December 21, 2021
London N. Breed,
Mayor
City and County of San Francisco
City Hall, Room 200
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, California 94102
Mayor Breed:
Leaving home during a winter storm, we flew into Oakland on November 19, 2021, where we set out on a ramble across the Sierras, down to Lone Pine and eventually back up to Oakland where we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with family, after which we spent a couple days walking the trails and byways of West Marin County and in Sonoma.
Waking on the 30th in Sonoma, we had what amounted to a free day to poke around prior to turning in our rental rig at the Oakland Airport and staying in a nearby hotel so we could depart for home on December 1.
As we were in Sonoma, I thought to myself, “why not cross the Golden Gate, stop at a museum in San Francisco, perhaps have lunch and leisurely make our way across the Bay Bridge to Oakland?” My spouse (proving she is more intelligent than I), didn’t balk entirely but raised concerns about heading into San Francisco. We weighed the prospects – acknowledging the obvious difficulties of spending time in San Francisco anymore. We batted around the obvious issues with a seemingly endless string of individuals wandering around exhibiting peculiar behavior consistent with various failed jurisdictions throughout the globe.
We concluded San Francisco has become altogether precious in terms of the attitudes harbored by the local political caste in regards to providing hospitality and deeply dysfunctional in terms of practical municipal operations. Why put up with the obvious hassles associated with San Francisco my smarter spouse asked?
I had this idea that driving across the Golden Gate, cutting through the Presidio of San Francisco and spending a few hours up at the fine art museum at the Legion of Honor would be enjoyable. “What could go wrong?” I asked, confident that the area around the Legion was a place of honor.
So, we embarked on a pleasant trip from Sonoma, drove the bridge, maneuvered safely through the local neighborhoods on the heights overlooking the Golden Gate and arrived at the museum in the middle of a glorious, sunny day. We locked the vehicle, walked right up to the museum, plunked down the admission fee and spent two hours trooping around various galleries, including a wonderful exhibit on the use of pastels from the Renaissance through contemporary times. We headed out to the vehicle, thinking we might have a late lunch down by Fort Mason, and were surprised that the back window of the rental rig was smashed out and all our luggage removed with the exception of the New York Times, Sunday edition, which caused one friendly wag to suggest that the perpetrators were “conservative.” My guess is they were not.
Not being entirely familiar how to deal with this situation, we walked back to the museum where the head of security politely and with considerable conviction expressed his deepest regrets and sympathy before whipping out a pre-printed brochure titled: Car Break-In Resources. Hmmm, I thought to myself, there is seemingly enough of this kind of conduct going on to warrant a “how to” guide on what the security staff labeled as a “smash and grab.”
I walked back to the scene of the smash-and-grab caper noting the abundance of smashed out tempered automobile glass in evidence everywhere in the parking area that further supported the idea that this kind of activity is common. Suffice to say my urban trail reading skills improved, even if the circumstances were post hoc. With the sound of crunchy glass underfoot, I phoned the San Francisco police, as directed by resource guide. The individual I spoke with at the San Francisco police department was unfailingly polite and took down the information about the contents of our stolen luggage in a thoughtful manner. We did the rough itemization of two small “wheelie bags, a brief case, a tote and a small bag full of clothes in need of laundering. The aggregate value of all the goods removed from the locked vehicle was in excess of three-thousand dollars, a sum that was calculated in Federal Reserve Notes.
While discussing the contents and value of the stolen goods with the San Francisco police, we observed two individuals operating a Volkswagen Jetta cruising up and down the street where our vehicle had been broken into. The driver would stop at various vehicles and the passenger would jump out and inspect the vehicle’s interior. My wife suggested these individuals were “casing” cars, an observation that appeared correct to me.
In turn, I passed along this observation to the San Francisco police official with whom I was speaking, who informed me, indeed, a report about two individuals driving a blue-grey Jetta while casing cars had been phoned into the department that day. The individuals in the suspicious Jetta zoomed away but reappeared in short order, causing me to wonder whether I should step out and confront them.
I like to think of myself as not being totally passive or fearful. At age 70, I still take a regular shift playing recreational ice hockey and in the right circumstance, will line up and block shots. On the other hand, I figured I was way out of my element confronting a couple of individuals who seemingly were engaged in conduct that is generally considered violative of ordinary social convention. Those of us living in the North have a decent feel for danger in bear habitat, how to handle avalanches, boating in ocean temperatures that are fatal if you sink and a variety of other situations but I decided I was out of my league with jerks in a Jetta.
The Jetta disappeared, nobody from the San Francisco police responded to the scene, so after a couple of hours spent on the phone and waiting around, we decided we had all the fun we could handle in San Francisco on this particular day and we headed over to Oakland. My spouse texted our family, who rallied and assembled a couple of jackets and two toothbrushes designed to make return to Alaska a bit easier. I was grateful for the loan of a jacket given temperatures back home were below freezing and all we had after the smash and grab was the clothing on our backs and our wallets.
As we drove over Bay Bridge, I tried humming a few bars from Amarillo by Morning, the lines that go: “Everything I got, is just what I’ve got on.” My spouse, not being a particular fan of country music, didn’t really think this was the time for me to be trying out a George Strait imitation and told me to keep the tune handy for riding in the Big Horns in Montana or Wyoming, something I do with the Crow family who adopted me.
Chastened, we pulled up in Oakland, had a sober meal with family, put a paper bag with the spare jackets and tooth brushes in the back seat and headed to a filling station to gas up the rental rig. We have a division of labor in our household that has evolved where I pump gas (except in Oregon, where state law prohibits an individual from self-help with fueling), so I missed a portion of a phone call she received while gassing up. What I did apprehend when I got back in the vehicle was that a police officer in Richmond had possession of our luggage. How, exactly, our luggage wound up in Richmond is a mystery not likely to be resolved but we were urged to drive up to Richmond from Oakland and claim our goods.
This sounded almost too good to be true, to us, but we started motoring up towards Richmond in the rental rig with the smashed out rear hatch window. Along the way, we called the rental car company and procured an extension of time to extend the contract. That chore taken care of, my spouse called the Richmond Police Department and inquired whether that agency really did have an officer with the name given to her. The dispatcher confirmed that the officer was standing by with our luggage. We apologized for sounding “paranoid,” and were told that was just being savvy in the modern world.
As it turns out, our luggage was dumped on a dark hillside street in Richmond and co-mingled with the property of at least two other individuals who had their possessions stolen. The only way the police in Richmond knew about the gear was because an alert neighbor noticed a couple guys rifling through various pieces of luggage and discarding the contents next to his property. He called the police, who responded promptly, which was an improvement over the response time by the cops over in the sophisticated city to the west. We helped the police sort through various pieces of luggage and were pleased most of our goods were returned.
During this sorting phase, the Richmond police officer noted this kind of smash-and-grab activity is extraordinarily common. The officer was delighted he could help recover the property for us and noted that even if the perpetrators were caught, the likelihood of prosecution was so close to zero that returning the property was viewed as being a success.
We were not able to reclaim all of the property stolen from the rental rig. The laptop was taken from the brief case I use. Interestingly enough, an expensive pair of field glasses were not removed from the brief case. Oh, and the perpetrators took a plastic bag of vitamin supplements. Pills have some sort of value in the Bay Area, I guess, even vitamin D.
We loaded most of gear into the rental rig with the smashed window, thanked the Richmond police officers and the Richmond homeowner who helped and then drove down to the Oakland Airport rental car center. Figuring I was probably going to have to spend considerable time filling out reports related to how the rear hatch window was smashed, I was pleasantly surprised that the return agent expressed dismay and condolences before concluding that this kind of activity happens “all the time,” and whipped through the return procedures in short order. Which brings me to the point of this correspondence.
The security personnel at the museum up at the Legion of Honor, the police in San Francisco, the cops over in Richmond and the rental car return agent all expressed in their own manner and with considerable empathy that the smash-and-grab routine is pervasive in San Francisco. They know it, the perpetrators know it, many local residents of the Bay Area know it, the staff at the de Young museums know it, which is why they implored victims of the kind of brazen lawlessness that is transpiring in your community to contact your office.
The only folks who probably are not aware of how bad things have gotten in San Francisco are the rubes like myself who naively figure they can park in a place next to a museum in broad daylight and leave their personal effects in a locked vehicle. My supposition is that you and most of the other elected officials in the Bay Area region have at least nodding familiarity with the kind of behavior that is taking place in your community. The obvious issue is whether you have the courage and integrity to address the problem.
You may elect to consign my views as being the nattering of a privileged, entitled, heterosexual male with an unconscious exploitive belief system grounded in colonial and racial oppression. Given that the idea of objective reality has pretty much been abandoned anymore by more than a few citizens and many politicians who have sought and acquired political control, it wouldn’t amaze me if you (or at least some of your colleagues on the City and County of San Francisco Assembly), decide to characterize this letter as the unfeeling sentiments of an individual who fails to apprehend the perpetrators of the smash and grab were really just victims of a deep legacy of colonial exploitation and a corrupt economic system. I confess, I am somewhat inclined to adhere to many rules, e.g., those octagonal red stops commanding individuals to halt and various other prohibitions designed to protect the common good. For what it is worth, I for one am not buying the notion that seems pervasive in your jurisdiction that the perpetrators are really oppressed and engaged in some form of redistributive justice.
I also confess I am an old, somewhat cranky Caucasian guy. I have had a variety of experiences that afford a point of observation that cities that do not strive to maintain public safety or maintain a decent public school education system are destined to falter and possibly fail. Having grown up in Detroit, it was impossible to avoid the impacts of dumb political decision-making, toxic racism and mindless rhetoric that plunged a once great city into chaos and decay. There are no simple solutions to maintain a vibrant and vital community but failing to provide public safety for individuals, regardless of their creed or genetic composition or their ownership interest in property is a sure path to destruction. Nobody suffers more from property loss than impoverished individuals when the political caste in a particular jurisdiction declines to follow the rule of law.
I do not envy your task as Mayor. You are saddled with an unbelievably creepy District Attorney who is conducting law enforcement seemingly based on very odd psychological notions about crime and punishment that are disconnected from actual human behavior. One need not be a clinician to understand Chesa Boudin is torturing your community with his odd belief systems pertaining to justice. With actors like that on the team tasked with maintaining a civilized community, your task is brutally difficult. There are, of course, remedies to rogue law enforcement officials, even ones who are elected – cut off a bunch of the funding for Mr. Boudin. Instead, hire competent private security and augment the dysfunctional District Attorney who is failing to maintain public safety with a bounty system, if necessary.
One need not be a historian of note or harbor a particular philosophic or partisan orientation to know that the line between maintaining a civilization and anarchy is not amendable to a mechanical formulation and is a bit imprecise. When situations get fluid in terms of maintaining order (not to overlook civilization), it is imperative to pay particular attention to what works in terms of maintaining and promoting civilized conduct. What’s the alternative? Apparently, District Attorney Boudin is in favor of anarchy. As a community or society nears anarchy, a tendency towards vigilantism emerges. Or, individuals with will, simply up stakes and leave, at which point decline is usually inevitable.
Think this is hyperbole? Consider Detroit, which may have finally hit bottom but the period of time from when the National Guard troops attempted to suppress rioting in 1968, lost control and elements of the 82nd and 101st airborne troops were deployed to end the killing, up to the present have been pretty grim.
I comprehend that San Francisco doesn’t have the same toxic mix of racial animosity that existed in Detroit in the 1960’s. The community over which you preside is composed differently, of course, and has different challenges, but however you define them if you ignore public safety there is a certainty San Francisco will not retain the allegiance of visitors. For that matter, a lot of residents are going to leave and head to someplace with less drama and fewer public safety issues evident on a weekly or daily basis.
Most of us hanker to be guests, not victims, when we visit someplace. I am fortunate in having resources that allow my family to travel. I elected to travel to San Francisco. This was my mistake, but I had fond memories of staying at the Palace Hotel and other venues with my spouse and children. We have hosted receptions in hotels in your community. Walking from North Beach across the city to the baseball park with our youngest daughter back in the day to see the Giantsplay a game was fun, as was wandering around Chinatown, shopping in and about Maiden Lane and a variety of other activities. And, I have to say, San Francisco was a place in which I have worked over the years, including work with Peggy and Edgar Wayburn and other conservationists. I even went to a Sharks match at the old Cow Palace once upon a time.
Let me close with a couple observations that apparently are not in play with some of your colleagues on the City and County of San Francisco Assembly. Many visitors to San Francisco, including myself, have options. Believe it or not, it is only marginally more difficult to go to Manitoba for a performance of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet than it is to fly down to San Francisco to view a ballet or opera. Not only is Winnipeg less expensive than San Francisco, the citizens are courteous and the local gendarmes do not put up with punks breaking out vehicle windows.
Believe it or not, getting from Juneau to Paris or Milan if we want to attend an opera isn’t a whole lot more expensive than fooling around with flights into San Francisco and putting up with exorbitant hotel prices in your community, not to forget the hyper-aggressive panhandling that takes place adjacent to some of your cultural centers.
Options abound in the modern world. Vancouver, British Columbia and other places have refreshing atmosphere with plenty of cultural and other urban activities that can be enjoyed by guests, even during this pandemic.
As long as you and your colleagues adopt dysfunctional policies that reward naughty behavior and work against the interests of the majority of your residents and those of us who once elected to visit your community, those of us with options will take a pass on San Francisco. All the virtue signaling and hand-wringing about the need for justice, equity and restitution may make some of your colleague feel good about themselves and serve as a balm for some of your most militant constituents but it isn’t going to make San Francisco a city in which functional humans wish to live or visit.
I do wish you the very best trying to assemble a coalition of genuinely thoughtful political colleagues who are able to move beyond rhetoric and act rationally to address actual problems with real solutions according to a genuine understanding of human nature.
Call me if you want to discuss this matter. But, whatever you do, kindly refrain from having some special assistant who undoubtedly had some political connection with someone in your municipal government send me a slightly modified letter of condolence about how we were treated while guests in your city. I’ve had my fill of precast correspondence from San Francisco for a while.
Very truly yours,
Joseph W. Geldhof
