Making the Sunset Safer

By Supervisor Gordon Mar

Last month, Sunset residents and small businesses won a big victory to make our neighborhoods safer when the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to adopt the Crime Prevention through Community Policing Act, requiring the SFPD to develop a community policing plan for every district.

This law will require each District Police Station to work with local small businesses, neighborhood organizations, schools, and community groups to make and implement a foot- and bicycle-patrol plan, meet the language access needs of immigrant communities vulnerable to and targeted for crimes, and proactively address quality of life issues.

This legislation, which I sponsored, came directly from my conversations with District 4 constituents who told me they wanted police officers to be more strategically deployed and more actively engaged with the community.

With rates for solving crimes reaching historic lows, the best response is to prevent crime before it occurs, and this important step will help make our neighborhoods safer. 

Community policing is central to our overall reform initiative to end racial bias in the SFPD. I’m also proud the act requires district stations to work with the community to develop non-policing strategies to address quality of life issues, nuisances and reduce crime.

To further this work, I recently joined community leaders and SFPD to announce the formation of the Sunset Safety Network. This new initiative convenes neighborhood organizations including SFPD Taraval Station, Sunset Safety Squad, People of Parkside Sunset, Outer Sunset Merchants and Professionals Association, Self Help for the Elderly and Wah Mei School to coordinate and expand public safety programs in the neighborhood.

To support this, I funded a Sunset Safety Coordinator position now assigned to Wah Mei School in the Sunset District to coordinate the Sunset Safety Network. 

By bringing together merchant associations, neighborhood and community groups, and law enforcement to collaboratively address quality of life and safety issues, we’re working proactively for a stronger, safer Sunset. 

Looking citywide, I commissioned a Citywide Public Safety Landscape Analysis report from the Human Rights Commission to strengthen our City’s response to AAPI hate and violence against all of our diverse communities. This report found that “hate violence across communities in San Francisco is increasing, and escalating existing systems are failing to meet the needs of people affected by hate violence,” and that all approaches to community safety must “address the root causes of violence.” 

We’ve already begun work to implement the study’s multi-pronged recommendations to increase safety for our Asian community, seniors and women. As a first step, we’re working to create a new Hate Incident Victim Language Access and Services Unit with the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs.

In May, I was proud to join many city and community partners to officially launch the Sunset Chinese Cultural District. This is not only a milestone for the Sunset Chinese Community, but also a celebration of the diverse culture in the Sunset. I am proud of the work that partnering organizations have done with our office to make the Sunset Chinese Cultural District a reality. Wah Mei School, a pioneer in the City providing bilingual education in the Sunset, is the lead nonprofit collaborating with our office and with community-based organizations which have been steadfast partners in this work, including ASIAN, Inc., People of Parkside Sunset, Self-Help for the Elderly, North East Medical Services, Sunset Mercantile and SF Heritage. 

And nearly two years after we started our Sunset Forward community planning process, nearly 2,500 residents and stakeholders in District 4 have provided valuable input on housing needs, neighborhood services and small business support in the Sunset. These were critical issues before the pandemic, and the economic challenges and health disparities we’ve faced point toward the urgency of collective action to protect and sustain our communities. Through this process, we can make our neighborhoods in the Sunset more livable, safer and more accessible with increased connection to community-based services. This is especially critical for seniors, working- and middle-class citizens who have deep roots in this community. 

I’m proud of key initiatives and legislation that I’ve supported since I took office in 2019 that have arisen from your participation in this important work. Among those: the Housing Development Incentive Program to be launched in coming months to serve our housing needs with small-scale building, building on the recent success of the District 4 ADU Pilot Program; my five-point safety plan to ensure that seniors, small businesses and vulnerable groups are protected through public safety and crime prevention measures; budget allocations to revitalize our merchant corridors through artists grants and major investments in Sunset Boulevard in the upcoming City budget.

One thing I’ve consistently heard from our leaders in the community is that we need to build capacity in the Sunset to do this work. The District 4 Youth and Families Network has been an active partner these past two years on engaging our community in the Sunset Forward planning process; thank you for your work and vision. 

And finally, I also want to thank the voters of District 4 and Citywide — with all the ballots counted, Proposition G, Public Health Emergency Leave, has passed in a landslide, with more than 64% of voters supporting it. It won in every district in the City, and nearly every precinct. 

I was proud to author this measure, and I’m grateful that, with your support, hundreds of thousands of essential workers will benefit from the safety and security of expanded paid leave to take care of themselves and their families during public health emergencies. This is a groundbreaking policy, and with unified support from labor, the Democratic Party, major newspapers, and most democratic clubs, we showed that San Francisco stands with working people!

Gordon Mar represents District 4 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He can be reached at 415-554-7460 or marstaff@sfgov.org.