New Community Safety Liaison

Public safety is the #1 concern for San Franciscans. That’s why I prioritized hiring a dedicated community safety liaison to help Sunset residents and merchants affected by crime.

Meet Vindy Chan. She’s fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English to serve everyone in the Sunset.

Vindy is a civilian who will work at Taraval Police Station and my City Hall office. Much of her time will be spent in the Sunset neighborhoods, helping crime victims while using a preventative approach to public safety.

Residents, small business owners and community organizations in the Sunset can benefit from Vindy’s role. She can help victims fill out police reports and apply to vandalism relief and graffiti abatement programs offered by the City.

She will also follow up on 311 requests that involve public safety hazards – like fallen tree limbs and broken sidewalks – to make sure they are resolved.

Vindy will coordinate with city agencies to address tent encampments and other quality of life issues in the Sunset. At Taraval Station, Vindy will provide administrative support for police officers so they can spend more time in the field responding to 911 calls.

Vindy was born in China and grew up in Hong Kong. She has strong Sunset connections. When she first moved to San Francisco at age 20, her first neighborhood was the Sunset. Her husband is also from the Sunset.

Vindy attended City College and San Francisco State University, earning a degree in international business.

Before joining my team, Vindy worked in property management and saw what was happening in San Francisco regarding crime, especially to seniors. As a regular volunteer for Self-Help for the Elderly, she wanted to make a difference.

“I spent the first half of my career helping corporations,” Vindy said. “I want to spend the second half of my career helping people.”

Relief for Small Businesses on Taraval

I worked with the Board of Supervisors’ budget chair, the director of the city’s office of small business and the mayor to secure $1 million in relief funds for small businesses struggling on Taraval due to the Muni track reconstruction.

The once-in-a-century replacement of Muni’s train tracks and all utilities and infrastructure under Taraval Street has been a major disruption for small businesses. First, the mom-and-pop restaurants and stores on Taraval had to face the pandemic. Now, they have to survive the entire street being ripped up. It’s a huge burden.

Some businesses reported a huge loss of their sales. It will be a travesty if we have brand new train tracks and boarding islands serving a corridor without any businesses.

The track replacement will improve the entire corridor. The final result will benefit Taraval and its small businesses for the next 100 years. But we can’t just give up on today’s mom-and-pop merchants. They need to make it through the infrastructure improvements and road construction. We need them to be around when the train comes back.

That’s why I worked to secure $1 million in relief funds. I asked leadership from SFMTA and the mayor’s office to join me in meeting directly with Taraval merchants to hear their concerns. We met at a struggling restaurant on Taraval and merchants expressed their frustration with the City.

It was clear that Taraval merchants need financial support. Funds were not set aside years ago when this project was first planned. But money is tight in our current budget deficit.

We are fortunate to have some unspent funds from last fall’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference of world leaders in San Francisco. During APEC, there were small businesses who were harmed by no fault of their own. The merchants suffered from the decisions and actions of city agencies.

Taraval merchants have a similar experience. They have faced years of disruptions and are at the mercy of the SFMTA and city agencies to finish this project as promised by the end of this year. I felt we should use some of the unspent APEC funds to help Taraval merchants.

The $1 million for Taraval was added as an amendment to an ordinance that had only proposed relief funds for SOMA merchants. The budget committee vote for the amendment was unanimous, including Supervisor Myrna Melgar who represents the section of Taraval east of 19th Avenue.

Many residents have asked about the parking situation on Taraval. Some of the parking lost during construction will return. The parking spots not returning are because of the new boarding stations that are required for accessibility and safety. Train passengers used to have to exit into oncoming traffic and it was dangerous.

If you want to see what Taraval will look like when the project is finished, tour west of Sunset Boulevard where the first phase of construction is complete. You can see the boarding islands, landscaping and beautification efforts. SFMTA has repeatedly told me that the final phase is on time to bring trains back to the full length of Taraval by the end of this year.

Residents and merchants can review an online list of updates for work that has been completed and upcoming work that is scheduled each week. Find the updates at sfmta.com/projects/project-updates.

We are one city. We can help businesses who suffered during APEC last fall and those who continue to suffer today. City Hall must triage the merchant districts and direct resources to the areas in code blue.

Taraval is in code blue. It’s at risk of dying. We must come together to help a major and vital part of our City. Taraval extends from West Portal to the ocean across two supervisorial districts. Spending a portion of the APEC funds to help Taraval is about saving businesses, which benefits the whole City. Because, if people stop shopping on Taraval and drive to Daly City, that’s less tax revenue for us all.

This is just the beginning. We need a dedicated relief fund for the future that can offer small businesses a lifeline during major construction projects and disruptive events.

Joel Engardio is the District 4 representative on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He can be reached at engardiostaff@sfgov.org.