Take a virtual tour of the city’s northeastern waterfront … There were no slackers at the third annual Sunday Streets kick-off on Embarcadero. Whether it was biking, Rollerblading, scootering or walking, people — not vehicles — were mobile. The northbound lane of the Embarcadero, where bumper-to-bumper traffic on a Sunday is the norm, was converted to a bidpedal and pedalers’ mecca.
Category: Public Safety
Posted inLand use, Public Safety
Earthquake readiness tips for 2010
Local experts released a report in 2009 identifying thousands of residential buildings in the city that a major quake could render unlivable — and that was just based on a partial survey. And with seismologists saying that there’s a 63 percent chance the Bay Area will suffer a powerful earthquake within the next 30 years, there is a need to act soon to remedy the problem.
Posted inBay Area, Elections, Media, Public Safety
Oakland’s community policing program continues to face challenges
Officer Clay Burch is one part of the three-pronged approach that makes up Measure Y, in which community police are complemented by street outreach teams. PSOs and outreach teams link young people to the actual programs that help create foundations for a better life. And for Burch, improving Oakland’s toughest neighborhoods happens one building, and one person, at a time.
Posted inBay Area, Media, Public Safety, Social Justice
In ‘Deep East’ Oakland, youths pegged as criminals say police harassment spurs more violence
For many, the police are here to serve and protect. The men and women in blue are those we call when we’re in trouble. And no part of Oakland is more in need of policing than the streets between the East 70s avenues and the East 100s avenues — stretching from the base of the hills to the bottom of the flatlands — or what residents call the “Deep East.” It is where over one-third of the city’s 124 homicides occurred last year. But many of the youths living on these dangerous streets don’t welcome the police as protectors — they consider them the enemy.
Posted inCity Budget Watchdog, City Hall, Public Safety
Supes on: the budget — ‘There needs to be more dialogue,’ says Maxwell
Sophie Maxwell praises the health department for efficiency and calls the budget policy debate “healthy.”
“The police, that’s the end. Public safety starts in the middle. Public safety starts with education. Public safety starts with health … by the time they get to the police we have failed them.”
Posted inPublic Safety, Transportation
Third streetcar accident in a month snarls Market St.
A streetcar on Market Street struck a woman Tuesday afternoon, marking the third significant Muni accident in less than a month.
Posted inNeighborhoods, Public Safety
March for women against rape
More than 800 people participated Saturday in the fourth annual Walk Against Rape. The event, sponsored by San Francisco Women Against Rape, raised more than $55,000 for the 35-year-old sexual assault crisis center in the city’s Mission District.
Erica Guajardo Johnson, an organizer with San Francisco Women Against Rape, said she was approached by a man during the march who broke into tears while telling her that he was raped many years ago. Seeing everyone marching together gave him the courage to ask for help, Johnson said.
“I just wanted to squeeze him,” Johnson said. “That’s exactly what this is about … to give someone the power to admit to themselves and to the world that it’s not your fault.”