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Since when is the tenderloin the "new" hotbed of drug dealing? Its been an open air drug market for as long as I've been around.

Agreed with Joe. It is pretty disengenuous for any City official or police officer to suggest that drug dealing and violent crime are newly spiking in this area. As someone who works in this area, I can attest to the fact that drug dealing is pervasive and wide open, and there are NO police officers to be seen anywhere unless you are standing outside of the Tenderloin station.

My armchair analysis (which isn't terribly well-informed) is that the City needs to hire more police and we need to stop being so tolerant (some may call it accomodating even) of criminal activity if we want to have a good quality of life and to keep tourists wanting to visit our beautiful City. In the meanwhile, what does it take to get a concealed carry weapon permit here? Seriously.

It comes down to political will. The local obsession with progressiveness and all forms of liberal appeasement is completely paralyzing. I don't like the guy, but Giuliani and his team cleaned up NYC by busting some heads.

Can't do that here. We're so obsessed with the rights of the downtrodden, we allow them to ruin the quality of life for the honest and hard-working. The SFPD are encouraged to look the other way to avoid public outcry.

This applies even more strongly to the homeless. And Chris Daly, afraid of running for Mayor, is happy with the status quo. It gets him his vital SRO resident vote.

This is coming from a committed and active Democrat, so please hold off on the "fascist" commentary.

Daly and his ilk are a direct threat to public safety--let's say it loud and clear. Note his latest machinations with the city budget, stripping it of every item which might improve public safety. The most egregious is eliminating a police academy class, even though the police department is severely understaffed and crime is rising. Just unbelievable!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/06/BAGFGQ9TG61.DTL

Daly is trying to redirect some of the money to prevent cuts in psychiatric hospital beds-- cuts that will result in an even crazier TL. So it may even out on public safety.

However, the fact that Daly and Newsom are fighting over which necessary programs to cut demonstrates that the Board of Supervisors should not just have allocated $30 million dollars in new spending for affordable housing, without means to pay for it.

Daly's actions are far less benign than that and are primarily a reflection of orthodox progressive ideology--and of a contempt for law enforcement. Note how he specifically targeted Newsom's proposal for a Tenderloin Community Justice court and for park patrol officers in Golden Gate Park. New York's spectacular drop in crime was and is directly tied to the kind of "broken windows" enforcement that Daly is doing everything in his power to sabotage.

I walk home from 2nd and market to the panhandle, and its a nice walk apart from the stretch from 5th street over to 8th Street, yes you get offered everything and anything.

I'm embarrassed when friends come to visit and walk the wrong way on Market.

I saw the article about Daly wanting to cut one police academy class and other proposed public safety dollars. His alternative proposal would pay for a few good things (we do need more mental health services to get the paranoid schizophrenics off the streets and we shouldn't allow the Federal Government's decision to reduce HIV/AIDS services to go unanswered as a public health issue), but Daly's alternative is to shift the funds primarily toward affordable housing ($31 million).

How many more pedestrians and bicyclists have to be seriously injured or killed on our streets due to excessively fast driving motorists? How many more stories do we need to read about folks coming in to the City to rob and kill us without worry of being caught? We need more police first ... and I hope the other Supervisors have the gumption to stand up to Daly (especially the supposed President of the Board, Peskin).

This is a direct result of the attitude and vision that San Francisco has adopted. We have never recovered from the Haight-Asbury Days only increased the violent crime and drug use. Of course, gangs from the East Bay love us too!

It is very disapointing that million dollar plus condos in such a wonderful city with very hard working folks are being undermined by a self-serving political hack like Chris Daly

I'd like to know the D.A. plans to start prosecuting criminals instead of letting them go? Isin't that why we elected her?

M.R.