Residents who have yet to flee San Francisco vote to screen welfare recipients for drugs and expand police powers

San Francisco voters were afforded an opportunity Tuesday to begin slowly turning their filthy, crime-ridden city around — and they actually took it. Voters elected to make it easier for police to do their jobs and to cut off local welfare recipients who refused to undergo drug tests.

The backdrop

San Francisco has a 1-rating on Neighborhood Scout's crime index, where 100 is safest. The chances of becoming a victim of a property crime or a violent crime are reportedly 1 in 17 and 1 in 148, respectively.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the city saw 53 murders; 227 rapes; 2,741 robberies; 2,482 assaults; 5,658 burglaries; 6,723 car thefts; 285 arson incidents; and 32,411 reported instances of larceny theft last year.

The city's latest point-in-time count indicated there were 7,754 homeless people in the city, 3,357 of whom were staying in shelters.

Adam Andrzejewski of Open the Books revealed in December that over 35,500 cases of human waste in public were reported last year.

Amidst the unchecked lawlessness, piling filth, and chronic homelessness, roughly 65,000 people left the city between 2020 and 2022. Including the Bay Area, the region saw an exodus of 249,389 people during that time.

It appears that some of those who remained would like to see a positive change.

The propositions

There were multiple ballot measures put before San Franciscans in the primary vote on March 5, including:

• Proposition B, which would set a new minimum staffing level for the police force every five years and create a 5-10 year police recruitment fund;
• Proposition E, which would limit the amount of time police have to waste on administrative tasks; spare cops from writing up use-of-force events unless a physical injury has occurred or they had to draw their service weapon; permit cops to use body camera footage in lieu of a detailed report; allow for the installation of surveillance or facial ID cameras without police commission approval; and enable police to initiate car chases of suspects thought to have committed select misdemeanor offenses; and
• Proposition F, which would compel individuals suspected of using drugs who are in the County Adult Assistance Program to undergo drug screening; require recipients found using drugs to participate in treatment programs; and cut off non-compliant recipients.

The results

Proposition B, which would have increased the number of full-duty sworn officers from 1,700 to 2,074 in the first five years, was defeated 67.41%-32.59%. San Francisco's Democratic mayor, London Breed, opposed the proposition, calling it a "cop tax," reported KTVU-TV.

Despite considerable opposition by radical leftists, the other two propositions, both supported by the San Francisco Republican Party and Mayor Breed alike, overwhelmingly passed. Proposition E succeeded with 59.9% of the vote. Proposition F won with 63% of the vote.

Mayor Breed said in a statement that Proposition E "will help us build on our work to make San Francisco a safer city for all. We are giving our @SFPD officers more tools to do their jobs and getting them out on the street to take care of our community."

Breed, who is running for re-election, has not always felt so strongly about helping police do their jobs.

Amidst the 2020 BLM riots and in the face of demands to "defund the police," Breed announced she would be slashing $120 million in funding to the San Francisco police and sheriff's departments, and redirecting the funds to race-based initiatives.

Homicides reportedly spiked by 20% that year, compared with 2019, then spiked again by 17% in 2021.

One year after defunding the police, Breed reversed course and put in an emergency request to the city Board of Supervisors for more cash for the SFPD.

This week, Breed also thanked voters for passing Proposition F, claiming, "This is how we get more people the help they need and change what's happening in our City."

While Breed supported the successful propositions, the Democratic Party joined the ACLU of Northern California in denouncing Proposition E.

The ACLU of Northern California suggested the way to improve community safety was not by enabling police to better do their jobs but instead with "affordable housing, mental health care, and substance use treatment."

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