San Francisco (AP) – Democrats are nationally in turmoil, but liberals in San Francisco are confident that the collaborative approach of the new mayor will facilitate to solve permanently anchored problems in a city that is recently known for its bitter infighting and tumultuous roads.
Daniel Lurie, a legacy of the Fortune of the Levi Strauss and the non-profit founder without chosen experience without chosen experience, defeated the reigning London breed in November after he spent almost $ 10 million of his own money. The voters accepted its promise to bring the government up to run again after years of San Francisco in order to raise national attention for the empty city center, drug employ and extensive tension tension.
Lurie is earnest and acceptable and often speaks outside of the town hall and speaks to dealers and residents who are both housed and unlikely. He has contacted the superiors, including those who are missing with breed, asked questions and invite input on thorny topics.
In an interview that marks 100 days in office, said Lurie, San Francisco Clean his plot with safer roads. He struck concerns about the inclusion of managers in his administration and refused to talk about the potential influence of Republican President Donald Trump on San Francisco.
“I was chosen to turn this city around,” said Lurie. “And I want everyone to know in San Francisco that their mayor focuses on achieving results for San Franciscans.”
Some chosen officials are hopeful to work together again after years of standstill. Connie Chan, a progressive manager, says that she has already had more discussions with Lurie than ever before.
“We feel carefully optimistic, despite many attacks that we saw from the Federal Government in San Francisco as a city and of course California as a state,” said Chan.
New leadership style
Frustrations about auto-break-ins and retail theft have been cooked for years. The voters displace the progressive district prosecutor Chesa Boudin in June 2022 and approved measures to expand police powers last year.
Lurie has inherited a city in which reported crime and the number of noticeable tents are reduced, which partly thanks to the interruption for more living space.
Lurie’s political goals are similar to his predecessor – more police and more protection and treatment options. However, he also has the advantage of being a new face without a fixed efforts to be a higher office, someone, the managing director and other philanthropes for their time and money.
His board approved the fentanyl legislation, which accelerates the attitude and contract department for new behavioral health initiatives and the extended capacity of protection. He wants to add 1,500 new shells and has optimized Outreach programs.
And he proposed to build more living space.
Lurie has obtained to stop the car to jump with people who seem to be in need. He asks if you want facilitate – although it is not always available. And he wants to bring the message home that San Francisco will no longer let people do what they want at the expense of others.
“This behavior simply can no longer be tolerated because families are afraid,” said Lurie.
Combating public drug employ
Some leaders on the left gave him the advantage of doubt and granted him the powers that they probably would not have given its predecessor. Chan, for example, advocated the supervision of the upset of the law on the fentanyl crisis after seeing how he was going to hear and compromise with her office in the proposed legislation.
Lurie has announced new rules for the distribution of the utensils for free drug employ and violated the city’s decades of decades to promote damage reduction. Non -profit organizations that are financed by the city must offer treatment options before they award supplies. They are no longer allowed to distribute smoke supplies such as sheet metal film and pipes, in parks and sidewalks.
The changes will make it more tough to engage drug users for which abstinence is not an immediate option, said Advocates.
Tyler Termeer from the San Francisco Aids Foundation, which supports people who deal with drug abuse, said that he was disappointed with the political shift, but confident that Lurie will listen to experts who have been doing this work for decades.
While the deaths of overdoses dropped from 2023 last year, there were still about 630 in the city.
Non-profit background and corporate connections
In 2005 Lurie founded the non -profit turning point community, which collected more than 400 million US dollars for the apartment, employment and clarification of people in poverty. Lurie fans have won his work among the lawyers who are working on keeping people from the streets of the city.
At the same time, he comes from a family that is deeply embedded in the history and identity of San Francisco: he is an inheritance of the happiness of the Levi Strauss & Co. by his mother Mimi Haas.
In this circle, he turned to two new boards that are stacked with Silicon Valley managers and other managing directors in order to address the battered image of downtown and bring back tourists and technology workers back. The committees include Google and GAP and the Philanthrop Laurene Powell Jobs, the Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen and the CEO of Openaai, Sam Altman,.
Lurie’s recruitment of opulent CEOs said in some concerns that say that the opulent already have a lot of influence.
“I am not the one who trusts billionaires so much, with the direction in which you take our city or our country, as we are seeing,” said Anand Singh, President of Unite here Local 2, who represents the hotel worker.
However, he added: “The mayor showed that he wants to listen to workers.”
Lurie said criticism of the influence of technology and money in urban politics, “said San Francisco in the past” and that this is a new San Francisco.
“I want the business here. I want these jobs here. I want these tax revenue here,” he said. “And I want you to be part of San Francisco’s reconstruction.”
Solution of the budget crisis
Lurie’s political honeymoon could soon end – he has to find out how to solve a gap in the city’s budget in the next two years.
He didn’t say what could be cut, but he was ready to make tough decisions.
Supervisor Jackie Field, a progressive democrat, said she appreciates Lurie’s openness and is impressed by how he deals with voters and superiors.
But Fielder hired a proposal this week that could test the collaborative spirit. Their measure would give children the right to protection to limit the current policy of Lurie to the homeless families to 90 days in an animal shelter.
She hopes that Lurie reminds that technology companies may come and go, but the neighborhood companies and communities remain.
“He did a good job to shake as many hands as possible, but when it comes to political decisions, we will see in his budget what his actual priorities are,” she said.
