Tell the Mayor and Supervisors to take immediate action to end the loss of retailers and businesses in San Francisco.
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Message to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors
Dear Mayor Breed and Supervisors, We are calling on you TO TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION to end the destruction of our retail and business centers. Old Navy is closing its flagship store in San Francisco. Nordstrom is closing two stores in downtown San Francisco. Union Square is dying. Which major retailer will be next: Bloomingdale’s, Macy's, Saks 5th Ave, Neiman Marcus? Our iconic cable cars will soon be transporting tourists to a vacant, blighted downtown. And then those visitors will stop coming. Our city is in a precarious downward spiral, and you must act now to stop it. As Nordstrom noted in their departure announcement: "[Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield] has actively engaged with city leaders for many years to express our serious concerns, which are shared by our customers and retailers. We have urged the city to find solutions to the key issues and lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity," As San Franciscans who care deeply about our city, we are providing you with a short list of concrete actions which we believe will not only help deter additional retailers from leaving our city, but will improve the overall quality of life of all SF residents. This list is just a beginning: 1. Even under Prop 47 and Martin v. Boise, it is illegal to shoplift, sell drugs, possess drugs, and otherwise engage in disorderly behavior in public. Mayor Breed, you have the power right now to instruct the Police Department to deploy 100 officers to the Tenderloin and arrest every single person publicly consuming narcotics or possessing a sufficient amount of narcotics to qualify for a sale charge. Do this every day for a month. Again, even with Prop. 47, these are both still crimes that are punishable by up to six months to a year in county jail -- and sometimes more. Even if a judge releases the offender immediately, if you were to commit to doing this every day for a month, the real penalty would be that anyone selling or using drugs in public would get about two hours of freedom per day until they were arrested again. The message would eventually go out that San Francisco is no longer a destination for drug tourism but a place where laws are enforced, and illegal drugs and cash are almost immediately confiscated. Downtown would clear up pretty quickly. 2. Until they can be removed by ballot initiative or term-ends, we call on the Board of Supervisors to publicly pressure the anti-police Police Commissioners to revise their bias against law-and-order and better understand the realities of police work and the real-world implications of the policy decisions they make. The rules and strictures they have imposed on police operations over the last few years are in large part responsible for this mess. This crisis has authors. Remove them and replace them with commissioners who will help our severely understaffed department become more effective, not drown our officers in paperwork or instruct them to stop enforcing the law. 3. The city’s tax base is disappearing. We demand that you slash $2 billion from the budget immediately. This can be achieved by reducing staff across the board, ending perks, waste, and redundancies, terminating relationships with corrupt non-profits (how much was paid last year to ineffective or non-existent non-profits?), and suspending all raises until you pull the city from the shambles it is in. (Note: the budget for Police and Fire Departments should be maintained or increased, as they are critical to fixing our problems.) 4. Immediately reinstate the Homeward Bound bus ticket program. 5. Terminate the head of HSH and hire a shelter-first advocate who will strive to dramatically reduce the number of people living on the streets rather than maintain the status quo. 6. Immediately exempt fentanyl dealers from Sanctuary protection. No more excuses. This complete dereliction of duty must end today. For those of you who lack sympathy for large, chain businesses, remember two things: They don't need San Francisco as much as San Francisco needs them, and as anchor tenants to malls and downtown centers, they are the power behind which all of the other area retailers draft. That means jobs, enhanced safety, increased street activity, and tax revenue. We are regular San Franciscans who are demanding a functional city government. We successfully recalled a dangerous DA and an incompetent Board of Education. Your failure to govern is both outrageous and unacceptable. Your constituents will hold you accountable.
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