We’ll Walk These Streets Together
Finding Solace and Strength in San Francisco During Difficult Times
I can't comment in any depth on the murder of Bob Lee, Cash App founder and former chief technology officer at Square. I have the same information everyone has at this time. Mr. Lee was stabbed to death on Tuesday, April 4, at 2:35 a.m. on the 300 block of Main Street, in the Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. His friends and family must be left in peace, though I can’t imagine they have any such thing.
I can - and will - comment on the impact it has had on the community.
Yes, You Did Feel and Earthquake
If the pandemic did anything positive, it brought together massive numbers of likeminded citizens, business owners, and workers who are committed to San Francisco’s survival. Or rather, it's revival.
However, news of Mr. Lee's murder shook the confidence of many. It comes on the heels of living with escalating crime and intensifying squalor. Despite some excellent and promising new hires, City government remains so ineffective that the most basic of needs continue to go unmet. People are dying on our streets because they're not receiving necessary health and psychiatric care; businesses are closing because they are not supported.
It's weird to struggle daily while also trying to maintain a sense of civility and hope. Somehow, most do. There is even laughter. San Franciscans have developed quite the gallows humor.
But the shockwaves of Mr. Lee’s murder have definitely reverberated across the city. A few brave, strong friends say they want to stay home, bury themselves under the covers, stop shopping and dining out, and curb their walks and anything else that's normal and wonderful. A natural reaction to a horrific event.
Why Don’t You Just Leave?
“Why don’t you just leave San Francisco?” Such a tired question. I can't speak for anybody else, but my answer is “love.”
I’m a city person through and through. No disrespect to suburbs, small towns, the mountains, deserts, or beaches but for me, a bustling urban environment takes my breath away. It makes me happy. San Francisco has everything I desire in a city: beauty, history, promise, romance.
But other cities have those qualities; why don’t you go there? Because San Francisco is my city. And if you love it too, it’s also yours.
Not long ago I was in Union Square enjoying a gorgeous day, and I met a bedraggled man leaning on a bicycle. We started chatting, remarking that San Francisco was particularly charming at that moment, and how special it is.
“I just love my city,” I gushed.
“Your city?,” he laughed.
“Yes - and yours too,” I said.
“My city,” he replied. “Yes, it is my city.” He smiled and rode off.
The encounter got to me. I think about it often. When you take ownership, you’re vested in the future.
Righteous Fury
At this moment, so many of us are not just sad, we’re livid. I try hard to offset the anger with other emotions but it doesn’t always work. This precious place is a freaking mess. Can we clean it up? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that it isn't in bad shape.
What the people in charge of San Francisco have done to the city and her inhabitants is unconscionable. Fingers point at civil servants, identifying who they are and where they went so wrong.
For example, Mayor London Breed never should have defunded the police. Instead, she should have bolstered the ranks, providing support that would have enabled the department to work better. Nor should she have opened the Linkage Center and allowed it to become a filthy drug consumption site that attracted the cartel-driven drug trade. If Breed doesn’t perform some major magic to right this ship soon, she will sink in the next election.
Longstanding supervisors, especially board members Aaron Peskin, Dean Preston, Hillary Ronen, and Shamann Walton have made decisions that have created dangerous living conditions and an inhospitable business environment. Newcomers with different philosophies are preparing to take their place.
Bloated city departments - the Department of Public Health and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing - operate as ideological fiefdoms. Their leaders have lied to the public and their services have produced too many destructive outcomes. They must be defunded and dismantled.
Channeling the Fury
With anger comes action. San Franciscans from across the political spectrum are merging and forcing change. There is no single guiding party because this is not a partisan matter. It’s social.
Pessimistic? That’s OK. Even I, an annoying optimist, can get dark. Sometimes I need a push to get up and keep fighting.
Soppy or not, the lyrics from Eminem’s “Not Afraid” have been bouncing through my head:
I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just lettin' you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road
Everyone has to live somewhere. If you were born and raised in San Francisco and are determined to stay, marvelous. If you choose it as your home, welcome. With love and fury, this is your city.
If you’re rocked by the pervasive chaos and recent violence, find comfort in the hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans who feel the same way. You are not alone. We are walking these streets together.
.
I'm an Erica Sandberg fan. I fully appreciate your stated emotions and concerns. My take is quite different; this piece sounds like romantic fantasy. I wrote a post yesterday in FOX News where in response to someone knocking San Francisco, and wishing us all more pain and suffering, I said;
Mayor London Breed had no particular qualifications, but she was elected a District Supervisor, then Pres. of the Board of Supervisors, then Mayor. The reason she will be re-elected is that she has done with the Democrat political machine wants her to do, and she checks the boxes of Black, woman, and Left enough for most voters.
The Board of Supervisors is 11 people who currently don't have to answer to roughly 91% of the city.
They each have a relatively small constituency they need to please in order to be re-elected to a fairly high paying job with full benefits. There is NO requirement they ever solve any problems, or answer to the wasted money or the cost to actually change a light bulb etc..
SFPD Chief William Scott - Is another box checker political appointment for the Mayor. If he had the nerve to tell her and the public what he needs to turn the crime faucet off, she'd probably fire him. Why should he bother? He's making close to $300K and has a home in LA last I heard he commutes.
Now that some people finally think there is a problem. Maybe SFPD actually needs more officers.
They are being told - 1) LEOs don't want to work here under the current conditions and pay, and
2) we can't fill a SFPD Cadet Class with 25-50-75-100 people. LEOs will retire now faster than new
hires can be attracted. This is not healthy for the SFPD or the City.
The very big hearted soft headed voters, and the equally so corporate owners who have supported the mistakes of the past decades are all responsible for how we got here. And guess what? While the corporations can just bail out, most residents can't or like you and I won't. But is San Francisco united? No! San Francisco will unite in case of a natural disaster, but nothing short of that will cause it.
S.F. residents are a full spectrum from homeless, to working poor, and multiple levels up, to the very
wealthy, and the billionaires. The rich can at times be extremely generous with their support from their favorite charities, but equally oblivious about anything that is not sitting in front of their nose.
There are a few Republican still living in S.F., but nothing you could call a viable party. The Democrats own it all, and they are so happy with themselves. To suggest that we can all just work together politically on a non partisan basis on just about any subject is totally naive. I have never seem it happen. And I'm not holding my breath.
San Francisco has its head up its *ss. It seems to love to self-flagellate, to continue voting in self-serving, incompetent officials who appoint even worse people to the myriad commissions, departments, etc. There is no spine in this city to do what was done in NYC in the early 90s to clean it up: tough love, very tough. SF's street people, death-dealers, strung-out youth/middle aged/elderly, mentally ill, and criminally-leaning will continue to do just as they are doing each and every day. Why? Because the ethos here is nihilistic, or, at the very least, co-dependent and laissez-faire. Oh yeah, and the elected officials and bureaucrats just LOVE to spend other people's money (i.e. taxes), flagrantly. Wait'll the bill for "reparations" hits. It might be a pretty setting here, but that's not good enough anymore.