Jim Hartman
San Francisco’s far-left politicians finally decided to normalize trade relations with the United States.
On April 23, the city’s Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 to repeal a law that banned city-funded travel and contracting with an astounding 30 states they found insufficiently “progressive.”
San Francisco’s boycott campaign started in 2016 when the city passed its first ordinance banning states with “repressive anti-LGBT laws.” Then, in 2019, states with what San Francisco officials judged as “restrictive abortion laws” were added to the list. Most recently, in 2021, states with “restrictive” voting laws were added.
Nevada made the list in 2022, with San Francisco prohibiting city-funded travel to the Silver State and barring any city contracts involving Nevada-headquartered businesses.
The basis for the boycott was completely unjustified.
Legislation that unanimously passed the Nevada Legislature in 2021, signed by Gov. Sisolak, raised the number of people who could be in a precinct.
The bill’s intent was not to disenfranchise minorities, but rather to ensure that large apartment complexes weren’t confusingly split into multiple precincts.
No matter. Without evidence, the San Francisco Elections Department deemed the action “voter suppression.” Nevada, according to San Francisco officials, was racist.
Most impacted were Las Vegas-based hospitality companies and Lake Tahoe-area resorts. But, small businesses throughout Nevada were denied doing business with the City of San Francisco as well.
San Francisco’s repeal of the law came with an admission that it had backfired.
A report from City Administrator Carmen Chu’s office found no states changed their laws because of the San Francisco boycott. However, San Francisco had an astronomical increase in contracting costs the city had been forced to take on as a result of the ban’s restrictions.
Chu estimated San Francisco’s annual contracting costs had increased by 20%, with the city spending more than $475,000 in staffing expenses alone to carry out the ban.
On March 14, this same San Francisco Board of Supervisors voiced unanimous expressions of support for more than 100 recommendations made by a city-appointed reparations committee.
The draft reparations plan is unmatched nationwide in its specificity and breadth.
It calls for payments of $5 million to every eligible Black adult, the elimination of personal debt and tax burdens, guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years and homes in San Francisco for just $1 per family.
No cost analysis has been done by the committee, but critics slam the plan as financially and politically impossible. Stanford’s conservative-leaning Hoover Institution cost estimate is at least $600,000 for each non-Black family in the city.
In February 2022, San Francisco voters overwhelming recalled three radical, comically “woke” members of the Board of Education, by near 3 to 1 margins. Four months later, in June, city voters recalled the extreme, weak-on-crime, progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, in another landslide election (55% to 45%).
Dealing with rampant open-drug use and homelessness consumes an enormous part of San Francisco’s annual $13.95 billion budget. Direct city spending on homelessness increased from $200 million in 2016 to $680 million this year.
Among the 62 largest cities in America, San Francisco ranks last in the post-pandemic recovery of its downtown.
Incidents of theft in San Francisco have gained national attention. Shoplifting and organized retail crime are the reasons cited by Walgreens for closing at least 15 company stores in San Francisco since 2019.
On May 3, Nordstrom’s became the latest major retailer fleeing San Francisco, announcing the closing of two stores and citing the “deteriorating situation in downtown.” More than 20 major stores have closed there since 2020, including a Whole Foods location that had opened just a year ago.
San Francisco’s traditional political liberalism has been replaced by far-left politicians. Their extremism and craziness are killing the city.
Formerly, San Franciscans boasted about being “The City.” Today, “The City” is in a severe, self-inflicted steep decline.
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.