My Wish List for San Francisco in 2004

As a commercial real estate broker in San Francisco and also a native San Franciscan, I am excited about the prospect of having a new Mayor and District Attorney that are calling for sweep-changes in the way our local government is run and how services are provided to us, the citizens of San Francisco.

Everyday I walk the streets touring prospective business clients that are looking for office space to conduct their business in this city. I hear and see first hand the daily concerns and complaints that each business owner faces in doing business here. I also see how the once “jewel of the world” city has been tarnished over the years with failed policies that have left our city far less pristine than it once was. The following is my wish list for 2004. I hope that you will join me in promoting these same wishes to our new Mayor and members of the Board of Supervisors. The more people write and call in to support these measures the more chances we have of seeing them come to fruition.

Cleaning up our City:
Our city is “dirty” period! Mayor Brown did a good job expanding cleaning services and the results do show. The Civic Center, One Hallidie Plaza and Union Square are examples of a major improvement in “cleaning up” but overall our city is still “dirty”. We cannot expect our city to clean up for all of us, we as citizens have to take responsibility to clean our own mess. I propose a number of ideas to truly clean up our city and keep it clean.

First, the mayor needs to create a “Clean the City Campaign”. In Vancouver, Canada, for instance there is a $500.00 violation for anyone caught throwing a piece of paper on the street. Vancouver is one of the cleanest major cities in the world. We need to create this kind of “cost” to litter and enforce it. Second, we need to create more pickups of our city garbage cans. Most garbage cans are full all the time and we need to install recycling cans next to each city garbage cans to promote recycling efforts. Third, we need to create community monthly cleaning events where block leaders are formed to lead volunteers to help in clean-up efforts. People will come and help if a program is organized and is publicly advertised. . With litter violation fees and recycling income, this project does not have to cost the city anything. But the rewards directly and indirectly will generate serious revenue to the city over many years.

Police Services:
We have over 1,500 police officers in San Francisco, where are they?
Police officers will tell you that patrol cars are a more efficient way of monitoring our streets. I believe we need to bring back our “beat” cops. Police officers walking the streets are a deterrent; it also gives our citizens and our tourists a degree of safety knowing that a police officer is visible. In New York at Times Square you can be out at 2:00 in the morning and you will see street cops two to each block patrolling the streets. I never felt unsafe and even came back and told everyone how safe I felt in New York. Can you image if our tourists could pass the word about feeling safe in San Francisco, how great would that be?

Homelessness:
Mayor Newsom is correct in advocating new housing projects that include services, but without also combining effective enforcement of loitering and panhandling laws, we will never see a difference on our city streets. I have talked to a number of police officers about this issue and the realty is that they are powerless unless the District Attorney’s office supports an arrest. Drug deals are done in front of the eyes of our citizens while police do nothing because the DA’s office does not prosecute these crimes. This has to change. By sending a message that this behavior will not be tolerated we can begin to see real improvement on our streets.

Our Children:
We need to put our children back as a priority in San Francisco. For such a progressive city we are unfriendly to our youngest citizens. We need more playing fields for baseball, soccer and other outdoor sports. There are three possibilities for this to occur, first, is Mission Bay. Mission Bay is scheduled for development but with the current economic downturn in commercial development there are a number of parcels that could be set aside for open playgrounds until the market does turn. Liability issues and competing interests make current landlords turn down such requests, but if the Mayor got involved it could happen.

Second, is Treasure Island. Mayor Brown wanted to see world-class soccer facilities built there. The project never got off the ground, but now is the time to do so.

Third, look to build playgrounds on top of our water reservoirs. This has been looked at in the past and ruled out because of weight and water seepage issues, but today with new playable turf that looks like grass we need to revisit our tremendous open areas on top of water reservoirs that could be outstanding fields for our sports programs.

True Live/Work Construction
Last year the city passed a moratorium on new live/work construction. I felt this was a mistake. Here live/work presents affordable construction with a strong market demand and then we kill it. We need to reverse this move. Next, we need to also allow true live/work construction to occur. Everyday we get numerous calls for people that want to convert industrial buildings to artist space and artist collectives. Because of code restrictions these units do not exist and cannot exist. We need to consider a new classification of codes that would minimize living code standards so that industrial buildings could also support living. This would allow us to promote our strong artist community in San Francisco by giving them a chance to live and work in our now abandoned dot.com style buildings that are found throughout the Mission, South of Market and Potrero Hill areas of the city. With a current vacancy of over 35% in these areas, creating this new rental opportunity would create new tax revenue for the city, promote our artists and potential new cottage start up businesses and save vacant buildings from creating areas of blight.

If you agree with me, write and call Mayor Newsom, the Board of Supervisors and the Chamber of Commerce. Let’s put pressure on our politicians and leaders to once again show that San Francisco is the city that knows how.