Community Justice Center: City progs wrong again

Photo Lee Suzuki, SF Chronicle

Five years ago city progressives denounced Mayor Newsom's proposed Community Justice Center as if it was nothing but another front of his alleged war on poor people. 

They were wrong about Care Not Cash, and now it's clear that they were wrong about the CJC as reported yesterday (Verdict is positive for Justice Center) in the Chronicle:

Newsom first pitched the Tenderloin court as a place to tackle quality-of-life crimes such as camping on sidewalks and public urination, an idea that drew scorn from the public defender, homeless advocates and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors. They dubbed it Newsom's "poverty court" and said it would criminalize homeless people. 

In 2008, Newsom placed an advisory ballot measure to fund the court before voters---and lost resoundingly. Nonetheless, he'd already secured funding to run the court for one year and managed to keep it running after that. The San Francisco Superior Court, which runs the Community Justice Center, changed the focus to more serious crimes such as drug dealing, shoplifting and car break-ins. It handles misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, a focus that eased many critics' concerns.

The Bay Guardian opposed the Community Justice Center in 2007 here and in 2009 here and here.

Mayor Newsom and Kamala Harris in an op-ed supporting the Community Justice Center idea. It was already looking like a success in 2010.

Speaking of prog failures, Jim Herd at SF Citizen revisits the Octavia Blvd. planning and traffic fiasco. The Chronicle's John King had a long love affair with the "boulevard of dreams," beginning back in 2005:

San Francisco's Octavia Boulevard already is one of the nation's most unusual stabs at neighborhood revitalization, with an elevated freeway being replaced by a landscaped road designed to be a community centerpiece.

Shortly after Octavia Blvd. opened to traffic, it was bringing more than 45,000 cars and trucks through the middle of Hayes Valley. By 2007 there were more than 63,000 cars on Octavia Blvd. coming through the middle of that neighborhood.

But Rich Hillis, now on the Planning Commission, thinks all that traffic is somehow "healing" the neighborhood.

The backstory on Octavia Boulevard.