Thank you to everyone who submitted a question for our Valentine's Day question time with Mayor Breed. We, again, received thoughtful and compassionate questions on topics covering road conditions, housing, and crime among others. The topic which received the most questions was about blight in our neighborhoods. Our neighbor Jamie submitted a question about the need to have clean and safe streets. You can watch Mayor Breed's answer here, beginning at minute 6:15:
I think you'll agree with me that her response is not good enough for District 1. And this is why tomorrow, as the Board's Budget Committee Chair, I will be asking our Police Department and Department of Public Works to do better and deliver meaningful results for safe and clean streets as we decide on more than $75 million in supplemental city funding, on top of the already allocated $714 million from last year's budget for the Police Department, which was an increase of $50 million from the previous year.
Thank you for continuing to engage with me, I appreciate all your input and will continue to work to provide oversight and accountability, as the Mayor seeks to balance our city budget, which I pledged to do in my Equitable Recovery Act.
Cleaning up Geary Blvd
Last week, I joined Kareem and his colleagues from the Clean Corridors team with the Department of Public Works as they cleaned up Geary between Arguello and Park Presidio. They bagged up garbage, brought power washers, flusher trucks, and grafitti abaters. We need more of this in our District.
While I was happy to see this stretch of Geary looking clean, I know it's not enough.
I have also been asking the TNDC and Nibbi Brothers Construction, the entities currently developing 4200 Geary, to remediate the grafitti on their site. We can do better, and this is why I am demanding $25 million in additional funding for DPW to deliver results.
Alexandria Theatre
In the past few weeks, I have been meeting with the owner of the Alexandria Theatre and other city departments to help the development plan, including the possiblity of housing.
I also introduced legislation to landmark the Alexandria Theatre’s historical resources - specifically the marquee, the blade sign, the mural and the chandelier - to preserve the history of the Alexandria while paving the way for develpment of the rest of the building. I am hopeful we will have good news to share in the coming months.
