SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco’s progressive district attorney, elected on a platform of reducing incarceration, faces a recall election driven by a pandemic in which brutal attacks against Asian seniors and viral footage of smash-and-grab robberies tested residents’ famously liberal political bent.

Recall proponents say Chesa Boudin is inexperienced and ideologically inflexible, often seeking to avoid charging criminals and siding with offenders over victims. His prosecutors are not permitted to seek cash bail, try juveniles as adults or seek longer sentences for perpetrators with gang affiliations.

The June 7 recall has pitted Democrat against Democrat in this city of not quite 900,000 people where reports of burglary and motor theft are up from 2017, but overall reported crime is down. Recall proponents have raised more than $7 million — double what his supporters have collected — with funding from the real estate industry and a conservative billionaire.

Boudin’s supporters say his platform is in line with voters who approved measures to reduce sentences. They say conservative interests have exploited high-profile tragedies to make everything Boudin’s fault when crime rates are much higher in districts with traditional law-and-order prosecutors.

Political experts, and Boudin himself, say he’s bearing the brunt of general angst.

San Francisco residents have long accepted a middling public school system, homeless encampments and open drug dealing as part of city life. But the pandemic amped up dissatisfaction as schools remained closed to in-person instruction while city and police officials appeared indifferent to graffiti and vandalism.

“Part of it is a tremendous amount of understandable frustration and anxiety that people have felt in the context of COVID, uncertainty about the direction our country’s headed, anger at the Trump administration and misinformation that administration fueled on everything from public safety to vaccines,” Boudin told The Associated Press.

The vote also comes at a time when recalls are increasingly being used in California, said Joshua Spivak, a recall expert who is with the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College in New York City.

gov. Gavin Newsom easily survived a recall in September, but three members of the San Francisco school board were ousted in February.

“Boudin was elected in a very, very close race,” Spivak said. “He’s somebody who was kind of a perfect target for a recall challenge.”

Boudin’s office has been locked in open battle with San Francisco police, which accused his office of withholding evidence in a case against an officer. Boudin says police often fail to bring thorough cases to the DA’s office for prosecution, making arrests in just 5% of cases. He made headlines when he disclosed that police had used DNA collected from a rape to arrest the victim in an unrelated property crime.

He is backed by the San Francisco Democratic Party and most of the 11-member Board of Supervisors. Mayor London Breed, however, has declined to take a position on the recall, highlighting political divisions in a democratic city where leaders embrace immigrant and gay rights but have fought over police accountability and cracking down on drug dealing.

Boudin, 41, had never worked as a prosecutor when in November 2019, he eked out a 51% win over the more moderate candidate backed by the mayor.

Many were captivated by his personal story. Boudin was a baby when his parents, left-wing Weather Underground radicals, served as drivers in a botched 1981 robbery that left two police officers and a security guard dead. They were sentenced to decades in prison.

On the campaign trail, he spoke of the pain of stepping through metal detectors to hug his parents and vowed to reform a system that tears apart families. Kathy Boudin was released on parole in 2003 and died of cancer in May. David Gilbert was granted parole in October.

The honeymoon period in office was short-lived.

An allegedly intoxicated parolee driving a stolen car hit and killed two pedestrians on the final day of 2020. Critics say the driver had been arrested multiple times that year and should have been in jail, but Boudin’s office had declined to press charges for burglary, drug possession and car theft. Instead they referred him to state agents who didn’t revoke his parole.

Boudin spokesperson Rachel Marshall said the case prompted the DA’s office “to begin charging parole violations ourselves rather than relying on parole to do it.”

Former prosecutor and recall supporter Brooke Jenkins said the office under the previous district attorney was progressive. But unlike Boudin, she said, George Gascón gave prosecutors discretion and allowed them to insist on onerous treatment programs as conditions of avoiding jail time.

“We are conditioning people to believe they can do whatever they want in San Francisco with no consequences,” Jenkins said. “I think San Francisco sees the need for a little bit more balance to social justice and criminal justice issues.”

Leanna Louie, a Democrat campaigning for the recall, said she was outraged at Boudin’s office released to home treat a young man who viciously kicked an elderly Chinese man sitting on a walker, severely injuring him.

“I think everybody could do better. But this, this is the worst,” Louie said. “Chesa is probably the least helpful person in this whole process.”

Marshall said the defendant was jailed for about seven months at the request of the DA’s office. His attorney then requested he be transferred to mental health diversion, which the judge granted, she said.

It’s unfair to single out Boudin in a complicated system that relies on judges, police and social services to do their parts, his supporters say.

Rico Hamilton, a longtime advocate for ending street violence who was shot last year, was among Black, Asian American and Latino leaders at a recent news conference against the recall.

“We are the leaders of change,” Hamilton said. “And us saying that we don’t want Chesa is saying that we don’t want to change the system.”

At a former tanning salon in the city’s gay-friendly Castro neighborhood that is Boudin’s campaign headquarters, the district attorney expressed pride in what his office has achieved while in a pandemic that drastically cut access to treatment, counseling and courtrooms.

His office filed charges in 62% of arrests brought by San Francisco police in 2021, up from a low of 45% his first year and on par with years dating back to 2016, according to the office’s annual report. Reported crimes include burglary, robbery, vandalism and theft but not homicides, sexual assaults and domestic violence.

At the same time, his office expanded the percentage of defendants who successfully completed diversion programs, some of which are mandated by the state, to avoid incarceration. In May, he announced a new Asian American Pacific Islander victim services unit.

Last year, Boudin south manufacturers and shippers of ghost guns, weapons popular with criminals made from parts bought online. His office pursued assault and battery charges against an on-duty San Francisco police officer, although a jury acquitted him. While opponents have cited high turnover in his office, Boudin said he has no problem filling vacancies.

“There’s a playbook that Republicans and police unions across the country are using to attack criminal justice reform. They exploit tragedies to suggest that those tragedies are a result of reforms,” Boudin said. “They don’t do that in tough-on-crime jurisdictions where the exact same tragedies occur, with more frequency.”

The post San Francisco might vote out progressive DA in heated recall appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco’s progressive district attorney, elected on a platform of reducing incarceration, faces a recall election driven by a pandemic in which brutal attacks against Asian seniors and viral footage of smash-and-grab robberies tested residents’ famously liberal political bent.

Recall proponents say Boudin is inexperienced and ideologically inflexible, often seeking to avoid charging criminals and siding with offenders over victims. His prosecutors are not permitted to seek cash bail, try juveniles as adults or seek longer sentences for perpetrators with gang affiliations.

The June 7 recall has pitted Democrat against Democrat in this city of not quite 900,000 people where reports of burglary and motor theft are up from 2017, but overall reported crime is down. Recall proponents have raised more than $7 million — double what his supporters have collected — with funding from the real estate industry and a conservative billionaire.

Boudin’s supporters say his platform is in line with voters who approved measures to reduce sentences. They say conservative interests have exploited high-profile tragedies to make everything Boudin’s fault when crime rates are much higher in districts with traditional law-and-order prosecutors.

Political experts, and Boudin himself, say he’s bearing the brunt of general angst.

San Francisco residents have long accepted a middling public school system, homeless encampments and open drug dealing as part of city life. But the pandemic amped up dissatisfaction as schools remained closed to in-person instruction while city and police officials appeared indifferent to graffiti and vandalism.

“Part of it is a tremendous amount of understandable frustration and anxiety that people have felt in the context of COVID, uncertainty about the direction our country’s headed, anger at the Trump administration and misinformation that administration fueled on everything from public safety to vaccines,” Boudin told The Associated Press.

The vote also comes at a time when recalls are increasingly being used in California, said Joshua Spivak, a recall expert who is with the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College in New York City.

gov. Gavin Newsom easily survived a recall in September, but three members of the San Francisco school board were ousted in February.

“Boudin was elected in a very, very close race,” Spivak said. “He’s somebody who was kind of a perfect target for a recall challenge.”

Boudin’s office has been locked in open battle with San Francisco police, which accused his office of withholding evidence in a case against an officer. Boudin says police often fail to bring thorough cases to the DA’s office for prosecution, making arrests in just 5% of cases. He made headlines when he disclosed that police had used DNA collected from a rape to arrest the victim in an unrelated property crime.

He is backed by the San Francisco Democratic Party and most of the 11-member Board of Supervisors. Mayor London Breed, however, has declined to take a position on the recall, highlighting political divisions in a democratic city where leaders embrace immigrant and gay rights but have fought over police accountability and cracking down on drug dealing.

Boudin, 41, had never worked as a prosecutor when in November 2019, he eked out a 51% win over the more moderate candidate backed by the mayor.

Many were captivated by his personal story. Boudin was a baby when his parents, left-wing Weather Underground radicals, served as drivers in a botched 1981 robbery that left two police officers and a security guard dead. They were sentenced to decades in prison.

On the campaign trail, he spoke of the pain of stepping through metal detectors to hug his parents and vowed to reform a system that tears apart families. Kathy Boudin was released on parole in 2003 and died of cancer in May. David Gilbert was granted parole in October.

The honeymoon period in office was short-lived.

An allegedly intoxicated parolee driving a stolen car hit and killed two pedestrians on the final day of 2020. Critics say the driver had been arrested multiple times that year and should have been in jail, but Boudin’s office had declined to press charges for burglary, drug possession and car theft. Instead they referred him to state agents who didn’t revoke his parole.

Boudin spokesperson Rachel Marshall said the case prompted the DA’s office “to begin charging parole violations ourselves rather than relying on parole to do it.”

Former prosecutor and recall supporter Brooke Jenkins said the office under the previous district attorney was progressive. But unlike Boudin, she said, George Gascón gave prosecutors discretion and allowed them to insist on onerous treatment programs as conditions of avoiding jail time.

“We are conditioning people to believe they can do whatever they want in San Francisco with no consequences,” Jenkins said. “I think San Francisco sees the need for a little bit more balance to social justice and criminal justice issues.”

Leanna Louie, a Democrat campaigning for the recall, said she was outraged at Boudin’s office released to home treat a young man who viciously kicked an elderly Chinese man sitting on a walker, severely injuring him.

“I think everybody could do better. But this, this is the worst,” Louie said. “Chesa is probably the least helpful person in this whole process.”

Marshall said the defendant was jailed for about seven months at the request of the DA’s office. His attorney then requested he be transferred to mental health diversion, which the judge granted, she said.

It’s unfair to single out Boudin in a complicated system that relies on judges, police and social services to do their parts, his supporters say.

Rico Hamilton, a longtime advocate for ending street violence who was shot last year, was among Black, Asian American and Latino leaders at a recent news conference against the recall.

“We are the leaders of change,” Hamilton said. “And us saying that we don’t want Chesa is saying that we don’t want to change the system.”

At a former tanning salon in the city’s gay-friendly Castro neighborhood that is Boudin’s campaign headquarters, the district attorney expressed pride in what his office has achieved while in a pandemic that drastically cut access to treatment, counseling and courtrooms.

His office filed charges in 62% of arrests brought by San Francisco police in 2021, up from a low of 45% his first year and on par with years dating back to 2016, according to the office’s annual report. Reported crimes include burglary, robbery, vandalism and theft but not homicides, sexual assaults and domestic violence.

At the same time, his office expanded the percentage of defendants who successfully completed diversion programs, some of which are mandated by the state, to avoid incarceration. In May, he announced a new Asian American Pacific Islander victim services unit.

Last year, Boudin south manufacturers and shippers of ghost guns, weapons popular with criminals made from parts bought online. His office pursued assault and battery charges against an on-duty San Francisco police officer, although a jury acquitted him. While opponents have cited high turnover in his office, Boudin said he has no problem filling vacancies.

“There’s a playbook that Republicans and police unions across the country are using to attack criminal justice reform. They exploit tragedies to suggest that those tragedies are a result of reforms,” Boudin said. “They don’t do that in tough-on-crime jurisdictions where the exact same tragedies occur, with more frequency.”

The post San Francisco might vote out progressive DA in heated recall appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

I want the recording to show that I was against replacing our heating and air conditioning. For once, my husband wanted to spend some money on home improvement that I didn’t have.

I come from school, if it ain’t broken don’t fix it. DC comes from school where we don’t have to wait for it to be a problem. I also prefer to buy home improvement items that you can see, not ones that you want to hide.

I keep blaming the HVAC company. (We’ll call it Company # 1.) When a service person from Company # 1 came out last year to find out why our system wasn’t cooling, he noticed a slow refrigerant leak. He also took photos of the inside of our 18 year old unit, which looked like a mushroom pizza. He did this to scare me.

“What are all of these spots?” I asked.

“Corrosion, mold,” he said casually.

Yum.

If we wanted cool air (yes), we had a choice of spending $ 500 on topping up the refrigerant, or $ 13,000 (coughing, sputtering, chopping) on ​​a new system, or we could get a No. Buy 1 for $ 200 and save half the cost of refrigerant replacement and two free maintenance calls in the coming year, plus a discount on future purchases. Influenced by the immediate savings, we bought the membership and replaced the refrigerant.

Then the calls came. Company no. 1 always wanted to plan a service call. I kept putting it off. Eventually they reached my husband (who now works from home thanks to COVID) who succumbed.

“Why?” I asked. “You fell into their trap!”

“We have already paid for it.”

“They only troll for business!”

A career in journalism has made me a bitter skeptic.

“They do their job,” he said.

His sensitivity can be annoying.

And what did you think happened? They recommended that we replace our old, crumbling, rusty, corroded unit. And guess who took the bait?

“But it’s not broken!” I argued.

“But it will be,” he said.

“Why don’t we wait until it stops working?”

“Because I don’t want it to go down during a heatwave with service companies booked for weeks and listening to how much you fuss about the house being so hot.”

DC received an estimate from Company # 1 that was not on my good side.

“At least get another estimate,” I said.

DC called Company # 2, which had a better system for the same price. Despite our member discount, Company # 1 failed to meet or exceed the offer, which gave me a little satisfaction that I can’t fully explain.

The new system was introduced last week. The air in the house feels the same.

To better be able to forego vacation for the rest of my life to pay for new machines, I spoke to Kellie Lindenmoyer, stove product manager for American Standard Heating & Air Conditioning who kept me cool, and answered these homeowner-related questions:

Q. How often do HVAC systems need to be replaced?

ON Systems typically last 15 to 20 years, especially if they are regularly serviced. How often you use the system has an impact. For example, a system in a holiday home that you use three months a year does not need to be replaced as often.

Q. How do you know if you need to repair or replace?

ON If your system is in this 15-20 year range and has recurring problems, it is probably time. Talk to a service professional about your options. Replacing will cost more, but will be better in the long run as you save on repairs and potentially see lower energy costs as well. Some use the $ 5,000 rule. Multiply the age of your device in years (e.g. 18) by your estimated repair cost ($ 300). If your total is more than $ 5,000 (our example is $ 5,400), consider replacing your system.

Q. How Much Can a Homeowner Expect to Pay for a New System?

ON Depending on the equipment and location, estimates for a residential system including installation are between $ 4,600 and $ 14,000.

Q. What benefits can you expect when you choose a new device?

ON Peace of mind. If you replace your system before it stops working, you won’t freeze in February because your system broke during the night, and you won’t break a sweat waiting for a service call in August.

Lower energy costs. Thanks to regulatory changes, today’s systems are more energy efficient. How much you save on your electricity bill will depend on the insulation of your home, how you use it, and the number of SEERS your new system has. The higher the SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rate), the greater the savings (and the more expensive the device is). Most states have a minimum of SEER.

Cleaner indoor air. Compared to older systems, today’s systems are better at removing allergens and pet fur from the air. Some systems purify the air better than others. So if you have pets, allergies, or asthma, ask your dealer about indoor air quality.

Better resale value. A new HVAC system will also help if you are looking to sell your home. Having a new system is one less thing a buyer can pay you for.

Q. What’s wrong with the discontinued refrigerant?

ON Newer systems are also more environmentally friendly. Last year the Environmental Protection Agency banned the manufacture or import of the refrigerant known as R-22 or Freon in the US or because of its harmful effects on the ozone layer. Devices older than 10 years use R-22. Newer units use a refrigerant called R-410A. As R-22 gets scarcer, it gets more expensive. Check the label on the compressor to see which one is used by your system. If it says R-22 (or HCFC-22) and it’s going well, leave it. But if the system leaks or breaks, you should probably get a new one. Yes it hurts.

Marni Jameson is the author of six home and lifestyle books including Downsizing The Family Home – What To Save, What To Let Go, “Downsizing The Mixed House – When Two Households Become One” and, in June, “What To Do” With Everything what you own to leave the legacy you want. “You can reach her at marnijameson.com.

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