San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has been slammed for quietly approving a reparations bill that may grant eligible black residents $5 million in reparations just days before Christmas.
Lurie quietly signed the incredibly divisive Reparations Bill on December 23, which establishes a reparations fund, as recommended by the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee (AARAC) in its 2023 report.
The legislation merely establishes the fund but does not allocate any money to it – setting up the framework for any future contributions, whether they be through the city or privately donated.
San Francisco journalist Erica Sandberg was among the first to highlight what Mayor Lurie had done on her Substack page that chronicles the woke city.
Sandberg told the Daily Mail that the most shocking part of Lurie’s move was that he signed the bill ‘in the dark of night’ and without any real input from the community.
‘This was done covertly. It was not done with the approval of the constituents, San Franciscans were not polled. Nobody was asked,’ she said.
‘This was not taken to community forums and groups, nothing. It was done basically in the dark of night. They didn’t warn people that this was essentially going to happen.’
Sandberg explained that San Francisco is a diverse city filled with recent migrants who should not have to contribute towards a reparations fund to remedy past ills.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has been slammed for discreetly approving a reparations bill two days before Christmas
Lurie previously admitted to the Daily Mail that San Francisco (pictured) does not have the money for the fund, but signed it anyways
‘It doesn’t make sense in many ways. San Francisco is extremely diverse. We are a city of immigrants, many of whom are recent immigrants,’ the journalist said.
‘The idea that people who have just come here would be on the hook for somebody else’s past issues is absurd.
‘It’s very divisive. There’s no reason for it, it doesn’t create unity, it creates resentment and bafflement.’
Lurie was inaugurated in January 2025 and promised to run San Francisco in a common-sense, centrist way after years of woke excesses saw quality of life slump.
But his sneaky reparations scheme has dealt a hammer blow to that image, Sandberg believes.
‘The issue here is the lack of communication. There was none. That’s offensive. That is profoundly, profoundly offensive to everybody here,’ she said.
‘You owe it to the people you serve to explain from start to finish why. What is it going to do? What are you going to gain from this? What is San Francisco going to gain from this?’
Conservative activist Richie Greenberg slammed the fund as a ‘terribly disappointing decision’ on X.
In a segment of his podcast, he declared that the ‘reparations scheme’ is ‘ludicrously unlawful, irresponsible, illegal [and] unconstitutional.’
San Francisco journalist Erica Sandberg was among the first to highlight what Mayor Lurie had done told the Daily Mail that the most shocking part of the signing was that it was done ‘in the dark of night’
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San Francisco’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has publicly opposed the city’s handling of the Reparations Fund.
Reverend Amos Brown, the president of the NAACP chapter, said the 2023 reparations plan gave black residents false hopes.
While the organization said it supported cash payments, it called the $5 million lump sum ‘an arbitrary number’ in a news release at the time.
Lurie previously admitted to the Daily Mail that the city does not have the money for the fund, but signed it anyways.
‘For several years, communities across the city have been working with the government to acknowledge the decades of harm done to San Francisco’s black community,’ Lurie wrote.
‘While that process largely predates my administration, I am signing the legislation to create this fund in recognition of the work of so many San Franciscans and the unanimous support of the Board of Supervisors.’
Lurie said the city is bracing for a $1 billion budget deficit next year.
‘That means identifying key priorities for funding so we can continue delivering those services well,’ he explained.
‘Given these historic fiscal challenges, the city does not have resources to allocate to this fund.’