Teresa Duque on Safer Streets / Safer Neighborhoods

By Teresa Duque

Teresa Duque's platform to deal with the issues of crime and neighborhood safety in District # 10

With law enforcement experience that spans two continents, Duque is committed to making sure that our communities remain safe places where people can raise families. Teresa Duque was a police officer in Macau, China with a distinguished record. Teresa has also testified on numerous occasions before the San Francisco Police Commission on behalf of the community. Teresa Duque is committed to working with community and law enforcement officials. Currently she is working with African-American and Asian-American leaders in an effort to bridge the racial divide that has occurred since the recent criminal attacks. Through the Asian Pacific-American Community Center (APACC), she has been essential in the development of policies to increase job-training and to increase youth opportunities.

Contrary to popular belief, San Francisco is supposed to be a city for families. We need to return our Board of Supervisors to balance. In an effort to insure that real economic revival takes place, and that depends on people feeling safe in homes, stores, and walking home from their car/bus stop.

• I will call for a policy of no early release from San Francisco County Jail for Home Burglaries. Crimes of this nature serve only to hurt the community and the residents who live there.
• Mayor Willie Brown started a program for the Bayview /Hunter's Point, similar to the Community Ambassadors Program (2010), established by the Board of Supervisors, whereby juvenile delinquents who had actually committed to reform, would be hired to ride MUNI as security detail. Attacks on the buses went down, people felt safer, and it was a socially-constructive way to for youth in rough neighborhoods a legitimate job, at relatively low cost. We need to expand programs similar to this policy; keep patrols walking along major MUNI stops and shopping corridors in the district.
• Supervisor Sophie Maxwell has been far too lenient on the career criminals who prey on the residents of the neighborhood. We can't allow career criminals to control the parks and the public areas of the district. This has made many areas too dangerous for kids and families. We need to reverse this policy+ and keep standing patrols in parks if necessary, at least during summer and weekends, so families have a safe place to play.
• Unless constructive steps are taken to actively create jobs and reduce crime in the neighborhoods, much of the blight that has made Portola Valley and the area around Bayshore Boulevard a dangerous place will continue to spread. We need to act now.