What You Need To Know
Here’s what happened around the city for the week of July 3, 2023:
- 30 reasons to Dump Dean Preston
- SF minimum wage rises to $18.07
- What’s up with (the lack of) traffic enforcement?
- City workers harassed in the Mission
- Rise of robberies targeting women in Noe Valley and Alamo Square
30 reasons to Dump Dean Preston
GrowSF launched our “30 Reasons to Dump Dean Preston” campaign last week to catalogue why we think Dean is uniquely unfit to hold office. From blocking housing, to defunding the police, to being just plain mean, every day this month we’re releasing one new reason that Dean Preston has to go.
We’re extremely grateful for our 100+ donors to Dump Dean, and we think we’ll double that and raise $100,000 by the end of the month!
Here’s every reason from week 1:
Reason #1: Dean Preston blocked the construction of over 30,000 new homes
Reason #2: Dean Preston opposed the School Board recall, which nearly 80% of SF supported
Reason #3: Dean Preston tried to defund muni by eliminating fares
Reason #4: Dean Preston will never compromise
Reason #5: Dean Preston is associated with a fake news site run by his cronies at the DSA
Reason #6: Dean Preston fought against representing the Tenderloin
Reason #7: Dean Preston tried to interfere in nonpartisan redistricting process
Follow along every day on Twitter, or stay tuned to the GrowSF report for the rest!
SF minimum wage rises to $18.07
We all know inflation has been on a tear recently, and the price of basic goods has been rising to reflect higher interest rates, tighter supply, and rising costs of doing business. But minimum wage workers in San Francisco are about to get some relief: an increase of roughly $1 to the minimum wage, according to James Salazar at The Examiner.
Due to Prop J from 2014, which passed with about 77% of voters approving, the local minimum wage is tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI)—a way of tracking the true cost of living. Voters made a smart decision to keep minimum wage in sync with CPI because it ensures people don’t become poorer due to inflation and fluctuations in the costs of things like groceries and other necessities.
So, in San Francisco, the rising cost of living is automatically offset with a rising minimum wage, a smart bargain indeed.
The question most people have when thinking about the minimum wage is “will this cause more unemployment” or “will this raise prices”? The answers to these questions are contested, but recent studies have found a small to non-existent effect on unemployment. The answer to “will a higher minimum wage mean higher prices” is harder to answer. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a government agency tasked with studying the economy, lays out a number of options that businesses have when confronted with higher wage costs (it’s worth a read!). Some involve raising prices, some involve changing ingredients/components. Some involve reigning in unnecessary spending.
One important thing to remember is that the prices of goods are determined by what the market will bear, not necessarily the costs involved in producing those goods. So your local sandwich shop might just give you a little less cheese instead of bumping the cost up 50 cents.
(Sorry, this one was a bit long, but hopefully you found it interesting!)
What’s up with (the lack of) traffic enforcement?
You’re not imagining things: traffic enforcement really is non-existent. We’re just six months away from our noble goal of zero traffic deaths by 2024 (called Vision Zero), with zero hope of achieving that vision.
Last year was the deadliest for traffic fatalities since Vision Zero was announced in 2014, with 39 deaths in traffic incidents—19 of them pedestrians who were struck by vehicles.
This comes as there has been a 96.87% decline in traffic citations around the city between 2014 and 2022,
We understand that SFPD is understaffed, but that’s no excuse to stop enforcing the law. Some drivers are speeding through red lights and stop signs, and this behavior should not be tolerated. We should put up automated speed cameras to ticket these unsafe drivers and ensure the police enforce the law to bring some semblance of order back to our streets.
City workers harassed in the Mission
The ongoing effort to fix San Francisco’s myriad problems continues to be thwarted by the unintended consequences of well-meaning, but poorly thought-out actions. A bill to decriminalize sidewalk vending, SB 946, was passed in 2018. Unfortunately, this bill made it impossible to regulate what is happening on streets in SF, having removed any force from citations that were issued for violations.
This misstep has now collided with San Francisco’s attempts to defund and otherwise diminish police presence, resulting in Department of Public Works (DPW) employees being attacked when they try and address unpermitted vending. DPW workers have not only been threatened, but have had their families threatened, have been punched, and have had things thrown at them, writes Eleni Balakrishnan at Mission Local. It is only a matter of time before something worse happens.
To restore order and safety to our streets and city, there need to be repercussions to antisocial behavior. Illegal vendors cannot be allowed to attack city workers, or anyone for that matter. We need to better protect the hard working people that support our city.
Rise of robberies targeting women in Noe Valley and Alamo Square
A group of 11 teenagers has been allegedly targeting, attacking, and robbing women walking alone in Noe Valley and Alamo Square. They are stealing cell phones to, apparently, just smash them.
On the evening of June 26, Victoria was checking a text message while out on an evening walk near Alamo Square around 8:50 p.m. when a person she described as a “young teen” moved toward her and snatched her phone. She instinctively tried to wrest her phone back, she said, but a second assailant pounced on her.
“His friend, who I didn’t see, tackled me and grabbed the phone back,”
[…]
Victoria, who had hit her head and twisted her knee, began screaming for help. Bystanders heard her distress and offered to lend her a phone to call 911, she said.
Police officers arriving on scene drove Victoria to her apartment, where she tracked her phone to a location a few blocks away. Police went to that location, where she said officers recovered the smashed phone abandoned on the sidewalk.
Thank you to the bystanders who offered help, and to the police for quickly arriving and giving aid, and quickly finding the stolen phone.
We don’t want anyone, no matter what neighborhood they are in, to experience this crime, and we hope that this recent spate of attacks will convince more people in the city that it is past time to do something.
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Your Action Plan
Now that you know what’s happening, help us shape what happens next:
GrowSF July Happy Hour
Join us for the July edition of our monthly happy hour!
WHEN: Tuesday, July 11 from 6 to 8pm
WHERE: Orbit Room, 1900 Market Street
The Spirit of San Francisco
There’s a lot to love about our city and the Bay Area. Here’s what makes it great. Brought to you by The Bold Italic.
What we’re doing this week
Les Misérables
Still the world’s most popular musical, or so it’s promoted as. Set against the backdrop of 19th century France, Les Misérables tells a story of broken dreams and unrequited love, passion, sacrifice and redemption. It opened this week! We haven’t seen it yet but still plan on it.
WHEN: July 5-23, 2023
WHERE: Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market St.
Going skating at Golden Gate Park
We loved doing Trolley Happy Hour and have a follow-up question: would you be into a skating event either at the 6th Ave. Skatin’ Place in Golden Gate Park or at the Church of 8 Wheels? We’d be down for either. In the meantime, check out this gem of a roller rink if you have not yet.
What we’re writing about
Is the $100 pho worth it at Sunset’s new Gao Viet Kitchen?
Gao Viet Kitchen & Bar has been a San Mateo Vietnamese favorite with long waitlists, no reservations and a 90-minute table limit during peak times. It’s also home to arguably the most expensive bowl of pho: $100 Phozilla with the cheeky menu tagline of “Nobody should spend this much $$ on any bowl of pho.”
Chef Viet Nguyen opened a San Francisco location in the Sunset District in December 2022. The waits, that sense of humor and the Phozilla are here, equalling three regular pho bowls in broth volume, supposedly weighing 5 lbs.
San Francisco fashion in the 1950s
Every American past the age of 60 (about 75 million people at last count) likely has some memory of 1950s urban fashion — the hats, the gloves, the furs, and the big purses. For those too young to recall the days when people dressed up to visit a very chic and busy downtown San Francisco, an unheralded sidewalk photographer named Joseph Selle has given us a front-row seat on this long-gone world.
Yes, we still saw fireworks on July 4th
It is that time of year when the country swelters in heat while San Francisco wraps itself in a thick, foggy blanket. At The Bold Italic, we grumbled alongside other San Franciscans who felt our traditional fireworks would once again make for colorful clouds in 2023.
We spotted them anyway. On Pier 39, surrounded by windbreakers, sweaters, wool caps and yes — fog — our photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins caught more than a dozen boats on the San Francisco Bay, many that sent up pretty dazzlers that marked the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
What we’re celebrating
Sutro Tower turned 50
Everyone loves lights — that’s why the nonprofit that once lit up our Bay Bridge gave us a bright show for Sutro Tower’s 50th birthday. We didn’t glimpse it, but this video looks really cool.
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