Remember those old Hollywood cowboy movies? When things got really bad in frontier towns the local town council and mayor would find the best crime-fighter they possibly could and they'd pin a tin star on the fellow and ask him to clean-up the town.
That's what just happened in San Francisco. Street thugs, hoodlums, gang punks, dope dealers and assorted petty criminals are a clear and present threat to San Francisco's stellar tourism business.
SFPD Chief Heather Fong and her department are doing everything they can to keep the peace and hold down crime, but society is changing and unfortunately, it is not changing for the better. We need a gunslinger who uses the law instead of a six-shooter.
If we were living in the movies we would invite Clint Eastwood's character Dirty Harry Callahan to come to town and systematically blow all the punks to smithereens. Unfortunately real life is not quite so simple. We are a people of laws and we need someone who is a champion of the law to come clean-up the Streets of San Francisco.
Mayor Gavin Newsom picked the absolute best choice. He found the precise person we need: Kevin V. Ryan!
Kevin Ryan is a San Franciscan. He is the son of Irish immigrant parents and he grew up in San Francisco. Kevin is a St. Ignatius grad. After earning a bachelor's in history at Dartmouth, Kevin returned home to San Francisco and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Kevin served San Franciscans as a municipal court judge before moving up to the superior court and eventually becoming Presiding Judge of the Superior Court's Criminal Division. In 2002 Kevin Ryan was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California.
Kevin Ryan's new job working for Mayor Newsom will be to head the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. In this new job, Ryan will work with law enforcement agencies and nonprofit groups to address the rising homicide rate, gang-related violence and street crimes that pose a threat to our tourism industry. Next Monday Ryan will begin the $150,000-a-year job, which is not an excessive salary for such a demanding position. Anyway, Ryan is well worth every penny of the money.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera, himself an amazingly talented and successful asset to San Francisco, issued this statement in response to Mayor Newsom's hiring of Kevin Ryan:
“In Kevin Ryan, Mayor Newsom has landed a stellar pick to lead the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.
“Kevin has been a distinguished jurist, an accomplished prosecutor, and a valued partner to my office in helping us develop protocols for civil gang injunctions.
“San Franciscans will be extremely well-served by the talent and dedication he will bring to addressing some of the most important and difficult problems facing our City.”
This coming week we have a lot to celebrate. Many of us in San Francisco will gather under the rotunda of our magnificent City Hall to see and hear Gavin Newsom sworn-in for his second term. On the following day, many of us will gather together for the inaugural reception at the deYoung. This time around we really have a lot to celebrate.
There are no limits to what we can accomplish with the team we have at City Hall. When we add to this the fact that both California's United States Senators and the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives are locals, it is clear that we have an opportunity in this City to set a new example for American cities that can restore this country to greatness. It can all start here in San Francisco now that the A-Team is in City Hall.
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2 comments:
you odviously didn't do any research.
Suggest you read WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH CALIFORNIA --SIMON -SCHUSTER publishers
Jack Cashill Author
You are dead wrong, Mr. Cashill. I have done a lot of research on the matter of crime in San Francisco. I also have a reasonably good knowledge of Kevin Ryan's qualifications. I am a life-long San Franciscan and I know my City very well. You, however, live in the State of Missouri. Your book is a right-wing ultra-conservative piece of crap that attacks minorities, immigrants and California politics. Your book is full of inaccuracies and a lot of pedestrian Republican diatribe. Stay in Missouri and leave California to Californians. You know not whereof you speak!
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