I've never actually watched a train wreck, but I can imagine the sound. First there would be the deep rumble, driven fast by momentum and force. Something unintended happens. The sound wave shatters windows and blows eardrums. Then, for two seconds, maybe three, there's nothing but the sound of fire and hissing. Someone screams. Then, what's done is done, and the trail of little mistakes that combined to make this happen is over. There's no going back.
This is how it feels to see the Burgess panhandling ordinance fly through City Hall on the wings of Starbucks, the Mariners, the developers and their admen, the merchants' groups, and every fearful citizen who doesn't have the fucking guts to admit to his or herself that people suffer miserably because some people just have too goddamn much.
It's a fact.
Today I met with Mayor McGinn, who sees an 8-1 vote, spoke of veto-proof momentum, and asked what I thought. I said this ordinance, 15-foot rule and safety bubble aside, is subjective law enforcement at its worst, and that the issuance of citations is the road to hell.
Hell is San Francisco. Over three years, 9,000 citations were issued annually. Eighty-nine percent of those appealed by advocates are thrown out because, in the quotable manner of Paul Boden of wrap.org, "they're get-the-fuck-out-of-here tickets."
Since the standard is subjective and fear-based, Blacks, Latinos, and Natives are targeted. Over the first year of issuing citations, 98 percent went to people of color.
Tickets go without response and turn into warrants. These come up when police check next time they talk, and then it's off to jail.
The jails fill. The Consensus Project, a Department of Justice funded workgroup, notes how quality of life laws and the war on drugs have flooded unequipped municipal jails with the poor and mentally ill. It's appalling, and only seems to get worse.
Last election, opposition to expanded incarceration was expressed by everyone from Tim Burgess on up through Peter Holmes and McGinn. Some were quite passionate on this. And yet, here we are.
"Oh," they say. "That's not what this is." Bullshit. It's what happens. It's been done. There are predictable results.
What sound will there be when we reach the end of the line? A long, sad, silent scream, starting from very far away. So sad that you can barely begin to imagine.