Moving

San Francisco’s UN Plaza Cleaned Up Forward of Mayor Breed’s Look

In the run-up to a rare open-air hearing on the city’s drug crisis, San Francisco authorities cleared and swept United Nations Plaza — normally a hotspot for drug use and petty crime — to set the stage for an unusual open-air hearing on the city’s drug crisis to prepare crisis.

Around 10 a.m. Tuesday, a group of more than two dozen people were busy street selling and using drugs near the east side of the square. An Urban Alchemy employee approached the crowd and told them they would have to move soon because the mayor was coming.

City worker Mason Newt pressure washers the United Nations Plaza in San Francisco ahead of a board of directors hearing scheduled for the area later Tuesday. | Benjamin Fanjoy for The Standard

The open-air oversight panel hearing — likely the first of its kind in the panel’s history — required the coordination of multiple departments and agencies working together to shoo away the plaza’s ordinary residents and disrupt the typical daily flow of drug sales and use.

Throughout the day, workers from Urban Alchemy and employees from the BART Police Department and the Recreation and Parks Department were regularly seen roaming the area while workers from the Public Works Department cleaned up the surrounding sidewalks.

“I’ll clean it up for the mayor,” said a public works sanitation worker, who asked not to be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.

In addition to the cleaners, the city spent $4,650 on media services and logistics to organize a broadcast of the hearing — all for a question-and-answer session that typically takes between 15 and 20 minutes of the board’s time .

United Nations Square appeared quiet just after noon on Tuesday, hours before the mayor and bosses began the scheduled question-and-answer session on the city’s drug crisis. | Garrett Leahy/The Standard

The mayor is expected to answer questions from CEO Aaron Peskin and others about the drug crisis; The Board will then take a break and meet at City Hall for the remainder of the session.

On Monday, Peskin sent a letter outlining his demands on Breed.

In the letter, Peskin called on the mayor to “establish a permanent emergency operations center that will coordinate on a daily basis all the many agencies and departments that can handle this crisis,” and called on her to coordinate multiple parties involved in stopping the public drug trade involved .

On Tuesday, the Department of Emergency Management confirmed a pilot program planned as part of Breed’s upcoming budget proposal that could allow enforcement of outdoor drug use laws.

City Hall employees place the board’s tablecloths on a table in front of the federal office building at UN Plaza. | Garrett Leahy/The Standard

About two hours before the mayor’s arrival, the UN Plaza was unusually quiet. The clean-up crews are gone and only a few people walked around without anyone visibly taking drugs. Just before 1 p.m., workers cordoned off an area in front of a federal office building at UN Plaza while others set up tables and chairs.

On Natoma and Minna streets near Seventh Street and in front of the San Francisco Federal Building, several people said they were evicted from the UN Plaza around 7 a.m. However, they said they knew nothing about the mayor’s appearance.

“I don’t know that the arrival of the mayor would change anything,” said Trevor Pearsoa. “They always move us around like this.”

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button