{"id":38802,"date":"2025-01-15T13:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T21:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=38802"},"modified":"2025-01-15T13:00:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T21:00:42","slug":"is-mayor-lurie-off-to-good-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/15\/is-mayor-lurie-off-to-good-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Mayor Lurie Off to Good Start?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Randy Shaw<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0January 13, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mayor Reaffirms Core Campaign Themes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecovery must be our mission<\/em>.\u201d-Mayor Lurie Inauguration Speech<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco\u2019s Daniel Lurie era has begun. Some are already declaring victory. Recovery advocate Tom Wolf tweeted, \u201cthe narrative of accountability and recovery has begun. Open drug markets will no longer be tolerated.\u201d Wolf said he and others are \u201ctaking a victory lap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m delaying my victory lap until drug markets are actually closed. I have too long a history of a mayor not matching words with actions\u2014remember Mayor Breed\u2019s December 2021 Emergency Declaration for the Tenderloin not being followed by a police crackdown? \u2014to claim victory prior to seeing results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the hope and optimism projected by Lurie\u2019s words is real. And understandable. Lurie has never wavered from his core view that San Francisco must end drug tourism. He knows that the city\u2019s economic future depends on clearing sidewalks of drug users and dealers. Lurie repeatedly reminds audiences that he got into the mayor\u2019s race because he was so disturbed by what his kids were seeing on the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is \u201cthe Lurie Administration\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lurie faced a unique task in staffing the leadership of his administration. On the one hand, he\u2019s had the longest time between election and inauguration of any mayor in modern San Francisco history. Prior to ranked choice voting, December runoffs gave incoming mayors barely a month before taking office. In the RCV era Mayor Lee inherited Newsom\u2019s staff and Mayor Breed won in a special election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all prior modern mayors other than Joe Alioto and Frank Jordan brought their Assembly or legislative staff with them. Or kept their predecessors staff. Lurie needed to bring in a new leadership team, so the arrival of new players in City Hall is understandable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that even many political insiders do not have relationships with the highly-skilled policy leaders he has chosen. Other than Paul Yep (Public Safety) and Alicia John-Baptiste (Infrastructure, Climate, and Mobility), Lurie\u2019s leadership choices are private sector figures with little to no experience in city policy battles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationship many currently have with \u201cthe Lurie Administration\u201d  is centered on their connection to the Mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Should We Expect to See \u201cChange\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Lurie is not the first San Francisco mayor elected after promising \u201cChange.\u201d The demand for transformative change was widely felt when Art Agnos took office in 1988 and Willie Brown in 1996. Despite both winning landslide victories, neither got the media honeymoon that Lurie has  enjoyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason? Concern about San Francisco\u2019s future crosses political and ideological lines. Voters for Lurie\u2019s rivals in November want him to succeed.  I can\u2019t recall any prior mayor taking office after a contested election enjoying such widespread support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Lurie is not immune from the expectations of a demanding electorate. He must deliver actual, visible results on a timetable that may well be unrealistic. The feelings of optimism and joy of Inauguration Day can quickly dissipate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lurie surely understands this. He knows that people must soon see a decline in drug activities on Sixth Street, Mid-Market and in the Tenderloin. He knows that if sidewalk conditions  are the same on February 8 as they were at the swearing-in that doubts will emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that timeline unrealistic? Should people give Lurie six months to address the core problem holding the city back?  I don\u2019t think many will.  For example, many of us have been trying to get City Hall to close drug markets in the Tenderloin since 2018. We should not have to wait another six months to see progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mayor\u2019s first new department head appointment was Fire Chief Dean Crispen. A very smart move. There\u2019s no substitute for picking leaders who have been in the ranks for decades and knows how to get things done. Let\u2019s hope this is a model for future Lurie appointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Left Unsaid<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lurie told the New York Times<\/a> in a July 7 story that \u201che would require city employees to return to the office five days a week, but has not said whether that would include thousands of city office workers in all departments, or just those in the mayor\u2019s office.\u201d I had hoped the mayor would clarify this in his inauguration speech but he did not. I assume he will address the issue soon. Requiring this return would be a huge boost for restaurants and cafes in the Central City neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the five day one actions<\/a> I suggested for the mayor, I had also hoped he would use his inauguration speech to announce he was asking the SFMTA Commission to allow ride share vehicles to return to Mid-Market. The area cannot rebound without this policy change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the big picture, analysis of Mayor Lurie\u2019s start was diverted by the terrible tragedy happening in Los Angeles. I grew up in LA. I would have thought what is happening there to be unimaginable. Mayor Lurie has offered whatever help San Francisco can provide to Los Angeles; the destruction should put many of our daily concerns in perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randy Shaw<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco\u2019s 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<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Posts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Randy Shaw\u00a0on\u00a0January 13, 2025 (BeyondChron.org) Mayor Reaffirms Core Campaign Themes \u201cRecovery must be our mission.\u201d-Mayor Lurie Inauguration Speech San Francisco\u2019s Daniel Lurie era has begun. Some are already declaring victory. Recovery advocate Tom Wolf tweeted, \u201cthe narrative of accountability and recovery has begun. Open drug markets will no longer be… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38803,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38802\/revisions\/38803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}