The budget for the City and County of San Francisco for 2016-17 is $9.6 billion. Its proposed budget for 2017-18 is $9.7 billion.
San Francisco occupies 46.87 miles and has a population of 837,442.
Roughly half of the budget goes toward city-related business operations–such as the Port, the bus line, the Airport and the Public Utilities Commission.
The other half of the budget goes toward such public services as Public Health, Police and Fire Services, Recreation and Parks.
As the November 8 election quickly approaches, the most controversial issue on the city ballot is Proposition V.
Specifically, this calls for a tax of one cent per ounce from the distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Currently, San Francisco does not impose a tax on the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverage.
The initiative defines “a sugar-sweetened beverage” as “a beverage that contains added sugar and 25 or more calories per 12 ounces.
“These include some soft drinks, sports drinks, iced tea, juice drinks and energy drinks. The tax would also apply to syrups and powders that can be made into sugar-sweetened beverages, for example, fountain drinks from beverage-dispensing machines.”
Supporters of the initiative are trying to sell it via the “save our kids” argument. The Vote Yes on V campaign states:
“On November 8th, the health of children in San Francisco relies on us.
“Proposition V will tax distributors of soda and other sugary drinks that have direct links to obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart and liver disease.”
Left unsaid is how putting more money into city coffers would lead children to show more restraint in buying “sugar-sweetened beverages.”
Perhaps the real reason why many city officials enthusiastically back this measure can be found in a statement by the San Francisco Controller:
“Should this ordinance be approved, in my opinion, it would result in an annual tax revenue increase to the City of approximately $7.5 million in fiscal year (FY) 2017–2018 and $15 million in FY 2018–19. The tax is a general tax and proceeds would be deposited into the General Fund.”
San Francisco Controller’s Office
San Francisco takes in more than $9 billion in taxes every year. But for many San Francisco officials this just isn’t enough.
Yet for many San Francisco residents, it is. In 2014, they defeated a similar soda tax.
Opponents of the tax have attacked it as a “grocery tax.” They argue that grocers–especially those running the mom-and-pop stores popular in San Francisco–will pass on the costs to their customers by raising prices on groceries altogether.
Proposition V supporters claim this is a lie. Rebecca Kaplan, a member of the Oakland Council, told the Huffington Post: “People worry about having to pay for their groceries. To threaten that their groceries are going to be taxed when it’s not true is a totally despicable tactic from the soda industry.”
Actually, there is nothing in the measure to prevent grocers from passing the tax on to consumers.
Meanwhile, what are San Franciscans getting for the $9 billion in taxes City Hall collects?
- Call the general number of the police or fire department–and chances are you’ll get a recorded message telling you to wait your turn in line.
Call even 9-1-1 and the odds are great that you’ll get the same message. And if you complain to a city official about it, you’ll likely be told: “Well, we have only so many operators.”
The last thing someone calling police or the fire department in a crisis wants to hear is: “We’ll get back to you when we feel like it.”
- Or wander into downtown Market Street, a major thoroughfare into the heart of San Francisco.
You’ll find its red-brick blocks filled with stinking, disease-ridden, drug- or alcohol-addicted, often psychotic men and women whom city officials politely call “the homeless.”
In 2016, the city spent $241 million on “homeless” services. But the population surges between 7,000 and 10,000. Of these, 3,000 to 5,000 refuse shelter.
City officials admit that San Francisco ranks second to New York in homelessness. What they won’t admit is that they are largely responsible for it.
The city’s mild climate and social programs that dole out cash payments to virtually anyone with no residency requirement draw rootless, unstable persons like a magnet.
- The problems affecting the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) aren’t as obvious as the homeless infesting the city’s streets. But they are nevertheless real.
In 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle found that the city’s violent criminals had a better chance of escaping punishment than predators in any other large American city.
The SFPD had the lowest violent crime “clearance rate” among the nation’s 20 largest cities. Among Federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, the SFPD is considered a joke.
- At the San District Attorney’s Office, prosecutors often can’t decide if they want to lock up criminals–or defend them.
From 2004 to 2011, Kamala Harris served as the city’s District Attorney. In total defiance of the law, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal aliens out of prison.
Kamala Harris
Her program, called Back on Track, trained them for jobs they could not legally hold. This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law. It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, you don’t necessarily get what you pay for.
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BUMS APPEAR AS DRUGSTORES DISAPPEAR: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 8, 2021 at 12:23 amWhy are Walgreen stores disappearing from San Francisco?
The answer can be summed up in four letters: DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.
These are the untouchables of San Francisco. If you doubt it, consider the following:
If you are a firefighter, police officer, paramedic or schoolteacher, and want to live in San Francisco, forget it.
According to Rent Cafe, which provides apartment listings directly from top property managers: “The average [monthly] rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $2,879.” And “the average size for a San Francisco apartment is 739 square feet.”
So unless you’re a hugely successful IT professional—or narcotics dealer—your chances of being able to afford a San Francisco apartment are lower than Donald Trump’s of winning a “Mr. Congeniality” contest.
But there’s hope for you yet—if you’re a Druggie, Drunk, Mental or Bum.
Why?
Because the Mayor of San Francisco—currently London Breed—and Board of Supervisors have deliberately created an Untermenschen-friendly program that actually encourages such people to move to the city.
Run by the city’s Department of Public Health (DPH) it’s called the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program. And it works in two stages:
Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.
Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes.
According to a May 11, 2020 story in City Journal.org:
“The program’s primary purpose is to keep homeless people, the majority of whom are addicts, out of harm’s way during the pandemic. By getting their substance of choice delivered, the thinking goes, the guests may be more apt to remain in their government-funded rooms.
“Another purpose of the program is to protect the public against the spread of coronavirus. The city doesn’t want homeless people who should be staying in their rooms roaming the neighborhood in search of the substances, potentially infecting others.”
After news about these deliveries leaked on social media, DPH claimed that “rumors that guests of San Francisco’s alternative housing program are receiving taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are false.”
Except that the reports weren’t false.
The program is funded by private philanthropists Nevertheless:
Thus, the program is financed by taxpayers, even if an outside group provides some of the funding.
“Managed alcohol and tobacco use makes it possible to increase the number of guests who stay in isolation and quarantine and, notably, protects the health of people who might otherwise need hospital care for life-threatening alcohol withdrawal,” says DPH spokeswoman Jenna Lane.
“Many isolation and quarantine guests tell us they use these substances daily,” says Lane, “and this period in our care has allowed some people to connect for the first time with addiction treatment and harm reduction therapy.”
Notice the word “guests.” As if San Francisco—or any city—should welcome hordes of drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums as assets to its community.
“Harm reduction” therapy, according to the Harm Reduction Coalition, is “a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use.”
DPH said in a statement that these “guests” are screened for substance addictions and asked if they’d like to stop or have support to reduce their use.
If they say they want to remain alcoholics and/or drug addicts, they’re provided with their substance of choice.
The department also provides methadone for “guests” who are addicted to opioids.
DPH staffers have helped people buy “medical marijuana,” the agency told local affiliate ABC7.
But the agency doesn’t “facilitate purchases of recreational cannabis,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate.
Nor does the agency require that its addict “guests” remain quarantined. It merely asks that they do so.
When they’re not injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “guests” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.
Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for these DDMBs.
As a result, Walgreens has closed 17 stores in San Francisco.
“I feel sorry for the clerks, they are regularly being verbally assaulted,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want.”
“Why are the shelves empty?” a customer asked a clerk at a Walgreens store.
“Go ask the people in the alleys, they have it all,” replied the clerk.
One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft.
CVS Pharmacy has instructed its employees to not intervene because the thieves so often attack them.
Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.
Under California law, theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor, but many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.
The maximum sentence they could get: Six months.
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