It appears that District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy has something in common with a certain kind of fragile Hollywood star — he never, it appears, reads coverage of himself. That was made apparent Wednesday, when despite news items from May noting that Dolores Park litterers are never cited, Sheehy reportedly claimed he was unaware of that fact.
It was back on May 19 that we reported that Sheehy (whose District 8 includes the park) announced via press release a proposal to increase the fine for littering in Dolores Park to $1,000. However, as reported the day before by the SF Chronicle in an article that quoted Sheehy extensively, “not a single person has been has been ticketed for littering in Dolores Park this year.”
The fine for Dolores Park littering, should it ever be levied, is currently $192. As reported back in May, Sheehy's proposal was a reaction to the mounds of trash left in the park every week. The proposed $1000 littering ticket would apply only to Dolores Park.
I'm not going to assume that Sheehy — who is presumably exceptionally busy — has the time to read SFist (where the Chron's zero citation news was reblogged), but you'd think that he's read the Chron article about his proposal! This is the article that quotes him as saying “If it costs you money to leave your trash in the park, you won’t do it...There are consequences to every action...This behavior has to change. It’s a terrible situation.” This is the article with the headline "Lots of litter, but no enforcement, at S.F.’s Dolores Park." What I am saying is that the fact that no tickets have been written in the past year was hardly buried.
But apparently Sheehy didn't read that article — or perhaps the news on the complete lack of litter citations slipped his mind in the intervening six weeks. For as Mission Local reports, at Wednesday's meeting of the Supes Public Safety and Neighborhood Services committee intended to discuss the proposed fine increase, it was then and only then that the members of the commission (Sheehy, D1's Sandra Lee Fewer, and D9's Hilary Ronen) "discovered that no one has been cited for littering in the park at the current fee of $200 in the past year."
I mean, I get it, there's a lot to keep up with...but I'll bet a lot of you guys, for none of whom Dolores Park litter citations are a part of your job, managed to remember that no ticket thing, right? I know I did! And yet, reports Mission Local, Sheehy "was unaware until the hearing that no citations had been introduced."
At the meeting, the Ex reports that Ronen was skeptical about the proposed fine increase, saying that “If it’s your understanding that there are people with such extensive means that are using the park then a $1,000 fine will make no difference to these people just as a $200 fine clearly wouldn’t make a difference — not that anybody is getting fined anyway. So this is a completely pointless exercise to begin with."
The hearing concluded with all three supes agreeing that "until the existing $200 fee is enforced it is pointless to raise fees," Mission Local reports. Which seems like information they had at their fingertips back in May, making Wednesday morning's meeting even more pointless an exercise than Ronen might have meant.
Previously: Huge Fines Proposed for Dolores Park Litterbugs