by Randy Shaw on January 9, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
Matt Dorsey and Joel Engardio
San Francisco’s Top Issues for 2023
San Francisco seats a new Board of Supervisors this week. Joel Engardio replaces Gordon Mar in D4. D6’s Matt Dorsey goes from appointee to elected incumbent. Aaron Peskin was elected today as Board President. Will these Board changes impact city politics? Here’s our take.
The Board Presidency
The Board Presidency used to matter a lot. When I wrote Prop G to create a new Building Inspection Commission (passed by voters in 1994) we ensured that a progressive Board President would split appointments with moderate Mayor Frank Jordan. Split appointments are now standard for most key city commissions.
While today’s Supervisor commission appointments have more collective input, the Board President still has the largest role. The Board President also helps decide what legislative measures get calendared and when they are heard.
Peskin has proved a very effective Board President in the past. He is up to the task.
Moderate v. Progressive Control
San Francisco politics is seen as a struggle between “moderates” and “progressives.” This framing continues despite these terms having lost a lot of meaning—-for example, supervisors are still deemed “progressive” despite opposing new housing and protecting drug dealers over working class families (See “Why Has SF’s Left Turned Against the Tenderloin?“, Dec. 5, 2022).
Gordon Mar was aligned with a “progressive” majority of Preston, Ronin, Chan, Peskin and Walton. Joel Engardio is likely to be most aligned with Stefani, Dorsey and Mandelman. The latter two are lifetime progressives who are now described by some as “moderates.” Safai and Melgar align with both camps depending on the issue.
Does the mayor now have a Board majority she can get along with? Theoretically. But Mayor Breed needs to spend more time soliciting input and cultivating relationships with her supervisor allies if she wants to turn a potential Board majority into reality.
Public Safety
The Board’s new ideological lineup could most impact the city’s focus on public safety. My main issue for 2023—the closure of San Francisco’s open air drug markets—should unite moderates and progressives across the city.
You would think that all supervisors would recognize that people selling deadly drugs and promoting violence hurts all of San Francisco. But many look the other way regarding activities not directly in their district.
Will this change under the new Board? Certainly having Sunset supervisor Joel Engardio committed to closing drug markets sends a positive message. We’ll also learn how how much the new Board cares about closing drug markets when a supervisor’s hearing is held on the petition signed by over 150 Tenderloin businesses. The petition seeks a refund of business taxes and other fees if the city continues to fail to provide the level of public safety given to other neighborhoods.
The citywide group TogetherSF Action is going all out to stop open drug markets. This should help make closing drug markets a top 2023 priority for all San Franciscans.
Housing Policy
It’s hard to assess whether the new Board will succeed in expediting housing approvals and reducing the city-imposed disincentives to new construction. The media supports building a lot of new housing in San Francisco but voters and supervisors often do not.
The housing issue will be the Board’s top issue in January as supervisors face an up or down vote on the city’s Housing Element. The state requires San Francisco to approve a Housing Element that will build 82,000 new units. Its been approved by the Planning Commission, and should gain Board approval.
But we’ve learned never to take Board approval of new housing for granted. The Board has routinely overturned Planning approvals for specific projects and may object to a plan requiring San Francisco to upzone residential neighborhoods.
I can’t see supervisors rejecting the Housing Element. The consequences are too large. Rejection could trigger the Builders Remedy –which allows developers to build projects that are far bigger than local zoning allows.
That wouldn’t be very popular in San Francisco. Follow @TheFrisc for the most complete coverage of the Housing Element debate.
New Homelessness Commission
People are frustrated about San Francisco’s approach to homelessness. One problem is the lack of an ongoing public forum for debating homeless policies. Voters passage of Prop C in November provides that forum through a new Homelessness Commission.
The Board of Supervisors must approve all Commission appointees. Dorsey and Engardio are strong backers of the recovery movement—joining Supervisor Safai and others—so a representative of that movement has a great chance to be appointed.
The new commission should endorse a sober hotel option for the unhoused, which HSH has opposed. It can also help correct what has become a mountain of misinformation about city homeless programs and policies.
Commission applications must be submitted by March 1. The Commission will be seated soon after.
The Future of Downtown/Mid-Market
2023 should bring serious political attention to the post-COVID negative transformation of San Francisco’s downtown and Mid-Market. Downtown plays a vital role in the city’s economy. Planning its future must become a front-burner issue for the city.
Fortunately, key stakeholders have been working on a plan for downtown’s short and longterm future. Mayor Breed may announce key parts in her upcoming State of the City speech.
I was invited to lunch at the beautiful City Club last week in the Pacific Stock Exchange Building. The Art Deco restaurant was nearly vacant; pre-Covid it was routinely filled. Very few people were walking down Sansome Street. Now that a consensus exists that downtown’s Monday-Friday workforce is not coming back, I look forward to the stakeholders’ plan.
New Mid-Market Tax Incentive?
Those of us who worked closely with Mayor Lee on Mid-Market’s revival saw COVID reverse its progress. It’s as if we are back in the pre-2011 days when the city struggled for ideas on how to get Mid-Market retail spaces and office buildings filled.
2022 was a lost year for Mid-Market. The city’s opening a safe injection site in UN Plaza known as the “Linkage Center” killed prospects for new investment and hurt existing businesses. Business people in the area still see UN Plaza as a trouble spot.
Yes, there are some positive developments on the horizon. IKEA plans a late fall opening of the long vacant shopping center at 945 Market. Plus the full opening of the Line Hotel and condos at 950-974 Market and the eventual filling of arts and retail spaces there..
But Mid-Market is still beset by vacant retail and offices. That’s why the city should consider a new tax incentive for Market between 8th and 5th Streets.
Some incentive—such as a suspension of business taxes or a modified infrastructure finance district for the narrow area—is essential for Mid-Market’s revival. Offices are not coming back when they can get higher quality and comparably cost space downtown. Retail is not returning without a nearby customer base. Hundreds of new housing units in the area have helped but office workers must return to the area.
Mayor Lee recognized in 2011 that Mid-Market needed city help. While Mid-Market splits between two supervisor districts (Dorsey and Preston), the entire Board should prioritize its revival.
A Better Image for SF?
San Francisco just completed a rough year. National and international media focused on open air drug markets, overdoses, and scenes of mentally impaired addicts roaming sidewalks. San Francisco has become known as the nation’s Fentanyl capitol, which hurts the hospitality industry and more.
I’ve never heard people across the city so upset with what’s happening in San Francisco. They want the city to be like it was pre-Covid. San Francisco still had issues with drugs, homelessness and mental illness, but the problem was nowhere close to what it is today.
If you agree the city is off track, get involved with fixing it. San Francisco is filled with neighborhood association, religious groups, political organization and other groups working to make a difference. It’s cathartic to post tweets showing how bad things are in the city but consider coupling that with activism.
The entire San Francisco political spectrum can work together to improve the city in 2023.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
