Proposition D, experts say, would be the most far-reaching change to San Francisco government in two decades. The proposition, on November’s ballot, would cap the number of San Francisco commissions at 65 while bolstering the power of the mayor and police chief.
It would eliminate the bodies responsible for oversight of libraries and public health, for instance, while curtailing the power of the police commission to keep officers in check and prevent abuses.
The measure, put forward by the public pressure group TogetherSF, has raised about $7.8 million as of Sept. 16, a fifth of the $37 million going into the election so far. It is, by far, the most expensive contest in the November race.
For the billionaire-backed group TogetherSF, it’s also just the start.
An internal strategy document obtained by the influence-tracking group the Phoenix Project and shared with Mission Local shows TogetherSF’s strategic plans for the next four years, including its heavy reliance on a single donor: The venture capitalist Michael Moritz, who is also the owner and backer of the San Francisco Standard. The presentation reveals the full depth of Moritz’ funding for the first time.
In a statement, Kanishka Cheng, the chief executive officer TogetherSF, stated that the document was authentic. She said the presentation shows the strength of the group and its key accomplishments since TogetherSF was founded in 2020.
Cheng wrote that the community created by TogetherSF and TogetherSF Action “genuinely believes in the power of grassroots organizing to create meaningful change in local politics.”
The document, a 49-page presentation titled “A San Francisco That Works for Everyone,” seemingly a pitch to potential donors, includes plans to run two more ballot measures in future elections. These would reform the city’s nonprofit contracting and introduce at-large supervisorial elections.
In the presentation, TogetherSF also promises to continue participating in future supervisorial and mayoral races, and to “grow and sustain [a] movement of community dissatisfaction.” This rancor would be directed at a government that is “failing at delivering basic services to its residents effectively, if at all.”
Already, in 2024, TogetherSF has endorsed Mark Farrell for mayor and is backing a slate of challengers hoping to oust progressive incumbents or beat progressive candidates for supervisor.
To that end, it is endorsing Marjan Philhour in District 1, who is running against the progressive incumbent Supervisor Connie Chan; Danny Sauter in District 3, hoping to replace termed-out Board President Aaron Peskin; Bilal Mahmood in District 5, running against the city’s lone democratic socialist representative, Supervisor Dean Preston; Matt Boschetto in District 7, running against Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who has managed to skirt the line between progressives and moderates in San Francisco; Trevor Chandler in District 9, running to replace progressive Supervisor Hillary Ronen; and Michael Lai in District 11, a newcomer to the district running in a crowded field to replace Supervisor Ahsha Safaí.
The presentation, dated July 2023, also offers the first real glimpse into the vast finances of a group that is almost entirely backed by donors who do not have to disclose their identities when giving.
TogetherSF is technically structured as two separate nonprofits, a 501(c)(3) named TogetherSF that can take hidden, tax-deductible donations but cannot engage in candidate races, and a 501(c)(4) named TogetherSF Action, which can engage in such races but must disclose some donors (who do not receive a tax benefit). The two groups share leadership and work in tandem.
These two nonprofits, collectively referred to as TogetherSF from here on out, had received $6 million since 2020 from Moritz and his Crankstart Foundation, according to the 2023 document. Moritz, a billionaire who made his wealth in tech, and Crankstart had pledged a further $11 million, the document states, for a total of $17 million. Since then, Moritz’ contributions may have grown.
At the time of the presentation, the group sought to “raise an additional $11M” to match Moritz’ pledged gift, for a total of $22.4 million. That, the document states, would “give us runway through the 2026 election.”
Two more ballot measures and 300,000 members by 2028
The TogetherSF presentation is structured as a sales pitch. Dated in July of last year, the document recaps TogetherSF’s victories to that point, touting house parties held, voter guides distributed, and members added.
The presentation points to three elections in which “our community engagement drove wins” — the 2022 elections of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio and District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, and the election later that year of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins following the recall of the progressive DA Chesa Boudin.
The presentation then details a four-stage plan for “growing an engaged (and enraged) community” and “driving community to vote for real change.” Between 2023 and 2026, the group will “roll out [its] political arm” and “grow and sustain [a] movement of community dissatisfaction.”
Polls show San Franciscans have grown increasingly dissatisfied in the years since the pandemic, and TogetherSF’s agenda is backed by a significant amount of money aimed at both fomenting and capitalizing on voters’ anger, promising change.
Through 2028, the slideshow proposes, TogetherSF will “launch and win 2-3 ballot measure campaigns.” It lists the following issues:
- “countless commissions,” which it is already addressing through Prop. D
- “government gridlock,” for which it will “consider how at-large board seats could impact the Board’s ability to get more done”
- “contracting chaos,” for which the prescription is creating “a performance-based contracting system”
The group also says it will “win supervisorial races” and “support mayoral race 2024 and 2028.” Its membership drives — which are heavily focused on social activities like trash clean-ups, house parties, and trivia nights — are meant to rapidly grow its “community members” (seemingly, those subscribed to their newsletter) from 65,000 in 2023 to 300,000 in 2028.
Finally, the group seeks to grow its “community leaders” program of people who will focus on “running for office,” among other things. Those leaders would become “megaphones for change.”
Cheng’s statement to Mission Local pointed to some of those changes: “We have successfully achieved many of our key objectives, including getting Prop D commission reform on the ballot. Civic engagement, political activism, and driving meaningful structural change in San Francisco are still goals of our organizations. These slides illustrate how much our community has accomplished in the past year and how tens of thousands of engaged citizens can drive meaningful change through community activism.”
TogetherSF, in its four years on the scene, became well-known for a series of pilloried “That’s Fentalife!” billboards it put up in 2023 to spotlight the city’s overdose crisis — mockingly, critics said. It puts out voter guides backing candidates and measures, but has not disclosed any direct spending on candidates.
Generally, however, TogetherSF focuses on removing progressives from power and undoing their policies.
In the March 5 election, TogetherSF backed tough-on-crime judge candidates, a rollback of police oversight and expansion of police powers, and drug-screening welfare recipients. The group backed District Attorney Brooke Jenkins in 2022 and castigated the outgoing Chesa Boudin. It won in all of its efforts except its judicial slate.
In November, it is opposing both rental subsidies for low-income tenants and a tax on companies like Lyft and Waymo to fund transit, while supporting measures to allow police officers to earn pensions and salaries simultaneously and firefighters to retire with full benefits at age 55 instead of 58. TogetherSF is pushing an “anyone but Peskin” strategy in the mayor’s race, ranking Farrell No. 1.
Moritz biggest funder in new network of pressure groups
The TogetherSF presentation reveals that Moritz, who also launched the San Francisco Standard in 2021 as a for-profit news site, is the largest contributor to a new crop of ideologically aligned pressure groups that have spent millions on San Francisco politics since 2020, largely to oust progressives and change the direction of the city.
Moritz’s giving “would be more than half of all money raised to date, which has been a little over $40 million,” said Jeremy Mack, the executive director of the Phoenix Project, referring to the collection of big-money groups which the nonprofit has tracked in several whitepapers. “It’s not only saying, ‘Hey we’ve raised a bunch to date,’ but, ‘This is just the beginning. We have a lot more money coming.’”
Grassroots organizations can struggle for years to build a base, learn the politics, and become effective lobbyists for their issues. TogetherSF shortcuts that with a boatload of cash.
“It’s global wealth in what is a small city,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a lecturer at Columbia University who frequently writes about San Francisco politics. TogetherSF’s MO is to bulldoze through change by spending reams of money, Mitchell said, enacting its vision by outspending opponents “10 or 20 to one.”
But TogetherSF is not alone. The new big-money network is heavily interconnected by common donors, like-minded staff, and jointly funded candidates and causes. The groups, like GrowSF and Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, are varied but more alike than not, and share similar goals.
The heavy involvement of Moritz, who serves as TogetherSF’s board chair, is no surprise: He has been TogetherSF’s chief patron since its founding.
Moritz, who was a technology reporter before making his fortune as an investor, is heavily involved in San Francisco civic life: He has spent more than $336 million on various city nonprofits and initiatives, according to a 2023 report from Bloomberg. Moritz has put at least $4.4 million into San Francisco political campaigns since 2003, including just shy of $3 million into November’s Prop. D.
Moritz created the San Francisco Standard with $10 million in 2021, and appears to be its only source of support. The Standard’s publisher, Griffin Gaffney, co-founded TogetherSF with Cheng, TogetherSF’s CEO, before stepping away.
“He’s clearly looking at: ‘How do I get at the root challenges of governing San Francisco?’” said Jim Ross, a San Francisco campaign strategist, of Moritz.
Strong executive, ‘values-aligned’ legislators
Rich DeLeon, professor emeritus of political science at San Francisco State University and author of the 1992 book “Left Coast City,” said that while the presence of moneyed interests in San Francisco politics is nothing new, the focus on structural change is. When Silicon Valley first became meaningfully involved in San Francisco politics in the early 2010s, for instance, under the direction of venture capitalist Ron Conway, the focus was on backing the right horse: Ed Lee, at the time, who received gobs of money from tech interests.
“At that point, there weren’t any major structural reforms; they were interested in changing players,” DeLeon said. “Elect the mayor and that’s all you need to do. And they certainly did that.”
While candidate electioneering is part of TogetherSF’s efforts, its priority is transformation at the roots.
The group’s presentation paints a vision of a mayor who would enjoy a municipal government free from ideological strife, where legislators and bureaucrats move to the beat of one drum.
In one slide, TogetherSF details the ideal relationship between the Board of Supervisors and the mayor: Supervisors would maintain their check on the executive, but “would be ultimately aligned in values” with the mayor. To “make San Francisco work,” the document states, “we need real structural change … giving the Mayor the power to lead.”
“When you start saying the problem is that the Board of Supervisors doesn’t support the mayor — no, that’s the point,” said Mitchell of Columbia. “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature … The legislature always does oversight. If you weaken their ability to do oversight, you’ve created a problem.”
The allegation that the Board of Supervisors’ independence from the mayor is gumming up municipal functions — rather than being a check on the mayor’s power — has been a common refrain of the group: In February 2023, Moritz penned an op-ed in the New York Times claiming “mayors have been stripped of much authority while remaining convenient heat shields for the board.”
In August 2023, TogetherSF commissioned a 76-page report from the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College suggesting that “the structure of government has contributed to the struggle to address the City’s problems” and noting that “Charter amendments have reduced the Mayor’s capacity to govern.”
But past mayoral aides have said that the mayor has broad latitude over the city’s functions, and seldom allows commissions to block policy. Regardless, most commissions are already beholden to the mayor; the mayor appoints the majority of commissioners, while the Board of Supervisors appoints a minority.
The board can reject mayoral commission nominees with a majority vote, but that is similar to the role of other legislatures, like Congress vis à vis the president’s appointees.
The Board of Supervisors is also responsible for a de minimis portion of the city’s budget, and has little control over which programs live or die. In the original 2023-2025 budget, for instance, all 11 supervisors cumulatively had say over 0.2 percent of San Francisco’s $14.6 billion budget.
Mayor Breed, meanwhile, directly controlled 16 percent — 80 times more than the board.
For professor emeritus DeLeon of San Francisco State, the aggregation of executive power is nothing new, but the deep money backing it is.
“It’s the kind of argument that goes way, way back: Strong executive leadership, to run the city like a business — more efficiently, more streamlined — to justify centralizing and strengthening control,” DeLeon said.
To that end, he said, TogetherSF is “flooding the zone with these major structural reforms.”
Rich people trying to run the world. So what else is new? What’s new is that economic inequality has grown to unprecedented levels in America – allowing the rich and the powerful to become more rich and more powerful. The difference between Trump and people like Michael Moritz, Gary Tan, and William Oberndorf is only in their presentation and strategy. Their goals are the same – We are the richest. We are the smartest. Please get out of the way, and let us run the show. What could possibly go wrong?
Could not agree more. Wish more people in SF could see this. Folks desperate to see Trump disappear, but not paying attention to their own city’s takeover.
Fire Breed and the rest of the “city family” or watch SF be sold underfoot to Billionaires. It’s literally that simple. We are under attack by dark money and City Attorney Chiu is either complicit or incompetent, or both.
One of the key questions Together SF does not address is the budget; specifically the issues of taxing and spending. For example, with downtown suffering a business exodus, one of the big questions is where the money is going to come from to replace, or expand, the money lost from business taxes? Then there is the question of spending: if you want to spend more on the cops, what city services will get less?
Stage 4 of billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz’s $35 million plan to hijack San Francisco’s government, Moritz’s plan should also be known as Project 2028.
Moritz and TogetherSF’s self stated goal of “Grow and Sustain a Movement of Community Dissatisfaction” tells you everything. How is that even a goal? Like spreading fear and loathing in communities is their goal? Reject Michael Moritz’s and TogetherSF’s dystopian vision for San Francisco.
TogetherSF presents itself as a grassroots organization, despite their vast funding by undisclosed investors. Oops, I mean donors. I appreciate anonymity in some political organizations – the US has blacklisted, jailed and deported communists and inserted FBI spies into civil rights and other movements. Michael Moritz and his pals have nothing like that to worry about, but still they hide. Hm. Are they not proud of their work or are they just scared of having their cover blown?
Last week I went to a meeting of the O’Farrell Neighborhood Group because Bilal Mahmood would be speaking. That was my second ONG meeting. The first was last month when Autumn Looijen spoke. Looijen presented her plan for affordable family housing: microunits, sleeping pods and dormitories in repurposed downtown highrises. Supervisor Preston had spoken to the group at an earlier meeting.
Based on how I receive emails announcing their monthly meetings, I assumed the ONG was a Tenderloin community organization primarily concerned with public safety, homelessness, drug activity, and policing. The two times I attended a meeting, Esan Looper from the Tenderloin Community Benefit District provided neighborhood updates around street and sidewalk conditions, the current project of remapping police precincts, and other relevant issues.
I arrived early last week. As soon as I sat down, someone from TogetherSF Action approached and aske me to sign in. I refused, telling her it was a public meeting and I didn’t need to give out personal information. She scoffed and went back to where she had been sitting. After she successfully asked a couple other attendees to sign up, I decided to ask her a question about the leadership of TogetherSF – the answer to which would likely have been of interest to other members of the group.
My question was whether Kanishka Cheng, CEO of Together SF, still believes the Tenderloin community does not deserve new open space. About a year and a half ago, KPIX news ran a segment on the Golden Gate Greenway, a community-supported project on the 100 block of Golden Gate Avenue. After Niels Behnke, then-CEO of St. Anthony’s, spoke about the public benefit of the space, Cheng was allowed to present an “opposing position” that claimed the neighborhood wasn’t ready for nice things.
Ally, the woman I spoke to first, told me she was new at TogetherSF and was unfamiliar with Cheng’s position. She suggested I speak to one of the two other staff from the group. I approached Lauren, who later served as MC for the meeting. I didn’t get an answer from her, either. But I did ask why TogetherSF Action had come to the meeting to collect information from the attendees. She told me they had come because Bilal Mahmood is one of their endorsed candidates and of course would support him. I was still puzzled and let her know. Lauren responded that the O’Farrell Neighborhood Group is a TogetherSF Action project.
I wondered how many other attendees knew ONG was a front group – or if originally a grassroots effort, that it had been covered with AstroTurf. On the previous occasion, no one mentioned Together SF, so I didn’t know they had this cozy “relationship.” I still wanted to know why they were there. Lauren told me that two staff from Mahmood’s campaign had contacted TogetherSF Action to ask them to arrange a chance for him to speak at the group. That made the situation weirder, but it was soon … not clarified, but obfuscated.
Toward the end of his talk, I asked Mahmood two questions related to GrowSF. One was about the billboard at 400 Divisadero that said as supervisor Mahmood would do the impossible: getting affordable housing built on the site. It is too late for that. Mayor Breed, who has endorsed Mahmood, blocked the funding for a TNDC project there and now the property is owned by a private developer who will be building unaffordable housing there, except for the minimum required affordable units. It’s a done deal – and Mahmood is no superhero. My other question about GrowSF was whether Mahmood would denounce Garry Tan’s message wishing a slow death upon 7 of the 11 current members of the Board of Supervisors (whom he referred to as “motherf*ckers”).
Mahmood replied that his campaign must remain legally separate from GrowSF and he does not influence their decisions. He also said he has expressed his disagreement with Tan’s death wish for others and had gone so far as to talk to the press about his rejection of it. I was unaware of that. None of the dozens of other people I have spoken to about it was aware of any public comments from Mahmood. It’s been almost nine months, so it’s surprising we haven’t found anything.
Because Mahmood mentioned that PACs and campaigns are prohibited from coordinating with each other, I asked him about his presence there that evening explaining that Lauren told me two of his campaign staff contacted TogetherSF Action asking for an invitation to come speak to the ONG.
I don’t recall that Mahmood responded, but Lauren immediately insisted that she did not tell me Mahmood’s campaign had contacted them to coordinate the speaking event. The conversation I had with her, and my notes taken immediately after, tell a quite different story.
Forgot to include the last bit from my notes.
Lauren told us the event was a house party for Mahmood, not an actual community event for the O’Farrell Neighborhood Group (which might or might not be a wholly owned subsidiary of TogetherSF Action). Because of that, it is apparently okay that Mahmood’s campaign colluded with TogetherSF Action to get him invited.
If the TogetherSF Action PAC is the actual organization behind the O’Farrell Neighborhood Group, why does an employee of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District – a 501(c)(3) – speak to the group at their monthly meetings – especially when Mahmood is on the board of that 501(c)(3) organization? I think that’s a valid question. And I don’t believe TLCBD is at fault. I think TogetherSF Action if fucking around with the truth.
TogetherSF Action is welcome to address these questions. Mahmood and his campaign are welcome to as well. I certainly know that Mahmood’s campaign has shown itself to be ethically challenged in the past. I am referring to the two times that Mahmood “volunteered” at Tenderloin Community School last spring, bringing with him first two then three members of his campaign staff to support and document his visits (including illegally making a video recording of his first visit when he read to a fifth grade class).
Candidate Bilal Mahmood and his campaign staff and his supporters and donors (Garry Tan, Bill Oberndorf, Jen Laska, Steven Buss, Sachin Agarwahl and the newly seated DCCC garbage assemblage) are making a POWERPLAY to cancel/negate/kneecap my and your and our access to democratically elected office holders. Fuck these mother effrs.
AMEN and yes that’s entirely accurate.
“reds and grays only” – literal techno-brownshirt ideology!
New kid in Town,
That’s you, to me, Scott.
Wonderful work so lucid and annotated.
Much as I love my own writing there are now about a dozen posters here (not to mention staff) who write far better than me in the traditional sense.
Love the way you go after subjects.
As an old Hippie I usually hug them and tell them how much I love them (and, I really do, them and this whole show) …
Before I kick them in the crotch.
It’s the very least you can do as a journalist.
Did Mahmood get Arntz to put him on Ballot as ‘Neuro-Scientist’ or close to that ?
h.
lol
h.
What they call a “member” is anyone whose email address they have acquired – many by way of Refuse Refuse tricking civic minded trash-collecting volunteers to sign up using TogetherSF’s web site. The idea of any organization in SF, a city of fewer than 900,000, having a membership of 300,000 by any legitimate means is absurd.
Last year, I subscribed to learn more about TogetherSF and was spammed with multiple emails about how terrible the city is and how they can change it. I unsubscribed after a few months because their narrative that SF is one mile south of hell is so off-base. I also volunteered and attended one of their social events and it was full of people who hadn’t been in the city more than three years and had zero historical context of politics in SF. I got the sense their outreach is targeted toward newer residents who genuinely want to be politically active and make a difference but don’t know where to begin. It felt somewhat exploitative of their naivety.
I noticed that most of the ‘About Us’ folks are not from SF and thus not a lot of historical understanding. Sorry if you moved her during the DotCom 2.0 rush and you thought it was going to last (and was the norm) but it is not. Go back to your own hometowns and try to fix the problems there.
Non-profits should not be able to fund entire campaigns with dark money from a few crusty oligarchs, that’s not the SF I grew up in.
“Together” LETS THROW THE CORRUPT BILLIONAIRE LACKEYS OUT OF SF!
SF doesn’t need London “Xi” Breed nor her corrupt dark-money politburo.
WE NEED INVESTIGATIONS! Chiu, it’s time to do your damn job or resign.
Imagine what good these groups could do with all that money if they were not driven by ego and the desire to create their own oligarchal kingdom in San Francisco, and doing so by using lies, deception and worse. The pillorying of progressives, blaming them for all the city’s ills when we have not had a progressive mayor since Art Agnos in 1992, is intellectually dishonest, if not a flat-out lie, and an indication of the credibility of Moritz and his ilk.
How many times have we voters voted for or against district elections? So, some new kids on the block with a ton of money think that THAT is the problem? The only thing that at-large elections will change is less representation for us citizens of San Francisco and greater power for Moritz and his wealthy friends. So I guess that that Moritz and his Project 2028 creators believe that we citizens are the problem.
Oh, and we need even LESS police oversight? Compared to what – we have none now. What little police oversight we have has never prevented a cop from arresting anyone. But laziness, corruption and politics have.
Between Trump, MAGAs and their Project 2025, and TogetherSF and their Project 2028, is there any piece of government this isn’t being subjected to attempts of eroding democracy for benefit the wealthy? What’s the next step when these “projects” fail, fascism?
No thanks.
You describe the person-by-person political goals of TSF, i.e. who they want to be elected, but what are the issues that it wants to address and how? What are its goals: open or close highways; allow or prevent people from living on sidewalks, in cars or in parks; reduce, maintain or increase population density?
Even a brief summary would be helpful.
Yea
The progressive policy and throwing away of taxpayer money, free handouts needs to end.
The progressives are lazy and dont care about harming this city
Go live in north korea or china
Zero tolerance for drugs The dealers are killing people the addicts are rotting away
Temp food clothibg shelter
Not 72 k a year to sit in a city run hotel and take drugs and not get a job
Using the taxpayer to fund this lifestyle is ending
Stop the harm grow up mature and go where you can find a job like adults do
So you’re telling me they have a long-term strategy and plan? Great!
None of this sounds as nefarious as it’s being portrayed. Granted, it can sound scary to anyone who thinks a healthy city should have a dozen leaders do the job of one and that “billionaire contributions” are inherently dubious.
Reform is good, esp in a bloated, slow-moving, and very convoluted governmental system like ours and any group that enters the “get-shit-done phase” of politics is going to kick up dust and make the anxiously cautious progressive types cling to the handicapped political system that we’ve all inherited.
How wonderful .
After many years of failed polices and worsening chaos , it is time for change .
Lack of accountability and oversight , with billions of taxpayers money rubberstamped each year to the same old “whoa is me” nonprofits needs to stop,
Free handouts , including trips and target gift card s have no place being paid for by taxpayers monies .
Everyone has a story . Everyone has been discriminated against .
Women , gay and lesbians, many ethic persons have been discriminated for years .
Reparations are not the answer for anyone .
.
It it time to treat all equally and stop rewarding only certain groups who have the “ ears if city hall” and politicians who just want to warm their chairs and get reelected .
Prejudice is learned .
Education , equality , enforcing laws and holding persons responsible while offering real solutions to include job s , affordable housing , not free housing , mandatory drug and mental health treatment would be a good start .
Just throwing more money at the same problems and coalitions that scream the most is not working ,
It is beyond time , people are stopped being used as pawns and part of an experiment ,
By now there should be no one on the street and zero drug dealing and usage here for a start.
With 35k city employees and billions spent just on a select few , this plan is a fail.
Please vote .
Harm needs to stop.
Maybe you’re new to SF, but Ed Lee / Breed promised ALL of it. Already.
TogtherSF is change? And yet they are supporting London Breed for mayor!?
So, you don’t want all the commissions and waste and graft?
Well surprise, you’re supporting people who support that directly!
Together SF = Grow SF = Sellout SF
Trusting BILLIONAIRES to be philanthropy minded without verifying?
That’s not legitimate change, that’s called selling out blind.
Fabulous !
Your best work so far JB.
Hope y’all have coverage on tomorrow evening’s 6-8:30pm D-9 Candidates Forum at El Toro in the Portola sponsored by Maggie Weir and her friends’ Portola Neighborhood Association.
Top candidates Jackie Fielder and Trevor Chandler will both be there for once and it may be the last time we get to see them on stage together the rest of the way.
What bus from old Levis Factory (I’m next door) to El Toro ?
Go Niners !!
h.
It’s a chicken or egg situation. If SF constituents were not living in a city devastated by bad government, SF Together would not be a powerful force for change. People are backing it because the current political landscape has failed us. I don’t know why this simple calculation is so difficult for the reporters at Mission Local to grasp. The streets around my home were so bad I had a nervous breakdown. What people in SF had to put up with for the eight or nine years because of incompetent and ideologically driven politics is just unacceptable. SF Together offers a remedy.
“SF Together offers a remedy.” – Give us total control and we promise you _____.
Are we really this naive? Even after the Breed / Ed Lee decade? Cmon now.
Imagine had the professional progressives felt comfortable with San Franciscans, instead of deriding us based on their myriad demographic prejudices, and were confident enough to throw power at us by nurturing political participants over the past 20 yr. Instead, the white male leader of TODCO, for instance, in the Filipino heartland of SOMA, along with Calle24, decided to groom a sociopathic alleged serial rapist.
Political energies raised by San Franciscans in the early 2000s were studiously grounded out by the professional progressives in the Care Not Cash era, to the extent that they’ve weakened progressive political power and exposed government to a hostile leveraged buyout takeover by right wing billionaires, with only Aaron Peskin standing between us and strong executive authoritarianism.
Progressive grandees signing onto east side upzonings, for example, shifted the demographics of D6 so that we went from Chris Daly to Matt Dorsey in 15 short years, all for a few hundred affordable units and few tens of millions in in-lieu fees and “community benefits” over two decades.
The progressive branded poverty nonprofits were just fine hanging San Franciscans out to dry, so long as they got paid. And I am sure that San Franciscans will return the favor when the progressive branded poverty nonprofits are likely cut off of the city teat and parted out and the pieces sold on a tarp on Mission Street if things go south in November. Imagine the nonprofiteers having to find real jobs with their finely honed skillsets of insinuation, condemnation, banishing and punishment!
What unites both tech billionaires, urbanists, YIMBY and progressive branded nonprofiteers is a deep seated hatred of existing San Francisco residents.
Billionaires covet San Francisco’s terrain, but the terrain is only made desirable by the cultural life that residents breathe unto the city. They will be left with an anonymous, sterile husk of concrete, glass and steel that could be anywhere once the bubble pops and the speculators move on to “prospect” for opportunities elsewhere.
Thank you for the info on TogetherSF. I just sent them 15% of my rental income this month, signed up for their emails and look forward to volunteering.
Why not send them 100% since they 100% own your soul apparently?
I honestly wonder if it’s disinformation naivete or just pure greed that will be the major downfall of civilization, it’s neck and neck with your ilk.
I appreciate the work being done by TogetherSF. We need to build political consensus and set a moderate direction forward. If our elected officials are not able, I’m all for political interest groups doing this. They have a good plan. And if their message resonates, we shouldn’t care if it’s funded by billionaires. Maybe Moritz and others are doing this because they actually want SF to be better. As they say, “It’s ok to want shit to work.”
“Moderate” = whatever the Billionaire moneybag says it is in million-dollar ad buys.
“Moritz and others are doing this because they actually want SF to be better.”
– Just like Musk wanted to buy Twitter to enhance free speech, etc.
You can’t be this naive, gotta be a plant.