Hi All. It was a pretty productive meeting on Saturday, and we just have
two left, so here is my reading of them.
Prop R - Neighborhood Crime Unit. Creates the Neighborhood Crime Unit
within the Police Department once the total number of police officers in
The City reaches the number of 1,971. This is expected to occur within the
next year. The officers would be reassigned to assist with neighborhood
crime and would not be hired as a result of this measure. Therefore I view
this more as a reshuffling of police officers--sounds like it would make
the police function more decentralized. No less than 3% of the total
(59.13 officers) will have to be reassigned once the 1,971 level is
reached. Minimal impact on the cost of government per the Controller. The
motivation for this ordinance was all the complaints from the westside of
The City about car break-ins--it was sponsored by Scott Wiener, who felt
the the BOS might not pass such legislation. This measure does not move me
one way or the other. If it would prompt officers to actually patrol the
neighborhoods and start walking the beat, I might favor it, but when I see
them hiding in the bushes and then lunging out to lower the boom and give
out expensive traffic tickets regularly on Monterey Blvd. (near where I
live) for not coming to a complete stop, I just want to fire them. I'm not
convinced this measure will accomplish anything, especially since I
remember Joel Engardio's column about 2 months ago about all the break-ins
on the westside and how the residents were taking matters into their own
hands by judge-watching because they felt the problem was some judges were
releasing those doing the break-ins right back into the community with no
consequence at all. I'm leaning towards a NO RECOMMENDATION on this one
since it neither increases nor decreases the size of government. I'd like
to defer to Marcy on this one a bit, if you don't mind, Marcy, because I
know you attend the Neighborhood Watch meetings a lot and hear the
residents up in arms about the neighborhood crime. What say you?
Prop U - Affordable Housing Requirements for Market-Rate Development.
Tinkering with the "affordable housing" scheme to try and encourage
developers to produce more housing. It would basically double the income
level from 55% to 110% of area median income (for a single person, it would
raise the cap from $39,250 to $78,500) to become eligible for "affordable"
housing. This would only apply to rental units and not for sale units. I
see a few problems with this measure: first of all, wouldn't this be
trying to lure the middle class in to qualify for "affordable" housing so
that more, not less, folks would be looking to the government to "help"
them out? This would encourage dependency on government, which is the
wrong way to go. Secondly, wouldn't this put an upward pressure on all
other rental units when rents are already sky-high as it is? The
Controller seems to think so since he says, "This measure will likely
result in increased rental income for property owners, and thus to the
extent that this increases property values or creates incentives for
development of new rental units, the proposed ordinance would increase City
revenues." I could be reading this ballot measure wrong, but I don't think
we should be supporting "affordable" housing schemes because that's not a
legitimate purpose of government, plus I think this will make rents go even
higher, not lower, which hurts the average person. Recommend a NO Vote.
Please review/comment and vote.
By the way, Saturday's event at Union Square was not quite as well attended
as we would have hoped, but still I think we turned some heads and made
more folks aware of Gary Johnson. A special thanks to Nick and Philip who
organized the event. Nick actually got Joe Gandolfi from the Chronicle to
do a write-up on the event, and it was indeed in Saturday's paper, pictures
and all. Amazing for a Newbie Activist! Also thanks to Starchild and his
bullhorn for fearlessly leading us down Powell and then Market streets
towards the Civic Center. That even inspired one of the kids who joined us
for the gathering at Union Square and march to the Civic Center to take a
stab at using the bullhorn himself (and he did OK too!)
Thanks!
Aubrey