Municipal Follies
In your typical Third-World megalopolis, basic city functions fall into disrepair, while once-eradicated diseases run rampant -- and the local bigwig boasts about saving the world.
Los Angeles is quickly becoming a typical Third-World megalopolis, and the rest of the state isn't far behind.
Yesterday the New York Post reported "rats running everywhere among piles of decaying garbage," in a "sprawling 50-block area that is believed to be the base for around 4,200 homeless people."
-Stephen Green , June 3 2019 
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday sent a notice that San Francisco is violating the federal Clean Water Act.
Last month, President Trump warned of a potential violation notice, saying the city was allowing needles and human waste to go through storm drains to the ocean -- an allegation denied by city officials.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler also sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a letter last week alleging waste left by the homeless in San Francisco and other cities was being improperly handled.
-AP
San Franciscans face about a 1-in-16 chance each year of being a victim of property or violent crime, which makes the city more dangerous than 98 percent of US cities, both small and large.
To put this in perspective, Compton, California, the infamous home of drug gang turf wars, and which today remains more dangerous than 90 percent of all US cities, is almost twice as safe as San Francisco.
-Lee Ohanian, Nov 2021
Liberal, Degeneracy
The Walgreens in San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood was temporarily closed this week because of a "severe rat infestation," and the store will not reopen until it passes an inspection, a report from the San Francisco Department of Public Health revealed.
Inspectors visited the store at 1333 Castro, near 24th Street, on Nov. 8, and ordered immediate closure of the store due to "imminent health hazards that could not be immediately corrected." A report from the inspector noted that food was "contaminated and/or adultered" by vermin on the sales floor and in an upstairs storage area.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Financial, Waste
San Francisco is paying $16.1 million to shelter homeless people in 262 tents placed in empty lots around the city where they also get services and food - a steep price tag that amounts to more than $61,000 per tent per year... several officials said Wednesday that the tent program - which is not eligible for federal reimbursement - is staggeringly expensive and must be re-examined, especially amid the $650 million budget deficit that San Francisco projects over the next two years...
The average per-night cost - $190 - is $82 less than what the city pays to shelter someone in its homeless hotel program... The hotel program, which provides four walls, a bed and private bathroom, costs about $21 million a month. The majority of the costs will be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy
Residents living near homeless encampments, vandalized and abandoned warehouses, and lines of motorhomes and stripped-down cars say the police department isn’t doing enough, so they have formed vigilante patrols to clean up their East Oakland neighborhood.
Those living closest to the defunct plant owned by Owens-Illinois along Alameda Avenue say an uptick in crime has led them to keep watch over their streets and spend their own money to add lighting and security cameras to protect their properties.
"We’re can’t depend on the city to do it," neighbor Denise Gray said. "It’s just getting too far out of hand."
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops
Personal finance website WalletHub has released its rankings for the worst big cities in the country and found that several high-profile places are at the bottom of the list when it comes to city management and operating efficiency.
One thing every big city has in common are major roadways, traffic, and a reputation for pollution. In those fields, California cities were found to be the worst in the country. In road quality, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Fremont, Oakland, and San Francisco all tied for the worst streets in the U.S.
As for air pollution, WalletHub says Huntington Beach, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Bakersfield, and Riverside have the dirtiest air in America.
Caitlin Foster fell in love with San Francisco’s people and beauty and moved to the city a dozen years ago. But after repeatedly clearing away used needles, other drug paraphernalia and human feces outside the bar she manages, and too many encounters with armed people in crisis, her affection for the city has soured.
“It was a goal to live here, but now I’m here and I’m like, ‘Where am I going to move to now?’ I’m over it,’” said Foster.
-Olga R. Rodriguez and Janie Har
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Oops
A Progressive Admits: We Ruin Cities...
And progressives—I count myself as one of them—do ruin cities. Or, at least, they put in place policies that cause profound harm to the people living in them. An obvious case-in-point is the call to defund the police. It’s a slogan that fits nicely on a bumper sticker, but what are its consequences in practice?
Liberal, Crime, Violence, Immigration, Assault, Murder
Judicial Watch announced today it obtained records from the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department revealing that violent crime in the Bay area has skyrocketed since 2011, with the number of arrests for murder up 55%, and the number of arrests for rapes up 370%... In 2013, the San Francisco’s Sheriff and City Council expanded San Francisco’s infamous illegal alien sanctuary policies. The City changed policies and passed an ordinance that required San Francisco law enforcement to ignore most U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers.
Liberal, Degeneracy, Oops, Waste
Concerns about San Francisco's decaying light poles were ignited Monday night after one corroded by urine toppled onto a car, narrowly missing the driver. The three-story-tall lamp post at Pine and Taylor streets snapped around 6:30 Monday and landed on a nearby car, almost crushing the driver.
Liberal, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Debt
A judge accepted the California city of Stockton's bankruptcy application on Monday, making it the most populous city in the nation to enter bankruptcy. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein said the bankruptcy declaration was needed to allow the city to continue to provide basic services.
In San Francisco, the Board of Education became a laughingstock when it voted to rename 44 school buildings, including ones named for Lincoln and Washington.
-Nicholas Kristof
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Character, Greed, Corruption
Former San Diego mayor Maureen O'Connor has admitted in federal court that she misappropriated $2 million from her late husband's charitable foundation due to a gambling addiction in which [she] won more than $1 billion but lost even more over nearly a decade. O'Connor was the Democratic leader of California's second-largest city from 1986 to 1992. The two-term mayor was elected San Diego's first female leader after eight years on the City Council.
Hollywood: People don't feel safe any more...
"Liberal politics has destroyed this city. The homeless encampments are legal and there's nothing the police can do. White, affluent middle-class folk are getting out. People don't feel safe any more."
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Financial
Bankrupt San Bernardino, California, voted on Monday to present a plan to a bankruptcy judge that seeks to balance its budget through deferring payments to the state's public employee pension fund and to the city's bondholders. San Bernardino's council passed the plan after the judge overseeing its request for bankruptcy protection demanded an orderly budget be filed in court by Friday, November 30.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Brilliance, Oops, Waste, Debt
When 10,000 citizens of Stockton, California sang along with Neil Diamond at the opening of their city's shiny new concert hall it seemed like the good times would roll forever. It was 2006 and local officials were happy to pay the musician $1 million in taxpayers' money to perform Sweet Caroline as they rode high on the back of a turbocharged housing market... "I have nothing personal against Neil Diamond but that was just a huge waste of money," said Ann Johnston, the current mayor charged with cleaning up Stockton's financial mess.
Union, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Brilliance, Greed, Debt
The man in charge of the biggest U.S. city ever to file for bankruptcy is clear about the root of the crisis. It was a decision that gave firefighters full healthcare in retirement starting on Jan. 1, 1996, said Bob Deis, the city manager of Stockton, California. At the time, the move seemed cheaper than giving pay raises sought by unions, officials involved in the decision said. When other Stockton employees demanded the same healthcare deal in following years, the city agreed. Deis, who signed Stockton's bankruptcy filing last Thursday, slammed the decision to provide free healthcare to retirees as a "Ponzi scheme" that eventually left the city with a whopping $417 million liability.
San Francisco is earning a growing reputation for more than just its unmatched tech sector – for critics, the city stands as a profound example of the damage ultra-liberal policies can do.
After 20 years of envelope-pushing changes to grow government and ease law enforcement, the once-shining City by the Bay has turned into a place where:
Property crime runs amok
An online map is needed to track human feces on city streets
Discarded syringes are common sightings
Public urination is so widespread it has damaged subway elevators and escalators, building walls and power poles
-Tori Richards
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Union, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Financial, Economy, Greed
On close examination, the city’s decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward—and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America’s largest state. San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers. Little by little, over many years, the salaries and retirement benefits of San Bernardino’s city workers—and especially its police and firemen—grew richer and richer, even as the city lost its major employers and gradually got poorer and poorer.
Editorial, Government, Incompetence, Financial
Despite its good intentions, San Francisco is not leading the country in gay marriage. Despite its good intentions, it is not stopping wars. Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, its homeless problem is worse than any comparable city's. Despite its spending more money per capita, period, than almost any city in the nation, San Francisco has poorly managed, budget-busting capital projects, overlapping social programs no one is certain are working, and a transportation system where the only thing running ahead of schedule is the size of its deficit.
San Francisco in 2021...
Max Mara, Harry Winston, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Hublot, Lacoste, Neiman Marcus, Yves St. Laurent, Fendi, Ferragamo, Gucci...all boarded up as if at war.
Liberal, Tax, Government, Incompetence, Waste, Regulation
San Francisco's much-heralded "social justice" requirements for city contracts are costing local taxpayers millions of dollars a year in overcharges, according to workers in departments ranging from the Municipal Transportation Agency to the Department of Emergency Management.
In one case, a Muni worker said the city paid $3,000 for a vehicle battery tray. Such parts can be found online for $12 to $300, depending on the type of vehicle.
San Francisco has more drug addicts than it has students enrolled in its public high schools, the city Health Department’s latest estimates conclude.
There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools and illustrates the scope of the problem on the city’s streets.
-Phil Matier
San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a large museum next to the Moscone Convention Center downtown.
This non-profit is funded by the City of San Francisco, the National Endowment for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the James Irvine Foundation.
From July 23 to August 25, YBCA screened Jonathan Garcia’s movie Why Don’t We Murder More White People?
-Edward A Ross