Lee Heidhues 10.22.2023
As if San Francisco doesn’t have enough to deal with, already.
Continuing street protests in support of the Palestinian people decrying Israeli aggression in The Gaza Strip and West Bank which has killed nearly 5000 men, women and children. In response to the Hamas terrorist incursion into Israel in early October which took the lives, thus far, of 1400 Israelis.
In three weeks the mammoth Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) will see The City taken over by the Feds and a swath of downtown turned into a high security garrison State.
What will The City do with its unhoused population? Having guests from 21 countries witness San Francisco’s systemic insoluble problem first hand. Unhoused sleeping and often drugged out on the streets isn’t good for the image. Nor is it good optics for this international city.
The APEC may be some kind of payoff to San Francisco’s political leadership; VP Kamala Harris, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Governor Gavin Newsom, the late Dianne Feinstein, and Mayor London Breed. These movers and shakers, alive and in the sweet hereafter, may love all the attention. The same may not be true for the average citizen.
Excerpted from The Standard 10.18.2023
“An impact to the normal daily lives of San Franciscans and visitors is unavoidable,” U.S. Secret Service Special Agent-in-Charge Jeremy Brown said at the press conference. “We have absolute confidence in this plan.”
San Francisco will be under tight security in mid-November akin to safety measures at the White House when dignitaries and world leaders come to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, federal officials said at a press conference Wednesday.
Details of the security for the event were announced Wednesday by the U.S. Secret Service and will include a locked-down, four-square-block section of Downtown around the Moscone Center; closed streets; and shutdown transit lines—including the Central Subway—as well as limited air traffic over San Francisco.
Nob Hill will also be a restricted zone, and part of the Embarcadero will be closed Nov. 15.
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