Director resigns from big-money political pressure group

Presented by Self-Help for the Elderly

Good afternoon!

Jay Cheng is resigning as the executive director of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, one of the wealthiest pressure groups in city politics. Io Yeh Gilman and Joe Rivano Barros report that Cheng and the group, despite raising millions for “moderate” causes, have been ostracized by Mayor Daniel Lurie since the 2024 mayoral race.

For back story, read more about Lurie’s beef with Cheng in Joe’s prescient 2024 analysis of the goals of S.F.’s big-money groups.

In current election coverage, we have D4 candidates (except for Mayor Lurie’s appointee, Alan Wong, who was absent) blasting big money and the mayor’s agenda. Junyao Yang reports from the Sunset forum.

And Yujie Zhou asks congressional candidates how they would address AI, crypto, and tech policy. Scott Weiner declined to be interviewed, but Saikat Chakrabarti leaned on “abundance,” while Connie Chan warned of a possible “tech bubble.”

Oscar Palma has a lovely obituary for Dannielle Spillman, the guitar player-slash-grandmother figure, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver on Monday.

More soon,

Sara

P.S. Scroll on down to the bottom of this newsletter to see “Stretching Our Legs,” the first of Neil Ballard‘s Friday comic strips about Mission Local‘s expanded citywide coverage.

Three generations of an Asian family, including two children, parents, and grandparents, sit together on a couch at home, smiling at the camera.

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