When I saw the headline in this morning’s Chronicle—“Both sides claim wins in ruling on sweeps”—my immediate thought was, “That means the people of San Francisco lose.” (The headline was in the print edition. The online edition reads, “New ruling denies S.F.’s request to ease encampment sweep order—but both sides see a win.”)
The story was just another sad, dreary tale of an activist judge not allowing the city to clear encampments. The two “sides” were the City Attorney, David Chiu, who supports the sweeps, and the Coalition on Homelessness, the radical, pro-encampment group that is most responsible for the deplorable conditions of San Francisco’s streets. The judge—the same Donna Ryu I wrote about a few days ago, when she prevented the cleanup of the awful Ashby-Shellmound encampment, on the Berkeley-Emeryville border—issued an order that was so vague, both sides could indeed claim victory. Ryu’s non-decision kicks the can down the same road it’s been kicked down for years, and thus solves nothing.
Which is why the good people of San Francisco lost. All they ask is for their city to be cleaned up, but it never happens. Pro-homeless lobbying groups like the Coalition on Homelessness keep filing frivolous lawsuits preventing cleanups. Pro-homeless judges like Ryu keep these lawsuits alive. The encampments, with their garbage, rats and crime, meanwhile grow in size. And the people who pay taxes and work hard suffer.
So add Donna Ryu to the list of judges to get rid of. What do we know about her? She’s on the U.S. District Court for Northern California, based in Oakland. She has brilliant credentials—Yale, and the University of California Berkeley School of Law. She was appointed to the court by President Obama. She is the first Asian-American woman, and the first Lesbian, to sit on the Northern District court. Last December, when the Coalition on Homelessness filed their motion, Ryu granted an emergency temporary injunction preventing the city from cleaning up encampments. Ryu based her decision on—yes—the Martin v. Boise decision. Her legal specialty has been civil rights. The irony of this particular case is that Ryu lives in tony Albany, where tent encampments are illegal.
Keep in mind that Ryu is the judge whose phone number Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to publish for the public to see—a threat he never followed through on. (I know her phone number but won’t publish it. You can Google it.) Newsom’s anger toward Ryu is palpable, as is the anger of Mayor London Breed, who has vowed to fight Ryu all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. Breed said, concerning Ryu’s ruling, “Now we are being told not to use another tool that helps bring people indoors and keeps our neighborhoods safe and clean for our residents." City Attorney Chiu similarly noted, "The Court's order puts San Francisco in an impossible situation, practically and legally."
By now, we understand pretty well what’s happening. There are solutions to homeless encampments. Everybody knows exactly what they are. There’s only one thing preventing these solutions from being implemented: super-woke judges like Donna Ryu. I believe that We, the People, are beginning to finally understand the power these magistrates have over our lives. Until now, they have largely operated in the dark, behind the scenes, unknown to the general public. But we’ve figured out their game. Yes, we need to fire Pamela Price. Yes, we need to get rid of dangerous wokesters like Carroll Fife and Nikki Bas. At the same time, we need to start calling out these judges who are actively working against the interests of the people.
Donna Ryu. Remember that name. If you ever see it on a ballot, vote no.
Steve Heimoff