{"id":28408,"date":"2023-09-12T12:48:16","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T19:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28408"},"modified":"2023-09-12T14:27:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T21:27:18","slug":"world-leaders-biden-head-to-sf-can-city-pull-this-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/09\/12\/world-leaders-biden-head-to-sf-can-city-pull-this-off\/","title":{"rendered":"World leaders, Biden, head to SF. Can city pull this off?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\" by JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> SEPTEMBER 11, 2023 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"APEC
If the cable cars are indeed shut down during the Nov. 12 to 18 APEC forum, this promotional image will have to suffice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever heard of APEC? Likely, the answer is no. But, to borrow a phrase from President Joseph Biden, \u201cThis is a big fucking deal!<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s coming to a Downtown near you in November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literally thousands of government security personnel will flood San Francisco, along with a State Department-estimated 30,000 diplomats, business leaders, journalists and senior political leaders from 21 nations. Including this<\/em> one: President Biden will be here. This is<\/em> a big fucking deal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Secret Service et al. do not want randos \u2014 or, worse, bad actors \u2014 mingling with our out-of-town guests. So the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation<\/a> forum will require yet-undisclosed \u201cZones of Exclusion\u201d in San Francisco from Nov. 12 to 18. Swaths of the city will be converted into a police state where you will not be welcome. Mission Local is told that it\u2019s not at all off the table that the feds will call for barring the public from the cable cars and the Central Subway (in the case of the latter, they could at least note that they paid for most of it<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, commensurately, there\u2019s a lot at stake: This is a city that thrives on international investment, particularly from Asia. Now all of the government and business honchos will be in one room, drinks in hand, ready for our pitch (Yes, there\u2019s a full slate of very serious events \u2014 but there\u2019s a big gala, too<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More broadly, this is also a chance for this city to alter the hyperbolic-yet-entrenched narrative that it\u2019s a dystopian wasteland replete with crime, filth, overt drug use, tent encampments and barefaced misery; a dingy place befitting a Robocop reboot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government officials I spoke with had few worries that the city could throw a big party. Several mentioned Martha Cohen by name. The city\u2019s special projects director is described as \u201cold-school competent\u201d and has World Series parades and civic extravaganzas on her resume: \u201cWhen she retires, they\u2019re gonna have, like, five people replace her,\u201d says a former mayoral staffer. \u201cThe logistics of it, I\u2019m not concerned about.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not what happens in the room that has city officials concerned. It\u2019s what happens outside of it, and there\u2019s only so much control anyone has over that. Homeless people may not be wandering through the various checkpoints necessary to hobnob with world leaders, but the international press corps certainly can wander out. They may not like what they see.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any point in the past 40-plus years, out-of-town journalists could\u2019ve documented filth and misery and drug-use and homelessness and crime in San Francisco without even scuffing up the bottoms of their shoes. But now much of that is easier to find \u2014 and out-of-town media will be primed to go look for it, insofar as they need to look at all. That\u2019s because it has, honestly or deservedly or not, become the<\/em> San Francisco storyline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy feeling is, there is only one story in San Francisco right now: The decay of the city and its streets,\u201d says former longtime KPIX journalist Hank Plante. Regarding the hordes of reporters heading to town for APEC, \u201cThat is the story they will be doing. Guaranteed. They would be remiss not to.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know the story your boss wants you to do. You don\u2019t dare come back without doing that story.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is the great fear of San Francisco officials scrambling to avoid embarrassing the city, state and nation on the world stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That and fundraising, of course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"YouTube<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Because fundraising is not going spectacularly. To be fair, raising money to host APEC in your city is a challenge. The Secret Service\u2019s top man in San Francisco flat-out says San Franciscans should stay away from APEC<\/a> and work from home. An event that the general public is overtly and heavy handedly encouraged to avoid is not an intuitive sell for many donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, San Francisco has set an ambitious $20 million fundraising goal. The mayor\u2019s office on Sunday said that $11.5 million has been amassed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, when pressed, it noted that only around $4.8 million of that has actually been delivered. So, this is not a fantastic place to be for an event that starts in mid-November. And every fund-raising professional I spoke with said yes \u2014 hell <\/em>yes \u2014 it\u2019s not a good thing to have a sizable delta between money in hand and money promised; it brings to mind the old Jackie Mason joke<\/a> about the accountant who ran away with all accounts payable.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, yes, you\u2019re<\/em> paying for this too. Mayor London Breed has allocated $10 million for city-related expenses \u2014 logistics, overtime, etc. But the sort of things the city is fund-raising for (think gala) <\/em>cannot be covered with public money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a hard expectation that San Francisco will throw a proper party so the international press corps will be able to access the diplomats and elected officials and business titans who attend this conference. That\u2019s why they <\/em>attend. And the city family would likely prefer visiting journalists to linger in the Zones of Exclusion than wander through Downtown taking notes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A classic cable car shot, taken between 1978 and 1984.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among some city officials, there is a hope that the over-the-top storylines about crime and filth and misery have grown so excessive that San Francisco will get a pass for merely being bleak. Think of the George W. Bush debate strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, San Francisco\u2019s misery is not evenly apportioned. The city remains serenely beautiful, as ever, and many neighborhoods are doing as well as, or better than, before the pandemic. But some are markedly not: \u201cIf all the out-of-town journalists stay at the Hilton and walk west,\u201d jokes a longtime city official, \u201cwell, that\u2019s not so good.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, it\u2019s not hundreds of reporters from the New York Post <\/em>and Daily Mail <\/em>who\u2019ll be parachuting in. They will, primarily, be overseas niche journalists covering politics and economics. But San Francisco\u2019s incredible proximity of wealth and abject misery is absolutely both an economic and a political story. And if the city uses heavy-handed means to move homeless people out of sight, out of mind<\/a>, that\u2019s a story too.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe dominant story about San Francisco over the last year has been the capitulation of the city to homeless people, and the emptying out of significant commercial districts,\u201d said media analyst Ken Doctor, a longtime Knight Ridder executive who is now helming the Santa Cruz Lookout<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThat is an easy story to do. The helicopter story to do is \u2018the fall of San Francisco.\u2019\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Goldstein, a University of California, Berkeley, emeritus professor and the former dean of Berkeley\u2019s and Columbia\u2019s journalism schools, said out-of-town reporters who haven\u2019t been in the city for 10 or 20 years will be shocked at how much more overt many of the city\u2019s problems have become. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe opulence still remains in San Francisco, so it\u2019s the juxtapositions,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to see a contrast. And those are stories.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would also be a story if even a handful of attendees had their cars broken into or suffered stressful interactions with unhinged people \u2014 or worse. These are everyday occurrences in any American city, but they\u2019re not the stories your city leaders want to see. So we have learned that big-money establishment organizations are going to be launching a campaign to push positive San Francisco narratives to the national and international media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dios mio, man. It\u2019s worth taking a moment to smile, shake your head and appreciate the weapons-grade insanity of all that\u2019s about to transpire between now and November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same organizations and politicians who were happy to indulge in the crime and filth and chaos storyline when it was politically convenient now want to talk about how San Francisco\u2019s violent crime rate is actually lower<\/a> than most cities and the scenes of misery on its hardest-up streets are both nothing new<\/a> and not indicative of life in the city writ large. Now<\/em> it\u2019s politically inconvenient. Now<\/em> they want to be rational. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At last. At last we have a definition of chutzpah that doesn\u2019t involve a child killing his parents and pleading for mercy as he is an orphan. That\u2019s good, if not a big fuckin\u2019 deal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, if nothing else positive comes from this year\u2019s conference, at least we\u2019ve got that going for us. Which is nice.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

getbackjoejoe@gmail.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Managing Editor\/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour humble narrator\u201d was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by JOE ESKENAZI SEPTEMBER 11, 2023 (MissionLocal.org) Have you ever heard of APEC? Likely, the answer is no. But, to borrow a phrase from President Joseph Biden, \u201cThis is a big fucking deal!\u201d  And it\u2019s coming to a Downtown near you in November.  Literally thousands of government security personnel will flood… 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":[1052],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28425,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28408\/revisions\/28425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}