Susan Shelley Weighs In on all the Tax Hikes on the June Ballot

00:00:00
Speaker 1: It is the John Phillips Show at Johnny is on vacation, He'll be back on Monday. It's Randy Wang here and the phone number to join us as eight hundred two two two five two two two one. Eight hundred two two two five two two two. You can email us at Johnny Don't like show at gmail dot com. Search for the John Phillipshow wherever you get your podcasts. Also subscribe to the KABC News Blitz, my five o'clock solo show you can hear every single day on seven ninety KABC. Download the podcast of that, and subscribe to my substack for the California Report all the stories you need to know about what's going on in the state of California at Randy Wang Radio dot substack dot com. Our next guest is one of our favorites. She is a columnist for the Southern California News Group and the host of the Howard Jarvis Radio Show, which you can hear Tuesday nights on KABC and KSFO at six pm. Susan Shelley, Welcome back to the John Phillips Show.

00:00:54
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Randy.

00:00:55
Speaker 3: Great to be with you well, Susan.

00:00:58
Speaker 1: Before we get into everything that we have have to vote no on on the ballot. Let's do a little bit of congratulations and applause. We haven't had a chance to speak since it was announced that the Save Prop Thirteen Act is going on the November ballot.

00:01:12
Speaker 3: We are so excited about that.

00:01:14
Speaker 2: We are so excited and thank you. Thank you to everybody at the John Phillips Show for all the help that you gave us promoting that and doing the in person remote broadcast so we could collect signatures that made such a difference. And we are so excited to have qualified this measure for the November ballot to protect taxpayers, to make it harder to raise your taxes, and to save Prop thirteen.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you give a quick breakdown that when the November election comes, what exactly will this bill do?

00:01:47
Speaker 2: This will make it harder to raise taxes. Prop thirteen says that a special tax needs a two thirds vote. So, for instance, this firefighters sales tax increase that you were talking about, the firefighters have collected signatures for a measure in the City of la that increases the sales tax. Now, according to the Constitution, all special taxes like something that goes right to firefighters require a two thirds vote, but this one will not because the courts created a loophole. They said, well, if it's a citizens' initiative tax increase, the constitution doesn't apply. So a sales tax that if the city council put it on the ballot, would need a two thirds vote. The identical tax, because it was put on the ballot with signatures from the firefighters, that's going to be simple majority, much more likely to pass. We are going to close this loophole. Nothing against the firefighters, but the city budget should prioritize the firefighters and it shouldn't take another tax increase. So we are going to close this loophole. A special tax will need a two thirds vote no matter how it gets on the ballot. And the other thing it does is repeal transfer taxes like Measure Ula, which are taxes on the sale of real estate. The constitution only bans those from nineteen seventy eight from Prop. Thirteen, but the courts carved loophole, and now we have transfer taxes on the sale of real estate. So we're closing that loophole. No transfer taxes on the sale of real estate, and all special taxes need a two thirds vote. We are making it harder to raise your taxes.

00:03:18
Speaker 3: Now, here's an interesting question.

00:03:20
Speaker 1: If this passes, and we sure hope it does and Measure ULA gets repealed, does the City of la have to give back all that money.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: No, because the tax was legal at the time that was collected, So there will be no refunds. If we would have been successful in the courts at having it cleared an invalid tax under the Constitution, then there would have been refunds. But the courts are on board with this. They created this loophole and so they are standing by it. But we are amending the Constitution to put back what honestly is already in it. It's in Article thirteen a Section four. No transfer taxes to serves, vote for special taxes. It's already there. So I guess our amendment says and we really mean it this time.

00:04:06
Speaker 1: Well, and you know what's interesting specifically about ULA is the city was debating whether to extend a contract with a bunch of eviction defense attorneys that then sue the city to make sure that we can't evict anybody. We're actually paying those people to sue us over and over and over again. With Measure ula dollars, and if they locked themselves into a long term contract and Measure ULA goes away, they're gonna have to pay that contract out with general funds.

00:04:34
Speaker 2: I believe they would. Yeah, maybe there could be more litigation about that, but it sounds to me like if they locked into a long term contract, the city is stuck.

00:04:43
Speaker 1: We're speaking with Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association. There are a lot of tax measures that are going to be on the June ballot. Let's first talk about in La County. And I'm sure someone thought they were so clever when they came up with this measure eer, the sales tax increase for health services.

00:05:05
Speaker 2: What say you, Susan, Well, this has to be defeated, but the good news is there may be a way to defeat it even before people vote on it. It's over the cap. There's a cap in state law on how high local sales taxes be, and it's two percent above the state sales tax rate, which is seven and a quarter, So you shouldn't be paying more than nine in a quarter. And of course everybody is how does that happen? Well, the state legislature passes laws that create exemptions for additional sales taxes. And there is a bill right now on the ATHLI floor. It's Assembly Bill seventeen sixty eight that gives La and Contra Costa County both the authority to raise the sales tax of the cap for these so called healthcare taxes. And if that's defeated, then this tax cannot be collected. So I encourage everyone call your representatives in Sacramento and they know on Age seventeen sixty eight, and maybe that will help and solve the problem.

00:06:06
Speaker 1: If this passes, we will have a base rate sales tax in the County of La at ten and a quarter percent. You have city taxes on top of that. If this passes, Palmdale and Lancaster, because of all the tax increases they've passed in those cities, will have the highest sales tax rate in the entire country.

00:06:30
Speaker 2: Yes, it'll be eleven and three quarters percent in those two cities. But I think there's like forty or forty five cities in LA County that are already above ten percent. Then they would go a half percent higher. And this is just too much. You talk about affordability, this is a major contributor to the lack of affordability is raising the sales tax again and again and again. And this is very deceptive because they're coming at the voters with scare tactics, saying the trauma centers will close, the hospitals will close, the emergency room will close, you won't have care. But really, these are general taxes. Measure er is a general sales tax, which means the money goes into the general fund and it can be spent on anything. They are not legally obligated to spend it on healthcare at all. So even though they have this big, complicated spending plans that they've put before the voters, if you look at the beginning of all that text, it says it's the intent of the board of supervisors to spend it this way. They're not obligated. And then they'll say, oh, there's an oversight committee. Yes there is, and what are they going to do. They're going to watch while the city spends so the county spends it on whatever they want because they're not legally obligated to spend it on healthcare. Very deceptive.

00:07:44
Speaker 1: Well, and the other thing that's deceptive about this, as we look at other similar tax increases that happen in the county. This claims that this would be a temporary tax site for only five years. But Susan, we were promised that the Homeless Tax Measure AH would be a temporary tax, it would end in ten years, and then they went around and found a way to double it and make it permanent.

00:08:07
Speaker 2: It's exactly what they do. And they say it's not a tax increase, not a tax increase, Well, actually yes it is. It's a tax increase from what it would be. It's the thing expired like they told us it would. But that's what they do. They come back at you with scare tactics and they say it's not a tax increase, and it squeaks through. Something else about measure er that people should know is that there really aren't Medicaid cuts coming from Washington. They're really not cutting anything in the budget. What they've done is tighten up eligibility requirements and stop a certain kind of money laundering that the state has used to get more federal dollars. And by cracking down on these practices and making people show that they're eligible for medical with their income and their documents. By doing that a large number of people are falling off the rolls. That's the so called cut, and if you dig down into it, this is all all happening because the cost of providing full scope medical, full health insurance to undocumented immigrants is breaking the system. So the governor has already closed enrollment to new adults who are undocumented, and now they're looking at perhaps cutting the benefits back a little bit and having a premium. They've added a premium for undocumented immigrants because we can't afford it, and by cutting people off in Sacramento, the burden is falling out in the county. So that's why all of these counties are trying to push for higher sales taxes to backfill this whole It's a sales tax to provide full health districts to undocumented immigrants.

00:09:42
Speaker 1: We're speaking with Susan Shelley. She is the host of the Howard Jarvis radio Show, which you could hear every single week Tuesdays at six o'clock on KABC and KSFO. Let's pivot to San Francisco where they're going to be voting this June on Measure D, the so called over paid CEO tax, where if a CEO of a company makes one hundred times the media and compensation of one of their employees. They're going to increase the gross receipts tax and all other kinds of taxes.

00:10:13
Speaker 3: What do you think about this one?

00:10:15
Speaker 2: Is that a special purpose tax from an initiative? Is that's one of the unions that collected signatures.

00:10:22
Speaker 3: Yes it is, okay.

00:10:24
Speaker 2: Yes, So that's a kind of tax that our initiative in November, the Save Prop Their Team initiative would require to get vote, but it's not required to get it too thirds vote right now because of these court created loopholes. So we want to make it harder to raise taxes even on companies that pay their CEO whatever they have to pay their CEO. All these special taxes should get a two thirds vote to pass. So if it squeaks through on a simple majority, then that's that's something that's a reason to support the Save Prop Their Team initiative, because every time you raise taxes on businesses, consumer prices go up.

00:11:05
Speaker 1: Now in the city of Los Angeles, we've got three different ballot measures and they're all quite interesting. You know, we are about to host be one of the host cities for the World Cup, and you know there's going to be eight games played at sofar And one of the things that has been sold to us over and over and over and over again is that this is going to be so great for tourism. The hotels are going to be booked. The hotels in the city of Los Angeles are claiming that their bookings are flat, if not just down, and not anywhere near what they projected. Meanwhile, on June second, there's going to be two different measures, Measure TC and Measure TT to once again increase the hotel taxes, thinking that there's going to be some huge windfall with the World Cup and the Olympics, even though we're not seeing that with the World Cup.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: It's so still to raise the hotel tax when they haven't even recovered from the COVID pandemic. They're so deep in the hole over what was done to them during COVID where no one could stay in a hotel. This is so unreasonable. To raise the hotel tax from fourteen percent to sixteen percent is crazy. And then after the Olympics, supposedly it'll drop down to fifteen percent, and there again we'll see about that. They never go down. It's just unreasonable, and the other one, I think it's TC measured TC. This is trying to crack down on what they think is a loophole exploited by companies like Expedia, Booking dot Com, Hotels dot Com, Airbnb. What this will do is it will force these platforms to pay the hotel tax on every sea they collect, so not just on the room, but on the discounted portion of the room that they isn't paid, and also on the fees that they charge for booking and anything else that they charge the customer. They would be having to pay the hotel tax on all of it, which, once again, these are just caust to get passed through to the consumer. But you can see the city of la is trying to turn people upside down and shake out their pockets for change, even trying to collect the business tax from illegal businesses, illegal cannabis businesses. They think they can get business taxes from illegal businesses. Good luck with that.

00:13:16
Speaker 1: Yes, this might be of everything we've ever had to vote on in the city of Los Angeles. The strangest ballot measure I've ever heard of. It's called Measure c B, and it would change the city rules so that the city could send tax bills to the illegally operating pod stores.

00:13:39
Speaker 2: What what a waste of postage? Where are they sending it? Who are they sending it to. All they're doing is creating more costs for the city to try and collect this. It's obviously going to cost more than it collects. It's just silly And I don't know why I'm doing this except that they're just scrounging around for change in the couch cushions, looking for more money. Now, why do they need more money? Because they have overspent. They have over committed the resources of the city. Even when revenue is growing, spending is growing faster, and that's the problem. They tend to overproject how much money will come in, and then when it doesn't, it's a huge crisis. Then they come out for tax increases.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: Well, and this is the one that's always the most interesting to me. Especially this is a statewide problem, but it's really acute in Los Angeles. We voted to legalize recreational marijuana almost a decade ago. We made the taxes and the regulation so onerous that it is a disadvantage to do it the right way. We do not punish people for doing it the wrong way. Apparently, the City Attorney's office says they don't have the power to shut down an illegally operating business in the city of Los Angeles. So the idea is, well, since we can't shut them down, let's see if they'll pay us a tax bill.

00:14:56
Speaker 2: What this is so crazy? Which thing you can be in Los Angeles is a legal business. They just come after you every which way. If you're a legal business, and if you're an illegal business, you can get away with everything and there's no enforcement. Look at what's happening to restaurants. They are absolutely inundated with compliance requirements and taxes, fees and inspections. And then people set up on sidewalks temporary restaurants that operate like permanent restaurants. They're like just seizing the sidewalk, setting up chairs and tables and grills. They have no roaming water, they have no restrooms, and that's fine. They don't enforce any part of the laws on that. It's just terribly unfair tax paying businesses, and it's no surprise that they're closing or leaving the city.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: We're speaking with Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association. Now this one I found really interesting. But you know, as we go through this governor's race, you're hearing all different kinds of candidates talk about why they're qualified. The mayor of San Jose, Matt Mayhan, is talking about how well he has run the city of San Jose. And yes, San Jose is in a pretty good position right now when it comes to certain things like cleaning up the humbless. But he claims over and over again on the debate stage that he has balanced the budget in San Jose. He has balanced the budget in San Jose. Currently, San Jose is facing a budget deficit unless a hotel tax hike passes in June. If it doesn't pass, the city's going to be broke. No.

00:16:29
Speaker 2: Sometimes candidates say I'm a truth teller, and it always turns out that the truth telling is to the taxpayers. They never tell the truth to the government workers who get huge raises and enormous contracts in exchange for supporting these candidates. They never talk truth to them. It's always, well, the truth is there has to be at increase. No thank you to all of that.

00:16:52
Speaker 1: And finally, Susan, as we get past June and we move into the general election season. Of course, the the Save Prop thirteen Act is going to be on that ballot, but it sure seems like, whether we're talking statewide or in the counties, in the cities, there's going to be an unbelievable amount of tax hikes and bonds on the November ballot. Well are you how are you predicting just the longest form we've ever seen. I've never seen it this many bond measures, this many tax hikes all up and down the state.

00:17:25
Speaker 2: It is really shocking, It truly is. Some of these bond measures they're talking about more than twenty billion dollars for some of these. It's crazy how much debt they want the state of California to take on. Now, the general bonds at the state level are paid out of the budget ahead of current needs, so it's very dangerous to take on too much debt. And at the local level, local bonds go on the property tax bill and people are paying enough. They're so burdened already by high taxes in California, and when you're getting services, and one of the reasons is too much debt, too many pension payment, all of these things are ahead of current needs, and that's where your money's going.

00:18:05
Speaker 3: You know.

00:18:05
Speaker 1: I said that was the last one, but I was wrong. I got one more for you because you just reminded me of it. I am a unfortunately property owner in the city of Los Angeles. Karen Bass, who's running for reelection, put forth this grand plan that she's going to replace all the broken street lights from copper wire theft with solar lights, and she's going to get sixty thousand of them done this year. And the way she's going to do that is it's not on the June ballot, but property owners were sent in the mail and assessment vote where they get to vote if they want to increase their property taxes and the fees that are levied on their property by between one hundred and three hundred dollars to get the lights on. Is that responsible governing?

00:18:49
Speaker 2: No, it is not, because they're not doing anything to stop the copper wire theft that's causing all this vandalism. You already pay a streetlight assessment. It's just not enough to keep with the fact that people are tearing the street lights apart and nobody in the city government is doing anything to stop them. They even disbanded the LAPD task Force that was going after copperwire theft. What's the point there? You disband law enforcement and you charge people for just chasing after this like a roadrunner coyote cartoon. This has to stop. If you got a ballot but you lost it, you can get a replacement ballot. Contact the Bureau of Street Lighting in La City, Lacity dot CoV or Lacity dot org I think it is, and you can get a replacement ballot and not on that.

00:19:36
Speaker 1: Susan Shelley, host of the Howard Jarvis Radio Show, heard every single Tuesday at six pm right here on KABC in southern California and KSFO in the Bay Area. Susan Shelley, always a pleasure to talk to you.

00:19:50
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.

00:19:51
Speaker 1: Randy, it's the news. It's Randy Wang here on the John Phillips Show. I did it again. Phone number to join us is eight hundred two two two five two two two. You can email us at Johnny Don't Like show at gmail dot com, or my personal email, Randy Wang Radio at gmail dot com. Subscribe to my substack so you can see the rundown of all the stuff that I found today that we're definitely not going to have time to get to at Randywangradio dot substack dot com. Every day there's fifteen to twenty stories that are the stuff that I heard that I found very interesting that you should be knowing about.

00:20:28
Speaker 3: So check that out.

00:20:28
Speaker 1: You can subscribe for free and search for the John Phillips Show and the KABC News Blitz wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go to Jack and West Hills.

00:20:37
Speaker 3: Jack, Hello, Hello, how are you Randy doing great?

00:20:44
Speaker 4: I wanted to point out they have pre rigged that election on the lighting on the Lighting referendum because the ballots are considered yes votes if they are not returned, so that means potentially every balancy yes vote. All you have to do is not send it back.

00:21:04
Speaker 1: Oh, I think you're You're totally right about that, Jack. And the thing is, it doesn't look like a traditional ballot. Is just a random piece of mail that I would imagine a lot of homeowners would think was junk, and they threw it out before even opening it.

00:21:19
Speaker 4: I almost did.

00:21:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that one's passing on us and there's nothing we can do about it. But yeah, that is it's a complete mess of how they're heat handling that and the fact that we have to pay more for Karen Bass's failures is it's the Bass tax.

00:21:37
Speaker 3: That's what it is.

00:21:40
Speaker 4: Well, it's one of them.

00:21:43
Speaker 3: You're right about that.

00:21:45
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for the call, Jack, appreciate it. Eight hundred two to two two five two two two is the telephone number one. Eight hundred two to two two five two two two. Let's now go to San Francisco, a city that I really really dig. I have so much fun when I'm in San Francisco. We were just up there last weekend. We already booked another trip to go in September, and as soon as we can figure out getting a live remote up there, I know we're going to do one because the city can be so much fun. Incredible restaurants the way mos are super fun. The outdoor recreation Golden Gate Park is just it is a masterpiece. It is so beautiful. But the caveat with San Francisco is it's great if you're in the decent neighborhoods. If you are in Cole Valley, it is beautiful. If you are in the Marina, Oh, it's gorgeous up there. Cow Hollow, it's beautiful. Sunset is great. Even Hayte Ashbury pretty damn fantastic. But if you get to the Tenderloin, will you know what you're getting there? And if you get to the Soma neighborhood, you know what you're getting there. And Daniel Luriy, to his credit, has been trying to crack down on the open air drug markets in the Tenderloin and in Soma. And what has happened, Well, a lot of that problem is now just getting pushed to the Mission, and the Mission is slowly becoming San Francisco's worst neighborhood. For more on this, we go to KTVU Fox two.

00:23:43
Speaker 5: Now. It's an a plea to solve the root of the problem. Residents of a San Francisco neighborhood in the Mission District say a crackdown on open air drug dealing has only brought the crime to their front door.

00:23:55
Speaker 6: I've seen a lot more.

00:23:56
Speaker 1: If you can stay in the good neighborhoods, it looks cleaner than it has in years. Union Square was so clean. It was a blast hanging out there all weekend. I really wish our trip was more than just a day. It was so much fun, but I knew where we were not gonna walk to cause the last time we were in San Francisco and we didn't really know our way around. We were like, you know what, And this was twenty twenty four, so this is pre Lurie. But things were still kind of on the upswing. We were staying in the Financial District and my wife really wanted to get some clam chowder gluten free, which is hard to find. But we found a place just south of Market on the Embarcadero. That's right, you heard me, south of Market. And we went from downtown and the Financial District to Soma to get this clam chowder. And we walked part We walked past our first alley where we saw somebody shooting up. That's where we knew we stepped into the wrong part of town and had a way moad take us back to the safe part of town.

00:25:02
Speaker 6: I'm seeing a lot more federal users, federal dealers. There's a park there which I had assumed was like for kids, as a community garden that you can't get into tonight.

00:25:14
Speaker 5: The frustration is boiling to the point some are now considering leaving the neighborhood. Good evening, everyone on Mike Meebeck and I'm clotting wall.

00:25:21
Speaker 7: The city's increased enforcement at major known drug hotspots has not eliminated the problem for good.

00:25:27
Speaker 1: It's pushed it to the Mission. The Mission, which was known for illegal street vending, is now also home of the open air.

00:25:34
Speaker 7: Drug market, and tonight, residents of the Mission took their concerns directly to police, calling for a permanent fix.

00:25:41
Speaker 5: Now attend KTVU is Betty U live tonight outside police headquarters with a closer look at what they're facing.

00:25:46
Speaker 1: Betty, I know this wouldn't solve the problem entirely, but if we could just do what Matt Dorsey wanted to do a few years ago and change San Francisco's sanctuary city law to exempt the drug dealers from Honduras, or as I now know, they're called, the Hondas. If we could just work with Immigration enforcement to deport the Hondos, wouldn't that be a major dent in the open air drug market?

00:26:16
Speaker 8: Mike Residents essentially describe this as a problem of wacka mole as SFPD, or.

00:26:21
Speaker 3: If you're Karen Bash, she likes to say, whackam.

00:26:23
Speaker 8: O wacka mole. As SFPD continues to ramp up enforcement. Neighbors say they're now seeing drug activities spill onto side streets and residential areas.

00:26:36
Speaker 1: By the way, I just want to tell you for all of our Bay Area listeners, as I walked around San Francisco, and I did a lot of walking. I walked I think eight miles a day the two days I was there. You will see, you know, I'm walking up knob Hill, which, boy, you're not I'm not prepared for how steep some of the streets are going up Sutter. But you will see one or two guys hanging out in the street, one of them screaming crazy things. But it's really, really, really spread out, and there's not a whole lot of them. Again, not going in the bad neighborhoods, not going in the Tenderloin LA. The problem is everywhere, and there are tents everywhere. Just going from the Burbank Airport to my house on the other side of the valley, I think we counted over one hundred tenths just on Veno and Boulevard. One hundred. Like, the problem is a big problem in San Francisco. It is such a massive problem in Los Angeles, and we have way worse government trying to not do anything about it.

00:27:42
Speaker 8: Tonight we spotted people openly using drugs near twentieth and Cap in the Mission, an area neighbors say.

00:27:48
Speaker 1: Has seen it sit wait a second twentieth in Cap That's where the open air prostitution market was a couple of years ago before they put in those barriers.

00:27:57
Speaker 8: Tonight we spotted people openly using drugs near twentieth and Cap in the Mission, an area neighbors say has seen a sharp increase in activity as police cracked down around major hubs like the sixteenth and twenty fourth Street bart plazas.

00:28:11
Speaker 6: I used to not feel in any way unsafe, and now I definitely feel a lot less safe. The problem is, I love the fact that the mayor has been doing a lot to kind of clean up the city.

00:28:22
Speaker 8: Well, there's a lot of displacement residents. Sy Aliota Mini Park has become one of the neighborhood's new trouble spots. Brian Chu lives near Well.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: Can we go back to what Luri was doing in the first days of the Lurry administration, where we would have these big raids of the open air drug scenes and all you had to do was book everyone find out who has an active warrant, which was half of them.

00:28:47
Speaker 8: Brian Chu lives nearby.

00:28:49
Speaker 9: My wife was assaulted on the street, not the first time, and so it's really scary. You know, it's to the point where she won't leave the house. Now we're seeing fentanyl news, you know, just fold it down where they used to not be.

00:29:03
Speaker 1: I did see, and you don't really Again, this is the other thing that's different about LA, because LA it's tents everywhere people.

00:29:10
Speaker 3: I didn't see one tent.

00:29:12
Speaker 1: I did see people just lying out in the street, you know, especially like Saturday evening. I really didn't see much at all. We felt pretty damn safe walking all the way across town to go to this Spanish bar. But when I was walking around at eight o'clock in the morning to go to Juniper Cafe to get that Cuban croissant, which yes, it is worth the twenty five minute way to get that thing, it's that good. But as I'm walking at eight am in San Francisco, I did see a couple of people fentanyl folded over.

00:29:46
Speaker 3: And that is.

00:29:48
Speaker 1: Once you see it, it is. It is wild where they used to not be.

00:29:53
Speaker 8: More than two dozen neighbors signed a letter to city leaders demanding more police presence, security camera, and long term solutions. In response, civic group Connected s Up hosted a community meeting Tuesday with SFPD Mission Station sergeants.

00:30:09
Speaker 10: We're really focusing our efforts on the dealers ever viewers on Mission Street.

00:30:14
Speaker 1: Well, and here's the problem, and we've discussed this SFPD, and they've been doing a much better job now that they have a mayor that's got their back, which was Daniel Lurie and even the last two years of London Breed, she definitely changed her tune on this. But if SFPD arrests the drug dealers a few years ago, they would stop right there because Chase A. Boudin would not prosecute the drug dealers. Oh remember the Chase Aboudin days. Then Chase Aboudin gets recalled and Brooke Jenkins gets put in there. Brooke Jenkins is a great district attorney because Brooke Jenkins will be completely re about the failures of the criminal justice system to hold the fentanyl dealers accountable. Because you have the police doing their job, you had the DA doing her job. But the judges in San Francisco are little nuts and sometimes the juries are too, because all the Hondo has to say is I'm a victim of human trafficking, and it's like it doesn't matter that they're openly selling fentanyl and killing people every single day. They're a victim of human trafficking. I think it was just last year Brooke Jengens had her first successful conviction because a jury was not buying that nonsense anymore, Which is why it would be really easy if we could just connect with immigration. Who wants the Hondos in San Francisco? If you ask average San Franciscans, even the ones that want to protect the illegal immigrant community, people that are, you know, working the food carts in the mission what have you, shouldn't we all agree that the Hondas gotta go.

00:32:09
Speaker 8: Residents push for stronger enforcement around the park and side streets. Mission Corridor Task Force Sergeant Brendan Rock acknowledged the problem has shifted.

00:32:18
Speaker 10: It shouldn't be acceptable to use hard drugs in the middle of a park, plaza or in Alioto.

00:32:24
Speaker 1: Card It shouldn't be acceptable to use hard drugs anywhere. And I do not understand how anyone can say that we're in a better position today than when we used to take all those people to jail. The drug court system is not a thing anymore, and it should be.

00:32:40
Speaker 10: Or on the side of Mission Street, there are kids out there, there are people walking, so we're trying to disincentivize that behavior.

00:32:47
Speaker 8: SFPD says officers are now resting one to two dealers a day in the area, a major increase from last year.

00:32:55
Speaker 3: One to two a day is a major increase from zero.

00:33:02
Speaker 10: One thing I should mention is that the neighborhood is far safer than its spending a lot of time in history. So the violence is not the issue that we once have, but the open drug use and the dirtiness and the unsafe feeling sidewalks. I totally understand it.

00:33:17
Speaker 1: Yes, as long as you avoid the bad neighborhoods, which now the Mission is one of them. San Francisco is so clean that one of the things that my wife kept pointing out as we're driving around in the city and the backseat of away moo is this city is so clean again compared to La La is so filthy. There is trash everywhere. I actually loved seeing in Union Square, the Union Square Alliance, the Business Improvement District. They pay people to pick up the trash. They have trash cans everywhere, and they're great trash cans because they're the ones that you can operate the opening with your foot, so it's real easy to throw stuff away. And the streets in Union Square are clean. The streets in North Beach are pristine, even with all the people waiting in line for Tony's PiZZ in a Politana. But if you go to the Mission, it's going to look more like La.

00:34:15
Speaker 10: The dirtyness and the unsafe feeling sidewalks. I totally understand it.

00:34:20
Speaker 9: I love San Francisco. You know, we've stayed here. We love the diversity, we love being able to just it feels like home. We've been here for over twenty years.

00:34:31
Speaker 3: I don't want to have to leave.

00:34:34
Speaker 1: You could go to a different neighborhood, but the other neighborhoods they're expensive. Believe you and me. I'm sitting there. We're at Zazzi and Cole Valley having just a lovely brunch. It's such a cute neighborhood. It's right next to Golden Gate Park. I pull out the old Zillo and uh, you know what, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Now you're gonna get way smaller footprint, but like you can get a small, one bedroom, one bathroom room condo for you know, under a million. I mean you should see what housing prices cost in the dumpy Valley and the exact opposite of fun San Francisco everything is walkable is the San Fernando Valley, which is boring and nothing's walkable and there's tons of home break ins.

00:35:21
Speaker 8: And SFPD told residents tonight that city policy actually does not allow them to own.

00:35:27
Speaker 1: That thing, said, please support our advertisers so I can one day afford a condo in Cole Valley.

00:35:31
Speaker 8: To own cameras, so they largely have to rely on private networks or bisman and business improvement districts. They also mentioned that they will.

00:35:41
Speaker 1: Contin that's interesting, right, SFPD can't have their own cameras, but they can use the cameras if a bid has them. So we really need a business improvement district for every single neighborhood in San Francisco.

00:35:54
Speaker 8: They also mentioned that they will continue to listen to the residents as they try to cry on this problem they know won't be solved overnight.

00:36:02
Speaker 5: Mike exactly, but what about staffing, Betty I know it remains a challenge for SFPD. Did police actually tonight address how this is affecting enforcement.

00:36:12
Speaker 4: They did.

00:36:12
Speaker 8: They said they are really stretched thin and actually every shift they're looking at shortages. But the good new news is they are getting eight additional officers.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: But really, and they've invested in drones, which have been a really good improvement in San Francisco in the flock cameras, the real time information centers, SFPD is working a lot smarter. LAPD is incredibly understaffed and not working smart at all. It's fun covering both of these cities, living in one of them, enjoying the other one. And let's just say, as a resident of La San Francisco, you're on the upswing, LA, you are not.

00:36:55
Speaker 3: Well. I just got the coolest email listener.

00:37:00
Speaker 1: Ken just emailed me, and I gotta save this because I gotta own to watch it on my free time. But he sent me a video of him listening to the show while driving on the Golden Gate Bridge. That's kind of awesome. Look, I am in a studio in Culver City talking by myself into a microphone, and sometimes even though I've been doing this for twenty years, you forget that. You know, people are out there listening to this while they're working, while they're exercising, while they're driving around town, and ever since we got on in not just La but San Francisco. It's just it's kind of wild to think about that, the nonsense that I'm spouting out here, somebody is actually listening to it while they're driving on the Golden Gate.

00:37:49
Speaker 3: So that is that's pretty cool. That's pretty darn cool.

00:37:54
Speaker 1: Also, you're not supposed to be using your phone while driving, but I'll give you a pass.

00:37:58
Speaker 3: It's not like you were going that fast.

00:38:01
Speaker 1: So I am about to break down here post the two o'clock hour podcast, get on the four oh five freeway to suffer, have a little lunch when I finally get home at four o'clock, and then I'll be back on the air at five o'clock on seven ninety KABC. It's called the News Blitz, and we go through every single story that I prep for. Well, I don't have time to do all of them because we like to go in depth, but I give a detailed rundown into everything that's going on in the state of California that you may have missed out on so you can listen at five o'clock KABC seven ninety in southern California or stream it at KABC dot com. If you're in the Bay Area and you want to give it a listen. I do cover plenty of Bay Area news in The California Report, and you can check out my substack at Randywangradio dot substack dot com. Hey, we'll see you tomorrow at noon to three for another edition of The John Phillips Show.