by Jack
According to the BART Director Debora Allen she wants to stop panhandling on trains and limit it to a safe zone outside the terminals. However, liberals are already trying to block her. She will ask directors at today’s board meeting to put it on the agenda for a future meeting. She also wants to prohibit busking. Busking is playing music and dancing for money.
“People tell me they just want to be left alone on the train. They don’t want to be forced in a confined space to listen to someone else’s music. They don’t want to be forced to watch dancers. They don’t want to be forced to watch panhandlers walk up and down the train and ask people for money individually,” Allen said as she headed in to today’s meeting in Oakland.
She knows she will face a lot of opposition. Bart board president Bevan Dufty is against it. The ACLU questions whether it is constitutional. She thinks they can work through the issues.
“I’ve done some preliminary research that would indicate that within a paid area BART has a right to have its own ordinances. We already have ordinances that prohibit loud music, smoking, eating, drinking and we can add panhandling to that,” Allen said.
Bums and junkies on the trains know how to avoid paying for the fare. Further, they present a safety problem for the regular BART passengers.
BART is not a homeless shelter, it’s public transit and they have rules and standards to provide for safe passage. But, the bums and junkies are taking over to the degree that many seniors no longer ride BART for fear of encountering a crazy or a junky looking for drug money.
It’s getting out of control. BART passengers, some with children, have been subjected to walking over human urine and stepping around feces. At times riders encounter deviant public sex acts. BART tries to keep the cars clean, but they are having trouble staying ahead of the harassment, filth and vandalism caused by the so-called homeless who use the BART cars for a toilet or a place to sleep.
Back in the 80’s my radio talk show host friend Lee Rogers once bluffed a gang of four would be thieves who got onto BART at an Oakland Station. It was late and he was in one of the last trains to run that night alone.
Lee related — They approached me menacingly making threatening remarks. I stood up with my hand in my shoulder satchel and said to the person who appeared to be the leader, “If my hand comes out of this bag, you will not make it to the hospital.” They left the car.
Progressives have turned enormous sections of the Bay Area into an open sewer filled with excrement, garbage and used needles. Why should BART be any different? Hollywood could not come up with a more dystopian fable than what is on their own streets.
Do tell. I used to listen to Lee and Melanie. And Geof Metcalf. And G. Gordon Liddy.
As I recall, this was before Lee and Melanie had the morning show on KSFO, but my memory fades. I believe it was when Lee worked for KGO evenings and once a week debated convicted child pornographer Bernie Ward, “The Lion of the Left.” Those were the days.
I used to contribute to Lee’s show with email tips on newsworthy items when he was on KSFO. I also had a friendly relationship with the great Jim Eason of KGO afternoon spot fame. He too moved over to KSFO. If you ever listened to Eason, I was also a regular contributor to his show. Both he and Lee read my “Shakespeare answers current issues” bit. It was great fun.
After I moved to Chico I became a steady contributor to Bruce Session’s afternoon radio show which first was on the 1060 AM carrier (I forget the call letters) and then moved over to KPAY 1290 after a buy out.
On his second retirement he complimented as one of the show’s uncredited producers. I still miss Bruce. KPAY died when he left.
Even smaller world. I was a guest on Bruce’s show sometime in the early 90’s, about the time of the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act. I had my FFL then and used to call in to his show fairly often.
The invitation was by way of his producer, Patrick Casola. Patrick and I got to yakking about guns and legislation one day, and he invited me on the show.
Side note: Occasionally, the History Channel will run an old show titled “The Last Mission”. It is a re-enactment of the last bombing mission of WWII by a B-29 named “Boomerang”, and the concurrent events of that day. The crew got word of the Japanese surrender on the flight home. The navigator on that crew was Tony Casola, Patrick’s father.
https://www.jahitchcock.com/mission/b29.htm
I wish I could remember your appearance RHT447. There is no doubt I heard it but my memory fades. I never called in or was a guest on any radio talk shows. I haven’t the skills.
You mentioned KGO. Anyone remember Dr. Bill Wattenburg, PhD? Dr. Bill had a Sunday night show on KGO for many years. After KGO he was syndicated for a time. He was also a life long friend of Clint Eastwood and appeared in three of his films. If you remember the talk show host that was blown up in his car by a bomb in a radio controlled toy car then you have seen Bill Wattenburg. Dr. Wattenburg passed away last year but was a resident of Chico for many years before his death. I got a chance to meet him as his daughter was a friend of my daughters. What an incredibly intelligent man with a voice like God.
By the way, the film he was blown up in was The Dead Pool.
I was a big fan of Dr. Wattenburg. He was a great engineer and brilliant scientist. As I recall he once maintained a ranch here in the north state and once a year hosted a think tank of his friends and acquaintances including Eastwood. I did not know he lived in Chico. He was also a fellow lab employee but I never met him. He probably knew my father who was also a scientist at LLNL.
Wattenburg was wrong about Internet bandwidth limitations but that was before all these exotic compression schemes.
As usual, you misrepresent the case. The ban is legal and will probably go through:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Panhandling-ban-gets-nod-from-BART-lawyers-but-14551646.php
But that won’t make the trains rideable. We already have all kinds of rules, but they are not enforced. The only thing that will help that, is if the cops walk the trains, and walk the stations, which they refuse to do. They’re afraid they’ll get knifed, and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. So, how about a threesome. Two patrol, and one hangs back? I dunno.
All I know is that our miscreants will not be warned off, they have to be chased off.
We do have this spiffy new app, though: BART Watch! You can take the picture of a miscreant with your phone, and type where he is, and send it off … which is fun … but these people are swiftly moving targets. You need the cops to come upon them in the act, or to deter them with a perpetual presence. And that we ain’t got.