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Question 1:
Saving Theaters
Question 2:
Community College
Question 3:
Rezoning
Question 4:
Drug Dealing
Question 5:
Youth
Question 6:
Day Laborers
Question 7:
Visitor Attraction
Question 8:
Appointments
Question 9:
Commitment

QUESTION 4:

MODERATOR: Question number four, Fernando Rivera?

FERNANDO RIVERA: Well, one of the things that I noticed when I first moved to the city, and it’s still there, is playground drug dealing in the Mission District. It’s very common knowledge in the city that we have a very tough drug problem here. Since everybody’s aware of the problem, why hasn’t the city addressed this problem? Supervisor Gonzales.

GONZALES: First of all, let me say that it’s a very complicated issue. In my work as a public defender I saw thousands of people at the Hall of Justice charged with crimes, and I think it’s very easy to demonize everybody that comes in who is engaging in conduct that we don’t find appropriate. But usually, when we look beneath the surface, we see that there are a lot of societal problems and the serious economic disparity in our society that leads to that activity. So I think as a society we have a responsibility not just to be focused on how to arrest more people, but also to get to the underlying offenses. [applause] We should look to alternatives to incarceration when we can, but then we have to build a system that punishes recidivism in some logical fashion. So we should go with behavioral health court, mentor court, drug court. but then when we’re dealing with other offenses we shouldn’t simply say, “Plead guilty to a felony, I’ll give you probation, and you’re on your way.” That’s almost not really a punishment, except that you’ve got a conviction now that keeps you from being able to go out and get a job. Society acts schizophrenically, hurting itself by doing that. So I think we should have a model where we want people to not get that felony that creates that problem for them, but forces them to do sheriff-work time, community service, jail time, depending on what the seriousness of the offense is, so that hopefully we can bring something back into law-abiding life. [applause]

ANGELA ALIOTO: First of all, that was Alioto Park that you all saw in the display earlier, and I actually had a meeting in Alioto Park, which of course was named for one of the greatest mayors this city ever had! And I had a meeting there the other day with a group of people, and you know, as much as I respect Supervisor Gonzales, I disagree. When someone comes in and deliberately and flagrantly, as this question asks, flagrantly sells hard core drugs to our children, they need to be arrested and put away. [applause, some boos] How did I know that wasn’t going to be popular here? You have to have a community where families feel safe to take their children to parks, where people feel safe in opening a small business, where people feel safe walking down the street no matter what time of day. That’s what the old San Francisco spirit was. That is gone because there is a flagrant disregard for serious crimes that occur, and nobody’s doing anything about it, with all due respect to public defenders and DAs and everybody else. There’s a bottom line: when you have your family and you’re walking down the street, you don’t want to be accosted by anybody. You want to be able to live with a quality of life that we all deserve. [applause] I was talking about selling drugs, I didn’t say users, I said selling drugs!

MODERATOR: Mr. Ammiano.

TOM AMMIANO: Thank you. Yes, you’ve got to look at the difference between big drug dealers and people who are busted for a nickel bag. We need to have community centers for dealing with that, as the difference between incarcerating those who make thousands and millions of dollars on dealing drugs. You have to have education as well, and one of the things I want to do, I think we need more community policing. That means people from the neighborhood who are police, who speak the language, who come from the neighborhood, that’s very possible, and one of the things I proposed for the ballot next March is civilianization of the Police Department so that all of the law enforcement officers who are now doing clerical work and non-enforcement work can be replaced by civilians, people from our neighborhood, and so that they can be on the street working with youth, not necessarily as law and order advocates but as mentors and peace officers as they’re supposed to be. The broken windows theory does not work. We’re going to have a new juvie hall. I don’t want the kids from our neighborhood to be there. I want them to be here in the community receiving the kind of true rehab and family support that they deserve so that there’s no recidivism. And by the way, when we release people from jail on drug charges, there’s no housing for them, so what do they do? They go back to our neighborhoods and our blocks to use again and sell again. So we need to make sure that people aren’t released without housing. [applause]

SUSAN LEAL: I do believe we need more community policing, we need more enforcement on it, and it may not be popular to make that statement to some of you. But the victims of that crime are often children. There’s a lot of parents in this neighborhood that, when their children leave school, they can’t hang out in the neighborhood or be anywhere in the street, they have to go right from school to home and stay inside. And we have to think about that. And so Tom’s right: yes, we do need more community policing. I’m very committed to that. You know, we blamed it all on Bernal Dwellings when Bernal Dwellings was there. Bernal Dwellings has been gone for several years and there is still as much drug dealing in lower 24th Street as there ever was. In fact, people tried to intentionally set fire to Brava Theater when they called the police on some of the drug dealing going on. We do need more enforcement, but at the same time we also need after-school employment programs. I’ve been a strong proponent of that, making it happen, making it happen. So it’s not a clear cut, “OK we just need police.” We also need other alternatives. But remember why we do need more enforcement. The victims are our children, our families. As the next mayor of this city I will have more enforcement, I will have more community policing; at the same time I’ll provide those after-school programs as I did when I was on the Board of Supervisors, particularly employment.

GAVIN NEWSOM: Thank you. I think we have to recognize the reason we have so much drug dealing in the city and county of San Francisco, in the Mission District and in other neighborhoods in San Francisco, is we lead the nation in drug addiction. We’re the biggest consumers in the country of methamphetamine, number one, we’re two in LSD, we’re now fourth in the United States of America in the rates of use and abuse of heroin, number nine in crack cocaine. We lead the United States of America in drug addiction. We’ve got to deal with that reality, and that’s why I do accept what the speakers are saying about dealing with those underlying reasons, those causes, and that’s why we’ve all fought hard, Treasurer Leal fought hard and Supervisor Ammiano and Supervisor Alioto and others fought hard for treatment on demand in the city and county of San Francisco and I’ll take a back seat to none of them in terms of advocacy, and I want to continue that effort. But we also have to deal with the reality: we have the lowest bail schedules in the Bay Area. This matters! There’s not a drug dealer in the Bay Area who doesn’t know what our bail schedules are in the city and county of San Francisco. When then-Captain Suhr did a sweep right down the block, on Twenty-fourth and Sixteenth, around the BART corridors, forty plus percent of the people who were arrested were from outside of San Francisco. It’s not just our lax prosecution, but it’s also the bail schedules. This is very real. We need to use some common sense here. I’m opposed to this failed war on drugs, vehemently opposed. I lecture on it as it relates to Boston University (?), I’m part of a joined together fellowship on this, but we also have to deal in reality. We’ve got some very specific ideas. I hope you’ll take a look at a white paper, a policy paper I have on crime reduction and dealing with the issues of (something) prevention as well as drug prevention in this city. Thank you. [applause]

TONY RIBERA: Well, first of all, Tom, I want to disagree with you. The broken windows theory does work. When I was Chief of Police we enforced quality of life crime laws and we reduced serious crime by thirty percent, which was the largest reduction in the United States at the time. We did a number of other things during my administration. We started a domestic violence unit which has been expanded since I retired. We were the second domestic violence unit in the state. We started a comprehensive community policing program which involved every officer in the department, and also gave the authority to the district captains to work with the community to come up with strategies to deal with crimes in their unique communities. And I might add that, being here in the Mission tonight, as the former captain of Mission Station, it makes me feel very good to know that you have the best captain in the police department, Greg Corrales. [applause, some boos] I must be doing something right. You know, there’s some other things that we did. You know, I supported the needle exchange program, I supported treatment on demand. But we really have to start getting serious about the serious drug dealers that we have on the Mission corridor now. We need full funding of the Police Department. We need to restore the budget cuts, and you’re going to get mad at me for saying this: we need to get rid of the worst district attorney in the State of California!