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

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...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, For Part II of this blog, we would like to take a closer look at the city's vision of widespread and uniform distribution of cannabis retailers, and how our officials are claiming this is helping the city when it is actually hurting it. Again, we do not have a problem with the legalization or sale of cannabis, but our city is obviously going about it the wrong way. This is inevitably what happens when government ignores the welfare of its citizens and carries out agendas and policies for its own political and financial gain instead.  In order to achieve their vision for the cannabis industry, the city reduced the buffer distance from K-12 schools from 1,000 feet to 600 feet. At the same time, the city failed to include pre-schools in the buffer zone, which unfairly excludes 3 and 4 years and does not offer them the same safety measures and protections as older children.  As a result, it would make sense to reconsider the 600-foot buffer rule, whic...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, As you all may know, we partnered last year with RefuseRefuseSF to hold monthly cleanups in our neighborhood along Taraval St.  Our next cleanup will be on Sunday, May 7th, 2-3:30pm. We meet at Happy Days Preschool on 809 Taraval St. All supplies provided. Thank you and we hope to see you on May 7th! 謝謝! Email us  给我们发邮件:  fopswp@gmail.com Please sign our online petition . 請在我們的線上請願書上簽名  

Dear Friends & Neighbors, This may be the most important blog so far in our journey to convey to our elected officials the importance of hearing us out instead of stifling or silencing our voice. After all, our officials were elected by us for us: to represent our voices inside the government and not their own personal agendas. This is clearly not happening in our case, as evidenced by the rebuttal  from the San Francisco Planning Dept that was written in response to the  appeal document we submitted to the Board of Supervisors on March 6th, 2023. These two documents represent both sides of the Gold Mirror debate, and will be weighed by the Board of Supervisors before they vote to either support or reject our appeal at the public hearing scheduled for April 18th at 3pm at city hall.  As in previous blogs, in this two-part blog, we are going to carefully analyze the rebuttal from Planning, and point out the contradictions and inconsistencies inherent in their argument...

By John Farrell      As you might have read our City Controller has an estimated $290.0 million deficit for the coming fiscal year, $90.1 million more than projected in January. For the next two fiscal years, the shortfall is projected at $779.8 million. As Ronald Reagan said “There you go again!” Tech companies have laid off thousands of employees. Many have left our City or are working remote resulting in an unprecedented office vacancy. This has eroded our business and sales tax and is reducing the City’s largest tax revenue source which is our property tax. There is over 25 million square feet of vacant commercial space in our city. Commercial landlords, especially those who have purchased in the last 10 years, are seeking huge reductions in their property values. Times have changed and City Hall must adapt accordingly.      The City at this point has no game plan other than asking City departments to cut up to 5% percentage of their budgets in order to...

Dear Friends & Neighbors, Our next protest outside Gold Mirror restaurant will be this Friday, April 7th, 4:30-7:00pm. In anticipation of our upcoming appeal hearing on April 18th, we would like to rally as much support as we can from our fellow neighbors and any patrons of the restaurant who may be against the sale of cannabis from the second floor. If you would like to learn more about why we are appealing, please click here . It's clear our city's supervisors are not listening to our calls and pleas to include daycare centers and preschools in the 600 foot buffer rule. After all, 3 and 4 year olds are just as much children as K-12 year olds.  Please join us! Thank you! 謝謝! Email us  给我们发邮件:  fopswp@gmail.com Please sign our online petition . 請在我們的線上請願書上簽名