Talk about adding insult to injury. Or is it adding pointless fine to injury?
Oh SF City dept, citing us for graffiti on our boarded up windows is just poor taste.
— Weston Wear Store (@WestonWearStore) May 3, 2012
On the shitty meter, this just about ranks up there with getting your car stolen and having to pay for towing.
 May 3, 2012 On the shitty meter, this just about ranks up there with getting your car stolen and […]</p>
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Wow
What. The fuck.
Obviously, the city and the anarchists share some of the same sediment — what are they? I like the title of the post — it gets at the meat of the issue.
Getting pissed at the city or anarchists is more or less futile. Trying to understand their mindset is more interesting to me (sure some people will say, “if I had a gun…” or something lame), but to get at the ideas behind the movements of anarchists and the city workers is interesting.
Take the city gives big tax breaks to large dot-com businesses and they allow large businesses access to other assets — be it free real estate (city ATT boxes) or city fiber. The city worker can’t really rebel against ATT as there are many other workers there… perhaps, the citer looked at Weston Wear and just didn’t feel any empathy for a business that sells clothing out of their price range and caters to the more elite.
Seeing people rise up against larger corporations and supporting local businesses would — IMHO — be a better thing, but I do understand the frustration of paying $3.75 for a croissant or $3000/month. If you are making more than $100k a year, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of issues, if you make less, the problems of capitalism are abvious…. and that person serving you coffee sure isn’t making $100k, so tip them!
And the cycle continues as folks see this sort of behavior and conclude that they’ll vote against any and all tax increases funding venal, self-interested city employees. Which in turn sparks more desperate city action to increase revenues through punitive measures, which then raises more anti-government sentiment. Will the circle be unbroken? By and by, Lord, by and by.
There are way too many city government employees in SF. It’s shocking to see the per-capita comparisons with other cities.
Did you know that there are over 9000 city employees making over 100k/yr and there are around 2800 pensioners that get more than 75k/yr? Some up to 200k! That shit is totally unsustainable.
“That shit is totally unsustainable.”
[citation needed]
Here’s the list of people getting a pension over 75k/yr: http://media.sfweekly.com/5513955.0.pdf
Here’s the database of people earning over 100k/yr: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/13/SFPay2009.DTL
“In fiscal year 1999-2000, the city spent about $300,000 on its retirement system. In fiscal year 2009-10, it was $200.5 million. Benefits alone — not salaries, just benefits — for current and retired employees this year are budgeted at $993 million. Spending on retirees’ health care and pensions is conservatively projected to triple within five years.”
Here’s the source link for that last one: http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-10-20/news/let-it-bleed/
I’ll say that again: “That shit is totally unsustainable.”
Actually, MrEricSir, not so much citation needed if you are willing to use Google, the backbone of the information age!!!
Try this one: http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2011/06/19/guess-whats-the-average-san-francisco-city-pension/
For the record, I work full time, on my feet, in San Fransisco, and make about 24K NET. I have a health plan at work, minimal, but it helps.
I am a baby boomer and have more credit card debt than savings. Tell me how a situation with a buttload of city employees and an even bigger buttload of people like me could POSSIBLY be sustainable.
D. Jon–Absolutely. Once my last comment gets out of the “awaiting moderation” stage, you’ll see some links of how the cost of maintaining these retirees and current employees is basically doubling in very short periods of time. So fast that there is absolutely no way, short of increasing sales tax to 100% and making MUNI cost $25/ticket, to keep up with the costs of supporting these people.
Should be outta moderation now. Sorry bout that. Comments with links tend to get hung up.
I believe the City and the anarchists share different sediments. In the case of the City, the sediment is more rock-like and unyeilding. anarchistic sediment is more murky, like the dregs at the bottom of an espresso cup.
+1. I do think the sediments share the common feature of being bound together with a colloid composed largely of bullshit.
Good first effort, but it could have used some kind of stratigraphy reference.
Weston Wear, by the way, IS a local business. I think the lack of empathy for them by these anarcho-punks has more to do with the thread of misogyny that I see over and over again in some of the comments to this blog.
Or did Self Edge ALSO have all its windows broken out and I just didn’t notice it?
I haven’t read the comments for this post yet, mostly because I’m sure they’re filled with complete bullshit and misinformation, but here goes…
This is a non-story. Weston Wear has 30 DAYS to clean up the graffiti before they get fined. There is absolutely no chance that the graffiti would have been there in 30 days, city notice or not. So this is a complete non-story. The city is following protocol and Weston Wear will not get fined.
End.
Funny that the City isn’t interested in protocol when it comes to tagging on Clarion Alley.
How come the taggers are free from criticism in this story? They couldn’t give a local business a break either? I mean, they most likely live in this neighborhood and here they are shitting where they eat and providing the city with the opportunity to heap on Weston Wear as well.
great point!
I think the criticism for them is implied. I mean, we already called them “fuckheads” a bunch of times in previous stories.
The point is that the damage is done and the city is slapping more salt on the wound.
Except this seems to be a different set of fuckheads. I got the impression that these tags were on the boards they installed to cover the broken windows. Mayve I have my timeline off but I’m pretty sure what they got the notice for was unrelated to the riots.
unbelievable incompetence by the city. the police should be asked to go around cleaning this up since they did nothing to stop it.
Monday night, after the mob destroyed all but a few windows in the storefronts of my apartment building, we had repair crews out front til 3am boarding up… and a woman across the street yelling at them to stop because it was noisy.
I think there are those of us who feel we are “in this together” and those who only think of themselves, and the latter tend to make things suck.
Nicely put, my friend.
This is really unacceptable. What about the police? they are not being charged for its incompetence? THIS IS NOT JUSTICE!!!!
Flow my tears, Dolores — your illiteracy is also not being charged!
Weston Wear – I promise to but something to support you. You guys have been in the Mission for a VERY long time. You are creative, interesting and good folks xxoo
DPW spokeswoman Gloria Chan called this “an isolated incident”
She’s lying.
Department of Public works has a number of taxpayer funded employees devoted solely to fining property and small business owners for the “crime “of having their property tagged.
“We had a citation warning taped up to the boards to have the graffiti removed within 30 days or we could be subject to fines”
This was DPW’s lightning fast response to the damage- these notices were issued the very next morning on each of the vandalized businesses, and is a prime example of Ed Lee’s take on funding- if someone slaps a sticker or paint on your property or small business YOU get fined.
The only reason these penalties were reversed was the attention and potential bad publicity. Several tax-payer funded employees from the Department of Public Works are roaming the city, adding financial injury to the insult of finding your property vandalized.
Ed Lee Gets It Done!
“It” = ripping off San Francisco taxpayers and small businesses.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/05/03/sf-mayor-promises-changes-following-mission-vandalism/