Quality of Life
If you have a 311 case with a plot twist (Closed! Reopened. Closed again. Still unresolved.), I’m a sucker for a good story.
What does it take to keep 311 accountable and bathrooms accessible?
District 8 has some of the most walkable, livable neighborhoods in San Francisco. These are places where you know your barista and can walk your kids to school. The district has great bones, but the basics have been slipping in ways that are hard to ignore.
There are 7,692 open 311 cases in D8 right now, and they take a median 835 days to close. Tree maintenance resolution is down to 27%. We have two public restrooms across five commercial corridors. I spoke with an unhoused woman in Duboce Triangle who stops drinking liquids after 2 PM because the bathrooms close at 5. She was organizing her day around a dearth of city services in the wealthiest city in the country.
The frustrating part is that the city reports would indicate the systems are working. DataSF shows a 98% closure rate on 311 cases — but 45% of the time, the same issue gets reported at the same address within 30 days. At Church and Duboce, the median turnaround is three days. Close it Tuesday, and a new complaint opens on Friday. That’s not resolving things, it’s cycling paperwork.
I want to start by identifying what actually works and what’s broken. That means a public infrastructure audit of D8’s five corridors before asking for new spending, outcome-based 311 metrics that track recurrence instead of just closure, and published neighborhood-level data so we can hold DPW accountable to results. These aren’t flashy asks, but they’ll build the foundation that makes everything else in the district work.
In the meantime, if you know something I should know, tell me. I personally read every submission.
Prefer to talk about this in person? I hold regular office hours and am also happy to meet one-on-one.