After San Francisco fentanyl overdoses spike 40%, governor targets trafficking

By BETHANY BLANKLEY THE CENTER SQUARE CONTRIBUTOR

(The Center Square) — After fentanyl-linked deaths, including a 40% increase in overdose deaths in San Francisco earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced four agencies were launching a new operation to target fentanyl trafficking.

On Friday, he announced the California Highway Patrol and California National Guard were partnering with the San Francisco Police Department and the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office to combat fentanyl trafficking.

Gov. Newsom said the “new collaborative partnership” would provide “more law enforcement resources and personnel to crack down on crime linked to the fentanyl crisis, holding the poison peddlers accountable, and increasing law enforcement presence to improve public safety and public confidence in San Francisco.” cover the cost of cleaning and maintaining the promenade.

A council majority agreed and put off a decision until Tuesday. The most surprising turn of events came when two council members — Mike Jordan and Kristen Sneddon — suggested the council not impose any fees at all on the State Street parklets, claiming they were responsible for drawing people downtown,and for helping to revitalize State Street.

They said unanticipated increases in sales tax revenue — much of it generated by restaurants with successful dining parklets — could cover the cost of cleaning and maintaining the promenade.

“I think we’ve lost overall sight of what we want to do downtown,” Councilmember Jordan said. “I’m looking at the big picture, of what benefits everybody in the community. We want to revitalize the downtown and reactivate State Street.

“We’ve never imposed fees before on existing businesses that are there now,” he said.

“Something good is happening. Sales tax is growing in retail and food and beverage. Why penalize businesses that are contributing to the tax coffers, that are bringing people downtown?”

“I’m wholeheartedly in agreement,” Councilmember Snedden said. “Revenue from the food quarter is exceeding that from like to thank Deputy Manager Pat Cary, who was essential in making SBFE come together. She is also retiring after more than 20 years of service.

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other areas.”

Before the pandemic, “it was a dead zone downtown,” she said. The parklets, she said, “are generating some life downtown.” And business owners with parklets, she said, for the most part have complied with everything the city has asked of them, including requiring them to adhere to new design guidelines.

Other council members supported lowering the fees, suggesting the parklet owners pay anywhere from $1.50 to $3 per square foot.

Councilmember Friedman, however, expressed disappointment at the turn of events.

“This is not the direction I thought we were going to go,” he said. “We’ve wasted a lot of time. We made a decision, and now it’s not what we talked about when we continued it. I’m frustrated we’re throwing it out the window.”

He stressed his concern at the impact lowering the previously agreed-upon fees would have on other departments which are “chronically underfunded.”

“That’s the reality,” he said.

“And now we’re not going to charge anything when even the restaurants say charge something? I’m not going to support going to zero.”

Mayor Rowse, meanwhile, expressed frustration “that we’ve

The Santa Barbara Fair and Expo runs today through Sunday at the Earl Warren Showgrounds, 3400 Calle Real, Santa Barbara.

Tickets, a full schedule of the fair’s events, and a full list of rides and height requirements can be found at earlwarren.com/fair-and-expo.

In addition to SBFE, Earl Warren Showgrounds hosts the Santa Barbara National Horse Show, and the Haunt at the Showgrounds. Along with these events, Earl Warren Showgrounds is a multiuse community event center that is available to be rented.

Earl Warren Showgrounds is also looking to become more connected with the local

1895), who had 14 children. Investigators would like to learn more about five of their daughters born in the latter half of the 19th century — Monica, Basilia, Feliciana, Josefa, and Sotera. Other than their birth records and a few records pertaining to Feliciana and three of her children, no records from the later lives of the five sisters or their descendants have been located.

“Due to a fire in the Civil Registry office in Ojocaliente, Zacatecas, where many of the births, marriages, and deaths of residents of La Blanca were recorded, much of the documentation was lost,” explained Carl Koppelman, investigative genetic genealogist with the DNA Doe Project. There is a large community of community, explained Mr. Sprague. The showgrounds just changed its mission statement in order to focus on making the site a local community resource that adapts and changes to the needs of the community. For instance, the showgrounds have partnered with agencies, so its space can be used by first responders during emergencies, sometimes even as a place to sleep. The space has even been used for press conferences and grief counseling. people closely related to Ventura Jane Doe who currently live in the neighborhoods surrounding the Belvedere and Boyle Heights districts of East Los Angeles who have ancestral roots in La Blanca, Zacatecas, and have the same surnames of her closest known relatives — Parga, Lira, Aleman, Betancourt, Chavez, Chairez, Ramos, Ortiz and Ibarra.

The DNA Doe Project is asking for anyone with information regarding the five Parga sisters — Monica, Basilia, Feliciana, Josefa, or Sotera, and any of their spouses/partners or descendants — to email casetips@dnadoeproject.org with the subject “Ventura.”

For more about the DNA Doe Project, see dnadoeproject.org.

— Neil Hartstein

danced this dance as long as we have.” There is no new information to consider, he said, just anecdotes, but nothing to change the amount of money it will cost needed to clean and maintain the promenade.

“I don’t understand where the council is coming from,” he said. “Staff gave us the numbers it takes to maintain that. Everybody can choose to make the lowest tier. I don’t understand the sudden reversal.”

He said he, too, wants to see “a lot more vitality on State Street that thrives all the time,” including a “robust” outdoor dining program, “but it has to be fair for everybody in the community, not just 30 to 40 businesses.”

He questioned the fairness of subsiding businesses that are making a profit by allowing them to open on the State Street public right of way.

“Why are those special people?” he asked. “Why should we allow them to do something nobody else is allowed to do? If I sound frustrated, you nailed that one.” email: nhartsteinnewspress@gmail. com email: cbeeghly@newspress.com

The new rates will take effect May 1.

Staff says it’s received 37 applications for licenses to date from businesses with existing parklets and expect up to 10 more to apply.

More recently, Earl Warren Showgrounds held community engagement forums to hear suggestions from the community, and officials learned during the forums that there is a need for a children’s recreational area. As a result, Earl Warren Showgrounds is looking into converting the equestrian area (during its offseason) into a children’s recreational area by putting in removable turf.

Although the next community engagement forum is not planned, Mr. Sprague said that new feedback and suggestions about how the showgrounds can serve the community can be given at earlwarren.com, under the “Contact” header.

CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee said his agency was “allocating additional resources for high-visibility traffic enforcement within the city of San Francisco, with a focus on reducing the trafficking of illegal drugs and the number of impaired drivers.”

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the new resources would improve his office’s “ability to fight crime and prosecute suspected drug dealers and traffickers making our communities safer for residents and businesses.”

Through the operation, the CHP is assigning personnel and resources to assist local law enforcement, including providing technical assistance, training and drug trafficking enforcement in key areas of the city like the Tenderloin. CalGuard is assigning specialists and resources “to support analysis of drug trafficking operations, with a particular focus on disrupting and dismantling fentanyl trafficking rings,” according to the governor’s office. According to San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office data, 200 people in San Francisco died from January to March of this year from accidental drug overdoses, with the vast majority of them involving fentanyl, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. This is up from 142 overdose deaths over the same time period last year, representing a 41% increase. Fentanyl-related deaths have largely occurred in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. The Chronicle analyzed overdose data by metropolitan areas and found that San Francisco had the second-highest overdose rate and the second-highest death rate from fentanyl overdose in 2020 nationwide. None of the officials mentioned the operation would target Mexican cartels or gangs known to be responsible for fentanyl production and trafficking into California.

Critics have said Gov. Newson should prioritize securing California’s border with Mexico to stop the trafficking of people and drugs.

San Diego has become an epicenter of illegal border-related activity. However, other major ports of entry and between – from Winterhaven in the southeast near Yuma, Ariz., to El Centro —– are being hit hard with a record number of people and drugs being illegally trafficked to the U.S. from Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.