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I would like to suggest that you consider expanding the Southern boundary of the proposed new Community Court System beyond Harrison Street and to encompass all streets between Harrison and AT&T Park.
I will list for you the reasons why this new court system should encompass AT&T Park and the surrounding East SoMa neighborhood.
1. We are faced with several law breaking corner liquor stores selling to already inebriated patrons. We have repeatedly relayed our displeasure to them and the consequences to the neighborhood they make their living in, but our complaints fall on deaf ears.
2. The above mentioned inebriates use our streets, parks and alleys as their comfort zone to become more intoxicated and their
antisocial behavior includes fighting, urinating, defecating, aggressive panhandling among other nuisances and is a public health hazard for which the perpetrators have no concern. We have asked them ourselves and with police intervention to correct this behavior. Of course this has not curtailed the negative and threatening activity which has gone on for decades, and we need relief.
3. The families now moving into the East SoMa area will not bring their children to South Park because they experience the same aggressive panhandling from drunken law breakers as the tourists in Union Square. The drunks routinely urinate next to the children’s play grounds and the kids are afraid of unruly behavior and the appearance of people sleeping in South Park.
4. We are faced with illegal street parking extortionist during events in and around AT&T Park who harass and threaten visitors to our neighborhoods.
5. We are faced with public urination and defecation on our streets and in our parks every day by drunken AT&T patrons after events during the ballgame season.
6. We are faced with illegal ticket scalpers hawking their illegal tickets on our streets and under our windows yelling at passing cars and fans six months out of the year.
7. Our neighborhood is overrun with Graffiti constantly.
8. Our streets are littered with nightclub advertisements weekly.
9. Our neighborhood is home to several nightclubs that create quality of life nuisances weekly for the residents that have to co-habitat with the clubs and their out of town patrons. After the clubs close, the patrons who are trouble makers reek havoc doing wheelies in parking lots, fighting, blasting loud music, tagging, littering, and drunk driving on our streets.
This is the short list of quality of life abuses and illegal activities that we face daily in South Park and East SoMa. We have discussed the proposed Community Court System with our police department staff and they support the inclusion of our neighborhood into the program. As it stands now 99% of quality of life crimes that people are either arrested for or are cited for get routinely dismissed by the courts and the DA.
Having a Community Court System that puts offenders in support programs to help them get professional help for their problems and uncivilized behavior and to also work off their crimes by doing community service, i.e. painting out Graffiti and cleaning our streets and parks is a far better means of resolving issues and supporting people who need help than the current system. It does no one any good for the courts to routinely dismiss and release the offenders back into our community with impunity to repeat their crimes. It causes extreme ill will on our part toward the courts and the city government when this quality of life crime spree continues with no relief and no way to ever solve the problems we face on a daily basis.
We are the tenants, business owners and property owners, children and visitors who have to put up with this abuse every day. Why the mayor Newsom would insist that tourists in Union Square are more important than those of us who live here is beyond comprehension.
Jeffrey Leibovitz
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