Notes Around Town

This weeks newsletter I wanted to zoom in on where I live - San Francisco. I have lived here now since 2013 and never once (unless I'm trying to flee the United States entirely) have had any real motivation to leave. That's a lie. I actually was going to leave when my girlfriend of seven years and I broke up. Then I got into SFSU where I eventually got my Master's in English/Creative Writing (debatable decision but here we are). Looking back, that was also an attempt to flee into the conveyor belt of academia in a farfetched way to figuratively kill the person that lived with aforementioned ex for so long. Long story short, I didn't flee, I stayed which then lead me to eventually meeting my now wife who I love very much.

Anyways...I hope you enjoy this one and for all paid subs THANK YOU. I'm aiming to get more work out just for you next week. Work has been absolutely insane because of everything going on with Trump's tariffs, etc. but I'm hoping to get more fiction out every week. I've set up a quiet room in the apartment where there is mold but a window where I can write, stare out the window from time to time, and watch the neighbors cook hotdogs late into the night.

Cheers.

San Francisco and Governor Newsom try to Level the Playing Field

The New York Post of all rags came up on my feed last week with an article and headline that read,

“San Francisco program backed by Newsom will issue speeding tickets based on income.”

I remember doing a double take, unsure at first if the piece was even real. It sounded right but nowadays, one can never be so sure. Clicking, I saw that it was in fact real and after finding a few more sources to confirm, only then did I suddenly start to feel strangely embarrassed. Looking back, it was probably because this was such a California/San Francisco story, one filled with an honest, good-willed attempt at chipping away at the mountain that is America's class divide and war, that made it feel cliché. But what's wrong with being cliché when it's an attempt at doing a good thing?

The piece itself wasn't even critical. In fact, the whole thing was overly objective and distant, leaving the reader (as it should be) to decide whether the issue and initiative of giving out varied price tiers of speeding tickets based on income was a good or bad thing.

To me, this kind of progressive penalty structure makes sense as a financial safety net to prevent those that have less from getting knocked down even further and for those that have a lot, if they get caught doing something they shouldn't be doing, pay more. A report from NBC Bay Area found from the 2025 Silicon Valley Index that, "...nine people in Silicon Valley control 15% of the area's wealth, and the wealthiest 1%, or 9,000 people, control nearly half of the wealth." Looking specifically at San Francisco, San Franciscans see a net worth of $4.7 million as wealthy, as stated in the 2023 Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey and CNBC finding that the median household income in San Francisco is $146,872. Conversely, Chinatown has the highest poverty rate among Tenderloin and Treasure Island, has one of the lowest median household incomes in San Francisco, estimated at around $31,000.

I personally don’t drive very much often but for those that do, Newsom’s move makes sense, especially since speeding tickets in the city can range from anywhere to $234 - $2,126 or more, depending on prior offenses and court decisions when speeding 100 mph+. From the article, "Violations for speeding range from $50 to $500, but individuals with a household income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level are eligible for a 50% discount, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Indigent persons, or individuals who are homeless, are eligible for an 80% discount on the speeding ticket."

This move (The Speed Safety System Pilot Program), signed by Newsom in October 2023, is not unprecedented or a necessarily new on. Countries like Finland and Sweden have long used income-based fines, known as “day fines,” which scale penalties according to daily income and shit, they seem to be doing ok. According to the 2025 World Happiness Report, Finland and Sweden are among the happiest countries globally.

Mayor Lurie's $100 Million-Dollar Ask

San Franciscos new mayor Daniel Lurie, I’ll admit outright, has always twisted a knife in me.

Ignoring the fact he “became” rich from his mother marrying into the Levi Strauss fortune via Peter E. Haas (great-grandnephew of the Jean company) who became his step father but still recognizing the great work he's done with Tipping Point helping struggling communities in the Bay Area (according to their latest annual report 2024, "Tipping Point and grantees advocated for over $280 million in additional funding for effective anti-poverty programs") there is something irksome about reading headlines such as, "Here are the wealthy donors to Mayor Daniel Lurie’s $3M transition," and "San Francisco Mayor calls for $100M in private donations to fight homelessness" that always feels a little...off.

I will be the first to admit I know nothing about social services or how to solve homelessness in San Francisco, Los Angeles, fuckin' anywhere but when I read
“private donors" to "increase the city’s shelter capacity by 1,500 beds" it doesn’t quite feel like a long-term solution but short-term band aid. The other angle that I saw, which I would feel weird about until reading headlines like, "Trump Administration Aims to Spend $45 Billion to Expand Immigrant Detention" that I can't help but think no one, whether you've got $10 in your pocket or $100 billion, rarely does anything for free. Leading me to ask, What do these private donors want in return to helping Lurie hit his $100 million-dollar goal? Rich people, tend to get rich via five ways: private or public equity stakes, asset appreciation and compound returns, tax optimization, political influence and regulatory capture, and early access to information. This leads me to my next question - who are Lurie's donors?

Well, cherry-picking one's that feel like the more nefarious out of the list we have Neil Mehta, the venture capitalist who has been tied to a string of LLCs according to Mission Local, "accused by critics of a “hostile takeover” of mom-and-pop shops on Fillmore," members from the Fisher family, the billionaires behind the Gap, Ron Conway, the venture capitalist and longtime Ed Lee and London Breed financier, and J Capital principal Ted Janus and San Francisco-based financial technology company Chime. Quite a lot, and don't forget everything Lurie said on Jim Cramer two months ago where he probably said "common sense" 30 times which is a favorite of President Trump and even threw it in an Executive Order. There was a lot of fawning over the likes of Jamie Dimon, BlackStone, and OpenAI...all people that would love to donate to Lurie's aspirations for likely something in return. What that would be I'll leave to your imagination but I can't imagine it's for the greater good of humanity. I get into more of that below.

There needs to be major reform in San Francisco on the fronts of homelessness and drug-rehabilitation. No argument there from me but when it involves private investors with millions upon millions who all have their own big and small motivations to donate here and there...that's when I get cautious.

Drones in SF and the Techno Coup is Already Here

As the above shows in, "Turn on the pommel horse," we, as a country (we still are believe it or not) and a world are leaping into a technological age that I do not feel we are ready for. We weren't ready for social media and yet we leaped into faster into that than a strangers bed freshman year, rocking and swaying with the good times of "connection," only to come out twenty years later fully addicted to the shit and sadder for it. Progress has always been a game of chicken, of deciding whether or not to open Pandora's box (lets be honest, we always do). To use the power of another myth, like Icarus getting closer and closer to the Sun, feeling - for the first time! - the warmth of a "new" achievement and advancement for a few beautiful, euphoric moments, careening wildly and carefree and RICH on the false, illusory moment of omnipotence, only to come hurtling down to Earth to one's death when we, the users, realize how much we've actually given away. Mind you, not all of us die this death. The one's that created these fake wings? They get rich, they get the power, and thus they get to control, as we're seeing right now, to control the narrative and the road of said power to wherever they like (more power) which, as we are very much feeling right now, is not so great for us.

Point in case, look at what these "advancements" in tech have gotten us with San Francisco's new "public safety drone program." To quote the press release, “New technology is helping us make San Francisco safer and continue to hold people accountable when they break the law in our City,” said Mayor London Breed. “This is about being smarter on crime by giving our officers the tools to better do their jobs. For too long, San Francisco chose to stand in the way of this kind of progress, but now thanks to the voters we are delivering real change and modernizing our police force.” This program was willfully voted for by the people of San Francisco and welcomed, eerily similar to how the world let in social media/big tech. Now, I don't believe I can predict the future but seeing where we stand today politically and socially, I can't imagine the effects of having drones hovering around in our sky's being good or making us "feel" any better, no matter how much "safer" we will be. Very much a wolf in sheeps clothing scenario in my eyes that will only lead to more surveillance and gathering of information not just for criminals, but for everybody. Now what crimes are we preventing that we're giving away such privacy? Car burglaries? From the presser:

• On July 26, officers responded to two suspects on dirt bikes breaking into cars around the Embarcadero. A drone was able to follow the suspects and locate their position so our officers could move in for the arrests.  
• On July 27, citywide plainclothes officers identified an auto burglary crew boosting cars in the same area. With help from the drone, SFPD located the suspects, spiked their tires, placed them under arrest, and recovered all the stolen property.

To end this, I suggest you get to know the great British investigative journalist, author, and features writer Carole Cadwalladr, known for her work around Cambridge Analytica Scandal, and watch her powerful TED talk, "This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like."

From the title, you can imagine what it's about and what we will be facing in the coming years as the “broligarchy” only leans in harder as the world tries its best to push back, if we do in size at all.