On this episode, I am joined by a special guest co-host, Zack Gianino, to discuss the state of San Francisco and whether or not we should let it fail. We discuss the rising crime rate, empty office space, and the $728 million deficit the city by the bay is facing.
This episode was recorded on 4.18.23.
Links and References Mentioned in the Show
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/city-economy-doom-loop-17846412.php
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime
https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-francisco/
https://abc7news.com/newsom-sf-drugs-fentanyl-crisis-san-francisco-tenderloin-street/13177992/
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/governor-newsom-directs-highway-patrol-national-guard-to-assist-san-francisco-with-handling-fentanyl-crisis/
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/downtown-san-francisco-17852552.php
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What's going on everybody? Thanks for tuning in.
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Welcome back to another episode of the California underground
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podcast tonight. We're going north, we were
00:00:09
talking about San Diego and Carl demaio Last Week Tonight.
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We're going all the way up the coast and we're going to San
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Francisco, the city by the bay. The city that is in moral Decay.
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We're going to talk all about it.
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Is it failing? Should it fail?
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How bad is it up there in San Francisco and sitting in for
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special guest host Tonight? A good friend of the show.
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Zach is back with us tonight. Kamila's on vacation, but I
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happy to have Zakir and chat about San Francisco.
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What's up Zach? How are you doing tonight?
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It's great to see you, great to be back, you know, like I was
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telling you before the show, I've done more kind of Crash
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Course on what's going on in San Francisco, just so I could be up
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to date. And boy, did I have a lot?
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A lot to read. There is a lot going on in San
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Francisco and I'm personally, I know you wanted to make it a
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state. It is a state podcast but the
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model of San Francisco applies here to San Diego as well.
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So I do think it's worth kind of pointing out.
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What's going on up there. Yeah we were kind of talking
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about before we hopped on tonight about how for so long
00:01:14
San Francisco has enjoy this sort of faux bragging rights of
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well, this is how progressivism is done and look at upgrade our
00:01:23
city is look at all these wonderful things that we're
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doing and we're soft on crime. And I think it's all.
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We're going to really talk about tonight and get into it.
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And statistics were going to watch some videos, all the
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chickens have basically come home to roost when it's come to
00:01:40
San Francisco. Everything just came absolutely
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crashing down covid, their stance on covid and the
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reluctance to reopen and it has strict.
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They got with covid. Absolutely.
00:01:52
Contributed to how bad it got up in San Francisco.
00:01:54
And you're just telling me a story you were recently, I've
00:01:57
been to San Francisco recently. I think in the past year you've
00:01:59
been To San Francisco recently. What was your experience when
00:02:02
you were up in San Francisco? So the whole ride up there, you
00:02:06
just you think, you know what Sam, you know, you think I was
00:02:09
thinking Full House, right? Just trying to hope to see a
00:02:12
good nice San Francisco, but knowing people say it's gone,
00:02:16
two gone to you know to the side and driving through that City
00:02:22
come first off getting into San. Francisco has an eerie feeling
00:02:26
to begin with as you're going into the like, the island.
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Of San Francisco and you've got 9 cameras watching you.
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As you come in, we drove over to the Golden Gate Bridge because
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you know we wanted to walk the bridge and experience that the
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parking lot. I don't know if you like I said,
00:02:45
I don't know if you've been there recently, but the parking
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lot that you go to is scattered in broken glass.
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The entire not just one area, not just a corner.
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The entire parking lot has shattered grass a glass.
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Next to every A single carp spot because of how frequently people
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get their cars, broken into, and so, rather than having police
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out there, or any type of security, they have signs, they
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have signs letting you know, it's dangerous here.
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They have signs almost, like they've accepted how crime is
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and that they just want to let you know.
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Hey, Smash and grabs are pretty popular over here, you know,
00:03:22
just let you know like, that. That blew my mind that we
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weren't there wasn't. A presence of police at all.
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I mean, you had signs trying to, I don't know, scare off the
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criminals, but it was bad. And then not to mention, we
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drove into downtown. And I mean, I'm sure you've
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heard people refer to San Francisco as like, or even Los
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Angeles to like The Walking Dead and as funny as you know or
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urea, is that comparison is. It's kind of true when you get
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into the downtown area and you see people, unfortunately,
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Messed out on heroin on fentanyl, Whatever It, Whatever
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the drug of choice, is it just, it's lifeless, you know, and
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it's an eerie scary feeling the police.
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We talked to suggested, we get out of the city as quickly as we
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could. Like they did not say we should
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stay there long which I thought was concerning coming from the
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police. And I know we're going to talk
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about the police morale because that's a huge part of why crime
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is so common. And so You know, so every day at
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the levels, it's at, but yeah, it was a it was a pretty
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disturbing unfortunate experience because you can see
00:04:41
San Francisco in the potential. It has, you know, you can see
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the beautiful structures and everything that the city maybe
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once was I didn't get to experience a Cisco before covid,
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but man, after it it I wouldn't say it's as bad as Portland on,
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we've been to Portland, but that's, that's like the next
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level of what San Francisco could be.
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Its they forgotten about the city.
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I mean, after the protests, there was nothing to wrap that
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up. So San Francisco's kind of kind
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of has that Don't touch kind of you know, hands off approach to
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what's happening and I don't think that's a good thing.
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Yeah I was there last year we went to go see a baseball game
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and and there I will say, it's not all a war zone.
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There are certain areas that San Francisco keeps up because, you
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know, they still want people to come in.
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They still want tourism, but there was a different feeling to
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it. It was my first time in San
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Francisco sins covid and it's been my first time in San
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Francisco in the long time. We used to go a lot in college.
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Now this was I don't know, back around 2008 2000.
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Yeah. Around those 2004-2008 was when
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I was in college, I'm dating myself well and it was a
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beautiful city. We loved going to San Francisco
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and there is life to it. And it was, it was quirky and
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it's weird, but that's what you like about.
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Francisco. Is that it is a little out
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there. Yeah.
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There were homeless people but you know there once in a while
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and you expect that of any big city, no big cities going to
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have zero homeless people, but the first time we went back last
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year, It was the first time back after covid.
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There was a weird feeling and you kind of put a correctly like
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walking dead. I had this ominous.
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Lifeless feeling like you're walking down streets.
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Stores were all shuttered up and boarded up.
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There was nobody on the streets. It just felt very lifeless, like
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downtown felt very lifeless. There was no activity, it's just
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has this Eerie feeling to it. Thankfully, we just went in for
00:07:01
the baseball game that one day, we stopped in North Beach which
00:07:04
is still a nice area, but yeah, it's it's different.
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It has a different feeling to it right now and I think you see
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the videos of the tenderloin and you see the videos of what's
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going on with the homeless and how bad it's gotten with
00:07:20
fentanyl and the drugs, and you've seen the videos of
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Michael shellenberger talking to homeless, people who say, look,
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it's easier for me to just stay on the street.
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And get paid money because San Francisco literally gives
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homeless people cash to stay on the street or be on the street
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and he says well why would I go anywhere else?
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They give me money to say on the street it's enough for me to buy
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drugs, I can buy some food and it's cheaper.
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I don't have to pay rent to set up a tent down here in this park
00:07:49
right outside the cat. Oh, that was the other thing I
00:07:51
noticed when you drive past City Hall in San Francisco, it's just
00:07:57
all tense. It's like it.
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Just they used to be this beautiful area of city hall.
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Now, it's just surrounded by Tent City.
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So it's gotten. It's overrun to the point where
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I think they've lost control and yeah, I agree that it's become
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the model that they want for California and all the cities.
00:08:21
But now it's become a bad Omen of what's.
00:08:23
What happens when you go too far left in a lot of these cities
00:08:27
and what they're going to do? We're going to look at the
00:08:29
numbers and see how bad it's gotten.
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I want to talk about first. This article that sort of, is
00:08:35
really the one that made the rounds was.
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It's actually from the San Francisco Chronicle, which is
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interesting in the title of is cities are struggling in San
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Francisco. Could be in for the biggest Doom
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Loop of all. Now, it's funny that this
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actually came from The San Francisco Chronicle itself that
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they actually called themselves out maybe they're that
00:08:56
self-aware in San Francisco Chronicle.
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If people don't know if they don't read it very far left
00:09:02
paper, it's probably farther left in like New York Times.
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It starts off a doom Loop is a noun, a scenario in which one -
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development causes another - development, which then makes
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the first problem worse, a vicious cycle.
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This is how San Francisco could die.
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Interconnected forces. Trap the city and economic
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freefall, workers, remain primarily remote office space,
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that's empty, businesses shutter mass transit, sharply reduced or
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even bankrupt. Make it even harder for low and
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middle, wage income workers who enable restaurants and small
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businesses to operate. Causing major budget, shortfalls
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from declining tax revenue, that imperiled, numerous city
00:09:39
services, trigger Mass, layoffs, of city workers and Shred the
00:09:41
social safety, net, all of, which caused more people to
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leave. Goes on to keep talking about
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it. I mean, that's a pretty good
00:09:50
summation right off the bat of everything that's going wrong
00:09:53
with San Francisco. It is sort of this Doom Loop of
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one thing after another. And now it's just in a downward
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spiral, right? Yeah, I read, I read that
00:10:04
article. You're referencing and I
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believe, somewhere at the bottom, it's, there's a quote
00:10:08
that says, some believe, current conditions present an
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opportunity to reimagine to reimage or Imagine the city, but
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the problem is that their Solutions are the same people
00:10:21
that created the problems in the first place.
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So it's like the same people coming out and chair, you know,
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champing. Oh, we know we need to do reform
00:10:28
reform reform. This that this are the very
00:10:31
people who created the landscape that they're suffering it.
00:10:34
So, I mean, I'm pretty sure that's the definition of
00:10:36
insanity trying the same thing over and over expecting
00:10:39
different results, and it and again it speaks to that a
00:10:42
vicious cycle, you know? It's like this.
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It did. Yeah.
00:10:47
Vicious cycle is a good way to put it article.
00:10:50
Goes on to say, though many American cities are struggling
00:10:53
in the wake of covid, San Francisco's, perhaps in the
00:10:56
greatest Peril of the mall. The city is heavily reliant on
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technology and other knowledge Industries, and lend themselves
00:11:02
to remote work. And there's little evidence that
00:11:03
employees will return to office has more than two or three days
00:11:06
a week. And I like I had mentioned, it
00:11:09
does downtown has this weird feeling and it's very evident.
00:11:13
I mean the it the go to do the eye test.
00:11:15
Downtown San Francisco, there's nobody down there.
00:11:19
May be the most people you're going to get in downtown San
00:11:21
Francisco. At any point, could be for A
00:11:24
Warrior's game or for the, like a Giants game, but other than
00:11:27
that, like, you're not seeing the numbers that it was in
00:11:31
downtown. And that's, I mean, I think
00:11:34
that's happening across the country commercial real estate
00:11:37
ever since covid in the whole room work from home thing but
00:11:40
San Francisco is really gotten bad and Thanks to San Francisco.
00:11:46
All those Tech Bros and Tech girls who make a lot of money
00:11:50
move down to places like San Diego, made housing, more
00:11:52
unaffordable. So thanks for that, San
00:11:55
Francisco. See it bleeds out into the rest
00:11:57
of the state. It doesn't just stay contained
00:11:58
in San Francisco. No, it absolutely does bleed.
00:12:02
Yeah, absolutely. But pop up, I'm just trying to
00:12:06
see what it's bigger. If you want to read the whole
00:12:08
article, as always. I put the article in the show
00:12:11
notes, so you can go read it for yourself.
00:12:14
But was here a city leadership has yet to pass any magic major
00:12:17
legislation to support significant changes to transform
00:12:20
the city, Ted Egon, the city's Chief Economist believes that
00:12:23
the likely scenarios that the forces of market capitalism, or
00:12:26
right, to ship ideas, such as office to housing conversions.
00:12:29
For example, can't be done quickly or at a big enough scale
00:12:33
to make a difference. He argued, we need an element of
00:12:36
modesty in San Francisco. There's a tradition of grand and
00:12:38
British Grand Ambitions and I think we need rather than
00:12:41
promoting a Grand Vision, we should let nature.
00:12:43
Take its course. Well, not going off the rails.
00:12:46
Wow. There's actually someone
00:12:48
advocating for free market capitalism in San Francisco.
00:12:51
That's interesting weird to hear, and I think that the
00:12:55
depth, but then it's a, the San Francisco Controllers Office,
00:13:01
estimated last November that the city could lose nearly 200
00:13:04
million per year in property, taxes by 2000.
00:13:07
This is the really important number that I want everybody to
00:13:09
Remember by 2028 in a worst-case scenario, where office vacancy
00:13:12
remains High. Hi, a 35% Plunge in office,
00:13:15
property, Revenue overall. The city is forecasting, a seven
00:13:19
hundred and twenty eight million dollar deficit over the next,
00:13:21
two, fiscal years. And as much as 1.2 billion
00:13:25
annual deficit by 2028, that can be a lot of cuts to city
00:13:29
services. So let's talk about that for a
00:13:32
second. We're both I would say fiscally
00:13:36
conservative, I don't know, maybe we line up the same way
00:13:41
libertarian wise on terms of Economics and how much
00:13:45
government intervention should be in someone's life?
00:13:50
This is one thing that I see and it just to me.
00:13:55
This is definitely the chickens coming home to roost, where you
00:14:00
push the city, to the brink of failure because of the mass
00:14:05
amount of social programs that you put out there on the backs
00:14:09
of taxes. And then the minute those taxes
00:14:12
start to evacuate you've overextended yourself.
00:14:16
Now, you have no way to pay for other social service.
00:14:18
All these welfare programs, the homeless guy sitting on the
00:14:21
street, that Michael schoenberg's, talking to him,
00:14:23
making $800 a month, it all catches up to you sooner or
00:14:26
later, right? So what's your thought on the
00:14:29
fact that there's going to be almost a billion dollars in
00:14:32
deficit for the next couple of years?
00:14:35
Yeah, like you said, everything is theoretical until it's put to
00:14:38
practice. And then once it's put to
00:14:40
practice you start, To see the results and the results are not
00:14:42
what they wrote on paper or what they thought would be the
00:14:46
results. And so yeah, it's one of those
00:14:50
things kind of like you were saying, you mean all this, all
00:14:52
these far far left, championed policies, the rhetoric on
00:14:57
defend, the police, you know, and the way that the police are
00:15:00
practically hated in San Francisco yet, they're yelled at
00:15:04
for not being efficient enough, while having shortages and
00:15:08
staff. I mean it's again every part of
00:15:11
San Francisco's economy has this vicious cycle, like built into
00:15:15
it because it was championed by ideology rather than
00:15:20
practicality. And what's realistic and kind
00:15:23
like the guy was saying like, where is the natural course of
00:15:26
San Francisco. Well, we don't know, it's all
00:15:28
been, it's all been hyped up and all this fluff to where it's
00:15:32
like, you don't actually know what San Francisco's capable of
00:15:34
because it's just rotting from the lack of actual good
00:15:38
governance to produce. Good paying jobs or to produce
00:15:43
clean streets. I mean, it's it all it all feeds
00:15:48
into itself. So yeah.
00:15:50
I mean it's It's why I think it's one of those reasons that I
00:15:55
look at when I think why balance in governance is important,
00:15:59
especially here in the United States.
00:16:01
You don't have people that are physically, you know, concerned
00:16:05
and more, you know. Okay.
00:16:06
Well, how does this play out over?
00:16:08
You know, five ten years, right? I mean their terms may not even
00:16:11
be that long but that's how you have to look at these things.
00:16:14
What happens after I leave, right?
00:16:16
Because these people only care about their term in and then
00:16:18
they run to the next position and then leave the Harrogate
00:16:23
policies that they thought were good behind.
00:16:25
And it's like, there needs to be a commitment to the actual, you
00:16:31
know, stability and sustaining the sustainability of the city,
00:16:34
and everyone's using San Francisco as like, a stepping
00:16:38
stone politically without taking responsibility.
00:16:43
Yeah, and I think it's a great lesson especially for the rest
00:16:49
of California because when you look at how much Of Sacramento
00:16:53
politics are run by Bay Area, politicians.
00:16:56
It's a great lesson for the rest of California who is also facing
00:17:00
a Whatsit 22 billion dollar deficit.
00:17:04
That what's the old saying that pigs?
00:17:08
Get slaughtered Hogs, get fed or something.
00:17:11
Something like that. I can't remember.
00:17:12
If it's Hogs get fed or pigs, get slaughtered something like
00:17:15
that. Basically, the meaning of it is
00:17:17
is that when you overindulge when times are good, You end up
00:17:23
going to slaughter and and it all goes to ruin and I think
00:17:28
California is a perfect example of that.
00:17:29
And it's something that maybe free-market economists and
00:17:33
conservatives and fiscal, concerns been screaming for
00:17:35
years, which is sure you can in the best of times when the
00:17:40
economy is good, everything's going great.
00:17:43
And everything's working at Max Capacity.
00:17:45
In your bilking, the taxpayer for every single dollar, you can
00:17:50
sure you can brag that you Have all these social services and we
00:17:53
give out all this money and we do X, Y, and Z and look at how
00:17:56
much the government does. But you're, you're teetering on
00:18:00
the edge. So precariously that the minute
00:18:04
something goes bad. And in this case and Francisco,
00:18:07
a whole bunch of things went bad really quickly, that it all
00:18:12
comes crashing down. It's almost like if you look at
00:18:15
on a personal level, When people are, when things are going good
00:18:19
for somebody, they're making good money.
00:18:21
Everything's going great, your spending money to go out to nice
00:18:23
dinners. You're giving your friends gifts
00:18:25
and stuff like that. You're not worried about the
00:18:27
consequences then all of a sudden you wake up one day and
00:18:30
you lose your job and your income is cut in half.
00:18:33
Now you can't go out to dinner. You've overextended yourself.
00:18:36
You have a car payment, that's way too much.
00:18:38
You mortgaged the house. You can't afford.
00:18:41
Its I mean, it goes down to the personal level, it goes to the
00:18:44
city level, and it goes to the state level.
00:18:45
When you overextend yourself, these You're eventually going to
00:18:48
have a deficit because you can't afford it and I hope it's a
00:18:53
lesson to San Francisco. They're going to have to do some
00:18:56
really hard belt-tightening to figure out what gets cut.
00:19:00
There's going to be a lot of Social Services and a lot of
00:19:03
these government welfare programs in San.
00:19:05
Francisco are going to get cut as a result of the fact that
00:19:09
this deficit is looming. I mean, 728 million, 1.2
00:19:14
billion. Those are huge numbers for a
00:19:16
city to deal with right out of the, on top of the fact that
00:19:19
they're also trying to get more funding for police to keep the
00:19:25
crime down which we're going to get into.
00:19:28
As well. The other thing I want to talk
00:19:30
about and this is one of these things, that speaking of
00:19:35
deficits one of our favorite state, senator Scott, weiner has
00:19:39
been going on and on and on about the fact that bar if you
00:19:43
don't know what part is Bay Area Rapid Transit.
00:19:46
It's basically like light trains that making their way in and out
00:19:48
of the city it's been struggling.
00:19:52
It's been really bad for. It's been down 40% of
00:19:56
pre-pandemic levels. 28 percent down for downtown exits.
00:20:01
The transit service budget forecasts show an unexpected,
00:20:05
300 million dollar deficit by 2026 as a result.
00:20:09
The coming years could see widespread layoffs and services
00:20:11
Cuts including shuttered station Long Waits at remain stations
00:20:15
during weekdays and to weekend Services if bark dies or most
00:20:20
cup, be cut back dramatically, commuters would be sorely,
00:20:22
challenged office of tenant could fall further as could
00:20:27
excursions into the city. So again, another Doom Loop of
00:20:32
people won't go into the city. What's your take on BART?
00:20:37
Should we save Bart? Should we bail out Bartow,
00:20:40
that's the other thing I want. There's a ballot measure that
00:20:43
they're contemplating for 2026 to raise more tax revenue to
00:20:46
keep bar alive. Let me add that stipulation in
00:20:49
what your thoughts? Should we try to keep our alive,
00:20:52
if it's not working I mean it's A Hard Sell when you look at the
00:20:57
statistics and how often it's used and how, you know and and
00:21:01
how the trends are not positive and not going upward, you know
00:21:04
if there's a huge push for public transportation to be the
00:21:07
way of the future and that would make sense if that was the trend
00:21:11
of the population and it's still not.
00:21:13
So it's again, one of these projects that they've invested
00:21:18
so much into without understanding or even
00:21:22
envisioning kind of what it's going to.
00:21:24
Over time and now they're, they're running into the exact
00:21:28
problem they should have foreseen, which is yeah, you're
00:21:30
not going to have that much activity on in transportation.
00:21:35
So, I mean, what is the alternative look like if they
00:21:41
don't, if they don't bail it out, is it just shut down?
00:21:44
And no longer use or used or I mean I guess but I would find it
00:21:51
hard press that any sort of public transit in California.
00:21:54
Just going to go belly up, I would imagine they're probably
00:21:58
gonna make a plea to the federal government to bail them out,
00:22:01
through some sort of legislation or something.
00:22:06
From the Department of Transportation will come in and
00:22:08
bail them out and give them some sort of low interest loan.
00:22:12
But this is another issue where again in terms of if we're if
00:22:19
we're really going to get into the philosophy of it, free
00:22:22
market capitalism wins again it's basically Ali, undefeated
00:22:26
if people are not using the service anymore.
00:22:29
Yes. The service is going to suffer.
00:22:31
Yes. There's not going to be as much
00:22:32
money. Either you figure out how to
00:22:35
make the service better or you're going to have to cut
00:22:39
costs so that you can keep the service alive and I guess that's
00:22:44
the difference between people like you and I who believe hey
00:22:47
the free market says people aren't going into the city as
00:22:49
much anymore. It combined with the fact that
00:22:53
people don't like using bar anymore.
00:22:55
You hear the stories of part is disgusting.
00:22:59
There's feces and urine all over the place.
00:23:02
There's people there's cry. Rhyme, it's not safe.
00:23:04
People don't feel safe, riding Bart, combine that altogether
00:23:08
people don't want to ride. It's not a good service anymore.
00:23:10
Like it used to be. You would think.
00:23:14
Free markets. Say okay, it's got a fail.
00:23:17
We got to move on from Bart, but you have people like Scott
00:23:20
weiner who are not free market capitalist, who believe more in
00:23:25
a state takeover of everything, believe that it is a human,
00:23:30
right? That there should be public
00:23:31
transit. Now, is it a right to have
00:23:35
public transit? I don't know.
00:23:37
I I certainly don't think it's a right to have public transit but
00:23:41
maybe that's where they're coming at.
00:23:42
This is that it's not free market and its service.
00:23:45
It's a public Rye or a human right?
00:23:48
That they get public transit. So I mean, this is, this is the
00:23:51
type of stuff I used to run into on the speech and debate team in
00:23:54
college, right. People they make the argument.
00:23:57
So like this human rights, you're against this your against
00:24:02
human rights. Yeah, and there's virtually no
00:24:05
room for discussion because your stance is anti Human Rights.
00:24:10
Yeah. When you're genuinely looking
00:24:12
out for the sustainability of the city, you're looked at as
00:24:15
being, you know, oh, why do you hate poor people?
00:24:18
It's like that. That's how do we can't even have
00:24:22
a conversation if that's the rhetoric, but that's the
00:24:24
rhetoric that, you know, people like Scott wiener Champion.
00:24:28
So it's it's, it's a real life for anybody questioning that
00:24:34
System, you're already at a disadvantage because of how they
00:24:36
framed the entire argument, right?
00:24:40
And they do a very good job of kind of framing it as in an
00:24:43
emotional stance. That's what the left always
00:24:45
does, is they frame things from an emotional stance of your, you
00:24:51
don't want them to have public. You don't want poor people to
00:24:53
have public transit. Howdy, how dare you?
00:24:55
How are they going to get to their jobs?
00:24:57
Are they going to feed their family?
00:25:01
and you know, you could make the same emotional argument from the
00:25:05
right as well and say If you're taxing them too much and cost
00:25:10
too much money to live in in the Bay Area because of the
00:25:13
regulations, because of the taxes because of the housing
00:25:15
affordability. And because of the zoning, in
00:25:18
all that stuff you have already, put them in a bad position where
00:25:21
they can't afford to have a three hundred dollar car
00:25:25
payment, and be able to drive where they want and have the
00:25:28
freedom that they want because of the stuff that you've put in
00:25:31
place. You've made it less affordable
00:25:34
but you're right. Yeah, I just say or even being
00:25:37
I'm open to new taxes, right? If he were prospering and felt,
00:25:41
you know, felt Financial well okay, yeah.
00:25:43
I mean, you know, it's not, it's not a, there's many worse things
00:25:46
we can invest in. So it's not like, it's so, it
00:25:50
should be gone. But when the population is
00:25:52
struggling in general? Yeah, no one's going to want to
00:25:55
see more taxes to a dying transit system.
00:25:59
I mean, that's just the reality of trying to survive under
00:26:02
current taxes. Hmm.
00:26:05
So we, we want to touch a little bit.
00:26:07
Upon crime, which is obviously a huge issue in San Francisco.
00:26:14
I had sent you this article title.
00:26:16
Yes, the sfpd has a staffing crisis, but that's just the
00:26:20
beginning. And this was interesting and one
00:26:22
of the first paragraphs of talks about in recent years, the
00:26:25
average amount of time, it takes an officer to show up to a
00:26:28
critical situation. Has on average, grown
00:26:30
dramatically worse from 6 minutes and 25 seconds at the
00:26:34
start of 2016, 28 minutes and 40.
00:26:37
Seven seconds by the end of 2020 to second and third tier calls
00:26:42
have slowed to from 17 minutes, 17:53 minutes respectively.
00:26:47
So that's second and third, tier 17 minutes.
00:26:50
Third-tier the show up in an hour in 2016 to 32 minutes for
00:26:55
second tier and 73 minutes last year.
00:26:57
So obviously there is a staffing shortage One Prophet, excuse.
00:27:03
Why? These respond times have slowed?
00:27:05
It could be because the police department is rapidly losing
00:27:08
officers by sfpd Zone, Reckoning, its Talia full Duty
00:27:11
Officers drop from 18, 1872 in 2017 to 1514 at present.
00:27:21
Make no mistake, Staffing is a serious problem with the
00:27:23
department. So data reveals, its not only
00:27:25
problem, there's a quantity issue, but there's a quality
00:27:28
issue too, and that's much harder to fix.
00:27:32
So yeah, that was a that was a very interesting article.
00:27:35
I think it's stated something like the San Francisco.
00:27:38
Police department is Fielding around. 40% less calls.
00:27:43
They simply can't reach feel ya. 40% less.
00:27:46
Wow. So they can't even, they can't
00:27:48
even address the incoming calls to begin with and have to cut
00:27:52
down on, on the overall number. That's that's and that's that's
00:27:58
horrifying. When you look at these number
00:27:59
differences, like every second every minute matters, you know,
00:28:05
you're calling the emergency line.
00:28:06
Like, you know, when you see, oh, it's just a couple more
00:28:08
minutes late. That's a big deal when they,
00:28:11
when they're measured on their Sometimes in minutes.
00:28:14
It's, that's a big increase in waiting when you're looking for
00:28:19
emergency help. So, yeah, I mean it doesn't, it
00:28:22
doesn't seem like much but six minutes to almost nine minutes.
00:28:28
Those three minutes could be life-saving.
00:28:31
Absolutely. You know, if someone's breaking
00:28:33
into your home by three minutes could be the difference between
00:28:36
life and death. I mean, I don't Advocate that
00:28:40
you wait for the police to be your personal security when it
00:28:43
comes to your own home but for some people in San Francisco.
00:28:47
Yeah, they do wait for the police to be their personal
00:28:49
security. Three minutes is a big deal you
00:28:52
know if there's someone in your house and you're trying to hide
00:28:55
from them and you trying to get away from in 33 minutes is a
00:28:59
long time or any other issues. Yeah.
00:29:03
Yeah. Time slows down when you're when
00:29:04
you're in that kind of scenario and so every Second is life or I
00:29:10
mean, it could be life or death like the snow.
00:29:11
No joke at all. Yeah.
00:29:14
And I think the article also stated that San Francisco San
00:29:17
Francisco. Arrest rates are the lowest in
00:29:20
California. Yeah, I was just looking at that
00:29:23
San Francisco. Arrest rates are low the lowest
00:29:25
in California by a long shot and over the past couple of years,
00:29:29
as the pandemic hit the arrest rate dropped at the number of
00:29:31
available officers to creased. So let's say yeah you can see
00:29:36
the arrest rate when all the way down. to like, 40 doctoring
00:29:40
cops. Not just not just like, oh, it's
00:29:43
like, it's all the stats are tanking.
00:29:46
You look at it, it's like 20 21. And it just goes, Bonk Bonk as
00:29:51
soon as it hits 2020 and the pandemic and riots, it just goes
00:29:55
right down the tubes. It's system.
00:30:00
It's am trying to find the rate at which violent crimes are
00:30:03
solved. Has dropped along with the
00:30:05
Staffing sis 2019. So that has also gone down
00:30:12
property climb. I mean it goes on and on, and on
00:30:15
for so many different stats and we'll post it in the show notes
00:30:19
so you can kind of look at it yourself, but I do want to take
00:30:23
a quick watch of London breed if you don't know who London breed
00:30:28
is. She is the mayor of San
00:30:33
Francisco and she's been kind of under the gun a little bit
00:30:38
because Because of how bad San Francisco is got.
00:30:40
And she's try to moderate her position and I listen, we're
00:30:46
going to watch this quick little video.
00:30:47
This is from ABC 7, which is the local news channel up there.
00:30:53
So let's pull that up to 22. On the San Francisco, mayor of
00:31:03
London breed jumping to conclusions, speculating and
00:31:07
painting, San Francisco and a very negative light and what I
00:31:11
saw in San Francisco. This past weekend was something
00:31:13
completely different certainly that has run into repeated
00:31:18
problems with his reputation since the start of the pandemic
00:31:21
from crime to the economy to Bringing tourists back tonight,
00:31:25
we get to the bottom of the issues, plaguing the city by the
00:31:28
bay and the solutions. It needs to find its way
00:31:30
forward, good evening. My mom a date and I'm Dan.
00:31:33
Ashley, thank you for joining us.
00:31:34
ABC, 7 news reporter. Tim, John's wanted to get those
00:31:37
critical answers from the city's top official.
00:31:39
Yeah. Tim joins us live.
00:31:41
Now in The Newsroom with more from his talk, with the mayor,
00:31:43
Tim, yeah, Dan. I'm a mayor breed and I talked
00:31:46
about a variety of topics, including clock crime and Public
00:31:49
Safety. The city's reputation around the
00:31:51
country and her plans to revitalize, our local economy
00:31:55
and get downtown moving once again for me San Francisco.
00:31:59
Represents hope it represents opportunity T one-on-one,
00:32:02
sit-down with San Francisco. Just going to make this comment.
00:32:05
It has really nothing to do about politics.
00:32:08
I don't know who did the lighting on this interview but
00:32:10
it's got to be some of the worst lighting, like in the dark.
00:32:14
Yeah. They're like, sitting in the
00:32:15
dark. If you're listening on the audio
00:32:17
you can't really see it. Like they're in like this old
00:32:20
dark room. It looks like you could be in
00:32:22
like a creepy old library and the lighting on London, breed
00:32:24
does not look good either. It gives her like A lot of bags
00:32:28
under eyes. Definitely not a flattering
00:32:31
start to the interview, are London, breed the city making
00:32:36
headlines. Recently for all the wrong
00:32:38
reasons from the murder of tech executive Bob, we to the closing
00:32:42
of a Whole Foods and an ongoing drug crisis.
00:32:45
I asked the mayor, what she's doing to keep the city safe.
00:32:48
Our overall crime rates are down, our clearance rate in San
00:32:52
Francisco, for homicides, is that 85% the rest of the
00:32:56
country's average? Courage is at 60%, they are
00:32:59
breed points to the extra funding.
00:33:00
She helped push through for the San Francisco police department
00:33:03
and says, Public. Safety is one of her top
00:33:05
concerns. What now all of a sudden it's
00:33:10
one of her top concerns, but in 2020, London breed was, was
00:33:16
singing a different tune. She was singing all about
00:33:19
defund, the police. She got swept up in the whole
00:33:21
BLM riots and protests which we saw in San Francisco and I think
00:33:27
she had to eat crow a little bit.
00:33:29
I think she had to kind of come back and say maybe we shouldn't
00:33:32
defund the police after all this, right?
00:33:38
yeah, that's According to the latest FBI data, San Francisco's
00:33:44
property, crime rates are among the highest Nationwide.
00:33:48
However, for homicides per capita, it rains close to the
00:33:51
bottom among major cities often times the pr matters more than
00:33:55
the reality whether we like it or not.
00:33:58
Are you worried about the reputation that our city is
00:34:01
getting both domestically and even abroad?
00:34:03
That answer was yes. And breed says the city is
00:34:06
taking steps to confront, this perception, head-on by spreading
00:34:09
more positive information Nationwide about Francisco by
00:34:12
spreading more, positive propaganda Nationwide.
00:34:15
What like fix the issue when you need to Sprint.
00:34:19
Like let's just tell everybody, we're doing great, we're not.
00:34:22
It's like those commercials you see advertising, like people
00:34:26
come to California, like the tourism for California.
00:34:29
It's like they show everyone on the beach and like having a good
00:34:32
time and they're at Disneyland or everyone's like, oh, dreams
00:34:35
come true in California. And then it's like, well don't
00:34:38
just don't show downtown LA or San Francisco or San Diego.
00:34:42
Don't show those areas show the beach.
00:34:46
We are looking at launching a campaign to get people to San
00:34:52
Francisco. We're hoping to be able to
00:34:53
launch it in May or June. We also discussed her plans to
00:34:57
revitalize the city's. Crucial downtown core office,
00:35:00
vacancies are currently sitting at an all-time high of around
00:35:02
30% and Tech layoffs. Have hit the local economy.
00:35:05
Heart Reed says with hybrid work, and not likely to go away
00:35:09
the city. Needs to reinvent its Central
00:35:11
Business. Tricked.
00:35:12
She wants to attract new Industries, like Ai and biotech.
00:35:16
Into the City and convert, unused office, space into
00:35:19
housing and cultural venues. What we're doing is we're trying
00:35:23
to make it. It's really hard to change
00:35:26
office space into housing. It's really hard.
00:35:31
Yeah, it's really expensive to do so it's it's not as easy as
00:35:36
just slapping some walls on offices.
00:35:38
Be like, okay there's your apartment.
00:35:40
I mean you got to talk about the different needs of an of an
00:35:44
apartment. You got to talk about heating,
00:35:46
independent cooling systems showers toilets.
00:35:50
I mean, it's just, you got to gut a whole building and start
00:35:54
all over again. And that's on top of whether the
00:35:57
regulations in San Francisco and with the state allow you to even
00:36:01
do. So such a thing, official
00:36:03
opening. Yeah, go ahead and say, Yes
00:36:07
zoning issues. I mean, they're probably
00:36:09
tripping over their own feed based on their own zoning laws.
00:36:11
So, it's like there's a lot to be done before you just slap a
00:36:16
slap home on office. Like it does.
00:36:19
It's not as easy as it's not as easy as they're making it sound
00:36:23
so, To convert office space for uses that people want that
00:36:29
people need other than office space and make our policies
00:36:34
different than what they are now.
00:36:35
No, easy task in a city, that's often criticized for getting in
00:36:39
its own way. Do you think we have the
00:36:40
political willpower in the city to do that?
00:36:42
I know you and your opposite, a Advocates of the things actually
00:36:46
there. But you do have your critics
00:36:47
were supervisors. I hope so because the money that
00:36:52
is generated by mostly downtown in San Cisco is the same money
00:36:56
that many of those critics want to use for many of our social
00:37:00
service programs. And right now, our city is
00:37:02
facing a 787 hundred eighty million dollar budget deficit.
00:37:07
Read, says there's no doubt that San Francisco is currently in a
00:37:10
transition period, but she rejects the notion of the city
00:37:13
and Trina permanent downward spiral, especially given the
00:37:16
concentration of wealth and talent in our region for her the
00:37:20
city, by the Bay will always have its magic.
00:37:23
People will have constant. Lee written the obituary of San
00:37:27
Francisco and I say to them, you better write in pencil because
00:37:31
you're going to have to rewrite rewrite.
00:37:33
What happens? As a result of what we're going
00:37:35
to see change in our city, but more importantly, you're going
00:37:39
to eat your words. Now, another important thing so
00:37:43
that was London, breed painting quite a Rosy picture about it.
00:37:48
She's got to I mean she's the mayor, she's got a paint a Rosy
00:37:51
picture, she got a tough uphill battle I don't think She
00:37:55
expected that she would be the mayor of San Francisco in the
00:37:58
middle of all this crime, homelessness.
00:38:00
Oh, and on top of a pandemic, that completely spiraled out of
00:38:04
control, I don't think she was ready for that.
00:38:08
Although she did say, some stats about crime and I found this
00:38:14
site neighborhood Scout. I swear, I only one that I could
00:38:17
find like up-to-date kind of data about it, did you know,
00:38:25
That out of total crime index. San Francisco is a to, with 100
00:38:32
being the safest So, it's safer than only two percent of u.s.
00:38:37
neighborhoods. Wow, so already off the bat, not
00:38:45
incredibly safe place to be looking for it.
00:38:49
Does put it into perspective, crime, rate per 1 residents
00:38:55
5.39, that's about violent crimes 4390.
00:38:59
One property 39. Let's see crime rate comparison
00:39:08
of violent crime, comparison per 1 residents, It's
00:39:11
California, is at 4.4 and San Francisco's at 5.39.
00:39:17
The national median is 4, so it's already worse than the
00:39:21
national median. Chances of becoming a victim of
00:39:24
violent crime won in 86, and San Francisco one in 227 in
00:39:28
California, so pretty close there.
00:39:33
See, I'm trying to see what else we have here.
00:39:36
Oh this is a good one property crime compared to four per 1000
00:39:41
residents. California is twenty three point
00:39:44
four seven with the national median. 19.
00:39:46
Are you ready for the San? Francisco number.
00:39:50
Oh my God 48.9 for that is It's really bad chances of becoming a
00:40:01
victim of property crime in San Francisco 1 in 20.
00:40:06
One in 20. Yeah one in 20 is your chance of
00:40:11
being a victim of property crime in California.
00:40:15
You could literally grab just writing, like piazza's, you
00:40:18
know, drain down the street, grab a group of people and
00:40:21
chances are a couple of them have had their freaking.
00:40:25
That that's crazy one, in 20 in California is one in 43.
00:40:30
So, When in 20 is San Francisco. Yes, one-and-twenty is San
00:40:37
Francisco. Okay, San Francisco crimes per
00:40:40
square mile. Okay, the national media is 26.8
00:40:48
California. Sits at 83.
00:40:52
Are you ready for the San Francisco number?
00:40:54
I don't think way. Why don't you guess what?
00:40:57
The San Francisco number is oh God.
00:41:00
California is 83. What 9390, nope. 97.
00:41:13
No, you're still way off. You want to know the number?
00:41:20
Yeah, it is 938. We never got 38 crimes per
00:41:30
square mile in San Francisco. Dude, significant number, that's
00:41:38
a huge number from 83 and the national median is 26.8.
00:41:43
That's how bad it is in San Francisco.
00:41:46
So just some funds that's like fun, that's like daggering
00:41:52
that's like yeah that puts it in perspective.
00:41:57
Yeah, there's another speaking of crime, there is another
00:42:00
video. I do want to show this is
00:42:03
Michael shellenberger on with Chris.
00:42:07
Cuomo of all people. Chris Cuomo found a landing spot
00:42:11
on a different station. Called news Nation.
00:42:15
Michael shellenberger, who's been?
00:42:17
I think one of the better vocal critics, of California, and he
00:42:21
wrote The Great Books, A Friend friend, sicko, great book.
00:42:24
If you want to read it, he was my personal choice for governor,
00:42:28
the last race. But, you know, for whatever that
00:42:31
amounts for, let's hear him talk to Chris Cuomo about San
00:42:38
Francisco. They need to do this.
00:42:43
I think they are embarrassed, as you may know, Governor Newsom
00:42:46
has been in Florida video of him at a elementary or preschool
00:42:51
singing songs. I don't think that's a good
00:42:53
look. When what's going on in
00:42:55
Saturday, in San Francisco is what we've been documenting
00:42:58
opener drug use. We discovered a young woman,
00:43:01
having a psychotic break down screaming.
00:43:03
We thought she was being raped. We called 911, they said they
00:43:07
were going to send somebody. They never did.
00:43:09
This is a typical experience, we have We discover people, I
00:43:12
discovered a naked young woman, the 911 the never came.
00:43:17
The situation is out of control. They don't have enough police,
00:43:19
they don't have enough doctors, they don't have enough nurses
00:43:22
and it's nobody's home at the top from the governor to the
00:43:26
mayor on down there. Not a poor City.
00:43:30
Why are they down so many cops and First Responders?
00:43:35
It's politics. I mean in 2020 mayor.
00:43:37
London breed said that she was going to defund the police
00:43:41
divert police funding to the African-American Community.
00:43:45
She had to reverse that as soon as crime started spiking, but
00:43:50
the police in San Francisco are tired of being blamed for things
00:43:54
that they didn't do. They didn't cause George Floyd's
00:43:57
death. In fact, the San Francisco
00:43:58
Police Department had been making strong gains in terms of
00:44:02
its own performance, in terms of reducing in, And so violence and
00:44:06
they just did want to be respected.
00:44:08
They didn't want to be yelled at or spit on our have feces and
00:44:11
urine thrown at them as they did in 2020 during black lives
00:44:13
matter protests. So the police are demoralized.
00:44:16
We lack 540 police officers. Only 10 came out of the police
00:44:20
academy things are only getting worse than fortunately.
00:44:23
I just want to emphasize that Maisie only 10 came out of the
00:44:27
San Francisco Police Department Academy San Francisco of all of
00:44:32
San Francisco. They could only get 10 people to
00:44:35
graduate from the academy. Which means the graph.
00:44:39
I mean, you, I would assume most of the people who go into the
00:44:41
police academy, the majority probably graduate and become
00:44:45
police officers. So, that means the number that
00:44:48
they probably even started with was still small less than 20.
00:44:52
That's unbelievable. That it's 10, then a shot.
00:44:58
It is, I mean, why would you please officer in San Francisco?
00:45:03
Oh yeah. When you've been for over a year
00:45:06
and a half when the Sentiment in the city has been defined the
00:45:09
police and you're all murderers, and you're racist.
00:45:12
And you're horrible people. Why would you want to be a
00:45:15
police officer in San Francisco? It's probably the worst job in
00:45:18
the world. So, yeah, that that stat is
00:45:22
astonishing when you're already at a 500 officer deficit from
00:45:27
1800. So only, we keep waiting for San
00:45:32
Francisco to hit bottom and it just never does the drugs become
00:45:35
contaminated, the drug dealers, get more violent, a baby
00:45:39
overdosed on fentanyl. A stillborn baby was found in a
00:45:42
porta potty Homicide a woman had her legs rotted and amputated.
00:45:46
I mean it's just the list of Horrors goes on and on, but I
00:45:49
think you're right to hold responsibility where it needs to
00:45:51
be held, which is with the governor with the mayor.
00:45:54
The president needs to be involved if necessary, but we
00:45:57
need to get people on the street to shut down the violence, the
00:46:00
assaults in the open air drug dealing.
00:46:02
Hey thank you for welcome. Chris Cuomo, you're very welcome
00:46:05
for watching that video. If you're listening on audio if
00:46:11
you can't see the video. The video is it looks like a war
00:46:15
zone. It looks like Iraq.
00:46:17
It's there is fires. Everything is destroyed graffiti
00:46:22
everywhere. I mean that does not look like
00:46:25
an American first world city. It's unbelievable.
00:46:28
When you watch that video and that's what Michael
00:46:30
shellenberger took himself, and you just look at that and go.
00:46:35
How is this happening in America?
00:46:37
How is this happening? And what Gavin Newsom likes to
00:46:39
brag about the fifth largest economy in the world?
00:46:43
Old and how great, and how fantastic California is when his
00:46:46
home city is literally in Decay and in just absolute a state of
00:46:52
chaos. Yeah.
00:46:55
You know what? Scares me about?
00:46:56
What you said. You said, you know, in the
00:46:58
beginning, it's like, do we let San Francisco kind of run its
00:47:02
natural course. You just kind of crash on its
00:47:04
own, but when you hear Michael's to say, you know, we just keep
00:47:08
thinking it's at its bottom and it just keeps getting worse.
00:47:12
Like that's actually a very Scary thing to hear, because if
00:47:16
there's no Rock Bottom in sight, that means it's going to become
00:47:20
more violent, more danger. He's like, your you haven't
00:47:24
plateaued and it can, it's gonna it can and is going to get worse
00:47:28
and that that I just what point is it too far gone?
00:47:33
I mean it's just crazy to about such a large city in this way
00:47:38
because of how many things are going bad in in such a wealthy.
00:47:43
The wealthy City. More?
00:47:45
Are we witnessing? The modern-day Detroit.
00:47:53
Is this, this entry is Detroit where a huge sector of the
00:47:58
American economy, resided in San Francisco.
00:48:02
They were the Golden City on the hill, that had more money than
00:48:08
it would, it would, it could do with and something happened.
00:48:13
And they all moved out and all the business moved out and the
00:48:18
social services dried-up crime, increased.
00:48:22
And this is what you're left with.
00:48:25
Is you have sort of a hollowed-out city.
00:48:27
So I think if you're thinking about that scary rock bottom,
00:48:34
San Francisco could become this, Century's Detroit, if you don't
00:48:38
do anything and just let it completely bottomed out where
00:48:43
people go back to San Francisco and go used to be beautiful.
00:48:47
Remember years ago, when there was Tech business and then all
00:48:50
the tech left and now we're stuck with this, and it's just
00:48:53
hollowed out buildings and no one wants to go there in the
00:48:55
crime is so bad. It may be that, you know, San
00:48:59
Francisco, maybe the new this century is Detroit.
00:49:03
Did you catch her? She said, she wants to bring in
00:49:06
technology companies and AI company.
00:49:08
You would think Silicon Valley being right there?
00:49:12
There would be an easy connection between silicon and
00:49:16
and San Francisco. But as of today, these companies
00:49:19
are trying to get out there trying to leave California.
00:49:22
They're not they're not trying to do business in San Francisco
00:49:24
anymore. So like you said, like there is
00:49:27
capital flight in many ways with this golden industry, realizing,
00:49:32
all right, we've Run. Our course.
00:49:34
Everything is going to shit. Let's move our head headquarters
00:49:37
and that's happening more than you would think so.
00:49:41
Yeah, that's a great analogy Detroit, this Generations
00:49:47
Detroit, because that's exactly what's happening and Industry is
00:49:51
just moving on. So what in terms of what Michael
00:49:55
shallenberger was saying, who has to step in?
00:49:58
Well, we got that news just yesterday, actually.
00:50:03
Governor Newsom directed, CHP National Guard to assist San
00:50:06
Francisco with handling of fentanyl crisis to do with many
00:50:12
bills. That would increase punishments.
00:50:13
For those selling fentanyl currently up are in Sacramento
00:50:16
one. That was actually I just posted
00:50:18
on my stories did not make it out of committee which would
00:50:21
have if they it's escaping me right now but it's about.
00:50:27
If you knowingly get caught selling Fentanyl And you know
00:50:32
it's Fenton all you do it again. You can be charged with
00:50:36
homicide. So, and it was a bipartisan
00:50:40
Bill. Our mayor, Todd Gloria actually
00:50:42
went up to Sacramento to advocate for that bill to be
00:50:46
passed and it got shot down and committing.
00:50:49
So our own politicians in Sacramento, did not back this
00:50:52
bill to make it harsher on fentanyl dealers.
00:50:58
When Gloria is on the side, it's crazy.
00:51:01
When Todd Gloria is on the side of Common Sense and actual
00:51:06
Solutions, you go. What world are we living in when
00:51:09
he's actually the same person? Yeah, yeah.
00:51:15
So they're they're going to be brave.
00:51:16
They haven't really said how much they're going to do.
00:51:18
Even I believe is the sheriff of that area said, we're not really
00:51:25
sure what National Guard is going to do, they're just going
00:51:27
to be in a supportive Part of roll.
00:51:30
It's gonna be weird saying National Guard walking around
00:51:32
San Francisco or Boston around San Francisco seat to me.
00:51:37
This is one of these strategies when All Is Lost that you just
00:51:42
you grab you grasp at. Hoping relief will come like San
00:51:45
Diego's doing it with you know trying to do what the cameras
00:51:48
trying and cameras everywhere. Because our our own City here
00:51:52
has failed addressing crime and has its own shortages and and
00:51:57
deficiencies. So So National Guard and CHP
00:52:00
stepping in is kind of like this last-ditch effort.
00:52:05
I mean I don't I don't really know what they're gonna they're
00:52:09
gonna do. I mean it's gonna look weird.
00:52:14
Yeah, it's I'm like uneasy about you sent me about him, sending
00:52:18
in really a branch of the military, into the city, into
00:52:23
the streets. Like I mean I know that's
00:52:27
priceless but the Optics are not going to look good for London
00:52:30
breeds propaganda mission of come to San Francisco where you
00:52:35
may get to meet our National Guard.
00:52:37
Geez, yeah, there's while they Patrol the streets for Fentanyl
00:52:41
and drug dealers to answer the question, we were talking about
00:52:45
before this is from another article.
00:52:46
I'll post in the show notes, converting offices to
00:52:51
residential housing is Says that it can take up to 87 permits
00:52:56
1000 days of meetings and five hundred thousand dollars in
00:52:59
fines to build residential housing projects.
00:53:03
So all right, it costs an estimated 100 dollars to
00:53:07
build one tiny home for the homeless up to 10 times more
00:53:10
than they are Bay Area and almost 1.2 million to build a
00:53:13
single unit of affordable housing.
00:53:15
So 1.2 just to build a single unit of affordable housing.
00:53:18
So how much do you have to sell it for before you can make a
00:53:21
profit? Yeah, exactly.
00:53:24
And again that's happening across the entire State.
00:53:26
You got black rock, you got these big hedge funds coming in
00:53:29
and swoop it up, all this affordable housing and and it
00:53:33
never was affordable to begin with.
00:53:35
I mean, that that's not anything built.
00:53:37
Today is not going to be under the current climate.
00:53:40
It's not going to be affordable, whatever that threshold even is.
00:53:45
Yeah, it seems like changes all the time.
00:53:49
Yeah, so so this is a different San Francisco Chronicle article.
00:53:53
All and as but if you were the state of California and you were
00:53:56
staring down a projected 22 million billion dollar budget
00:53:59
deficit. Would you invest your scarce
00:54:01
resources in San Francisco, which is repeatedly proven
00:54:05
itself unfit for such Investments by building a vast
00:54:08
inefficient bureaucracy. At the expense of taxpayers and
00:54:10
vulnerable residents article goes on to answer.
00:54:14
No, so even San Francisco Chronicle is being really harsh
00:54:21
on San Francisco. So so this is, this is another
00:54:27
good article for anybody who wants to kind of watch read it.
00:54:29
Like like, we were talking about you put in San Francisco
00:54:32
deficit. San Francisco crime problem,
00:54:34
you're going to find article after article of like, and
00:54:37
recent to that, like two days ago a week ago, like it's very
00:54:41
recent. So we've got a couple.
00:54:44
Yeah, they last. I've shot one killed.
00:54:46
Outside San Francisco night club last night.
00:54:49
Yeah, so it's just ongoing. We got a couple minutes.
00:54:53
It's left before the hour, so I guess the final question is that
00:54:57
the title of this episode? Should we let San Francisco
00:55:01
fail? Tough question.
00:55:11
It's a very tough question because there's people we're
00:55:14
talking about, right? There's people's lives and their
00:55:16
livelihood, they call San Francisco home.
00:55:18
You know, we look at it as a destructive machine up North,
00:55:21
but you know, people call that place their their home and so
00:55:25
you know, no, I don't want to see it fail but when it comes to
00:55:28
the industries and the really piss poor governance and
00:55:31
investment like, yeah, that shit that stuff should fail because
00:55:35
it will it will send hopefully away.
00:55:38
Wake up call to what the priorities of their electeds
00:55:42
are, you know, or do we want to pass a resolution telling the
00:55:45
police that they're all racist, or do we want to address
00:55:49
concrete plans, that can provide, you know, some type of
00:55:53
addressing the issue? But, yeah, I think, you know, I
00:55:57
don't think technology is dependent on Silicon silicon or
00:56:02
San Francisco anymore. So it's like, what are we?
00:56:06
And what would the state or the Federal?
00:56:08
A government be investing in other than their friends.
00:56:12
Yeah. So I mean I think natural course
00:56:15
is going to straighten things out and yeah, it's it's bad now.
00:56:20
It's not like it's not like getting things in order isn't
00:56:23
going to make it. but, you know, I don't know.
00:56:28
It's a tough situation. It's a scary one because I worry
00:56:31
the model of San Francisco is what's being championed here and
00:56:36
ironically our mayor being on the opposite side of San
00:56:40
Francisco. Comes back to San Diego,
00:56:42
advocates for San Francisco policies and then goes back to
00:56:45
San Fran, you know, it's like it's a cluster.
00:56:52
So my take on it is I think and you're correct.
00:57:00
It is nuanced. It's not easy to just go let it
00:57:03
fail. Let it go completely into Mad
00:57:05
Max territory and just turn into lawlessness.
00:57:09
This doesn't need to be escaped from San Francisco, where it's
00:57:11
just complete war zone, and, and all that, I think, There should
00:57:18
be an effort by to ensure the safety of the citizens.
00:57:23
I think that should be the bare minimum and I think if it does
00:57:26
require calling in the National Guard CHP and cracking down on
00:57:31
drug dealers and Fentanyl and getting homeless off the street,
00:57:35
that's what it should do. That's the bare minimum of what
00:57:38
government should do. Anyway, is Public Safety.
00:57:42
But outside of that, I worry that stuff like bar Program
00:57:49
Social Services. My concern is that if you get
00:57:53
bailed out, you'll never learn your lesson and San Francisco.
00:57:59
My fear is that if the federal government comes in or somehow,
00:58:03
California comes in and goes out, we're going to give you
00:58:05
this money bail you out. You can keep all your Social
00:58:09
Services. You don't have to do any Cuts or
00:58:11
anything like that. Then what lesson have they
00:58:14
learned? They haven't learned that.
00:58:16
They ran the city into The ground or that they've
00:58:19
mismanaged and that the finances have been completely mismanaged.
00:58:23
It needs to go through a paint like, a portion of time where it
00:58:31
hurts. They have to go through a little
00:58:32
bit of a painful transition. And they have to figure.
00:58:36
It's kind of like what happened with New York from the 70s, to
00:58:40
the 80s, in the 70s. New York City was awful.
00:58:45
Nobody really want to come help. The First time the mayor of New
00:58:48
York went to the president said hey we need money were bankrupt.
00:58:52
President shot him down said no we're not giving you any money.
00:58:56
He eventually relented gave him some money, but it had to go
00:58:59
through this period of transition where things got
00:59:02
really bad until you had developers and people come in
00:59:08
and start to fix the city and see opportunity there and turn
00:59:12
it into what it was. I would say for a stretch from
00:59:15
like the 90s through early 2000s, where it was safe.
00:59:20
People want to come people want to live there.
00:59:23
People took their kids to go in and see a show.
00:59:25
There Was tourism's You Know New York was the safest big city in
00:59:29
the world. Maybe San Francisco needs to go
00:59:32
through that. Right now.
00:59:34
They need to go through this really hard transition and sit
00:59:36
back and go. Things are going to be bad.
00:59:40
We have to make Cuts, we have to figure out what's working,
00:59:42
what's not working, and we have to reinvent ourselves.
00:59:47
For the next step, but I don't think a flat bail out of San.
00:59:53
Francisco is the way to go so I guess it's a nuanced answer.
00:59:59
Should it fail to a certain extent?
01:00:02
I believe San Francisco, should fail on the merits of that.
01:00:05
It got over bloated and overextended it should make sure
01:00:10
it protects its citizens, keeps it safe.
01:00:13
Maybe that's the bare minimum. But other than that, let it
01:00:16
fail. And learn its lesson.
01:00:18
So any thoughts on that? No, you said that really well?
01:00:22
I definitely agree with that. I mean, like you said, like, we
01:00:26
were saying very nuanced, protect the people, but do not
01:00:30
try and sacrifice the future of the people on broken processes
01:00:34
today. Like let those die out, let the
01:00:38
self-correcting happen by letting some certain things go
01:00:42
and I mean, yeah, let it run its natural course which may get
01:00:47
worse before it gets better. But Everything Ebbs and flows.
01:00:53
Yeah. I think it needs to figure it
01:00:57
out and maybe those days of Full House and The Shining City by
01:01:01
the bay is gone, and it's in the past and will look back on and
01:01:04
be like, I remember when San Francisco is so nice and will.
01:01:07
Now we'll look at if you're like.
01:01:09
That's not so nice anymore. If we have like 30 seconds that
01:01:14
we can try and banter and kill, I want to throw this out to the
01:01:16
chat to see what they're just quick up or down vote.
01:01:19
Whether they would, would you let San Francisco fail?
01:01:25
Yes or no? You can just say yes or no.
01:01:27
In the chat Camille already says, isn't it already a
01:01:31
failure? Camille's watching music to make
01:01:34
sure you're not stealing her job.
01:01:36
She's very, she's very worried about you stealing her job.
01:01:43
So I said Camille, says yes. Jennifer says, it's already
01:01:47
failed. I think it's got a long way to
01:01:50
go. Like, Michael Schoenberger said,
01:01:52
I think you can get a lot worse. So when he says, yes, it's a
01:01:55
failure Camille. You're not getting fire tonight.
01:02:00
Don't worry about that. I don't think Zach has any
01:02:03
interest in taking your job. He enjoys being a guest so yeah,
01:02:07
it's fun. Being a guest, it's fun, being a
01:02:09
guest. All right, with that.
01:02:12
At said, that's a wrap on this episode.
01:02:15
Thanks everyone for tuning in. This was a fun episode.
01:02:17
I've been wanting to do this for a couple weeks and yeah if
01:02:21
there's just a lot of stuff out there.
01:02:23
So if you were interested in any of the stuff that we talked
01:02:25
about tonight, I'll put all the articles in the videos in the
01:02:27
show notes, so you can go ahead and look it up for yourself and
01:02:31
read the articles. I suggest you do because there's
01:02:33
a lot of good stuff in there and, you know, it's not biased
01:02:36
if it's coming from the San Francisco Chronicle, you know,
01:02:39
it's not Fox News or Oan or Newsmax writing an article on
01:02:45
it. It's like San Francisco
01:02:46
chronicle's calling out San Francisco.
01:02:48
So you know it's pretty bad. One thing before I like to end
01:02:52
the show is if you like to support the show, best thing you
01:02:54
can do that is free to do, share the show with a friend.
01:02:58
Make sure you like share, subscribe review.
01:03:02
All that stuff. And we'll see you on the next
01:03:05
one. Have a good night everybody
01:03:06
later.