How Mayor Daniel Lurie made it morning again in San Francisco 

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During his first month in office, Mayor Daniel Lurie achieved something remarkable: He received near-unanimous approval from San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to make himself more powerful. The board voted to broaden Lurie’s power to dole out contracts related to homelessness, mental health and drug abuse, and to reduce its own control over the process. 

For Ed Harrington, the former city controller, how Lurie approached the board before the vote was telling: He could have tried to force his proposal through — Lurie enjoys six solidly allied votes on the board. Instead, said Harrington, Lurie went to the supervisors and said, “I’m trying to do this; will you work with me?” 

“He has shown respect and congeniality,” said Eric Jaye, a veteran San Francisco political consultant. “That’s a dramatic change in the tone of politics.” 

In interviews with over a dozen people who work in city politics, most agreed that the new administration is a sea change from former Mayor London Breed’s way of doing things, which was marked by interdepartmental animosity, bad blood with supervisors, and corruption. 

“There’s a universal sentiment that he’s a nice guy,” added David Ho, another political consultant. 

It hasn’t taken much to mark a different era: Lurie’s effort with the Board of Supervisors can consist of as little as dropping into their offices for a chat, which he does regularly. Breed, by contrast, did not make a practice of doing so.

“He has come to my office to talk about policy issues with me, and he has come to my office for social events like the art show, and just to say hi to my staff,” said Rafael Mandelman, the president of the Board of Supervisors. 

“Not only did he remember my birthday, but he called me when I was sick,” added District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who was out for a week with the flu earlier this year. On her birthday, the mayor actually brought her chocolates. She was touched. “He is trying really hard to be a good co-worker.” 

Lurie also appears to be enjoying support from his constituents. A February poll from the Chamber of Commerce found 43 percent of its residents think the city is on the right track, almost double the 22 percent from last year under Breed. 

Lurie’s first months in office have been a testament to the power of good manners, but what about Lurie’s policies? Some have criticized them for lack of substance, and warn that the real test of his leadership is forthcoming: Budget talks. 

Lurie has a shorter runway than most of his predecessors. By June 1, Lurie will present his first budget to the board for review. He will have to account for an $820 million deficit, and potentially $2 billion in funding cuts from the federal government. 

That threat is real. The city’s enshrined values — among them, its sanctuary status and abortion access — are under attack by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the new mayor barely says President Donald Trump’s name, and has rarely acknowledged the clouds gathering overhead, deferring to City Attorney David Chiu to lead the resistance (and talk tough).

Rich DeLeon, a San Francisco State University emeritus professor, supposes that Lurie’s unwillingness to even say Trump’s name might be intentional. “Why stand up and wave a red flag when you’ve got all these people aggressively pushing this mass deportation plan?” 

Lurie’s first 100 days: Cops and corporations

Lurie ran for mayor of San Francisco as a political outsider, promising two things: safety on the streets, and no more business as usual.

“Safety will be a top priority in my first term,” Lurie said during a mayoral forum in September 2024; at the same event, he vouched that he would be a mayor who “is proactive, bringing businesses back to our city to drive that economic engine going forward.” During his 14-month campaign, he made promises to fully staff the police department, increase enforcement and take a tough approach to the drug and mental-health crises. 

So far, Lurie is following through. Amid a flurry of announcements early in his tenure, Lurie hired several people who were corporate executives rather than civil servants, including two policy chiefs: Ned Segal, former chief financial officer at Twitter, and Kunal Modi, former partner at McKinsey. 

Likewise, he has restructured his mayor’s office to create four new “policy chief” positions. 

He has been decidedly pro-business, welcoming Waymo onto Market Street and at SFO, and emphasizing in permitting reform and nightlife legislation that “San Francisco is open for business.” He has also, according to the San Francisco Standard, worked behind the scenes to assemble a group of wealthy CEOs to guide the city’s economic recovery. 

His signature policies, meanwhile, have been most focused on public safety and street conditions. According to Mission Local’s tracker, out of the 42 more substantive measures Lurie has enacted since Jan. 8, 14 of them have been related to public safety, more than any other category. 

Lurie has made a point of visiting troubled spots around the city, like the Sixth Street Triage Center and the 16th Street BART Plaza, and has deplored what he describes as “unacceptable” conditions. “We’re going to be relentless on this,” he said in a recent visit to the 16th Street BART Plaza. 

Merchants and residents interviewed by Mission Local said that, while the focus of SFPD and City Hall focus remains on the plaza, they have generally enjoyed the results; the area is cleaner and freer of drug dealing and street vending, though some of it has been displaced to nearby alleyways.

The question is: How long Lurie can maintain his focus on the trouble spot?

So far, Lurie also enjoys a Board of Supervisors free of any organized opposition: Progressives lost their majority on the board in November, along with three of their most veteran legislators, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen, and Dean Preston. 

Absent District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, none of the current board members are as yet picking fights.

‘Is it performative? Sure. Is it important? You bet.’

Some have criticized the effectiveness of these policies, however.

Walton, who was the only supervisor to vote against Lurie’s expanded powers, said it was unclear what exactly the mayor would do with this increased ability to give out city contracts. Earlier this month, Walton was more pointed: He called Lurie an “oligarch” for pushing a homeless shelter in Walton’s district.

“Ask yourself, would this oligarch do this in Pac Heights, Lake Merced (where there are dozens of folks living in vehicles), Golden Gate Park Area (where there are dozens of folks who are unhoused)?” wrote Walton. 

On public safety and drugs:

• Lurie pushed an additional $61 million in funding to the police department to pay for officer overtime, even though a city report published in December found widespread abuse of the department’s overtime policy that was costing millions with little public safety benefit. 
• A police intervention aimed at cracking down on drug activity at Market Street and Van Ness Avenue led to 40 arrests and was widely publicized, but subsequently, not a single person was charged. In a similar raid at Jefferson Square, only three of the nearly 90 widely publicized arrests were for drug dealing.
• Lurie’s move to place barriers to accessing safe drug supplies, by requiring outfits distributing supplies like clean needles and foil to connect recipients with counseling or other services, was blasted by some doctors and experts in harm-reduction strategies.

“For all the talk about change, Mayor Lurie is taking us down the same road we’ve been on,” said Preston, the former supervisor in District 5, which includes the Tenderloin. Preston criticized Lurie’s focus on law enforcement in addressing addiction and homelessness. “People want real solutions, and I’m not seeing a lot of that from this administration so far.” 

Even Lurie acknowledged in his interview with Mission Local that, for now, the police department’s strategy of cracking down on drug hot spots and, effectively, displacing the problem elsewhere in the city is necessary for now: People must be reminded that drug dealing on public streets won’t be tolerated. 

“I don’t want to keep chasing. But we’re going to have to do it for a little bit until people around the Bay Area, around the country and around the world realize that San Francisco is no longer a place where you come to deal drugs or to use drugs on the streets,” he said. 

And, many residents appear willing to give Lurie the benefit of the doubt. 

“I don’t think any of his policies have been particularly novel,” said Jaye. The veteran consultant said that, while he disagrees with many of the mayor’s policies, Lurie’s overall attitude plays a huge importance in addressing the city’s problems. 

“Is it performative? Sure. Is it important? You bet,” said Jaye. “We’re a city that relies on our national and international goodwill to attract new businesses here. He’s been an incredible cheerleader for the city.” 

According to Jim Ross, a longtime Bay Area political consultant, the mayor seems to have understood that constituents identify his role and the city as one and the same. “If the city’s doing great, the mayor’s doing great. If the city’s not doing great, the mayor’s not doing great.”

That strategy did not work well for Breed, however: During her campaign, she repeatedly touted declining crime rates and reduced homeless encampments as proof that things were turning around. Voters gave her the boot, but it’s morning again in San Francisco under Lurie.

The end of the honeymoon?

Still, Lurie’s post-nuptial period may be coming to an end, for reasons both local and national. 

Locally, plugging the $820 million hole in the budget will involve some difficult decisions. Already, the city’s housing department has said it will no longer provide funding to several legal nonprofit organizations that, among other things, provided eviction defense. 

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is also cutting back: On Tuesday, the board will vote on service cuts this summer along several downtown transit routes.

“His first big real test is going to be this budget, and it’s not going to be a walk in the park,” said former supervisor Aaron Peskin. “It’s going to be rough stuff.” 

“No mayor has faced the level of cuts that this mayor will face,” added John Whitehurst, a political consultant. 

Added the political consultant Ho, “I do think that his honeymoon is over. He’s got to get to work.”