Mayor Daniel Lurie and City Administrator Carmen Chu today announced their first use of the expanded power granted to them by voters in last week’s election: creating citywide rules for signing contracts.
Proposition E, which is currently leading 64-36 with virtually all votes counted, grants the city administrator the sole authority to make changes to how the city grants contracts. Contracting represents a significant portion of the budget — $6 billion every year out of a budget of $17 billion.
Some of these purchases are for items that any workplace needs — toilet paper, computers, Microsoft Teams — while other contracts are for core city functions. Many of the city’s homelessness and street condition workers are hired through contracts, for instance, including the ambassadors tasked with monitoring the streets surrounding 16th and Mission.
With so much money in play, the city has rules to ensure that it is properly spent. But the current guidelines are insufficient, Lurie said, because they are “scattered across different sections of city law, and the rules can vary — leaving room for corruption and abuse.”
This legislation, Lurie added, is “the first step toward centralizing and depoliticizing contracting so it serves San Franciscans, not insiders” — repeating the term he deployed, repeatedly, during the $14.5 million, privately funded campaign that led to the overwhelming passage of the mayor’s charter package.
“Every day, dedicated public servants make decisions about how San Francisco spends taxpayer dollars,” Chu said. “They deserve clear rules, practical guidance, and the confidence to speak up when something doesn’t seem right.”
Lurie’s own administration has been criticized for its contracting decisions. In October 2025, his office granted a $5.9 million contract for digitizing the city’s permit system to OpenGov, even though city staff recommended a lower bid from a competitor and expressed doubts that OpenGov could do the necessary tasks. OpenGov went on to miss several key deadlines.
The new citywide standards introduced today by Lurie and Chu would:
- Prohibit giving certain vendors a leg up by sharing confidential information
- Require employees to disclose any conflicts of interest and potentially recuse themselves from contracting decisions
- Have communication between city staff and potential contractors go through official channels
- Prevent employees from splitting purchases or contracts into smaller amounts so they can avoid going through a competitive bidding process or avoid other requirements
- Explain that violating these ethical standards could result in getting fired or other discipline
These standardized rules, Chu said, “will set the foundation for a new culture around how the city does business.”
At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Lurie and Chu gave some examples of the behavior they were hoping to prevent.
Chu spoke about how, across different departments and for different types of contracts, what constitutes splitting a contracting ilegally varies. Having clear guidelines for what a violation is, she said, will help city employees identify when lines are being crossed.
“It creates an additional tool for all of us, every single person involved with contracting, our city employees, our leadership, to be able to spot when bad behavior is happening,” she said.
Lurie spoke about rooting out corruption in city hall.
“We have examples of department heads that have gone to jail,” he said, a seeming reference to Mohamed Nuru at the Department of Public Works, who in the 2010s directed contracts to vendors who paid him bribes. Nuru’s actions, however, were a clear violation of the law at the time, and he was sentenced to seven years in federal prison in 2022. He was released early and this year relocated back to San Francisco.
In 2011, Mayor Ed Lee removed any oversight of Public Works contracting, enabling Nuru — his appointee and former lieutenant — to effectively oversee himself.
Under Proposition E, legislation introduced by the city administrator sits for 60 days and then automatically goes into effect, unless the mayor or a majority of the Board of Supervisors blocks it. The Board of Supervisors is not allowed to amend legislation introduced by the city administrator under Prop. E.
Chu will have to wait until late December or early January to officially introduce these laws because the election results have yet to be certified.
SFGOV has many areas that aren’t accessible for screen readers. Blind people vote! And we need election information that is accessible in able to do so. Does anyone care? The Mayor’s office on disability sent me on a wild goose chase. I don’t get paid for this. Can someone help?
Just to point out that Nuru DID go to jail, but the reason was literally because the Mayor couldn’t fire him without the support of the City Administrator…. who’s husband was being bribed by the same guy (Walter Wong) that was bribing Nuru.
Why mention that? Because one of the problems was the huge power of the City Administrator, when it comes to money, more power than the mayor, which this policy made even more powerful.
So, I know Lurie lovers are like maga level extreme with their worship of him, but you do need to keep in mind that the next mayor may be someone you really don’t like, who’s agenda is something you really don’t agree with, yet they will be able to do pretty much whatever they want with a MASSIVE part of the budget. You want to limit corruption, as he keeps saying, the answer isn’t to consolidate all the money and power under a few executives with wholesale control.
Still, for now, it may work, I just hope the next mayor leverages these new powers in the right direction.
Would that include the 100 million dollar donation by a Big Tech executive to the SF Parks??? THat’s a chunk of change but would involve San Francisco spending big on our Parks.
Nancy,
The hundred million looks to be a land grab disguised as a charity donation by a billionaire.
The way it works is they pick a patch of oxygen giving grass and then tear it out and replace it with a strip of polluting plastic green surface that gives soccer players cancer when they scrape against it.
Then, they put a fence around their new concession and charge money for what was once free.
Last round in this game one of the groups they priced out of SF soccer fields was a club that had been playing at Beach Chalet (sp?) for over a hundred years and moved to a cheaper field in “low rent’ Marin.
Every day I walk across the luxuriously plush grass in Dolores Park and am waiting to find a fence and a toll booth there controlling access to the iconic grass surface ‘upgraded’ to Monsanto plastic.
go Niners !!
h.
I sure hope we do not learn that donation requires the city to install AI surveillance in all our parks or something.
In Carmen Chu’ hands, I trust. She is an outstanding public servant, capable and honest. That kind of power in someone else’s hands, we may need a pack of watchdogs.
If I recall correctly, Carmen was the D4 supervisor prior to becoming city administrator. She resigned from office just in time for the mayor (Ed Lee?) to appoint a replacement supervisor, Katy Tang, who subsequently ran virtually unopposed for the seat. That’s when Carmen was appointed to the city assessor office by Lee, where she later sought election to the seat unopposed. She was later appointed as Administrator by London Breed during the fallout of the Nuru case. So whatever shenanigans Lee and Breed were up to, Chu was a part of their plans.
Prohibit giving certain vendors a leg up by sharing confidential information
why have a brick and mortar why be HRC compliant why have workers comp subrogation why agree to offering the best price you can possibly provide just so they can share your numbers to somone with a PO box that works out of their apartment side note past practice is they do share your price with their friends who beat your price by 5 dollars