Opinions: February 13, 2024

I’m Peter Dwares, and I’ve lived on the Filbert Steps since 1977, next to Coit Tower and its parking lot where people congregate.

San Francisco is physically the most beautiful city on earth and it’s loaded with talented people. I have loved it for 52 years.

We all know parts of it are experiencing grave difficulty. It’s infecting the rest.

I see four issues to address and reverse.

1.       Home grown drugs, importation of hard drugs and importation of drug users. I walked between 6 th  Street and Market and the Clift Hotel about ten p.m. recently. Dystopian blocks of people. I saw zombies peeing, smoking crack, fentanyl, strewn garbage, graffiti, using needles in front of children of the Tenderloin.

2.       Out of kindness and equality, releasing criminals who kill and loot stores resulting in store closings have injected realistic fear among locals and would be tourists, including Conventions, thus spending and tax revenues.

Charles Schwab, Oracle, Tesla, Chevron and hundreds of other Companies have left and with them “would be” startups and tax revenues that are a real issue and donations. There was no reason to lose them but arrogance.

3.       Overbuilding in hindsight of office buildings given work at home and the exodus to lower cost cities not only hurts the building owners, but also restaurants etc. and will result in foreclosures of office buildings hurting banks and other lenders.

4.       People haven’t the will or really much choice or don’t choose to in electing skilled business leaders and managers to the Board of Supervisors and Mayor; too often elected for other reasons out of kindness and guilt. Many accept the existing situation or at least don’t know how to deal with it.  In fairness, Mayor Jordan a moderate and Mayor Brown a brilliant politician kicked the can down the road. Proliferation of druggies is the result of social progressivism which a lot of us wrongfully embraced.  I do believe Mayor Lurie and District Attorney are now doing a very good job.

We have I believe brought in a slate of would be Supervisors and Mayor who understand and want to go back to a peaceful, safe City and are pro business and see benefits of law and order as number one challenge.

Get help to turn around druggies and safely house the mentally ill.

Arrest and convict all Cartel and other dealers of hard drugs for minimum of five years after warnings.

Arrest for loitering and clean up streets of strewn garbage, urine, poop, marijuana smells. Create a facility of revamped mothballed aircraft carriers or cruise ships holding 4,000 each or military base with advanced nursing and work to get people off drugs.

Use “Broken windows” arrest policy for looting or car break-ins as per Mayor Bloomberg in New York.

Stop spending $1.4 billion of $14 billion of City budget on this industrial complex overseeing drug and mentally ill problem now on the streets; instead spend the above on restorative care for drug takers and mentally ill. Put mentally ill in “hospital” care and off street.

Dissuade by all methods drug addicts and mentally non compis mentis from coming to San Francisco often being pushed by other cities.  We can’t be Nirvana for these groups or we will have no other tourism except drug tourism.