{"id":34978,"date":"2024-07-20T12:06:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T19:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=34978"},"modified":"2024-07-20T12:06:07","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T19:06:07","slug":"at-district-10-town-hall-residents-want-answers-not-excuses-and-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/07\/20\/at-district-10-town-hall-residents-want-answers-not-excuses-and-promises\/","title":{"rendered":"At District 10 town hall, residents want answers, not excuses and promises\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\" by\u00a0IO YEH GILMAN<\/a><\/strong> JULY 18, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Four
David Chiu speaks at a town hall held with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, and two representatives from the SFPD on July 17, 2024. Photo by Io Yeh Gilman.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Mission<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sign up below to get Mission Local\u2019s free newsletter<\/strong>, a daily digest of news you won\u2019t find elsewhere.Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a town hall in District 10 on Thursday night, residents could agree on one thing: lawlessness and misbehavior is rampant in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt feels to me like we don\u2019t enforce rules and laws in Bayview,\u201d Bayview resident Shane Mayer said in his remarks, eliciting chuckles and sounds of agreement from the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 50 residents of District 10 had assembled in a large, airy room at the Southeast Community Center, ready to raise issues to City Attorney David Chiu, District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, and two representatives from the SFPD: Bayview Station Captain Michael Koniaris and Lieutenant Kevin Lee from the Police Department. The town hall with Chiu was a one off event, though the Bayview Station holds monthly in-person meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though united by frustration, residents raised a wide range of issues, providing Chiu, Walton, and the police with a laundry list of problems to address. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mission<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Mayer mentioned three in his remarks: cars constantly double parked on Third Street, frequent fireworks, and sideshows. \u201cWe have brand new roads and they already have ring lines of donuts,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A resident of Hunter\u2019s Pointer, Leticia Irving, echoed Mayer\u2019s concerns about fireworks, saying that on July 4 it was particularly frustrating to see people lighting new fireworks even as firefighters were putting out fires right beside them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are we going to do to make sure this community stays safe and we don\u2019t burn it down?\u201d she asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maika Pinkston got up to ask about several issues including illegal dumping in the district, explaining that in her housing complex, trucks will come and dump trash over the wall into the dumpster on the other side. She\u2019s seen garbage, mattresses, furniture, and paint get dumped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have an issue with this dirtiness around here. We got so many germs and cooties,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others brought up RV generators blocking sidewalks, poor conditions at the Alice Griffith housing complex, and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To each of the resident\u2019s concerns, Walton, Chiu, and the police officers attempted to convince residents that their concerns would be addressed \u2014 or at the very least that they would do their best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koniaris from the SFPD blamed the issues, in part, on the Bayview Police Station being understaffed. At the moment, the station has 78 police officers compared to the 140 it used to have. \u201cResponding to the 911 calls is our main function. And right now with staffing, it\u2019s kind of the only function that we can have,\u201d he said, explaining that non-emergencies, like addressing double parking, fall through the cracks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, Chiu seemed determined to convince residents he could help in a sometimes-confusing 15 minute presentation that explained what the City Attorney does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, when sideshows were brought up, Chiu mentioned that in an earlier town hall, he had learned that the cars were often installed with devices that could drop a plastic cover over their license plate with the click of a button, making it difficult for officers to document the cars involved. So, they found the online marketplaces where these were being sold \u2014 Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Etsy \u2014 and sent them cease and desist letters. Soon the products were off the websites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFeedback from you on what\u2019s actually happening, the things that you\u2019re seeing, can help all of us address the issues here in the neighborhood,\u201d he said, and mentioning that for RVs and illegal dumping, his office could likely help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the crowd seemed skeptical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I had a nickel for every time I heard somebody from City Hall use the term accountability or transparency, I\u2019d be a freaking millionaire,\u201d one man said, triggering clapping from the crowd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gloria Berry asked about the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission\u2019s Social Impact Program, where contractors hired by the commission are encouraged to make contributions to the impacted communities \u2014 like the Bayview, which houses the city\u2019s sewage plant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can smell the stench now and it\u2019s not healthy,\u201d Berry said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berry asked why money from that program doesn\u2019t seem to be reaching residents of the neighborhood. \u201cAre your hands tied when it comes to the poverty pimps receiving funds intended for us?\u201d she asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A  2021 city audit of the program<\/a> found that it was \u201cpoorly designed, with significant flaws in the monitoring and enforcement of contractor commitments.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walton said the program is being amended to, hopefully, produce better results \u2014 and \u201ccollect on resources that have been owed from the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even as some residents were skeptical that they would see any results, they were still eager to have Chiu, Walton, and the police hear their concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last questioner of the night asked Chiu, Walton, and Koniaris if they might consider having more meetings \u2014 with a virtual option, for greater accessibility. \u201cIf we had something more regularly, we can voice concerns and keep updated as opposed to being a powder keg and everybody\u2019s blowing up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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IO YEH GILMAN<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

io@missionlocal.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

REPORTER\/INTERN. Io was born and raised in San Francisco and previously reported on the city while working for her high school newspaper, The Lowell. Io is a rising senior at Harvard where she studies the History of Science and East Asian Studies and writes for The Harvard Crimson.More by Io Yeh Gilman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0IO YEH GILMAN JULY 18, 2024 (MissionLocal.org) Sign up below to get Mission Local\u2019s free newsletter, a daily digest of news you won\u2019t find elsewhere.Sign up At a town hall in District 10 on Thursday night, residents could agree on one thing: lawlessness and misbehavior is rampant in the neighborhood. \u201cIt… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34978"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34979,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34978\/revisions\/34979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}