Lee Heidhues 7.3.2022

This afternoon I had a conversation with someone who has carefully studied the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (FAMSF) ballot measure now being circulated by well paid mercenaries whose sole goal is to destroy car free areas in San Francisco. This citizen then told me about the bigger and potentially most destructive part of this mercenary signature campaign.

What the voters of San Francisco are unaware of is that this ballot measure has another horrific goal embedded in its text.

• STOP THE PROJECT WHICH WILL SAVE THE COASTLINE SOUTH OF SLOAT BOULEVARD AND PRESERVE THE OCEANSIDE WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PLANT

The FAMSF ballot measure would do much more than simply eliminate car free areas in San Francisco. It is a dangerous environmentally destructive measure.

The voter had refused to sign the Petition for all the reasons shown below.

Furthermore, the intention of this ballot measure is total destruction of:

• JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park
• The Great Walkway along the Pacific Ocean
• Car free zone on Martin Luther King Drive in Golden Gate Park
• Bernice Rogers Way
• Effectively decapitate all the Slow Streets programs in San Francisco

Next year The Great Highway from Sloat to Skyline Boulevard is scheduled for permanent closure. This stretch of land is eroding and falling into the Pacific Ocean. The City’s OCEANSIDE WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PLANT wastewater treatment facility is located in this area.

The reason for the closure, years in the planning, is to maintain the integrity of both the collapsing coastline and the wastewater treatment plant.

Should this ballot measure qualify and pass in November, San Francisco will be confronted with a financial and environmental catastrophe.

The woman who alerted me to this disaster in the making said we are talking about “Billions of dollars” should the OCEANSIDE WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PLANT project grind to a halt.

The mercenaries circulating the FAMSF petition are saying nothing about this disaster in the making to the environment.

The only language in the misleading ballot initiative reads, “Sloat Boulevard to Skyline” can be found on pages seven and nine (see attached link). There is not one word about the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant or the eroded coastline.

Click to access AccessForAll_LegalText.pdf

This is shameful and disgraceful treachery to mislead the voters.

The voters of San Francisco cannot let themselves be conned by this vicious dishonest petition campaign which the mercenaries are willfully failing to disclose the full impact of this obscene initiative

Last September The San Francisco Chronicle published an extensive article about the work being done along the Pacific Ocean by The Great Highway. The voters must be educated about what’s at stake should this misguided ballot measure qualify for the November ballot.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-to-save-southern-part-of-S-F-s-Ocean-Beach-16444844.php

Top photo: Roads, underground infrastructure and a major city wastewater treatment plant are at risk of being swallowed by the sea.
Amy Osborne/Special to The Chronicle

Lee Heidhues 7.1.2022

It’s a scandal. While America gets ready to celebrate its Independence Day one of its international sports stars is rotting in a Russian jail.

The Biden Administration is dawdling while American basketball Brittney Griner star has languished in a Moscow jail since last February,  Her continued detention on bogus drug possession charges is an outrage.

The only reason Ms. Griner is being held captive is Vladimir Putin’s evil utilization of her as a pawn while he wages his barbaric war of attrition against Ukraine. The Biden Administration could secure her release. It must secure her release and stop playing these political diplomatic games.

Excerpted from The New York Times 7.1.2022

Brittney Griner arrived in Russia in February to play basketball, one of the sport’s biggest stars. She arrived in a courtroom outside Moscow on Friday as something else entirely — a potential bargaining chip in Russia’s tense standoff with the West over the war in Ukraine, described by supporters as a hostage of the Kremlin.

After more than four months languishing in a Russian prison, and speaking no Russian, Ms. Griner, 31, went on trial, accused of carrying into the country vape cartridges with traces — 0.7 grams, the prosecutor said — of cannabis oil. In a legal system that rarely finds defendants anything but guilty, she faces up to 10 years in a penal colony if convicted.

Cherelle Griner, Brittney Griner’s wife and others have questioned whether the Biden administration is doing enough to secure Brittney Griner’s release, a view the State Department seemed determined on Friday to dispel. Elizabeth Rood, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, attended the trial and talked with reporters afterward.

“I did have the opportunity to speak with Ms. Griner in the courtroom,” Ms. Rood said. “She is doing as well as can be expected in these difficult circumstances and asked me to convey that she is in good spirits and is keeping up the faith.”

“The Russian Federation has wrongfully detained Ms. Griner,” she said, adding, “the U.S. government at the very highest levels is working very hard to bring Ms. Griner as well as all wrongfully detained U.S. citizens safely home.”

Ms. Griner’s arrest on Feb. 17 — a week before the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — pulled her into the maw of geopolitics as President Vladimir V. Putin faced a determined Western effort to help Ukraine fight back. She has been touted in Russian state media as an asset who could be traded for a Russian arms dealer sitting in an American prison.

Lee Heidhues 6.29.2022

Now that London Breed, her City Hall enablers, and her Myrmidons in the MAGA funded 7.2MM ‘Safer SF No Boudin’ campaign deposed of Progressive Chesa Boudin The Chronicle will now tell the inconvenient truth for those willing to listen about SFPD.

It is racist, violent, and after 30 months of having to act like human beings, is unleashed again to abuse People of Color with impunity.

Dr. Cora Ormseth, a UCSF physician and  author, told The Chronicle. “….. if you look back at the history, (of San Francisco’s racism) it all starts to make sense.”

Nothing changes in this reactionary regressive City.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 6.29.2022

A new UCSF study is drawing a sharp link between lingering racial segregation and the increased threat of police violence against Black residents. The study, published Wednesday in the JAMA Network, an online medical journal, also reveals something else:

Out of 52 California counties included in the study, San Francisco had the highest injury rate for Black residents.

Black people (in San Francisco) experienced 408 injuries from 2016 to 2019, but were only expected to experience 60 injuries based on their 6% share of the county’s population.

“San Francisco definitely stood out and it was certainly surprising to me because it’s considered such a progressive city,” Dr. Cora Ormseth, a UCSF physician and the study’s lead author, told The Chronicle. “But then if you look back at the history, it all starts to make sense.”

Oakland civil rights attorney Adante Pointer said “The Black population in San Francisco is next to nothing and yet, study after study point to data-driven evidence that show officers are harassing, and using more force against Black people.”

Using statewide hospital data, the study examined 27,671 “legal intervention injuries” — or injuries requiring hospitalization and resulting from encounters with law enforcement personnel — from Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2019.

Statewide, the study found that Black residents accounted for 18% of police-caused injuries over the four-year period, even though they represented 6% of California’s population.

White San Franciscans experienced 383 injuries, slightly more than the 355 they would be expected to experience.

Del Norte County, bordering Oregon in the state’s northwest, had the highest ratio of police-caused injuries for white residents with 57 injuries vs. 11 expected.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/police-violence-Black-residents-17272732.php

Top photo:  San Francisco State Strike. SFPD assaults student demonstrators 12.3.1968

Lee Heidhues 6.24.2022

Words can never describe the disgust and outrage over the Supreme Court decision totally screwing (pardon the bad pun) American women.

Rather than dwell on the Big Picture it’s preferable to single out one person who is responsible for this horrific decision. Republican Susan Collins of Maine.

The Nation nails it.

Excerpted from The Nation 6.24.2022

Rarely in history has a United States senator been so blatantly beclowned as Susan Collins was on Friday.

Four years ago this summer, the Republican senator from Maine announced that President Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, had assured her that he believed the recognition of abortion rights in the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision was “settled law.”

Collins vouched for Kavanaugh, even after California college professor Christine Blasey Ford testified that he had assaulted her when they were high school students.

Kavanaugh, a longtime conservative judicial activist, was lying, as was obvious to anyone who knew his record and was aware of his weak allegiance to the truth. Yet Collins announced that she believed Kavanaugh and, that fall, the senator cast the essential vote to put a justice who was widely understood to be opposed to abortion rights on the US Supreme Court.
In his concurrence, Kavanaugh declared that Roe was “wrongly decided” and pointedly asserted that the 49-year-old decision “should be overruled at this time.”

Collins’s colleagues and constituents warned her that her acceptance of Kavanaugh’s assurance could not be trusted. Two hundred and thirty Maine attorneys urged her to reject President Trump’s nominee because of their certainty that he would use his position on the bench to overturn Roe.

But Collins was a willing dupe, who placed her Republican Party affiliation ahead of her long-proclaimed pro-choice position.

Now, Kavanaugh has joined the activist majority on the high court in overturning Roe, with a sweeping decision that rejects almost five decades of precedent, as outlined in the 1973 ruling and the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that sustained it. And, on the outside chance that there was any doubt about his position, Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion that added insult to injury by absolutely rejecting the notion that Roe was ever “settled law.”

Collins actively campaigned for Kavanaugh, delivering a Senate floor speech that went all in on the argument that the nominee’s acceptance of Roe as “settled law” was deeply rooted in his reading of the US Constitution. “To my knowledge, Judge Kavanaugh is the first Supreme Court nominee to express the view that precedent is not merely a practice and tradition, but rooted in Article III of our Constitution itself,” Collins declared in the October 2018 address. “He said decisions become part of our legal framework with the passage of time and that honoring precedent is essential to maintaining public confidence.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/brett-kavanaugh-susan-collins/

Top photo: Senator Collins with then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh – 2018

Lee Heidhues – 6.22.2022

This morning I read the news that San Francisco Mayor London Breed tested positive for Covid – 19.  What really grabbed my attention is Breed’s spokesperson PARISA SAFARZADEH. A position which she has held since last month.

As a zealous follower of all things San Francisco, particularly with the successful Mayoral backed Coup d’etat against District Attorney Chesa Boudin, I am familiar with the Mayor’s media team.

Safarzadeh’s appointment as  Mayor Breed’s media public face comes close on the heels of the appointment of former SFPD PR flak Matt Dorsey to fill a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

These two appointments raise the issue of how much Mayor Breed is surrounding herself with people whose close alliegance and experience with law enforcement is well documented.

This is troubling, particularly since Breed has successfully removed a Progressive District Attorney – Chesa Boudin who brought balance to San Francisco City Hall’s increasing law and order administration.

I did a bit of sleuthing. It took a couple of minutes. Ms. Safarzadeh has a robust Linkedin profile.

• Harris County Texas Sheriff’s Office – Social Media Manager – 2012-16; 2017-18
• Nextdoor – Social Media Manager – 2018-19
• Nextdoor – Communications for Public Agencies 2019-20

• Deputy Director Information Dissemination & Analysis – SF  COVID Joint Information Center 2021-22
• Media Unit Lead – Joint Information Center 2022

In Ms. Safarzadeh’s Linkedin profile is another accolade.

• Trailblazer Award – Women in Law Enforcement Symposium

https://www.linkedin.com/in/parisasafarzadeh

Lee Heidhues 6.19.2022

My life long friend Chris Dreyer is an unsung accomplished artist with a sharp wit.

Every holiday season I can expect to receive one of his unique Seasons Greetings.

Chris has drawn over 1000 cartoons with edgy and pointed captions.

Following is a sample of Chris’ work. It deserves a large audience and should be appreciated.

Top drawing:  Picking my brain

Lee Heidhues 6.18.2022

Mary Jung is nothing more than a craven political operative who is doing the bidding for the entrenched City Hall Gang.

Her involvement in the political lynching Coup d’etat of Progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin will long stay with her.

This is the same Mary Jung who was ousted as the DCCC chair in 2016.

This is the same Mary Jung who when, during the Coup d’etat, confronted with a blatantly false and libelous attack ad admitted its falsehood and said, essentially, “So, what?”

Those San Francisco voters who Got Conned by the 7MM vicious disingenuous campaign will pay a steep price when their expectations for a Law and Order mecca are crushed when Reality Bites.

Crime ain’t going away anytime soon or ever.

Deal with It. A Puppet DA appointed by Mayor London Breed and supported by the Jungs of the World know their whole War on Chesa was one big False Flag operation.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 6.18.2022

One of Mary Jung’s consistent advantages in politics is money.

Jung believes the influence of big money is overstated, and sees the anger and passion of activists as the driving force of the recall. “I’d much rather Bill Oberndorf give to the recall than Mitch McConnell,” Jung said.

Oberndorf gave $602,000 to the recall through the Neighbors for a Better San Francisco PAC and has given around $6.5 million to Republican causes and candidates, including over $4 million to Mitch McConnell’s Republican Senate Leadership Fund since 2016.

The Boudin recall and its allies’s war chest of $7.2 million was one of the largest sums ever for a city ballot measure and dwarfing Boudin supporters’ $3.3 million.

Two thirds of the recall’s money, a total of $4.8 million, came from the Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Political Action Committee, an opaque group with no contribution limits that Jung has direct ties to. The same PAC also gave $483,800 to February’s successful school board recall, a quarter of that recall’s $1.9 million war chest.

In a 2020 Medium post, Jung wrote that she was the volunteer director of the Neighbors PAC, and she told The Chronicle that she only led the group during the 2020 fall campaign cycle. She said she couldn’t remember who created the PAC and described it as “long-time San Francisco residents who are concerned about the direction of our city.” Donors include Democrats such as Brandon Shorenstein, head of landlord Shorenstein Realty, the recall’s biggest contributor.

In a March 2021 filing, the PAC’s principal officer was listed as Jung’s deputy government affairs director at the Realtors, Jay Cheng, who didn’t respond to a request for comment about his relationship with the PAC. Two nonprofit affiliates are headed by some of the PAC’s major donors, who predominantly work in real estate, finance and tech: Billionaire William Oberndorf is CEO of one nonprofit, while housing developer Nick Podell is listed as CEO of the other.

His presence sparked accusations that Jung was a puppet of conservatives, even before the recall. As head of the DCCC, Campos condemned the PAC in 2020 in a resolution for its “Republican Billionaire’s Attacks on Democratic Party-Endorsed Candidates,” a prequel of the “right-wing recall” allegations that Boudin would use.

Two California Association of Realtors committees also gave a total of $450,000 to the Boudin recall. The real estate industry cares about public safety and San Francisco’s neighborhoods, Jung said.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/Meet-the-S-F-grandma-who-led-the-Boudin-recall-17250159.php

Top photo: Mary Jung and wannabe San Francisco Puppet DA Supervisor Catherine Stefani

Lee Heidhues 6.17.2022

Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung should resign.

https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/203236

Her involvement in the ouster of District Attorney Chesa Boudin raises serious ethical questions about an Officer of the Court engaging in political activities.  

Political activities which could find her being named to replace the person she once ran against and more recently worked non-stop to oust from office.

She worked shamelessly to overthrow San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin as a major participant in the vicious 7MM MAGA funded Coup d’etat.

Now this same Nancy Tung is angling to be appointed Puppet District Attorney by Mayor London Breed.

Nancy Tung who ran for DA in 2019 against Chesa Boudin finishing third in a four person ranked choice contest. When Tung was eliminated she trailed eventual winner Boudin by over 26,000 votes.

Tung was arguably the most conservative law and order candidate in the 2019 DA race.

After losing the DA race, Mayor Breed attempted to name Tung to the San Francisco Police Commission. A nomination which was rejected by the Board of Supervisors.

Earlier this year, in an interview with the San Francisco Standard, Tung told the interviewer she was preparing to run again for District Attorney. At the same time Tung was actively campaigning to overthrow Chesa Boudin.

Now Tung may be named Puppet District Attorney without having to step foot on the campaign trail.

Top photo – DA Chesa Boudin with family and supporters on Election Night 6.7.2022

Lee Heidhues 6.13.2022

Take a look at the genuinely “Progressive” county. Right next door. Alameda.

San Francisco is the faux “Progressive” town which saw Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk gunned down in City Hall.

That’s the Real San Francisco. Intolerant of change.

It proves once again that all the nonsense about San Francisco being “Progressive” is totally misplaced and potentially dangerous for those who believe it.

San Francisco is Conservative Law and Order at its core.

Controlled by a political establishment which will hold onto its power by any means necessary. The Coup d’etat which drove District Attorney Chesa Boudin from office is the latest example. Chesa has never been considered one of the “The In-Crowd”.

People want to believe Hippies, Herb Caen, Fisherman’s Wharf, The Greatful Dead and The Castro are San Francisco.

The 7MM Reactionary funded Coup d’etat resulting in Chesa Boudin’s ouster is emblematic of the Real San Francisco. Chesa will be just fine getting out of this law and order swamp. There are plenty of places and institutions which will welcome him.

San Francisco doesn’t deserve such an honest, ethical and intelligent District Attorney

San Francisco will be much the worse for Chesa’s overthrow in what amounts to a political lynching.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 6.13.2022

“The city (San Francisco) has become very, very different from the rest of the Bay Area, in my view, and has been for a long time. I can remember trying cases there in the late ‘90s, early 2000s, and it was just a lot of overt racism...”

“… In contrast, Oakland remains a center of Black activism”, Civil Rights attorney and first place finisher in the race to become the next Alameda District Attorney, Pamel Price put it bluntly.

The civil rights attorney and community activist Pamela Price continued: “San Francisco has become a city of billionaires. … poor people have been forced out of the city, particularly the dwindling number of Black residents.”

Anybody who thinks Boudin’s recall is somehow indicative of the entire region, she says, “doesn’t know anything about the Bay — the Bay Area is a lot bigger than San Francisco.”

“I think that it’s wrong just to look at what happened in San Francisco and say … people don’t want criminal justice reform,” said Nicole Lee, the executive director of Urban Peace Movement, a youth-focused, grass-roots racial justice organization in Oakland. “We can’t let what happened in one city — as much attention as that city gets in the Bay Area — overshadow the bigger picture.”

Over the weekend, Yesenia Sanchez jumped above the 50% threshold in her bid to become Alameda County’s next sheriff. If her lead holds, she’ll claim the job and avoid a November run-off, beating a long-time incumbent on a reform-minded platform that included more programs and job training for prisoners, increased transparency and new approaches to crisis intervention and de-escalation.

Her potential win would be another sign that criminal justice reform is alive in the Bay Area despite San Franciscans ousting progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin. In the East Bay, voters rallied behind Sanchez as well as two progressive district attorney candidates: Diana Becton won a second term in Contra Costa County, while civil rights attorney and community activist Pamela Price held a commanding lead in Alameda County and will head to a run-off. If elected, Price would be the county’s first non-white district attorney.

Lee Heidhues 6.12.2022

Stop Crime SF has its sites set on political office in San Francisco.

District Attorney and Board of Supervisors.

Nancy Tung who ran for District Attorney against Chesa Boudin in 2019 and finished third in the four person race is now angling to be appointed as the Puppet DA by Mayor London Breed.  Tung is on the Board of Directors of Stop Crime SF.

Make no mistake the so called 501(C)(3) non profit Stop Crime SF is a virulent law and order organization whose goal is to destroy Progressive Justice in San Francisco. Its take down of District Attorney Chesa Boudin in last week’s MAGA funded $7,000,000 Recall is its perverse shining moment.

https://stopcrimesf.com/

https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/stop-crime-sf,833063545/

Nancy Tung  was a constant campaigner in the DA Recall.  She is an Assistant District Attorney in Alameda County. As an Officer of the Court her active participation in the Recall raises issues of ethics and propriety.

Tung was featured in SF Standard earlier this year. She spoke of her intention to run, again. Now she may achieve her goal without having to step foot on the campaign trail and will become San Francisco’s Puppet District Attorney.

In 2020 Mayor Breed attempted to appoint Tung to the Police Commission. An appointment which was rejected by the Board of Supervisors.

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/chesa-boudin-recall-nancy-tung-looks-to-take-another-shot-at-running-for-da/

Joel Engardio is a founder and The Executive Director of Stop Crime SF. He just announced his candidacy for District 4 Supervisior and will try to unseat Gordon Mar next November.

https://engardio.com/about-joel

It must be noted in reading the PAR piece that Heather Knight, the San Francisco Chronicle award winning columnist, has spent three years trying to destroy Chesa Boudin.  Her law and order reportorial credentials were firmly established with Stop Crime SF.  A political agenda Knight utililized to full effect in waging her campaign against Boudin.