San Fransisco suddenly clean just before dignitaries arrive

Clean or dirty San Francisco is a crime ridden mess. God help the tourist who leaves a package visible in a parked car. Stores are plagued by massive shop lifting. I know two women, one my wife, who were punched in the face for the crime of walking down the street. Oh, and should you visit, be careful not to step on a sidewalk turd.
 

Lethe200 said:
I have yet to live in any city that didn't do some kind of spruce-up before the arrival of important foreign dignitaries. Standard procedure, IMHO.
Click to expand...
The issue is that the people have been begging city officials to clean-up that area for the past 3 years. They've been paying their taxes on time, and still have to wade through tents, trash, open drug use, feces, and urine.

You don't see the unfairness?
 
Happy to report traffic was light and our trip only took half an hour even with one lane closed and a few exits to SF closed off. There was traffic but not bad by any standard.

1700253942553.jpeg

But at least one person looked eager to be back.

1700253994588.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Murrmurr said:
Yeah, 98% of those didn't come out of a dog.
Click to expand...

I’m across the bay from SF but homelessness is pretty rampant here too. There is a brain damaged guy who used to live across and just down the street from us. He once dropped a load right beside our place. I talked to the police and a neighbor who looks out for him and it hasn’t happened again.
 
This story reminds me of the days when I used to travel to Poland during the "good ole' days" of Communist rule. I'm kidding here of course with the word "good".

Anyway, when the bigwigs from the communist party would be driven through a town or village, all the people were forced to stand on both sides of the street where the motor cavalcade passed through. They were given little Polish flags and told to wave them and to clap their hands.

When the bigwig or bigwigs arrived at their destination, they were given a great big bunch of flowers from pretty little girls dressed in the national custom, photos were made, the bigwigs ate and drank their vodka, made a speech or two and then returned home.

It was all a show since nothing was done in the villages/town that they passed through.

In San Francisco, the bigwigs will be shown a polished town for that really does not exist. If we lie to our leaders; I guess we get what we deserve.

Those of you who know their history will remember the infamous Potemkin Villages in Russian History. Sometimes, history repeats itself over and over:

"In politics and economics, a Potemkin village is a construction whose purpose is to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it is. The term comes from stories of a fake portable village built by Grigory Potemkin, former lover of Empress Catherine II, solely to impress the Empress during her journey to Crimea in 1787."
 
Blaze Duskdreamer said:
Truly astounding, isn't it? i don't know what's more disturbing - that or the lack of American flags from the pictures I've seen.

Absolutely, tons of Chinese flags and no American. I can see having some Chinese flags up to greet the dignataries from China but the American flag should be at least equal to the Chinese and, ideally, should outnumber them.

Is this America or China? Has the CCP taken America/California over and they just haven't told us?
Click to expand...
I worked for a person at a high level in the FBI and he would tell me that when diginateries were scheduled to meet with him, his office staff would change the paintings on the walls to reflect where the dignitaries came from and put out any gifts that they have gotten from them in the past. When they leave, they change them back. So phony.
 
One of my favorite, and harmless, SF pan handling experiences happened after work long ago. Waiting for a bus, a guy in a tennis outfit and carrying a racquet, walked up to me desperate for $20 to get back to Fort Ord. I didn’t fall for it. Two weeks later He was back again, same outfit. I reminded him it didn’t work the last time. (-8
 
Last edited:
The thing is, China is reading all the news articles of how terrible SF was/is prior to the visit.
They will know the clean up was only for them, knowing it will go right back to being a cesspool after they leave.
China will know its a staged setup,
And why are we entertaining a communist country anyway? Maybe Newsome sees more alignment than differences.
 
Sippican said:
The thing is, China is reading all the news articles of how terrible SF was/is prior to the visit.
They will know the clean up was only for them, knowing it will go right back to being a cesspool after they leave.
China will know its a staged setup,
And why are we entertaining a communist country anyway? Maybe Newsome sees more alignment than differences.
Click to expand...
It was an APEC meeting (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) for heads of nations only...only the people who decide on the direction of their nation's economic policies.

Our president was there; California's governor wasn't.
 
VaughanJB said:
I reckon that given the choice between not eating, and eating from a dumpster, I'd make the right and necessary decision. Others choose to eat from the dumpster.

But seriously, rules/laws like not allowing restaurants to give away food to the homeless are just evil. Can you be more hate filled? Just like one of our politicians who wanted to introduce a tent ban for the homeless. It's a sick mentality that would suggest such a thing. It also shows a complete lack of understanding and empathy. I don't personally want to see rows of tents full of the homeless on my streets, but if I did would the problem be the tents, or that people are being left to live this way?

And yes, many are drug addicted, or with mental health issues, but wouldn't you need something to help you cope with eating from dumpsters and being on the street every night to be mocked by drunk resellers? What do people really expect, they'd all enroll in college?!?
Click to expand...
VJB...I think there may be a fear of lawsuits. Say someone eats from a dumpster and the food somehow got contaminated. Maybe sat there for too long before it was picked up or something. Granted, the homeless may not have easy access to lawyers, but maybe they would through Legal Aid. I think there should be a safer way to distribute unused restaurant food to the homeless. I hate the thought of wasting food, even my own. And I love the thought of helping those in need.

Re the OP: How the heck were they able to clean up the city so fast?!

@Blaze Duskdreamer A friend of mine live in an area not far from LA; she said there's a huge Asian population there. Perhaps it's the same in the SanFran area. BTW...your screen name intrigues me. :) May I ask how/why you chose it?
 
OneEyedDiva said:
Re the OP: How the heck were they able to clean up the city so fast?!
Click to expand...
Reports say San Fransisco used 0.2% of a $1.2 billion budget for California to clean up the whole state over the next three years.

So, out of that 3-yr budget, the state spent over one hundred million dollars and hired 8,700 people to transform 3 city-blocks in downtown San Fransisco in about 3 days.
 
Last edited:
Tish said:
Yep during the Sydney Olympics, all the homeless were gone.
Click to expand...
I thought Sydney has a program in place to move homeless people out of the city on a regular basis?
I was there at the 2000 Olympics on business and there wasn't any homeless people around BUT there was alot of drunk people around. Mostly business yuppies when The Rocks area closed down for the night.

Went up to the Gold Coast for winery tours. 13 winery tour in a horse drawn carriage with 8 couples from around the world. What a great time!
 
Found this on line, 11/13/23.

"I live in San Francisco. The city began getting better about a year ago and really got cleaned up starting about 2 months ago when a federal judge lifted a ban on clearing encampments.

The reason the city got so bad during COVID was because the snowflake police force/union refused to arrest anyone for any reason after the election of a district attorney no one really liked but was elected because of the choice rank voting system. The cops decided screw the vote, the hell with democracy and like a bunch of thugs, stopped working. Instead of taking their licks and trying harder in the next election a couple of years later, the cops just started ghosting their jobs,collecting their paychecks and refused to help or arrest anyone. The police deliberately let the city collapse in order to force a recall election of the D.A.

They succeeded in forcing the recall election and got a better D.A. The problem is that they let the city devolve into lawless without realizing everyone was going to film the blight, put it on YouTube and destroy our tourism business and reputation. The cops went back to work a year ago and things have been improving every day.

The YouTubers keep going to the same 4 block areas by the Civic center, another in the Tenderloin and a third one by the overpass again and again trying to convince the gullible that those (3) four blocks areas represent the entire city.

My neighborhood, Lower Pac Heights and about 97% of San Francisco neighborhoods are clean, beautiful and homeless free, with the exception of the occasional wandering heroin zombies that are quickly tended to by city services within a hour of you calli911. They send out a wellness team and try to get the junkie into a shelter or clinic immediately. Too many people who don’t live here want to blame liberal policies for every problem in the city.

I’m the first to admit that a city this wealthy should be doing this better but I think that is about to change soon. The city recently passed a long overdue thorough auditing system for charities getting city money to help the homeless, based on measurable results. I think that will help a lot. They did take down a lot of orange construction tape and barriers and paint over a lot of graffiti for Xi’s visit, but the city has been getting nicer for the past year. The APEC conference just pleasantly accelerated things."
 
Sippican said:
I thought Sydney has a program in place to move homeless people out of the city on a regular basis?
I was there at the 2000 Olympics on business and there wasn't any homeless people around BUT there was alot of drunk people around. Mostly business yuppies when The Rocks area closed down for the night.

Went up to the Gold Coast for winery tours. 13 winery tour in a horse drawn carriage with 8 couples from around the world. What a great time!
Click to expand...
They do have a plan in place, but it only works for those who are mentally sound and want to leave the streets.
So many of them return.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
@Blaze Duskdreamer BTW...your screen name intrigues me. :) May I ask how/why you chose it?
Click to expand...
It's embarassingly simple. It's my Wizard 101 name. When grandson (now 20) was 8, he started playing an on-line MMO called Wizard101. I got drawn in watching him play and one day mused maybe I'll make a wizard and give that a try.

Make a boy, Grammy, he immediately yelled repeatedly in delight. Of course, I obliged and I scrolled carefully through their select names in three parts - first name, and two part last names - as they did not let you just type a name, for obvious reasons. Blaze Duskdreamer was the result and I just started using the name online everywhere. Only problem with it is people assume male which I did not expect becasue I've seen both genders named Blaze.

Neither he nor I have played for years though it took me far longer than him to tire of it. One of the most memorable things was he and I would meet up in the commons to play tag and hide and seek with our wizards. (His was unimaginatively just his first name as you could use only one of the three parts if you chose and his first name was in the list of first.) Comically, they added mini-games to the game of both those games. Guess we weren't the only ones doing so.

To be perfectly honest, every now and then I think about picking the game up again. If it wasn't an MMO, I might.
 
Murrmurr said:
Re: your tent-ban politician - Maybe the city is paying for the tents. Mine does. They have a contract with a major outfitter business. Every year the city gives them a fat check, and business gives the city thousands of dome-tents that sleep 2 to 4, and the contract gets bigger: more money for the outfitters, more tents for the city.

That's a misuse of taxpayer money, imo.

I've been sending my governor and state representatives the same letter for the past 4 years urging them to use our tax dollars to purchase a few of our largest abandoned malls and office complexes and turn them into factories that produce good citizens....homeless ne'er-do-wells go in, and up to 3 years later, self-sufficient people come out.

Inside: private rooms, a couple of cafeterias, mandatory rehab treatment program, a mental health center, skills and job training programs, job placement assistance, and finally, permanent housing assistance.
Click to expand...
Wow, what an excellent idea. It's bad enough that our politicians can't come up with solutions like this but they just ignore suggestions from citizens that do.
 
Sippican said:
I worked for a person at a high level in the FBI and he would tell me that when diginateries were scheduled to meet with him, his office staff would change the paintings on the walls to reflect where the dignitaries came from and put out any gifts that they have gotten from them in the past. When they leave, they change them back. So phony.
Click to expand...
It is phony but also diplomatic, I suppose. I can see doing that. The part I don't see is removing the American symbols.
 
Blaze Duskdreamer said:
Wow, what an excellent idea. It's bad enough that our politicians can't come up with solutions like this but they just ignore suggestions from citizens that do.
Click to expand...
One of the city officials I wrote to actually proposed a very similar idea at some session they had a few years ago. I even got a letter from him saying the proposal was well-received and, in so-many words, that the city was mulling it over.

These abandoned buildings cost millions and would cost millions more to renovate, and then there'd be furnishing, eqiupping, staffing and all that. But that same year, the city squandered $2.2 million to renovate one run-down apartment building into a nice, clean low-income housing complex with only 50 units.

Sacramento had 5 thousand homeless people at the time. That's an impossible 100 people per unit.

Now they're saying we have 10 thousand homeless people and they've earmarked 6 million dollars for a new sports arena.

People in gov't just don't seem to want to think ahead, like in terms of 5 years from now, or 10 years from now. They want projects that pay-off by the end of the fiscal year even if they're doomed to fail 5 years from now.
 
Murrmurr said:
One of the city officials I wrote to actually proposed a very similar idea at some session they had a few years ago. I even got a letter from him saying the proposal was well-received and, in so-many words, that the city was mulling it over.

These abandoned buildings cost millions and would cost millions more to renovate, and then there'd be furnishing, eqiupping, staffing and all that. But that same year, the city squandered $2.2 million to renovate one run-down apartment building into a nice, clean low-income housing complex with only 50 units.

Sacramento had 5 thousand homeless people at the time. That's an impossible 100 people per unit.

Now they're saying we have 10 thousand homeless people and they've earmarked 6 million dollars for a new sports arena.

People in gov't just don't seem to want to think ahead, like in terms of 5 years from now, or 10 years from now. They want projects that pay-off by the end of the fiscal year even if they're doomed to fail 5 years from now.
Click to expand...
Five years is past their next election cycle.

But it is good to know your excellent idea gained some traction.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
VJB...I think there may be a fear of lawsuits. Say someone eats from a dumpster and the food somehow got contaminated. Maybe sat there for too long before it was picked up or something. Granted, the homeless may not have easy access to lawyers, but maybe they would through Legal Aid. I think there should be a safer way to distribute unused restaurant food to the homeless. I hate the thought of wasting food, even my own. And I love the thought of helping those in need.

Re the OP: How the heck were they able to clean up the city so fast?!

@Blaze Duskdreamer A friend of mine live in an area not far from LA; she said there's a huge Asian population there. Perhaps it's the same in the SanFran area. BTW...your screen name intrigues me. :) May I ask how/why you chose it?
Click to expand...
Toronto has had a "Second Harvest " food program for decades. READ THIS LINK. Food Rescue Charity In Canada | Second Harvest JimB.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top