Posted on March 17, 2023

San Francisco Politician Pushing for $5M Reparations Also Wants to Defund the Police

Jen Smith, Daily Mail, March 16, 2023

One of the progressive liberal politicians pushing for reparations in cash-strapped San Francisco also wanted to defund the police, and believes some Honduran fentanyl dealers are human trafficking victims who should be protected rather than prosecuted.

Hillary Ronen is one of the 11 supervisors who will decide on a wide-eyed reparations plan for the city’s black residents that would pay them each $5million, promise them $97,000 salaries and wipe away personal debt.

Ronen, 47, is a Berkley Law graduate who owns part of a $2.4million home with her public defender husband and earns $179,000, according to public records.

She says she ‘can’t wait’ to get to work implementing the reparations. It remains unclear where the city will find the cash to pay for them.

Among those to have criticized the plans so far is a former BLM activist who branded them ‘unrealistic and disgusting’.

Despite escalating crime and homelessness which recently led Mayor London Breed to ask for an additional $27million in funding for the police department, Ronen is a proponent of defunding the police.

She also believes that some migrant fentanyl dealers are victims, not criminals, and are trafficked into drug dealing after crossing the border.

‘These people are victims of labor trafficking. They are told there are construction jobs in the US, then they are trapped and told if they don’t sell drugs the gangs will hurt their family members,’ she said of them.

She also opposed a request from the Biden administration to locate two fugitives – an alleged murderer and an alleged pedophile – who are wanted for crimes committed in San Francisco in 2009 who are now living overseas.

In order for them to be located and returned to the city, San Francisco has to make an exception to its sanctuary city policy – which Ronen is against.

She is a fierce supporter of former DA Chesa Boudin, arguably the most progressive in America who was recalled in June last year abolishing cash bail for criminals and allowing open-air drug markets to pop up across the city.

In previous years, she confronted Ted Cruz over ‘disgusting’ migrant shelters, and recently she proposed a resolution that would legalize sex work across the entire state.

‘We must have a short term, medium term and long term strategy to address the oldest profession in the world and protect sex workers, victims of trafficking and the residents of residential neighborhoods from the ills of this underground industry,’ she said in a proposal.

Ronen did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s inquiries on Thursday.

Earlier this week, she was eviscerated by venture capitalists and Republicans after wading into the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and subsequent market chaos.

‘Imagining a society where we prioritized bailing out the poor as much as we prioritized bailing out the rich,’ she wrote.

Among those who seized on her comment were female venture capitalists.

‘Where have you been? We’ve been doing the former for the past three years? And please get your facts straight: we’re talking about Startup entrepreneurs who risked everything to pursue some of the most important tech for this country,’ said Dayna Grayson.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will revisit the reparations plan later this year.

The board will not decide on whether or not to adopt the recommendations until later this year, once the committee which put forward the draft plan has submitted a final report.

Another meeting has been scheduled for September.

The board however signaled its enthusiasm for the plan last night.

‘If you look at the (draft) report, you’ll see so many examples of how black folks were done wrong here in San Francisco, and all of that can really be traced back to the negative effects of slavery,’ Walton said last night.

Sgt. Yulanda Williams, the president of the police association Officers for Justice, told them: ‘My dad always taught me never to beg. And I am not begging you today.

‘It is time for you to do the right thing and provide us with reparations: make us whole.’

Among the 100 recommendations were payments of $5 million to every eligible black adult, the elimination of personal debt and tax burdens, guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years and homes in San Francisco for just $1 a family.