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Posts Tagged ‘SAN FRANCISCO’

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THUGS ON BIKES

In Bureaucracy, Politics, Social commentary on July 24, 2013 at 12:00 am

San Bruno resident Sutchi Hui, 71, was visiting San Francisco when Death found him-–just before 8 a.m. on March 29, 2012.

No doubt he felt safe before he died.  After all, he was walking through a crosswalk in the affluent Castro District, one of the city’s safest areas.

And it was there that bicyclist Chris Bucchere plowed into him.

Bucchere, a software engineer, was also hospitalized for injuries in the crash. Later that day, he posted his thoughts about the accident to the Mission Cycling AM Riders Google group.

“I was already way too committed to stop.  The light turned red as I was cruising through the middle of the intersection and then, almost instantly, the southern crosswalk on Market and Castro filled up with people coming from both directions….so, in a nutshell, blammo.

“I couldn’t see a line through the crowd and I couldn’t stop, so I laid it down and just plowed through the crowded crosswalk in the least-populated place I could find.”

Bucchere said he lost consciousness and awoke five minutes later.  Someone told him that a 71-year-old injured pedestrian had been taken to the hospital.

“I remember seeing a RIVER of blood on the asphalt, but it wasn’t mine,” Bucchere wrote. “I really hope he ends up OK.”

Bucchere dedicated the post to his helmet, which “died in heroic fashion today as my head slammed into the tarmac…. May she die knowing that because she committed the ultimate sacrifice, her rider can live on and ride on. Can I get an amen? Amen.”

An “amen” would also be in order for the cause of justice.

Although prosecuted by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, what Bucchere got was the following sentence: Three years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service.  He would not serve any jail time.

He might as well have posted that because his helmet made “the ultimate sacrifice, her rider can live on and ride on–and kill on.”

The District Attorney’s office–which has one of the worst conviction records in the country–lost no time in congratulating itself.

“Our goal is to send a message to cyclists about safety,” D.A. George Gascon said. “Just because you are riding a bicycle doesn’t mean all bets are off.  All of the rules of the road that apply to everyone else apply to you, too.”

Gascon said Hui’s family did not want to see Bucchere imprisoned.  Since prosecutors didn’t expect a judge to  sentence him to jail, they offered probation and community service in the plea deal.

That’s what the life of a pedestrian is worth in San Francisco.

In July, 2011, bicyclist Randolph Ang, 23, ran a red light on the Embarcadero–and slammed into 68-year-old Dionette Cherney. She later died of her injuries.

In March, 2012, Ang pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of vehicular manslaughter, as part of an agreement with prosecutors.

Ang faced up to a year in county jail, but a judge sentenced him to three years’ probation and 500 hours of community service, and ordered him to pay $15,375 in restitution to the Cherney family.

According to the website of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition:

“Pedestrians Always Have the Right of Way. In the crosswalk or not, bike riders and drivers are required to yield to pedestrians.”

“Stay on the Streets.  It’s illegal and unsafe to ride on the sidewalk if you are over the age of 13.”

So much for the official version.

In reality, pedestrians risk their lives whenever they use the sidewalk–especially on tourist-crowded Market Street.

And what role do police play in enforcing the bike laws?  None.

At best, a San Francisco cop might stop an law-breaking bicyclist and give him a citation. This amounts to a bicycle traffic ticket. The bike isn’t confiscated.

Most cops patrol in patrol cars. If they see a bicyclist whizzing down a sidewalk, they aren’t going to cut him off and slap handcuffs on him.

If police show no interest in protecting pedestrians, it’s largely because the Mayor and Board of Supervisors clearly favor the rights of law-breaking bicyclists over those of law-abiding pedestrians and drivers.

The greatest proof of this comes on the last Friday of every month. It’s called Critical Mass.

In this event, hundreds of bicyclists deliberately–at the height of evening rush hour–overwhelm the streets of downtown San Francisco, bringing vehicular and pedestrian traffic to a halt.

Founded in 1992 in San Francisco, the purpose of Critical Mass is not formally stated but nevertheless clear: To protest against those who use cars and public transit–and intimidate their riders and pedestrians alike.

Critical Mass riders often use a tactic known as “corking” to maintain the cohesion of the group: A few riders block traffic from side roads so that the mass can race through red lights without interruption.

Cars, buses and pedestrians are expected to wait patiently for however long these self-indulgent thugs-on-bikes flood the streets.

In March, 2010, reports in local media claimed that then-Police Chief George Gascon was considering shutting down Critical Mass.

Three years later, the bike-thuggies continue to tie up traffic and threaten the safety of any pedestrians stupid enough to think they have a legal right to stroll sidewalks and cross streets.

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HELL IN THE “RENTERS’ PARADISE”: THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on June 25, 2013 at 12:00 am

Slumlords would have everyone believe that San Francisco is a “renters’ paradise.”  A place where hard-working landlords are routinely taken advantage of by rent-avoiding bums who want to be constantly pampered.

On the contrary: It’s not renters who hold “untouchable” status, but slumlords themselves.

If you doubt it, you need only review the case of slumlords Kip and Nicole Macy.  They waged a two-year war on their rent-paying tenants to force them out of their South of Market building.

The reason: The Macys wanted to get them out of their rent-controlled apartments so they could rent these out to tenants who could afford extortionate rents.

For two years, the police and district attorney’s office stood by while the Macys aimed threats, vandalism, illegal lockouts and violence at their law-abiding tenants.

The Macys have since been convicted and will be sentenced to four years and four months imprisonment.  But this case is a rarity for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.

Meanwhile, thousands of San Francisco tenants have lived with rotting floors, nonworking toilets, chipping lead-based paint and other outrages for not simply months but years.

But San Francisco tenants need not be put at the mercy of greedy, arrogant slumlords.  And the agencies that are supposed to protect them need not be reduced to impotent farces.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office shcould create a special unit to investigate and prosecute  slumlords.  Prosecutors should offer rewards to citizens who provide tips on major outrages by the city’s slumlords.

And the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection–which is charged with guaranteeing the habitability of apartment buildings–should immediately adopt a series of long-overdue refirms.

By doing so, it can:

  • Vastly enhance its own prestige and authority;
  • Improve living conditions  for thousands of San Francisco renters; and
  • Bring millions of desperately-needed dollars into the City’s cash-strapped coffers.

In Part 2 of this series I outlined 14 such reforms.  In this concluding column, I will outline the remaining eight:

  1. DBI should order landlords to post their Notices of Violation in public areas of their buildings–on pain of serious financial penalties for failing to do so. When DBI orders a slumlord to take corrective action, s/he is the only person who is notified.   Thus, if that slumlord refuses to comply with those directives, s/he is the only one who realizes it.  Given the pressing demands on DBI, weeks or months will pass before the agency learns about this violation of its orders.  Tenants have a right to know if their landlord is complying with the law.
  2. DBI should launch–and maintain–a city-wide advertising campaign to alert residents to its services.  Everyone knows the FBI pursues bank robbers, but too many San Franciscans do not even know that DBI exists, let alone what laws it enforces.  This should be an in-your-face campaign: “Do you have bedbugs in your apartment?  Has your stove stopped working?  Are you afraid to ride in  your building elevator because it keeps malfunctioning?  Have you complained to your landlord and gotten nowhere?  Then call DBI at —–.  Or drop us an email at ——.”
  3. Landlords should be legally required to give each tenant a list of the major city agencies (such as DBI, Department of Public Health and the Rent Board) that exist to help tenants resolve problems with their housing. 
  4. Landlords should be legally required to rehabilitate a unit every time a new tenant moves in, or at least have it examined by a DBI inspector every two years.  A tenant can occupy a unit for ten or more years, then die or move out, and the landlord immediately rents the unit to the first person who comes along, without making any repairs or upgrades whatsoever.
  5. Landlords should be required to bring all the units in a building up to existing building codes, and not just those in need of immediate repair.
  6. Landlords should be legally required to hire a certified-expert contractor to perform building repairs.  Many landlords insist on making such repairs despite their not being trained or experienced in doing so, thereby risking the lives of their tenants. 
  7. DBI should not view itself as a “mediation” agency between landlords and tenants.  Most landlords hate DBI and will always do so.  They believe they should be allowed to treat their tenants like serfs, raise extortionate rents anytime they desire, and maintain their buildings in whatever state  they wish.  And no efforts by DBI to persuade them of its good intentions will ever change their minds.
  8. Above all, DBI must stop viewing itself as a mere regulatory agency and start seeing itself as a law enforcement one.  The FBI doesn’t ask criminals to comply with the law;  it applies whatever amount of force is needed to gain their compliance. As Niccolo Machiavelli once advised: If you can’t be loved by your enemies, then at least make yourself respected by them.

As Robert F. Kennedy wrote: “Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves.  What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.”

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HELL IN “THE RENTERS’ PARADISE”: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on June 24, 2013 at 12:25 am

The “war on drugs” has some valuable lessons to teach the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (DBI) which is charged with protecting tenants against predatory landlords.

Consider:

  • At least 400,000 rape kits containing critical DNA evidence that could convict rapists sit untested in labs around the country.
  • But illegal drug kits are automatically rushed to the had of the line.

Why?

It isn’t simply because local/state/Federal lawmen universally believe that illicit drugs pose a deadly threat to the Nation’s security.

It’s because:

  • Federal asset forfeiture laws allow the Justice Department to seize properties used to “facilitate” violations of Federal anti-drug laws.
  • Local and State law enforcement agencies are allowed to keep some of the proceeds once the property has been sold.
  • Thus, financially-strapped police agencies have found that pursuing drug-law crimes is a great way to fill their own coffers.
  • Prosecutors and lawmen view the seizing of drug-related properties as crucial to eliminating the financial clout of drug-dealing operations.

It’s long past time for DBI to apply the same attitude–and methods–toward slumlords.

DBI should become not merely a law-enforcing agency but a revenue-creating one.  And those revenues should come from predatory slumlords who routinely violate the City’s laws protecting tenants.

By doing so, DBI could vastly:

  • Enhance its own prestige and authority;
  • Improve living conditions for thousands of San Francisco renters; and
  • Bring millions of desperately-needed dollars into the City’s cash-strapped coffers

Among those reforms it should immediately enact:

  1. Hit slumlord violators up-front with a fine–payable immediately–for at least $2,000 to $5,000 for each health/safety-code violation.
  2. The slumlord would be told he could reclaim 75-80% of the money only if he fully corrected the violation within 30 days.  The remaining portion of the levied fine would go into the City coffers, to be shared among DBI and other City agencies.
  3. This would put the onus on the slumlord, not DBI. Appealing to his greed would ensure his willingness to comply with the ordered actions.  As matters now stand, it is DBI who must repeatedly check with the slumlord to find out if its orders have been complied with.
  4. If the landlord failed to comply with the actions ordered within 30 days, the entire fine would go into the City’s coffers–to be divided among DBI and other agencies charged with protecting San Francisco residents.
  5. In addition, he would be hit again with a fine that’s at least twice the amount of the first one.
  6. Inspectors for DBI should be allowed to cite landlords for violations that fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Health.  They can then pass the information on to DPH for its own investigation.
  7. If the DBI Inspector later discovers that the landlord has not corrected the violation within a designated time-period, DBI should be allowed to levy its own fine for his failure to do so.
  8. If DPH objects to this, DBI should propose that DPH’s own Inspectors be armed with similar cross-jurisdictional authority.  Each agency would thus have increased motivation for spotting and correcting health/safety violations that threaten the lives of San Francisco residents.
  9. This would instantly turn DBI and DPH into allies, not competitors.  And it would mean that whether a citizen called DBI or DPH, s/he could be assured of getting necessary assistance.  As matters now stand, many residents are confused by the conflicting jurisdictions of both agencies.
  10. DBI should insist that its Inspectors Division be greatly expanded.  DBI can attain this by arguing that reducing the number of Inspectors cuts (1) protection for San Francisco renters–and (2) monies that could go to the general City welfare.
  11. The Inspection Division should operate independently of DBI.  Currently,  too many high-ranking DBI officials tilt toward landlords because they are landlords themselves.
  12. DBI should create a Special Research Unit that would compile records on the worst slumlord offenders.  Thus, a slumlord with a repeat history of defying DBI NOVs could be treated more harshly than a landlord who was a first-time offender.
  13. Turning DBI into a revenue-producing one would enable the City to raise desperately-needed revenues—in a highly popular way. Fining delinquent slumlords would be as unpopular as raising taxes on tobacco companies. Only slumlords and their hired lackey allies would object.
  14. Slumlords, unlike drug-dealers, can’t move their operations from one street or city to another.  Landlords aren’t going to demolish their buildings and move them somewhere else.

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HELL IN “THE RENTERS’ PARADISE”: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on June 21, 2013 at 12:01 am

To hear slumlords tell it, San Francisco is a “renters’ paradise,” where obnoxious, lazy, rent-evading tenants constantly take advantage of hard-working, put-upon landlords.

Don’t believe it.

And in case you’re inclined to anyway, consider the story of Kip and Nicole Macy, two San Francisco slumlords who recently pled guilty to felony charges of residential burglary, stalking and attempted grand theft.

Kip Macy

Nicole Macy

Determined to evict rent control-protected tenants from their apartment building in the South of Market district, they unleashed a reign of terror in 2006:

  • Cut holes in the floor of one tenant’s living room with a power saw–while he was inside his unit.
  • Cut out sections of the floor joists to make the building collapse.
  • Threatened to shoot Ricardo Cartagena, their property manager, after he refused to make the cuts himself.
  • Changed the locks to Cartagena’s apartment, removed all of his belongings and destroyed them.
  • Created fictitious email accounts to appear as a tenant who had filed a civil suit against the Macys–and used these to fire the tenant’s attorney.
  • Cut the tenants’ telephone lines and shut off their electricity, gas and water.
  • Changed the locks on all the apartments without warning.
  • Mailed death threats.
  • Kicked one of their tenants in the ribs.
  • Hired workers to board up a tenant’s windows from the outside while he still lived there.
  • Falsely reported trespassers in a tenant’s apartment, leading police to hold him and a friend at gunpoint.
  • Broke into the units of three tenants and removed all their belongings.
  • Again broke into the units of the same three victims and soaked their beds, clothes and electronics with amonia.

The Macys were arrested in April, 2008, posted a combined total of $500,000 bail and then fled the country after being indicted in early 2009.

In May, 2012, Italian police arrested them and deported them back to America a year later.

Having pled guilty, they will be sentenced in August to a prison term of four years and four months.

How could such a campaign of terror go on for two years against law-abiding San Francisco tenants?

Simple.

Even in the city misnamed as a “renter’s paradise,” slumlords are treated like gods by the very agencies that are supposed to protect tenants against their abuses.

The power of slumlords calls to mind the scene in 1987’s The Untouchables, where Sean Connery’s veteran cop tells Eliot Ness: “Everybody knows where the liquor is. It’s just a question of: Who wants to cross Capone?”

Many tenants have lived with rotting floors, bedbugs, nonworking toilets, mice/rats, chipping lead-based paint and other outrages for not simply months but years.

Consider the situation at the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, which is supposed to ensure that apartment buildings are in habitable condition:

  • A landlord is automatically given 30 days to correct a health/safety violation. If he drags his feet on the matter, the tenant must live with that problem until it’s resolved.
  • If the landlord claims for any reason that he can’t fix the problem within one month, DBI doesn’t demand that he prove this.  Instead, it automatically gives him another month.
  • A slumlord has to work at being hit with a fine—by letting a problem go uncorrected for three to six months.
  • And even then, repeat slumlord offenders often avoid the fine by pleading for leniency.
  • That’s because many DBI officials are themselves landlords.

But the situation doesn’t have to remain this way.

DBI could:

  • Vastly enhance its own prestige and authority
  • Improve living conditions  for thousands of San Francisco renters, and
  • Bring millions of desperately-needed dollars into the City’s cash-strapped coffers.

How?

By learning some valuable lessons from the “war on drugs” and applying them to regulating slumlords.

Consider:

  • At least 400,000 rape kits containing critical DNA evidence that could convict rapists sit untested in labs around the country.
  • But illegal drug kits are automatically rushed to the had of the line.

Why?

It isn’t simply because local/state/Federal lawmen universally believe that illicit drugs pose a deadly threat to the Nation’s security.

It’s because:

  • Federal asset forfeiture laws allow the Justice Department to seize properties used to “facilitate” violations of Federal anti-drug laws.
  • Local and State law enforcement agencies are allowed to keep some of the proceeds once the property has been sold.
  • Thus, financially-strapped police agencies have found that pursuing drug-law crimes is a great way to fill their own coffers.
  • Prosecutors and lawmen view the seizing of drug-related properties as crucial to eliminating the financial clout of drug-dealing operations.

It’s long past time for San Francisco agencies to apply the same attitude–and methods–toward slumlords.

In my next column I will lay out how this can be done.

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LEGALIZING BUMHOOD

In Bureaucracy, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 9, 2013 at 1:30 am

Look–out on the street!

It’s a bum!

It’s a drunk!

It’s Untermensch!

Yes, it’s Untermensch–strange visitor from an unknown pesthole who came to your neighborhood with powers and abilities far below those of normal men.

Untermensch!  Who can pollute the streets of mighty cities, hoist beer bottles in his bare hands.

And who, disguised as an innocent victim of oppression, fights a never-ending battle for booze, drugs and the welfare way.

* * * * *

The California Legislature is about to make the streets safe for DDMBs.

That’s Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums, as they’re known to many of the first responders like paramedics and police who are forced to deal with them.  Or as “the homeless,” to those of Politically Correct persuasion.

Under a measure introduced in April by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), DDMBs would be legally allowed to sleep and sit in public places and accost hard-working citizens for unearned money.

The bill has already passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee on a 7-2 vote, and must be approved by at least one other committee before possibly going to the full Assembly.

Titled “The Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act,” it was first introduced on December 5, 2012.

The measure states that every person has a right to use public spaces, regardless of housing status.  Among the “rights” the bill would create:

  • “The right to rest in a public space in the same manner as any other person without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel….because he or she is homeless, as long as that rest does not maliciously or substantially obstruct a passageway.”
  • “The right to decline admittance to a public or private shelter or any other accommodation, including social services programs, for any reason he or she sees fit, without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest from law enforcement, public or private security personnel….”
  • “The right to assistance of counsel if a county chooses to initiate judicial proceedings under any law set forth in Section 53.5….  The county where the citation was issued shall pay the cost of providing counsel….”
  • “Every local government and disadvantaged unincorporated community within the state shall have sufficient health and hygiene centers available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for use by homeless people. These facilities may be part of the Neighborhood Health Center Program.”
  • “The right to solicit donations in public spaces in the same manner as any other person without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel…because he or she is homeless.”
  • “‘Harassment’ [of DDMBs] means a knowing and willful course of conduct by law enforcement, public or private security personnel…directed at a specific person that a reasonable person would consider as seriously alarming, seriously annoying, seriously tormenting, or seriously terrorizing a person.”

“Seriously alarming” and “seriously annoying” behavior by DDMBs–such as aggressively demanding money from passersby–would, of course, not be considered illegal.

The bill further states: “Any person whose rights have been violated under this part may enforce those rights in a civil action.

“The court may award appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief, restitution for loss of property or personal effects and belongings, actual damages, compensatory damages, exemplary damages, statutory damages of one thousand dollars ($1,000) per violation, and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to a prevailing plaintiff.”

In short, the aim of the bill is three-fold:

  1. To arm society’s undesirables with the full force of law to demand unearned monies from those who actually work for a living;
  2. To arm them with the right to infest, with their psychotic behavior, drug/alcohol addiction and often disease-carrying belongings, any public place they choose; and
  3. To put hard-working, law-abiding “squares” on the defensive in protecting themselves against the filth, aggressiveness and risk of injury from such DDMBs.

In recent years, several cities concerned about the number of undesirables occupying public spaces have passed local ordinances banning them from sitting and lying on streets and sidewalks.

These include Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Palo Alto and San Francisco (where it is unenforced).

Ammiano’s bill would forbid police from enforcing ordinances regarding resting in public places unless a county has provided sufficient support to such undesirables.

The legislation has as so far received little attention from the media.

For citizens who don’t want their children–and themselves–constantly menaced by

  • psychotic/alcoholic/drug-addicted bums,
  • their feeces/urine, and
  • their stolen shopping carts filled with filthy, bedbug-infested possessions

there is still time to make their views known.

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TAXING CRIMINALS FOR REVENUES: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Politics, Social commentary on April 19, 2013 at 12:19 am

Come visit San Francisco and you’ll see all the famous sights so beloved by tourists: Ghirardelli Square, the cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge.

What you won’t see is one of the biggest blights facing the city: The behavior of predatory slumlords, who own both hotels and apartment buildings.

This behavior-–and the City’s steadfast refusal to change it-–poses a daily threat to the lives of San Francisco tenants. And it poses an equal threat to the City’s long-term ability to sustain its Number One source of revenues: The tourism industry.

To take one example: San Francisco is now facing an infestation of bedbugs. Everyone in the Department of Public Health (DPH) knows it. And everyone in DPH knows that many of the slumlords who own hotels plagued with these creatures refuse to do anything about them.

Bedbug

The reasons are twofold.

First, there’s a stigma attached to bedbugs that isn’t attached even to cockroaches. Roaches are filthy, but they don’t suck your blood. So when people learn that a hotel (including name-brand ones) has a bedbug infestation, they take their business elsewhere.

Second, combating bedbugs can be expensive. The most effective method involves a combination of poisons and heat treatments on a building-wide basis. Most landlords–-and certainly all slumlords––don’t want to take on that sort of expense.

San Francisco depends overwhelmingly on tourism for its revenues. A city whose hotels and apartment buildings are centers of contagion of any kind is a city destined to become a tourist ghost town, not a tourist mecca.

So, how to cope with this challenge? Here’s how:

  1. Greatly expand the Inspection Division at the Department of Public Health (DPH). This agency is legally charged with ensuring the health of San Francisco’s tenants-–both guests and residents.
  2. DPH should demand that a portion of those monies now directed toward entirely tourist-related issues be transferred to its Inspection Bureau. With those monies it can hire additional-–and badly-needed-–inspectors.
  3. Greatly expand the Inspection Division at the Department of Building Inspection–-and       make it independent of the agency. As matters now stand, too many high-ranking DBI officials tilt toward landlords because they are landlords themselves.
  4. End the culture of secrecy at DPH. The Department of Building Inspection is responsible for ensuring compliance with San Francisco building and housing codes. If a slumlord, for example, refuses to fix a tenant’s clogged bathtub drain or replace a window that’s about to fall out, the tenant calls DBI.
  5. DBI’s complaint records are immediately accessible at its website. Copies of its Notices of Violation–-ordering slumlords to correct problems-–can be obtained through the mails by request.  If a tenant wants to learn if other tenants have lodged complaints against his landlord, he can simply go online.
  6. By contrast, DPH offers nothing of this type of informational service.
  7. DPH should immediately make its records publicly available via the Internet, the same way DBI now does.
  8. DPH and DBI should order landlords to post their Notices of Violation in public areas of their buildings–-on pain of serious financial penalties for failing to do so.
  9. When DPH or DBI orders a slumlord to take corrective action, the only person who is notified of this is the landlord.   Thus, if that slumlord refuses to comply with those directives, s/he is the only one who knows about this. Given the pressing demands on DPH and DBI, weeks or months will pass before DPH/DBI learns about this violation of its orders.
  10. DPH and DBI should abandon their “gradual” approach to combating health/safety code violations in slumlord-owned apartments and hotels and hit the owner up-front with a heavy fine, payable immediately.  The landlord could recoup 75% to 80% of this money only if s/he could prove that the health threat had been totally eradicated within 30 days.
  11. If it were not, the slumlord would then be hit with a second fine twice the size of the last one and given another 30 days to correct the problem. So a slumlord hit with a $2,000 fine in January would face a $4,000 fine in February, and an $8,000 one in March.
  12. This would put the onus on the slumlord, not DBI/DPH.  These agencies now give landlords 30 days to correct a health/safety code violation. If the slumlord claims he needs more time, he’s automatically given another 30 days–minimum–to do so. This means the tenant must live with the discomfort–if not threat–of that violation until the slumlord finally decides to correct it.
  13. Inspectors for DPH and DBI should be armed with cross-jurisdiction authority. That is, if a DBI Inspector spots a health/safety violation covered by DPH, he should be able to cite the slumlord for this–and pass this information on to DPH for its own investigation. And the same should apply for Inspectors from DPH.
  14. This would instantly turn DBI and DPH into allies, not competitors. It would also make life far easier for tenants needing help. Whether a citizen called DBI or DPH, s/he could be assured of getting the assistance s/he needed. Currently, DPH and DBI Inspectors often tell citizens, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t lie within our jurisdiction. You’ll have to call—.”

By standing up to predatory slumlords, San Francisco can achieve three goals at once:

  1. Protect its residents and all-important tourist industry from predatory slumlords.
  2. Create new and popular sources of revenue for its cash-strapped public services.
  3. Set a shining example for other cities and states for how they can do the same.

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TAXING CRIMINALS FOR REVENUES: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Politics, Social commentary on April 18, 2013 at 12:00 am

The power of slumlords throughout the Nation calls to mind the scene in the 1987 movie, The Untouchables, where Sean Connery’s veteran cop tells Eliot Ness: “Everybody knows where the liquor is. It’s just a question of: Who wants to cross Capone?”

This holds true even in San Francisco, the so-called “renters paradise.” The files of the City’s Department of Public Health (DPH) and Department of Building Inspection (DBI) are filled with the names of slumlords whose buildings pose real dangers to those living in them.

All that the City needs to do is find the courage to enforce its own laws protecting tenants.

By refusing to do so, the City is losing millions of dollars in revenues that it could be collecting every year from slumlords violating its health/safety laws.

Here’s the way DBI and DPH now work: A landlord is given 30 days to correct a health/safety violation. If he drags his feet on the matter, the tenant must live with that continuing problem until it’s resolved.

If the landlord claims for any reason that he can’t fix the problem within one month, DBI and DPH automatically give him another month.

A slumlord has to really work at being hit with a fine—and that means letting a problem go uncorrected for three to six months. And even then the slumlord may well avoid the fine by pleading for leniency.

Many tenants have lived with rotting floors, nonworking toilets, chipping lead-based paint and other outrages for not simply months but years.

The City could vastly improve life for its thousands of renters—and bring millions of desperately-needed dollars’ worth of revenues into its cash-strapped coffers—by making the following reforms:

  1. Hit slumlord violators up-front with a fine—payable immediately—for at least $2,000 to $5,000 for each health/safety code violation.
  2. The slumlord would be told he can reclaim most of this money only if he fully corrected the violation within 30 days.
  3. If he fails to correct the problem within that time, he should be hit again with a fine that’s at least twice the amount of the first one. The fine should increase twice as much for each month the violation goes uncorrected. Thus, if it’s $2,000 in January, it should be $4,000 in February, and $8,000 in March. And so on.
  4. The slumlord would be allowed to reclaim 75% to 80% of the fine levied against him. This appeal to his greed would ensure his willingness to comply with the ordered actions. The other portion would go directly into the city coffers to maintain needed services.
  5. If he fails to comply with the actions ordered, the entire fine should go into the City’s coffers.
  6. Inspectors for DPH and DBI should be armed with cross-jurisdiction authority. Thus, if a DBI Inspector spots a health/safety violation covered by DPH, he should be able to cite the slumlord for this—and pass this information on to DPH for its own investigation. And the same would apply for Inspectors from DPH.
  7. This would instantly turn DBI and DPH into allies, not competitors—and would mean that whether a citizen called DBI or DPH, s/he could be assured of getting the assistance s/he needed. (Currently, DPH and DBI Inspectors often tell citizens, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t lie within our jurisdiction. You’ll have to call—.”)
  8. DPH and DBI should have their Inspectors divisions greatly expanded.  Cutting back these units is a no-win situation for San Francisco renters–and for desperately-needed City revenues.
  9. Turning these agencies into revenue-producing ones would enable the City to raise desperately-needed revenues—in a highly popular way. Fining delinquent slumlords would be as unpopular as raising taxes on tobacco companies. Only slumlords and their hired lackey allies would object.
  10. Slumlords, unlike drug-dealers, can’t move their operations from one street or city to another.  Landlords aren’t going to demolish their buildings and rebuild them somewhere else. So they have to stay put.
  11. Landlords should be legally required to give each tenant a list of the major city agencies (such as DBI, DPH and the Rent Board) that exist to help tenants resolve problems with their housing. 
  12. Landlords should be legally required to rehabilitate a unit every time a new tenant moves in, or at least have it examined by a DBI inspector every two years.  A tenant can occupy a unit for ten or more years, then die or move out, and the landlord immediately rents the unit to the first person who comes along, without any repairs or upgrades whatsoever.
  13. Landlords should be required to bring all the units in a building up to existing building codes, and not just those in need of immediate repair.
  14. Landlords should be legally required to hire a certified-expert contractor to perform building repairs.  Many landlords insist on making such repairs despite their not being trained or experienced in doing so, thereby risking the lives of their tenants. 

Andrew Jackson once said: “One man with courage makes a majority.” And one city—acting with courage—can ensure protection for its tenants and general revenues for vitally-needed services.

If San Francisco can do this, so can California. And then so can the rest of the Nation.

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“BEST-LOOKING” ATTORNEY GENERAL IS BIGGEST LAWBREAKER

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics on April 9, 2013 at 12:03 am

On April 4, President Barack Obama unintentionally created a stir during a Democratic National Committee fundraising lunch in Atherton, California.

Referring to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, he said:

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake.  She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.”

Kamala Harris

It was a compliment that was immediately interpreted–by some–as a sexist insult.

According to the Politically Correct crowd, even complimentary comments about a female politician’s physical appearance can diminish her accomplishments.

“It’s even more so when the person–like Kamala Harris–is holding a traditionally-male position like attorney general, the top law enforcement officer in the state,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“That’s just what Obama did by including a comment about her appearance,” Walsh said. “I doubt if he’d say that about a male attorney general.”

According to White House press secretary Jay Carney, Obama called Harris that same evening evening to apologize for his comments.

“He fully recognizes the challenges women continue to face in the workplace and that they should not be judged based on appearance,” Carney said the next day. “They’re old friends. He certainly regretted that [his comments] caused a distraction.”

And Harris reportedly accepted Obama’s apology.

“The Attorney General and the President have been friends for many years,” Harris spokesman Gil Duran said in an April 5 statement. “They had a great conversation yesterday and she strongly supports him.”

If, in fact, Harris was offended by Obama’s compliment, she has a very thin skin indeed.

She could have been far more offended had her Republican opponent for Attorney General dared to tell the truth about her.

Steve Cooley, running against Harris in 2010, had a serious issue to raise against her.  But he didn’t have the guts to do it.

From 2004 to 2011, Harris had served as District Attorney for San Francisco.  In total defiance of the law, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal aliens out of prison.

Click here: San Francisco D.A.’s program trained illegal immigrants for jobs they couldn’t legally hold – Los Angeles Times

Her program, called Back on Track, trained them for jobs they could not legally hold.

This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law.

One such alumnus was Alexander Izaguirre, an illegal alien who had pled guilty to selling cocaine.  Four months later, in July, 2008, he assaulted Amanda Kiefer, a legal San Francisco resident.

Snatching her purse, he jumped into an SUV, then tried to run Kiefer down.  Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and a driver laughing.

The driver slammed on the brakes, sending Kiefer flying onto the pavement and fracturing her skull.

The program, Back on Track, became a centerpiece of Harris’ campaign for state Attorney General.

Until she was questioned by the Los Angeles Times about the Izaguirre case, Harris had never publicly admitted that the program included illegal aliens.

Harris claimed she first learned that illegal aliens were training for jobs only after Izaguirre was arrested for the Kiefer assault.

Harris said it was a “flaw in the design” of the program to let illegal aliens into the program.  “I believe we fixed it,” she told the Times.

Harris never released statistics on how many illegal aliens were included since the program started in 2005.

She said that after Izaguirre’s arrest she never asked–or learned–how many illegal aliens were in Back on Track.

When Harris learned that illegal aliens were enrolled, she allowed those who were following the rules to finish the program and have their criminal records expunged.

It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.

So much for her oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States and that of the state of California “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

From 2005 to 2009, 113 admitted drug dealers graduated from Back on Track.  Another 99 were kicked off the program for failing to meet the requirements.  They were sentenced under their guilty plea, the D.A.’s office claimed.

Harris told the Times that graduates of Back on Track were less likely than other offenders to commit crimes again.  But her spokeswoman refused to offer detailed statistics to back this up.

When Harris became San Francisco District Attorney, she vowed she would “never charge the death penalty.”  Her opposition to capital punishment would be better-suited to a public defender.

Meanwhile, Amanda Kiefer left California.  Interviewed by the Times, she said she could not understand why San Francisco police and prosecutors would allow convicted illegal aliens back onto the streets.

“If they’re committing crimes,” she said, “I think there’s something wrong that they’re not being deported.”

It’s a sentiment that law-abiding Americans agree with. And it should go double for those who are charged with enforcing the law.

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THE AGENCIES WE DESERVE

In Bureaucracy, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 22, 2013 at 12:13 am

The quickest way of opening the eyes of the people is to find the means of making them descend to particulars, seeing that to look at things only in a general way deceives them.…

–-Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses

One morning at about 8:10, a friend of mine named Robert heard a helicopter repeatedly buzzing the San Francisco Ternderloin area, where he lives.

Thinking that a fire or police action might be in the works, he called the non-emergency number of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD): (415) 553-0123.

Police dispatcher

And he got a recorded message.

This told him–in English–what he already knew: He had reached the San Francisco Police Department.

Then it told him this again in Spanish.  Then again in Cantonese.  Then came a series of high-pitched squeals–presumably for those who are hard-of-hearing.

Then the line went dead, and another recorded voice told Robert: “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again.”

At that point, Robert decided to waste no more time trying to learn if there was an emergency going on in his area.  Or, to put it more accurately, he decided to waste no more time trying to learn this from the SFPD.

Instead, Robert turned on his TV and checked all the local news channels.  When he didn’t see anyone reporting a raging fire or police sealing off an area, he decided there probably wasn’t anything to worry about.

But later on he decided to call the SFPD once again–to complain at a level he believed would attain results.

That level was the office of its chief, Greg Suhr.

Robert didn’t expect to reach the chief himself.  But he didn’t have to: Reaching Suhr’s secretary should serve the same purpose.

The secretary he reached turned out to be a sworn officer of the agency.  She patiently heard out Robert’s complaint.  And she totally agreed with it.

She also agreed that this was a longstanding problem with the SFPD–citizens not being able to get through for help because of an ineffective communications system.

Finally, she agreed with Robert that the situation counted as a major PR disaster for her agency.  People who become disgusted and/or disallusioned with a police department’s phone system aren’t likely to trust that agency with their cooperation–or their lives.

Then she had a surprise for Robert:  Like him, she had at times been unable to reach a live dispatcher–even when calling 9-1-1.

She added that the police department did not handle its own dispatch work.  This had been farmed out long ago to the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management (SFDEM).

She said that the SFPD didn’t have any control–or even influence–over SFDEM, which operated as an independent agency.

Robert suggested that it was definitely in the best interests of the SFPD for someone at its highest level to contact SFDEM and demand major reforms.  Or to find another agency that would take its dispatcher responsibilities seriously.

The chief’s secretary said she would pass along Robert’s comments to the proper authority.

Will anything change?  Not likely, barring a miracle.

There are few events more frightening and frustrating than having to call the police, fire department or paramedics during an emergency–and get a recorded message.

Whether intended or not, the message this sends the caller can only be: “Your call is simply not important to us–and neither are you.  We’ll get to you when we feel like it.”

When people call the police or fire department, they’re usually frightened–for themselves or others.  They know that, in a fire or crime or medical emergency, literally second counts.

It’s going to take the police or fire or paramedics several minutes to arrive–assuming they don’t get caught up in a traffic snarl.

And it’s going to take them even longer to arrive if it takes the caller several minutes to reach them with a request for help.

This is the sort of bread-and-butter issue that local authorities–who operate police and fire departments–should take most seriously.

Mayors and council members should not expect to be treated with respect when their constituents are treated so disrespectfully in a time of crisis.

And citizens aren’t stupid.  They can easily tell lies from truths.

Lies such as: “We’d like to put in a new communications system, but we can’t afford it due to budget cuts.”

And truths such as: While San Francisco faced a $229 million deficit for the fiscal year, 2012, it nevertheless found untold monies to tap after the San Francisco Giants won the 2011-12 World Series, 4-0.

Monies to decorate various San Francisco buildings (such as the airport) with the orange-and-black colors of the Giants.  Or with the Giants logo.

San Francisco Airport–decked out with San Francisco Giants colors

Monies to throw a day-long party for the victorious Giants on October 31–Halloween.

So, in the end, it all comes down to a matter of priority–for both citizens and their elected leaders.  As Robert F. Kennedy once said: “Every nation gets the kind of government it deserves–and the kind of law enforcement it insists in.”