Friend,
Now that we have finally left 2020 behind, I’m taking time to reflect on the hardships, the pain, and the glimmers of hope this past year held.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit our City, and especially our District 10 community, brutally hard. I stood with far too many families to mourn the sudden loss of a loved one. I took far too many late night trips to San Francisco General to check in on a constituent who had no one else.
The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others shook us to the core, and reminded us that racism is not getting worse; it’s just being filmed. In the midst of a public health crisis, Black San Franciscans came together as a community to stand strong in the face of so much grief.
But there were successes, too.
When the pandemic began, our priority was to make sure our most vulnerable communities in the district had the resources they needed for food, access to testing, distance learning support, housing and employment protections. Our office compiled a comprehensive District 10 COVID-19 Resource Guide with local and state resources for our residents.
We worked on creating an Emergency Family Relief Fund for residents who were not able to receive the federal stimulus. We coordinated with our local community based organizations to provide food and testing sites, as well as learning hubs to support our most vulnerable children with distance learning. We also made sure that our unhoused residents had access to food, shelter, and pit-stops throughout the district. We began having weekly Resilient District 10 virtual meetings with all our community service providers to give updates on City guidance on COVID-19 and the work that our office was working on.
I was honored to sponsor San Francisco’s Proposition D, which passed with flying colors in November. This measure is a historic step toward true accountability in our Sheriff’s Department -- which is critical if we are ever going to restore trust between law enforcement and our communities, and build a San Francisco where everyone, truly everyone, feels safe.
Proposition D may not have passed, or even made it onto the ballot, were it not for George Floyd or Breonna Taylor. San Francisco came together to demand change in the wake of tragedy -- just as we did when we marched in front of City Hall and chanted “Black Lives Matter” through our masks.
I was also proud to sponsor San Francisco’s Proposition C, which allows non-citizens to participate in city commissions, advisory boards, and citizen committees -- allowing everyone who calls our City home the ability to shape its policies and its future. Finally, I sponsored Measure RR, which will provide new funding to CalTrain, ensuring a vital piece of Bay Area transit is supported well into the future.
With your help, here in San Francisco we also passed the CAREN Act this year, which holds people accountable for making false or racist 911 calls that put Black San Franciscans’ lives in danger. We also established stricter penalties for people who illegally dump trash in public spaces to keep our communities clean, established an ordinance to impound cars associated with illegal “sideshows” that disrupt the peace of our neighborhoods, and created the African American Reparations Advisory Committee.
Though we are on the road to recovery in 2021, it will take a long while before our communities are once again strong, healthy, and thriving.
Still, as I see the earliest vaccines distributed across San Francisco, and I think back on the major victories we won together this year, I am filled with renewed hope that despite everything 2020 threw at us, our brightest days are still ahead.
Thank you,
Shamann Walton
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| Paid for by Shamann Walton for Supervisor 2018. FPPC# 1395470. Financial Disclosures available at sfethics.org. |
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Shamann Walton for Supervisor 2018
268 Bush St #2712
San Francisco CA 94104 United States
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