Hold Our Public Officials Accountable / 让我们的公职人员负责任

Dear Friends & Neighbors, If you have been following the new housing mandates and rezoning laws in the least bit, you are probably confused and shocked about what is going to happen in our District 7. Please click here to see a map of the new up zoning. I have attended two housing townhall meetings in recent weeks, one in D4, hosted by Sunset United Neighborhoods , and one in D3, hosted by Telegraph Hill Dwellers . And judging by the reactions from the crowds, people are not happy. There is more to the housing debate than what meets the eye. In a nutshell, Sacramento wants us to believe that California has a housing crisis and more construction is needed to meet the state's housing needs. So the state is essentially mandating that San Francisco, along with other cities, propose and pass all sorts of new rules and regulations to meet these needs.  Building more houses is normal and necessary, The problem arises when Sacramento decides to force cities to comply with its mandates...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, If, like me, you vaguely remember  Prop 19 , it was approved by 75% of voters statewide in Nov of 2020, and was advertised by the Board of Equalization as "The Home Protection for Seniors, Severely Disabled, Families, and Victims of Wildfire or Natural Disasters Act." Many Californians do not realize this, but with the passage of this act, they have lost the right they had for more than three decades to transfer family property between parents and children without any increase in the property tax bill. Now, with only narrow and limited exceptions, property passed from parent to child is reassessed at current market values, resulting in massive tax increases. For example, someone who has just inherited a $2 million home from a deceased parent would be paying $20,000 in taxes, while a next door neighbor living in a similarly priced home is paying $2,000 for the same government services like road maintenance, schools, and trash collection. Does this...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, I am a registered Democrat voter. However, I find it ironic how Democrats demonize Donald Trump and the Republican party, accusing them as being authoritarian with no regard for laws, rules, or the democratic process, while at the same time,  Democrats are guilty of doing the same thing. I am not a Trump supporter as I do agree he has an authoritarian bent, but at the same time I do not support hypocrisy and authoritarian threats from my own party, and will point it out wherever I see it. For example, in my last blog, I wrote about my own neighborhood's voice being stripped and crippled when we objected to the Gold Mirror cannabis dispensary opening on 18th Ave & Taraval St., or how our neighbors' voices across the state of California are consistently suppressed for their opposition to the new housing laws and regulations that are being forced upon our cities, including San Francisco, by state officials. The city and state officials guilty of ...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, I hope you and your families enjoyed the Thanksgiving break and your holiday season is going well. It's been several months since I last wrote, but wanted to continue where I left off, or more specifically, create a dialogue over how we, as a community, can begin to hold our public officials truly responsible for their actions (or inactions). From now on, I am writing these blogs as an individual, and my thoughts and opinions do not reflect the views of the neighborhood organizations I am or have been apart of. On Monday evening, we had the pleasure of speaking with Board of Supervisors (BOS) President Aaron Peskin at the West of Twin Peaks Central Council (WTPCC) monthly meeting. We discussed several areas of concern with Mr. Peskin, including public safety, police officer recruitment and retention, property taxes, and homeless encampments, but what I would like to address in this blog is the insidious way our politicians are passing laws and changing...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, Last night at our West of Twin Peaks Central Council (WTPCC) meeting, we had the pleasure of speaking with D1 Supervisor Connie Chan, who is Chair of the Budget & Finance Committee. She spoke about the city's budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2023. It seems one of the roles of the Board of Supervisors in managing our budget is to audit and screen the expenditures from varying departments and commissions within the city's government, such as Planning. Well, during our campaign to stop the Gold Mirror cannabis dispensary, we became very intimate with the inner workings of Planning, and they are, to put it bluntly, a highly incompetent organization that does more harm than good for the residents of San Francisco. Supervisor Chan cautioned us not to judge the entire city government by the performance of one department, but that's not what we are doing. We are judging the city government by one example we have seen in our experience with Plan...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, Thank you to everyone who supported us at the appeal hearing last Tuesday, April 18th . A special thank you to Supervisors Engardio & Stefani who were the only supervisors to vote in favor of our appeal. We knew our chances to win the appeal were slim, based on how the supervisors have voted in the past on dispensaries facing similar opposition from the public. For example, according to this editorial by Portia Lee in Wind Newspaper ,  ​ Public hearings typically provide the public an opportunity to offer their thoughts on a policy matter or a specific proposal that is before the agency for decision. The role of governing body members is to hear and consider those views when making a decision. -- Institute for Local Government Cannabis is big business in both San Francisco and the State of California, therefore cannabis companies hire lobbyists and donate money to politicians to pass laws that favor them, not the community. This is how our dysfunct...