All the celebrities showed up at last night’s much-anticipated Community Safety Meeting: an SFPD captain, three Supervisors, and an angry, overflow crowd of Bernal Heights residents who want to know what the City will do to help make our streets secure again.
Interest ran very high. The Bernal Heights Neighborhood center estimates that 200 Bernal neighbors jammed inside the building, with another 100 turned away outside. That was important unto itself, because the high attendance sent a powerful signal to City officials that our community is watching closely, very energized, and deeply engaged. Major kudos to BHNC, for making it happen.
Yet by the standard of “what the City will do to help make our streets secure again,” many Bernalese left feeling disappointed by what they heard. A neighbor provided this summary:
Here is my summary of the meeting:
- In my 20+ years in Bernal that is the largest turnout I have ever seen. I am sure there were 100s of folks there, and a bad mike/sound system
- The structure of the meeting was Supervisors and the Captain. No Sergeants were present; there were a few officers and a detective (plainclothed).
- Lots of supervisor rhetoric. Necessary political concerns expressed, but not much problem-solving
- Captain Falvey was in the hot seat, and he did remarkably well. He answered questions, but it was limited because the police are still filling out reports, etc.
- Then came questions from the public. Not much time was left for this, and the questions were written down. The questions were condensed because they were a lot of repeat questions. They was a lot of talk of not displaying victim behavior etc etc, Call when you see suspicious behavior etc.
Very lackluster.
That’s consistent with what we heard from other Bernal Heights civilians. Neighbor R writes:
Loads of people. Standing room only and then some.
IMO, maybe 5 minutes of the hour plus meeting was about the recent muggings. Lots of talk about not showing anyone you have a phone, lots of supervisors talking about educational initiatives and Newtown and federal gun control.
No talk about preventing future muggings, equipping police with technology to track phones, stopping the very active and open fence market on Market (where they found the guys last night).
Count me very disappointed.
Neighbor Laura adds a second:
I agree with R’s overall sentiments about the meeting. I left not feeling any safer and was very disappointed that we didn’t actually focus on the issues at hand. I was hoping for more of an open forum where we could all ask our questions and have them answered, not the sorting and selection process of the questions that happened.
You get the idea… the reviews of last night’s meeting have been consistent.
Bernalwood is told that planning for additional meetings with the SFPD is underway, with the goal of using future sessions to focus more concretely on question-and-answers, updates, and crime-prevention strategies. That’s great.
Today, however, Bernalwood offers this visual summary of current neighborhood sentiment:
UPDATE: 1/31 2:30 pm Neighbor Edie, who regularly writes those invaluable notes from the SFPD Ingleside monthly meeting, comes through with detailed notes on last night’s meeting:
Bernal Heights Community Safety Forum
Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center
Speakers: Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center Executive Director Rachel Eboria and Director of Community Engagement Ailed Paningbatan
San Francisco Police Department Captain Timothy Falvey, Ingleside District
Supervisors David Campos-District 9, John Avalos-District 11, and Scott Wiener-District 8
San Francisco SAFE Program Director Irina Chatsova.
Sister Eve Volution and Sister Pat N Leather, The sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Attendees: Over 250 crowded into the BHNC main meeting room, the balcony, and stairs. More went home, unable to fit in through the doors.SFPD Ingleside Captain Timothy Falvey: In Bernal Heights recently there has been an increase in robberies involving firearms. The latest was Tuesday night in the 200 block of Bocana. Three neighbors chatting in front of a house were approached by three men with a gun, who stole an iPhone with “Find My iPhone” GPS tracking app on it. A quick- thinking Bayview officer tracked the phone on his iPad, and radioed in that it (and the thieves) were in the Tenderloin, where electronics are commonly fenced. Tenderloin police spotted the car, but the suspects took off onto 101 south. After a chase, police apprehended the suspects. Now that they are in jail, police will ask the victims and witnesses of other crimes if they can identify them. They think there may be seven robberies in Ingleside connected to this group, and possibly more from other neighborhoods since these guys moved around (two robberies in Portola/Bayview area before they got to Bocana/Cortland).
They also are about to make an arrest in another robbery where the victim had a chance encounter a few days later with the person who mugged her and was able to identify him to the police.
Often an increase in similar crimes is caused by a small number of perpetrators. Once a few are arrested, the volume of crime decreases. Let’s hope that happens soon.
Falvey uses the “three E” approach to reduce and prevent crime, a focus on education, enforcement, and environment.
Education: Such as warning signs posted around the neighborhood, helps neighbors be aware of what’s going on and how not to be a target. For example, there have been at least 6 incidents at Balboa BART where thieves target i-phone users: drivers ask to borrow someone’s phone and then speed away onto 280 with it. Criminals have also been asking time or for directions to see if someone has a phone. Telling people makes them more aware and less likely to become another victim. Tips can be found in the Ingleside station newsletter.
Increase in recent trend of robberies and thefts in and around the Balboa BART Station and City College area. Be vigilant of suspicious vehicles pulling up and its occupants asking for directions and/or to use your phone and then fleeing the scene with your property.
Environment: Residents must be proactive and aware of their surroundings. In general, the neighborhood should notice street lights that are out and trim trees blocking street lights, clean up Residents should get motion sensors or leave their porch lights on, prune shrubbery, and notice who and what is around them.
Enforcement: Police patrols and undercover officers work with Violence Reduction Team (a plainclothes unit deployed to neighborhoods that are experiencing spikes in crime) to cover specific areas. Last night, from the time the call came in to the time the officer met with the victims was one minute 5 seconds because plainclothes officers were already nearby.
Supervisor David Campos: The City Supervisors are committed to providing all of the resources needed by community and police to make neighborhoods safer, and community policing involves police and citizens in enforcement and prevention. What can we do as individuals? Campos was a victim of a mugging five years ago; he made it easier for the criminal because he (Campos) was talking on his phone. Don’t get caught up in your phone and ignore the people or situations around you.
Supervisor John Avalos: Excelsior, OMI, Crocker-Amazon, and neighborhoods south of here have also suffered an uptick of violent crime – break-ins, robberies, and a murder, and Avalos shares concerns and strategies with Campos. This includes, first, providing adequate police resources, and there will be 3 police academy classes this year, and 8 new officers started this Saturday at Ingleside. Second, working within the community to increase communications among neighbors and with the police and develop neighborhood watch groups. Third, providing resources for people seeking alternatives to street life, such as youth development programs, high school alternatives, and workforce programs. Again – this uptick in crime is caused a small number of individuals. When we catch them all, the crime should go down.
Supervisor Scott Wiener represents many neighborhoods, and Glen Park and the Bernal Cut are at the southern end of his district. There has always been a problem of robberies in GP due to the placement of BART and easy access to the freeway. Thieves also travel easily between Glen Park and Bernal. Weiner hopes to continue the combined neighborhood and police focus on awareness and control.
Sister Eve Volution and Sister Pat N Leather: The sisters of Perpetual Indulgence focus on community service and have been spreading general street safety information for many years, initially in response to homophobic acts. They suggest you get a whistle, wear it on a chain, and blow it if you are concerned or attacked. Wearing the whistle increases safety awareness; blowing it when attacked may give you a brief moment to get away, scare away the criminals, and bring out the neighbors to help you. The Sisters will be on the corner of Cortland and Andover on Sunday Feb 3rd to hand out safety tip sheets and whistles. Facebook: Stop the Violence, web site: the sisters.org
Community Q&A (30 min):
1. What to do about lack of lighting on Richland? First, contact 311. 311 is a one-stop-shop city service for neighborhood concerns. They will either send requests to the appropriate city agency, or redirect the caller. ALWAYS get a tracking number to follow the response. The 311 calls advise the supervisors and therefore can affect the budget. Second, tell Ailed Panangbatan, BHNC, who is organizing a safety walk to review the areas that are dark, covered with graffiti, and where criminals gather.2. The Ingleside newsletter: How often sent out and updated? Police try to do it daily, but the person who started it is retiring and someone new will replace him. Newsletter not only has crimes committed, but comments on crime trends, and safety tips to counteract crimes. The crime reports, safety tips, safety forms and information sheets can be found and downloaded from http://www.inglesidepolicestation.com/
3. The discussion about gun violence is in the foreground now. Can we track this and use it to control gun activity? Campos: Guns are a priority for all the Supervisors. Campos’ office is using their portion of the supervisors’ discretionary budget for a gun buyback program. Avalos: As a city we must prioritize jail time for criminals who use a gun. We must also focus on the national level: Plan for the city to divest any funds invested with companies what manufacture guns. Falvey: in Ingleside has made 10 gun arrests in the past month. If someone has a gun in their house, they can call the police to pick it up, but if a burglar enters and steals it, it will then be on the street and could be used to commit crimes.
4. Drug sales in the neighborhood: What can we do about street-level drug sales? Police have undercover officers on the streets, so call the police. They will get drug dealers off the street to stop drug sales and thereby prevent greater violence.
5. How to better spread the word about happenings in the neighborhood? What do block captains do? Chatsova: Neighborhood Watch block captains have lists of contact information for all their neighbors and learn to use phone trees in emergencies to help solve problems. They also have quarterly meetings for ongoing training and discussions.
6. What do you do if someone pulls a gun on you to get the best outcome? If someone pulls a gun, you must evaluate the situation and make an immediate decision about your long-term safety. Remember, your stuff can be replaced, but your life cannot. Look for ways to escape, and people around to help you. Know you can get through this, so try to make yourself a good witness. Notice height, weight, facial characteristics, and license plates. Remember, criminals often wear layers of clothing so they can strip one layer off and change their appearance, even as they run away. However, they won’t change haircuts, glasses, or shoes.
7. Holly Courts is losing their director, and the tenants need a Director who is more tenant minded; the tenants ask to be part of the process in selecting that new Director. Campos: violence and public safety are connected, so if the Holly Courts tenants are affected, so is the rest of the neighborhood. Campos has asked for an audit of the housing authority to determine why residents still don’t have key cards after several years.
Irina Chatsova, Director of SFSAFE: SF SAFE can help individuals and groups start a neighborhood watch group, perform residential or business security assessments, and conduct classes in home and personal safety (including basic self-defense) for your neighborhood or community group. Most of this is completely free. 415-673-SAFE or http://www.sfssafe.org
Ailed Paningbatan, BHNC:
Hot Spot Walk: Upcoming – date to be announced. The BHNC is organizing another Hot Spot Walk for city officials and community representatives. The Hot Spot form follows on the next page of these notes. Use it to indicate areas of concern due to overgrown vegetation, poor lighting, garbage dumping, graffiti, drug dealing, etc.Safety Walks: Neighbors, BHNC staff and members, and police conduct occasional Safety walks in the neighborhood and pass out flyers with tips on subjects such as auto break-ins and personal safety. For more information, to participate, or to suggest an area that could use a safety walk, contact Ailed Paningbatan-Swan at (415)206.2140 x 130 apaningbatan@bhnc.org
PHOTOS: Above, Top and bottom, Mark Johann. Center, Sam Burbank
Bernalwood 
This isn’t just a Bernal problem, since the Mission is seeing a serious uptick as well. There have been a minimum of 11 violent robberies just in the last week in the Mission, most along 24th St. Campos has shown he cannot or will not do anything about this issue.
I’d like to give a huge shout out to the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center which handled the incredible crowd wonderfully. The tiny sound system did its best given the circumstances, and they did a wonderful job getting the meeting put together.
I too wish there had been more time for practical Q&A, but it is tough with a crowd that size.
What is the best online clearinghouse for discussion and upcoming meetings?
I would also like to hear about what will be done about the extremely well known market at 7th and Market.
As for “not letting anyone see you have a phone,” really? It is in any way believable that an adult (or teen!) walking around *doesn’t* have a phone?
I can see how keeping devices tucked away can make you more aware of your surroundings and less likely to be the victim of a “snatch and run,” but would have done nothing to deter this recent series if crimes.
Michelle
Huge amount of robberies are linked to iPhone
Behavior. Citizens do have to take responsibility
For their own unconscious actions.
Without a doubt. But the police and city government also have to take responsibility for protecting us from muggers. And last night the police and city government talked a lot about the former, and very little about the latter.
P.S. Can’t we see about using the church as a venue to hold more folks next time? Presumably they have a PA. And I probably won’t burn if I walk in the door.
Yes. If we just all had concealed carry permits, we could all take proper responsibility.
But seriously; are we really content to live in a world where we have to be constantly in awareness of threats to us? We are supposed to be living in a civilized world, we shouldn’t have to be in constant fear of being attacked and ready to respond.
LOVE the last graphic…once again, putting levity into the situation..thank you Bernalwood! I for one need to laugh again.
Love the lady’s face! Can only imagine useless supervisors’ Campos & Avalos observations on the continous crime that takes place in Districts 9 & 11. It seems that Scott Weiner is the only one who takes a stand and does positive things for his constituents, and big plus looks at SF as a whole & not just at District 8.
Are you serious?? He cant even make it to the meeting on time! Come on! The only thing Weiner does is promote big growth. I really dont think that is something we want to happen here in our district!! He is a dbag if you ask me!
… again, not according to his actual constituents, and our neighbors in the Bernal Cut.
Well good for them. I would bet that the neighbors you are talking about already are home owners and do not have to worry about being Ellis Acted out. For renters, he is the voice of displacement and that makes me loathe him. He also has his hands in some of the most corrupt commissions we have in the city. He definitely has a working relationship with a lot of the greedy developers and others which makes me find him that much more of a poser. I respect your opinion. I am just glad he is not my sup.
I’m not sure what people were expecting. The police cannot stop every crime before it occurs. These were randomized acts by 3 out of millions of Bay Area inhabitants. And they caught them for goodness sake. We do not live in some impermeable safety bubble in Bernal. There is nothing wrong, in my estimation, with the police suggesting ways in which each of us can modify our public behavior to decrease our individual odds against being victims.
I do not know what people expected from the Supervisors. Any meeting like this is a bit of political theatre. To say that “Campos has shown he cannot or will not do anything about this issue,” i believe is groundless. What could he have said that would be satisfactory?
The police have always been responsive to Bernal residents because we are able and willing to organize ourselves. This has been the case for the entire time I have lived in S.F. (35 years). It was a prime reason why I moved here 25 years ago.
The Neighborhood Center has always been front and center as a place for neighbors to meet, talk, disagree, plan, chide public officials and launch whatever actions were necessary to solve problems. It is really up to us to act. The police nor the Supes can guarantee anyone of our safety.
And finally, if you don’t like the sound system, maybe consider donating to the Center so they can afford a better one. They are a non-profit membership organization.
How is calling the the supes to task groundless? There is a ton more they could be doing to help make the community safer. Organizing crime watches, working with local businesses, providing resources/hotlines, etc. to help reduce threats – there is a LOT they could have done, but have not and will not. Can we do this ourselves? Sure, but for the supervisors, organizing this kind of thing IS THEIR PRIMARY FUNCTION.
Also, it’s incredibly naive to think these 3 kids are the only perps out there. While I don’t think we should live in a state of fear, it appears that there is an uptick in these kinds of crimes and it’s not too much to expect that community leaders take concrete steps.
As for modifying our behavior – have we come to the point where it is too unsafe to use your smartphone in public?
Jay, Supervisors are legislators. Their primary function is to legislate. the effective ones make laws and that improve the lives of their constituents. Their next function is to help assure that the government, through its agencies and departments is responsive to the needs of citizens. It is not the job of an elected official to fill a pothole, but to assure that DPW does. It’s not his/her job to fight crime, but to assure that police are doing the best they can do in a given situation.
They wield great power over agencies and departments through the budgetary process. Our job is to inform them as to what works and doesn’t work. Their job is to figure out how best to fix what needs fixing using the legislative power they have.
I believe both Campos and Avalos are for the most part effective in these roles. I believe we are lucky to have them as representatives. They go further than most at being involved and active in helping organize constituents to take action. The noise of a thousand constituents is often more effective in making policy then their one vote each. We are responsible to make that noise.
‘we’ get what we’ve been demanding for years, “keep those nazi stormtrooper cops out of my life, house, and bedroom”. and we are never happy with anything they do, so now what, we want to order them around to do our precise bidding and are unhappy if they can’t? i suggest we call our personal pals and work with them on the ‘problems’, since we are all so smart, and leave the police out of it. don’t you think they know how we feel about them? don’t you think they know what we say about them behind their backs and how much grief we like to give them whenever we can. i say we buck up and take our just desserts like real men and women. we’re just gettin what we’ve been askin’ for….we’ve got the cops muzzled with there hands tied behind their backs. that’s what we wanted. remember the old saying about calling a hippy instead of a cop when you’re in trouble??? dig it?
Dude. You need to do a stand up routine. YOU ARE HILARIOUS!
Shap, I agree. I’m not really sure what would have been satisfactory. Sounds like prevention for many people equals race/age/class profiling. (Frankly, if you ask me who looks like they don’t belong in our neighborhood, it’s the newer folks…) When you live in a city there are certain common sense things one should or shouldn’t do to make themselves less likely to be targeted for crime. And while I would love to close down the fence market–many a stolen bike of mine has gone there–it would only spring up in some other place. At least now we know where to look. And it worked, evidently, in catching some of these very braze, dangerous criminals. “Darn those public servants. All they did was increase police patrols, respond quickly, and catch these guys! What we really need is cc tv, electrified fencing and security gates at all entry points.” My sympathy to all who were robbed. Everyone, please be careful and aware of your surroundings.
The last week has been crazy and I am glad that nobody was injured. I went to that meeting last night as well but what happened was what I really expected. The police gave us tips and tricks on how to address the situation, but what did you really expect. That they could figure out how to predict when these potentially could occur. I do believe that the police and city do have a responsibility, but I also think that we as a community have to help ourselves.
Some thoughts:
1. Block by block people should setup meetings with neighbors to talk about overgrown areas and yard maintenance. For those that need help maybe neighbors can help out. Not only does it help in these areas but it will help with the appearance of the neighborhood.
2. Recommend these same groups tally things that need fixing in the neighborhood and report them back to campos. 311 responds to items that multiple people report. Have the group report lights that are out, areas that need cleanup, reporting of suspicious items etc. Have the group report these items
3. Get volunteers to walk around the neighbor hood. Maybe put together a group of volunteers by shift to walk around the neighborhood. Make our presence be knows. If everybody volunteered one night to eat on cortland and then walk around, with the 200 people that showed up at the meeting last nigh that would be 2 times a year. Maybe do 2 or 3 people per night. Just an idea. Invite the guardian angels to stop by, give them free coffee.
4. Look into the private security person to always roam the street. Cost option, but maybe we can put a fundraiser on to raise money to support these funds.
5. Surveillance it would be interesting to see if there are cheap options to having video surveillance setup on lamp posts. Cost I am sure with this one as well. But costs of video recording devices is getting cheaper.
6. Work with local police of getting them the gear they need (ipads etc). Sounds like another local fundraising idea to get them the funds (bbq, or something)
I think the one thing that I was most proud about last night, was that there were hundreds of people who live in bernal who care and how awesome the people of this neighborhood are. Maybe we have a meeting ourselves to talk about our ideas and/or gathering of questions so we can prepare them to the police or campos.
Either way I think improvement is really going to be from the community itself.
PS we should also buy the community center a new speaker system, that thing was terrible 🙂
The city spent a lot of money putting surveillance cameras at 26th and Shotwell. Lots of shootings happened in that exact location after the cameras were installed, the cameras were effectively useless in identifying the assailants. There would be better results with private individuals installing Dropcams or similar devices in their own front yards, it would definitely be more cost effective than anything the city would install.
Good Life has cameras looking out at Cortland. Have they ever helped catch anyone? (I’m curious).
Did we really expect anything less from the supervisors? Showing up isn’t a solution from all I’ve read very disappointing. Thanks Bernalwood for the reporting.
Two quick updates:
1) Notice that we have added detailed notes on last night’s meeting from Neighbor Edie to the original post above. Her “just the facts” approach is excellent.
2) Neighbor Regina set up an account/system for collecting thank you donations for our iPad-enabled SFPD officers. Details on that in a dedicated post tomorrow.
But there’s a logical disconnect here: the ipad and ‘find my phone’ app didn’t play a truly necessary role in catching these perps.
1) mugging/phonejacking
2) description of getaway vehicle
3) officer uses ipad to ‘find my phone’
4) phone is at 7th & market
5) ipad-enabled officer alerts dispatch, dispatch alerts Tenderloin/Soma divisions
6) Soma officer sees vehicle matching description, gives chase
7) …profit!
However! Since the default assumption is that any stolen electronics are transported almost immediately to 7th&Market, and since the crooks always hop right on the freeway, and since they will certainly go thru Soma after getting off at 7th or 9th streets, it is entirely predictable that there is a very good chance of spotting the getaway car in Soma.
So steps 3 thru 5 above are generally unnecessary, until the phonejackers as a group change their behaviour; but I think it’s safe to make these assumptions for pretty much any mugging in our fair city where a getaway car is involved.
TL;DR: As cab drivers are fond of saying, you drive thru the TL or Soma on the way to just about anywhere, so simply by looking there for a known getaway car, the crooks are likely to be found — no app needed.
Let me just say that boy am i glad that i showed up to last Sunday’s impromptu neighborhood safety meeting. I swear in that short hour, we covered more territory that it would have probably taken the group from last night to cover in a month. Last night just felt like a campaign pr stunt and a Sup. making his representation for his people. If those Sups were really smart, they would have SHUT UP and LISTENED to the communities wants and needs. Last night seemed to have nothing to do with our wants and needs and instead more of like some safety lecture on topics that i have already been abreast of (mostly thanks to us the neighborhood and you bernalwood.) I am starting to wonder (aside from Captain Tim (who i personally surprisingly liked and felt he was the most personable and forthcoming of all of them) if we even need and or want these people in charge of the things that we need done for our specific neighborhood. We did better all by ourselves than we did with any big whigs running the show. I personally think that we should maybe think of planning another meeting without the big machos and get back to just the neighbors. Let us figure out what we need them to do and how we need them to do it. I think we are the ones that know the real issues here and we seem to have more creative and constructive ways to solve it. If that needs a higher up help us expedite it we can go to them then. Otherwise i fear that we are going to waist a lot of time talking about a lot of nothing or stuff we already know and solving nothing. I would be curious to know how others think about this idea.
Oh and big props and thanks to the Sisters! That was the most useful part of the whole meeting… Getting my mugging whistle! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! we love you!
My 2 cents. Agree with BluePearl. I expected a sense of urgency at last night’s meeting, and a plan to better protect ourselves -NOW. Yes, Nothing wrong with the Supes and officers being there, but it served to alter the entire focus of the meeting. We should not assume that the caught perps are responsible for all of the recent muggings, and we should still be on high alert. We could be escorting ourselves by now, and strolling Cortland in groups of volunteer neighbors. I thought and expected for these sorts of things to be discussed and pushed forward. We should aggressively promote the idea of block captains who inform their block about crime. I felt that at last night’s meeting, there was very little substantive, proactive ideas out forth, or new, helpful information. Though I do give kudos to the Sister’s whistles: good idea and thanks for making that happen.
I am able and willing to join others to escort people or stroll Cortland. Short of that, I walk Cortland on my own whenever I can these days, between 5-9, just to add to the number of people there.
The supervisors made my voting decision in the next election a lot easier.
Interesting. How?
Todd… For me, i will tell you how it will effect my personal voting in the future. I will NEVER be voting for Scott Weiner (if) when he runs for mayor. N-E-V-E-R!!! First of all, everyone else made it to the meeting on time. Not Scott. I personally did not think that he deserved his time to talk because he missed the supervisor talk time allotment. It was finally our time and we had to stop to give him a chance to do a little politicianing. Not Cool. He also did not make honest eye contact with anyone in there. It looked more like he was taking a head count to see how many voters he could possibly get into his camp when needed. He is a Douche! Talk about someone right up Willie Brown’s alley (pocket!). I am sure he will win the votes though. That is how the city seems to work these days considering Lee made it in. California for that matter. If you can seriously tell me that not enough people wanted their food make-up labeled to be able to pass by 50% when it was not going to cost the state anything AND our crops are subsidized… then plain and simple…That particular measure HAD have TO HAVE BEEN rigged for it not to pass. There is just no way! This is CALIFORNIA for gods sake! I could not find 1 that is ONE single person who voted against it and i did my fair share of nosey asking. At this point, i dont know how much i really trust that we have any control in almost any part of government. It is a sad day. But i suppose corporations and politicians will always only be about one thing… GREED and Greed cares for no one. Scott Weiner sure is familiar with it….
@bluepearlgirl I don’t have a lot of background on Scott Weiner and don’t feel strongly for him either way but they did say at the beginning of the meeting he would be joining late because he was at another neighborhood safety meeting in his own district. He wasn’t late on purpose.
Laura:
I live in Mr. Weiner’s district, and if “we” had a safety meeting in my neighborhood I knew NOTHING about it. No flyers, no local media blast, nothing. I’m thinking that his excuse is nothing more than p.r. b.s. I can also attest to his rappant politicking, getting his name in the public eye for name recognition versus true neighborhood good. I truly can’t put my finger on one particular thing, but way before he was elected (ugh), he would hound my Muni stop and not take a “No thank you” for an answer and give off a very unsettling vibe. He, like many supervisors, just loves to have his name and face attached to anything that will put him in print and on the news. It would be refreshing to have somone who worked, actually worked for the good of the district they represent (*all* of their district) without regard to media play. Trust me, word of mouth is so much more powerful than celebrity.
Wow, that is interesting Jen. I’m just repeating what was said at the meeting as to his arrival. As I stated before, I don’t have strong feelings for or against Scott Weiner- although I am seeing that many do. Perhaps it was just another neighborhood safety meeting or a meeting that he was attending and not one located in his district.
You know, just one other observation… I really love that we are helping to pollute the environment less, but it really sucks to have to be walking around with a (empty) bag, while trying to look like you are not carrying anything of value. I know you can get those bags that fold into a thousand bits and then shove them up into a bag 1/3 its size (kinda like putting a sleeping bag back into its bag in the old days!), but i want to just grab my good old reusable bag but
A. I dont want my good bag stolen and
B. I dont want the theifs to think that either i have stuff in the bag or if it is empty, they will know i have money on me somewhere.
Just sucks working out all of the kinks living in this new pc world while the old one with crime and all still exists. Just my own thoughts. Sorry for the ramble.
Laura… What other neighborhood safety meeting? You actually bought that? Come on. I highly doubt that that was why he was late. Why did he even bother coming is what i would like to know! Just a big PR event for him. Guaranteed!
The one that was in the Mission with SFPD Captain Moser that not only addressed the recent crime wave there but also addressed the department’s plans on how its going to handle the 49ers game. You are certainly free to ding a politician but at least do it truthfully.
Scotty-
I agree with you, BUT, the Mission District Safety Meeting with the SFPD was on Tuesday, January 29th and the Bernal Safety Meeting was on Wednesday, January 30th. Again, I completely agree that one should not “attack” without just cause or truth, as it were, but these meetings were on two different days. Cheers!