San Francisco Open Law Initiative | Hacker News Reader

San Francisco Open Law Initiative

sfmoci.github.io

29 pointsphilfreo10 comments

I live in SoMA and was excited to see this repo. Specifically, I hoped to find some laws to aid in cleaning up the area around where I live.

After searching for: clean, sleep, homeless, trash, garbage, dispose, sidewalk - and not finding anything, I'm left wondering if this is really all of the laws. Maybe the state laws cover this stuff?

It also makes me wish other cities published their laws and I could easily compare the legislation that solved things elsewhere to what my city is doing.

Are you downloading and searching? Github isn't displaying lots of the sections because the raws are too long or somesuch, I think that's messing with the repo search.

If you're looking for SF's sit-lie stuff, it's in the Police.txt/Police.rtf under SEC. 168. PROMOTION OF CIVIL SIDEWALKS. I have serious doubts as to its effectiveness, but it's definitely in there.

Awesome, I was indeed using the Github search. I have the police non-emergency number on my phone and they seem very responsive (though, I've only used it for 'big' things so far).

Later I'm going to look up responsibilities property owners have about keeping their sidewalk clean. You haven't seen that any where, have you?

Hmm... check out Public Works Sec 174

I'm all for finding solutions to problems like garbage disposal and litter, but it's pretty callous to lump homeless people in with that. They aren't just a problem to "clean up". Instead put your powers and diligence to find a solution that makes you feel better about your neighborhood and helps them get the shelter and support they need.

I have to agree. I almost certainly live in the same part of SOMA as OP, and it is quite depressing to see so many people living in squalor. It makes me very angry when people talk about "cleaning this area up" by forcing the destitute to find a new patch of concrete to sleep on, far from where those people can see them. A stunning lack of empathy really!

Somebody please send a hilarious pull request.

https://github.com/SFMOCI/openlaw

First thing that comes to my mind is that each of those needs to be broken down by section, possibly line, and made machine-readable. I'd like an API that I can use to retrieve text and context by passing in "Sec. XXX Paragraph 1".

Not sure how useful that'd be, though.

"(Coming Soon) The API will be provided through SanFranciscoCode.org, launching officially soon."

http://www.plainsite.org/api

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