There are a lot of voters who are not taxpayers.
that it's the Democratic Party we're talking about here is irrelevant—this is just a natural consequence of the two-party system.
There’s far fewer homeless in the Midwest because homes are actually affordable. The poverty, squalor, heroin addiction is just as bad. It’s just out of sight.
I suspect it also has to do with that fact that if you are homeless in winter you will die.
In a transient place like the bay area, the voters also do not experience the consequence of their votes and follow along with whatever trendy compassion based arguments is around at the time, the one year they vote.
The people who run for office are not many. Most of these positions are uncontested.
I suspect SF may move towards this model soon. You can already see it around Union Square. They are hiring off duty cops to monitor the stores.
So in my experience so far bros in finance just out of college renting a 3 million condo are more at fault for stuff getting stolen from my property than the cops, the homeless and politicians.
In most of the US, including many moderate size cities, a garage left open for 4-5 hours would not have anything stolen from it.
The amount of utter BS people in CA are willing to put up with never ceases to amaze me. Which is why I find it harder and harder to have any sympathy. At this time we might as well let it all burn down - maybe then people will finally get off their asses and vote for anyone other than the current crop of utter moron politicians that are literally destroying the state.
When CA goes from the most prosperous state to loosing enough pop to get demoted a representative in the House - you'd think that would be enough of a wake up call that shit democrat policies might not be such a good idea. But here we continue to remain talking about this stuff while nothing changes.
The faster it all just burns to the ground the faster it might get rebuilt into something that's not a literal needle infested pile of shit :/
It didn't lose any population. Because of the fixed size of the House, you can lose a rep while gaining population (in California’s case, gaining more than 2.2 million between the 2010 and 2020 census.) Also, apportionment isn't tied at all to prosperitt; California didn't get any less relatively prosperous to lose a seat, so your “going from...” doesn't make any sense, even ignoring the factual error about losing population.
California experienced a population decline in 2021, the first in its history as a state. That may be what GP was referring.
That couldn't be the population drop GP referred to costing a house seat, since it was after the Census on which the apportionment was based, and would have no effect on apportionment except in how it contributes to the state at the time of the 2030 Census.
In the Bay Area and LA many apartment buildings don't have a front desk, they have a leasing office that may or may not be open, and typically keeps odd hours.
With the exception of high-rises, new developments in SF and South Bay with under 200 units typically don't have a front desk.
They do have security patrol come in for a couple of hours nightly, but they're not supposed to get involved and just take notes of suspicious activity, then email it to the leasing office to review the next day. Security will call the police if it's blatant theft of break-in, but they rarely catch it because this is one person patrolling a garage and endless hallways for just a few hours each night. When the security patrol car is by the building entrance, they can return a couple of hours later to steal packages, break into the bike room, break into cars, open lockboxes, etc.
However, things got out of hand significantly during the pandemic. Package theft and mailbox theft started happening during daylight hours. At one building in Mountain View they stole the USPS master key as the mail carrier had the boxes open putting in the mail. One leasing agent was assaulted during a tour and the keys & fobs were stolen.
You can't fight this type of crime by having a security guard in every area of every building. The issue is rooted in that the thieves and squatters know that they will get away with it. The criminals became bolder and even if confronted by a security guard, they have no more power than your average citizen has. They can just observe and take notes.
I'm not sure why it's so hard to for people to understand when you don't prosecute all crime, crime starts to bubble up and grow rampant but here you go. None of this is a surprise to anyone paying the least bit of attention to what has been going on in CA for a long time now. We are seeing in real time the effects of this grand experiment - how many people's lives and livelihoods have to be destroyed before CA residents start demanding real accountability?
I'm not holding my breath. Just stay in CA. Do not leave and then start to shit up other states with your batshit crazy politics too.
>7% of home burglaries resulted in a violent encounter. Given that only ~27% of the time someone was even home that's a pretty big risk when someone indeed happens to be home: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf
Did you seriously just compare people being uncomfortable around black people with people being uncomfortable that their residence may be broken into??? "Legitimately" was the key word there.
how are they not a threat to society?
i thought you would offer a different take on these things. not answer with a question.
> We started getting reports from neighbors or the on-site management that are our guests are dealing drugs out of our units.
> Our lockboxes were getting broken into, keys taken and people have been living there for several days and in some cases weeks
> they would start packing up their car with our appliances
in civilised societies these kinds of actions would be considered extremely damaging to the fibre of the neighbourhood. people would complain to their elected official if the police refused to intervene. and if the elected official refused to act then he would be recalled.
This kind of comment is exactly why “we can’t have nice things” when low-life’s are always defended, while those of us who actually meaningfully contribute to society are burdened to pick up the pieces and put up with illegal behavior.
But, see, your financing would require you to cough up cash if the basis changes. And everything related to housing has become a Ponzi scheme to extract money from the people trying to simply find somewhere to live.
In this case, you have chosen to prefer to leave the rent high and let squatters break into your units rather than drop the rent and have residents.
I believe we refer to this as "the hand of the free market".
In other words, low-cost short-term housing attracts people that can book a stay for one month that will continue to occupy the space and stop paying until the eviction is processed. Eviction is a 3 to 6 month process in most counties in California, and it typically costs $10k-$15k. That was before the pandemic, evictions were completely suspended since.
Short-term housing / corporate housing does not require proof of income, credit check, etc. That would create a barrier of entry that would deter the majority of the clients; they would flock to the first available Airbnb. These travelers are typically staying for a couple of months and don't want to go through the hassle of lease approvals, agreements, credit checks, etc. Many of them are foreign and unable to provide the documentation necessary for a typical lease agreement.
You do make a valid point, however. Rent should be driven down as the market dictates.
For long-term rentals (your typical 1 or 2 year lease agreement with the building) there is another reason why rent does not drop significantly: most of the large rental buildings are owned by banks. There are clauses where if the rent per unit drops under a certain amount, the interest rates increase. There are several other clauses that disincentivize rent decreases. In addition, not every investor in a real estate investment trust has the same terms. When things go south (rent drops, operating costs increase, rate of evictions increases), investors that hold a fraction of the REIT will be the ones taking that loss, while institutional investors that provided the majority of the loan are protected. Thus it's in the interest of the more powerful investors or lenders to keep the rent where it is, and let the smaller investors take the loss.
We as property managers, whether long term or short term, can only fluctuate the rent within a certain margin. It's easy to oversimplify as "why can't you just drop the price", but there are bigger players that hold the cards, and they decide what the rent is, and if units are to remain vacant, who will be taking that loss. And it's the new guy that just entered an REIT with a mere $100k.
Edit: you've unfortunately been doing this a lot with this account already. I don't want to ban you, but we need you to fix this if you want to keep commenting here.
Info about Chesa Boudin - https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Chesa-Boudin-San-Fra...
recall - https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/exclusive-sf-district-...
Article you linked says: Absolutely nothing to support this
You claim: "His DA office is only trying ~50% of crimes compared to other major cities"
Article you linked says: The charging rate was completely unchanged when Boudin became DA.
If you are going to make an outrageous claim that "they are under instructions directly from Chesa Boudin" you have to provide evidence that this is true, otherwise it will appear to be a lie.
2018 - 10,058 property crimes
2019 - 9,404 property crimes
Boudin Elected
2020 - 13,632 property crimes 44% increase
2021 - 6,180 property crimes (half year of stats only)
Boudin has initiated a catch and release for non-felony crimes which means the police arrest someone for breaking into a apartment and they are on the streets the next day due to no cash bail. Charging rates are extremely low(from 2018-2019) as the previous SF DA George Gascon initiated the same policies as Boudin and went to LA as DA and he(gascon) is also being recalled.
When pressed on this point, you are relying on deflection to other criticisms you have of Boudin. Eliminating cash bail is in no way, shape, or form a direct instruction to not arrest property criminals.
That is not the chain of command. They're completely separate bureaucracies.
If they want public intoxication collars, all of the sudden they will appear. Anytime someone tells you the DA is some bystander, laugh.
Police abstention because other parts of the justice system refuse to play by their (cruel) rules is revanchism, nothing more or less.
Every time a police officer arrests someone they're risking life and limb. Whether you like cops or not, you've got to see that aspect of it. Why would you take that risk when you know the system is being operated so that there is literally no difference between if you make the arrest or not?
The ability of police to forecast complex systems so accurately is astonishing.
The change being blamed for 2020/2021 elsewhere in this thread is "catch and release without cash bail." It's noted that there's been a 50% charge rate for a while on things as well. So if the police make that arrest, and that 50% charge rate held, half the time there's going to be a charge filed and regardless of if the person was held in jail or has to be brought back, that's still not "literally no difference."
Even if a DA refuses to prosecute anyone, police could also still work to prevent crime in the first place, no?
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/06/24/san-francisco-g...
Imagine I worked at a pizza shop and was getting $10 per hour to make pizzas. Every pizza I make my boss throws into the dumpster. My boss refuses to talk with me. The boss publicly tweets: he doesn't believe in pizza. This goes on for 12 weeks. It gets pretty hard to go to work and make pizzas.
Is that really comparable to a police office in SFPD? "San Francisco offers excellent benefits and the current starting salary is $92,560 per year. After seven years of service, a Police Officer may earn up to $139,152 per year. You will receive comprehensive training, at your full starting salary." [1]
==This goes on for 12 weeks==
This seems like hyperbole. Has nobody been prosecuted in San Francisco for 12 weeks? Does a prosecution after-the-fact stop a crime from happening?
[1] https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/careers/sworn-j...
"This goes on for 12 weeks" i just make up some time not related ;)
$10/hr is the equivalent to $20k a year. SFPD officers make 4-6X that number. Then we can add the health benefits and pension contributions that your "Low Income Limits" don't measure. Not to mention the slight of hand where you turned it into a family of 4 to make the math look better.
==i just make up some time not related=
Another made up number. Making up numbers from thin air doesn't create a legitimate comparison for actual data.
Unless you are really attached to those sweet pensions, overtime and other union perks that your "pizza shop" job provides. At taxpayer cost.
I think most of this can be fixed with a little accountability; the same everyone else is subject to.
You got a citation on this? Because even my city is "defunding the police" because of a budget shortage. And defunding other city services for the same reason. Police leaving in droves, according to Fox News turned out to be 90% retirement.
> Cops are one wrong move away from being in jail themselves
Okay, Tucker Carlson, sure ;-)
Regarding defunding, a very quick google search will give you the information you're looking for assuming you are in the USA.
Separately there has been attrition at the SFPD due to people taking early retirement or moving to easier policing jobs elsewhere.
https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-budget-announcement-defun...
==The SFPD were defunded==
You have not provided any evidence of this claim, attrition is not "de-funding".
I appreciate the link for the article on a proposed budget. I did some google searching (as you suggested) and found some more updated information. The budget has gone up 50% over 10 years, hardly de-funded.
"For the proposed 2021-22 budget, the San Francisco Police Department’s allocation will decrease by $6 million, from about $668 million to $661 million. Those cuts can nearly all be attributed to decreased demand for police at the airport. However, in the following fiscal year, the city projects the police budget will increase once again to $689 million. That’s close to the police budget’s all-time high of $692 million in FY 2019-20. By way of comparison, in FY 2010-11, the police budget weighed in at $445 million."
https://www.sfweekly.com/news/is-san-francisco-re-funding-th...
Citation please. How much money was taken away and where was it put?
==especially those who are most vulnerable.==
Am I to believe that the staff who fled the department because they disagreed with the politics are now deeply concerned about the "most vulnerable"? Seems the best way to help them would be to focus away from after-the-fact prosecution and instead on community outreach.
etc etc
So what, I'm one wrong move away from being in jail. Everyone is. That's how law works.
Citation needed.
Seriously. NO ONE has been defunded anywhere in the country.
https://www.sfweekly.com/news/is-san-francisco-re-funding-th...
But honestly even that euphemism is an insult to state capital systems that incorporate marxist ideology, as those systems tax lower and have better private property assurances
It started with homeless people camping out in front of our units in SoMa and Mission (often times blocking the entrance/exit because some units had a direct street-level entrance), petty package theft and occasional car break-ins in the building garages.
Police couldn't do anything but take a report.
Then the pandemic started and the vacancy rate skyrocketed. We started getting reports from neighbors or the on-site management that are our guests are dealing drugs out of our units. Except that these units were supposed to be vacant. Our lockboxes were getting broken into, keys taken and people have been living there for several days and in some cases weeks. We often had footage of this.
We would call the police as we arrived at these units for our protection, but they wouldn't be able to arrest anyone because the people in the unit would say "so and so gave me the keys, told me this is their apartment, I don't know anything about that broken lockbox."
This scheme quickly expanded to Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Milpitas and other South Bay cities. We would call the police on a daily basis in the first few months of the pandemic. Sometimes it would take them an hour or two to come, and if the squatters saw our team at the building and got wind of what was going on, they would start packing up their car with our appliances: Apple TV, Nespresso machine, we've even had furniture and major appliances like TVs, washer and dryer rolled out while we were waiting for the police to come.
At most they would temporarily restrain these squatters if they had previous warrants (many of them did, but many others didn't produce an ID.) But even with warrants for their arrest, they would get uncuffed and released within an hour. We thought that at least a warrant would have them appear in front of a judge and we'd not have to encounter them again in a few days at another building, but the pandemic gave them a free pass.
The officers were very candid in saying that if it was up to them, they would book them, but they have instructions not to bring anyone in for non-violent crime. Theft is not prosecuted.
This is how it goes, anyone that has any doubt that crime is not prevented, pursued or prosecuted should go on a ride-along to any of these calls.