Thank you to the Outer Sunset Merchants and Professional Association and the West Portal Merchants Association.
For the last 6 years, the Outer Sunset Merchants Professional Association has been collecting toys to give to Operation Dream. For 20 years, Operation Dream and the San Francisco Police Department have worked together to give over 500,000 toys to children in San Francisco.
This year, the donations of toys were difficult, as major sponsors and toy drive opportunity events moved out of the City. This left toys in short supply.
Bill Barnickle of the Outer Sunset Merchants and Professional Association has organized a toy drive on Irving Street for the last 6 years. Last year he collected 750 toys to donate to the police department. This year he collected 1000 toys.
Maryo Mogannam of the West Portal Merchants Association also organized a toy drive for us on West Portal Avenue. However, I requested this late in the season and gave him a short time frame. This also was their first year doing this for us. They collected over 100 toys which they donated to us. This was a great start especially on such short notice. I hope that they will continue to participate in next year’s toy drive.
These toys were donated to low-income children all over San Francisco. Toys were given to kindergartners, and 1st graders at the Gordon J. Lau elementary school in Chinatown, the OMI Family Resource Center in the Lakeview, the West Bay Filipino Multi Service Center on 7th Street, and the Asian Pacific American Community Center on Bayshore Blvd.
On behalf of the officers at Taraval Police Station, I would like to thank the Outer Sunset Merchants and Professional Association and the West Portal Merchants Association for their generosity and commitment to the community.
Traffic Concerns
Over 220,000 cars travel though the Taraval Police District each day. Cars are using the smaller streets and also the major corridors such as Lincoln, Sloat, 19th Ave, and Sunset Blvd. Officers at Taraval have always done a good job on traffic enforcement, but they surpassed themselves in 2014. In 2014, they issued almost 13,000 traffic citations in the Taraval Police District. That’s up 73% from the year before. What’s more remarkable is that we have fewer officers than the year before.
We also try to educate the people that are stopped for traffic violations in the Taraval Police District. Officers hand out safety cards. These cards advise people on the top 5 violations that are the leading cause of vehicle collisions and pedestrian injures and death. The top 5 are:
1). Speeding
2). Failure to stop at a stop sign
3). Failure to stop at a red light
4). Failure to yield to a pedestrian at an intersection
5). Failure to yield while making a left or U turn
Please drive safely.
If you have traffic issues in the Taraval Police District and would like to have traffic enforcement or the speed radar trailer at a specific location, email me at curtis.lum@sfgov.org to request it.
Taraval Police Station will hold its community meeting on February 17, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. at Taraval Police Station. All are welcome to attend.