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As a native San Franciscan (multi generation) and very proud that I am, we moved out of what should be considered a safe and desirable SF neighborhood (Cal and Van Ness) to Oakland when our baby was born last year. There were many reasons why I felt forced out of my city, but let met touch on just a few.
1) Walking outside our apartment in the early evening to see someone hunched over the next morning we found two needles
2) Having someone defecate in our driveway ramp (multiple times)
3) Prostitutes walking their beat down our street
4) Repeated vehicle vandalism (every car for a three block stretch multiple times)
5) Critical Mass (yes, I support bicycles and ride one myselfÖ I also stop at lights and obey the law)
6) Pot holes so bad that my front suspension of my two year old car broke (yes, one specific pot hole did that)
7) Whole Foods delivering at 3am, waking up my new born daughter, in a residential neighborhood and the police telling me I had no right to complain because they were a business
8) Muni let me count the ways all I can say is in the other Bay Area cities Iíve lived in, bus drivers wait for the passengers running to the bus (instead of closing the door just as I’m about to step on) and they obey the laws (instead of running red lights)
9) Critical Mass again, if I, as an individual, did what they do on a monthly basis, I would be thrown in jail for the night and have a court date set for me
10) Local government is more concerned with passing resolutions condemning (fill in the blank) instead of focusing on core issues that impact every San Franciscan. The time to focus on more lofty issues is after base needs are met.
It is sad that on one hand I take great pride that my daughter can say she is a native San Franciscan, born in the same hospital that I was, yet I was forced out of my own city only three months after she was born and moved to Oakland (yes, I feel raising my daughter in Oakland is safer than doing so in San Francisco probably the most damming critique of the state of San Francisco). Further, before someone dismisses me as a right wing conservative, I am a lifelong registered Democrat (as my entire family is and has been probably more left leaning than they are), yet I can see that before you add an addition to your home, you make sure your foundation is solid.
As my daughter grows up, I will take her to visit my beautiful city and explain why San Francisco is so great, but I will be at a loss for words to explain why if San Francisco is so great, we live in Oakland.
Name Withheld
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