’ It’s very ‘Mean Girls.’ ”... the DCCC Queen Bees told Wang and her fellow Wannabes that the party suspects they’re DINOs (Democrats in Name Only), secretly funded by Republicans and perhaps even racist. Based on what? Turns out, not much. Before the chartering discussion began, the DCCC heard public comment — and two people opposed the charter. Brandee Marckmann, who staunchly opposed the school board recall, said DCCC members should think twice because the Westside Family Democratic Club invited Engardio to one of its events. “I know a Republican when I see one,” Marckmann said of Engardio and the club founders, all Democrats. Tenant activist Jordan Davis also opposed the charter, saying the word “family” is “a common dog whistle on the right,” that the club would be a funnel for Republican dark money and that the club wants to turn San Francisco into a “bland-ass gated community.” “F– you, Westside Family Democratic Club!” Davis shouted into the computer screen. “I yield my time! F– you!” In a normal city, these comments wouldn’t be enough to undo a club’s chances. But soon, DCCC members were grilling Gupta, who defended the club over Zoom. The harsh questioning transpired remarkably like the infamous 2021 school board meeting in which the commissioners wouldn’t let a gay dad volunteer on a parent council with lots of empty seats and nobody else wanting to fill them — because he’s white. In this case, the DCCC asked Gupta about the club members’ income levels, racial backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender identities. They asked for the members’ positions on the school board recall and building market-rate housing. They asked why they used the word family in their club name. They asked whether the club members are really Democrats, whether they’re secretly taking money from Republicans and whether they’re racist. Gupta, looking shell-shocked, gamely tried to answer their questions, but acknowledged he hadn’t quizzed all the club’s members on details like how they voted in a recall 15 months ago."
The leftist firing squad at work again
"Dog whistles" are just hallucinations conjured up against people you don't like
