“It’s a strange city that bans plastic straws but permits plastic needles”: Billionaire Slams SF Politicians

A Silicon Valley billionaire, Michael Moritz, denounced San Francisco politicians and the bureaucrats who have destroyed that beautiful city in an op-ed for the Financial Times. He wrote:

“It’s a strange city that bans plastic straws but permits plastic needles. Yet that’s San Francisco today. Between 2020 and 2022, 1,985 people here have died from drug overdoses compared to 1,143 from Covid-19.

“Tomorrow, San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, will give her annual state of the city address. It is sure to contain references to the city’s virtues but should also confront the issues hurting all San Franciscans: a deserted downtown; the flight of medium and large businesses and major conventions; the highest commercial office vacancy rates of any big city in the US.

“Planning policies that amount to a virtual border wall encircling the city; housing costs that make it prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthy or poverty-stricken; a public school system whose enrolment has fallen and which has only 55 per cent English proficiency and 46 per cent maths proficiency (with a 9 per cent maths proficiency rate for black students); and a police department which is short of 645 officers.

“But without tackling San Francisco’s open-air drug markets and homeless encampments, efforts to solve these problems will be fruitless. 

“Fentanyl, the synthetic drug that is 50 times more powerful than and a fraction of the cost of heroin, has turned many blocks of the city into zombie zones. 

“None of this has happened overnight — it’s a situation that has built up over decades and to which state and federal policies have contributed. But much of it is the result of skilful politicking. 

“San Francisco has an elected mayor, but it also has a board of supervisors.

“Thanks to the malleable nature of the city’s term limits, supervisors can occupy a seat for two-thirds of their working lives.

“…The existence of 130 external commissions overseeing dozens of city departments.

“San Francisco’s drug and homeless crises can be solved, but that would mean changes to the mechanics of government and co-ordinated political will. 

“Several European cities, including ultra-progressive Amsterdam, have paved the way. 

“It requires the co-ordinated and persistent pursuit of harm-reduction programmes, sufficient public shelters, commitment for treatment for those who are a danger to themselves and others, visible policing, a judiciary that enforces the law and — most of all — a change in the armature of government.

“That’s how the mayor should propose to build a San Francisco that will be better for everyone,” he wrote.

Eight suspects have been arrested in connection with an alleged organized crime ring accused of targeting Apple Stores in a series of Bay Area heists, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Get the details below. ⬇️ https://t.co/g22paBg7PC

— The San Francisco Standard (@sfstandard) February 9, 2023

Having covered all kinds of heinous crimes in the San Francisco Bay Area over the last three years, @lwoodhouse and I didn’t think things could get any worse. Then, we discovered a 14-year-old girl was being sex trafficked by MS-13.https://t.co/etbcfYlj7D

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 4, 2023