It was a busy Saturday night in Chinatown, as massive crowds turned out for the Chinese New Year parade. Numerous elected luminaries and political hopefuls shook hands and posed for photos – but they all paled in comparison to Olympic star Eileen Gu, who served as grand marshal for the event.
At 8:45 p.m., Gu and Mayor Daniel Lurie, who had finished the parade separately, appeared together to light the firecrackers, marking the end of the procession.
While Lurie has largely tried to avoid partisan rock fights during his time as mayor, Gu remains a geopolitical Rorschach test. The Olympian, who was born in San Francisco, recently took home multiple medals for China, her mother’s home country, inflaming some U.S. conservatives.
On the mayor’s Instagram (opens in new tab), he and Gu kept things positive and focused on their hometown, though the comments section was more mixed.
But the night wasn’t done yet.
After the firecrackers, partygoers headed to the after-party banquet. Only a handful of elected officials who still had energy left showed up: Lurie, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman and Supervisor Chyanne Chen. And none are even on the ballot this year.
As Lurie poured Treasure Island-made Gold Bar Whiskey for guests, newly appointed Police Chief Derrick Lew had another duty: carrying on the annual tradition of delivering an exaggerated estimate of the parade crowd.
“I know we broke a million, I think,” Lew said. “I’m told 1.28 million.”
Cheers erupted, as the figure equals the entire population of San Francisco and Oakland, combined.
Chris Larsen drives a cuttlefish-themed float with his wife Lyna Lam. | Source: Han Li/The Standard
And who else was partying hard? Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, who wore a shiny gold suit and sunglasses, and rolled in on a cuttlefish-themed float with dancers and music.
“The weather was phenomenal,” Larsen told Power Play at the after-party. “Everybody looked happy, relaxed, celebratory.”
As reporters left the event, a familiar figure was spotted walking alone in blinking red shoes: former mayor Willie Brown, 91, who was heading home for the night. — Han Li
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San Francisco police officers respond to an altercation in which two people were arrested after a fight involving Lurie’s security team on March 5. | Source: Courtesy: Nevin Kelly-Fair
MAN-ON-THE-STREET: Everyone’s seen the video by now. Lurie, hands in his pockets, walks away from his police security detail, which was in a physical brawl with a man in the Tenderloin. The now-viral clip has spiraled across the interwebs, with San Francisco’s ideological opponents using it to portray the city as out of control.
The incident has raised some important questions. Why did the mayor exit his vehicle in the first place? And will he continue to step out onto the city’s streets, as he’s been known to do over the past year, having candid moments with the city’s homeless residents? The mayor’s office has declined to comment on these questions. At City Hall on Friday, Lurie told reporters, “I feel like the people who are on our streets are part of my business,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “I was worried about them, and I was worried about [the] safety of pedestrians and cars coming.”
Three security experts who spoke with The Standard said the mayor’s exiting of the vehicle on Thursday violated protocol.
“It was a failure of basic protective methodologies,” said Don Mihalek, a former senior Secret Service agent and former Presidio park police officer. “He should have never gotten out of the car.”
Caleb Gilbert, a Silicon Valley-based executive protection expert, concurred. “I’ve never seen a protocol where that is appropriate,” he said.
Retired San Francisco Police officer Paul Lozada, who runs Exodus Protection Group, said, “I understand that Mayor Lurie is a very public figure and wants to be out in the open and wants to hold babies. But when you are dealing with the homeless community and very crime-ridden areas of the city, you have to treat him like he is the president.”
Thursday’s dust-up, which happened the same day as a shocking daylight stabbing in Chinatown (opens in new tab), is also challenging the mayor’s public relations strategy for the city. Lurie has been relentless with his message that San Francisco is back, and has even thrown roughly $1 million of his own money into that project. While Thursday’s events may not be a representation of the city as a whole, tell that to your uncle in the Midwest who’s watching the videos on his Facebook account. — Gabe Greschler
UPZONING LOVE: Remember Lurie’s family zoning fight? The plan, approved in December after a bruising political battle, aims to bring denser housing to the city’s western and northern neighborhoods. The issue has become a talking point for some candidates to run against incumbent supervisors, District 2’s Stephen Sherrill and District 4’s Alan Wong, both of whom backed the family zoning plan.
But a new poll suggests the policy may be more popular than critics claim.
The survey, conducted by the moderate political group GrowSF, which supports both Sherrill and Wong, found that zoning changes in their districts are broadly well-received. The poll surveyed 400 likely voters in each district and found that 84% (opens in new tab) of District 2 voters support upzoning. Even the controversial Marina Safeway project received 58% support. In District 4, 65% of voters (opens in new tab) back the zoning plan.
“We’re proud to support candidates who understand what’s necessary to address the city’s affordability crisis,” said Steven Bacio, GrowSF’s co-founder. “Those opponents running on an anti-housing, anti-affordability platform are placing a bad bet in a city with some of the highest rents and home prices in the nation.”
Jamie Hughes, a consultant for Lori Brooke and Albert Chow — who are running against Sherrill and Wong, respectively, and oppose the upzoning plan — said the polling is misleading. “This is an outside interest group with their own agenda. I don’t think their polls can be trusted any more than the tech billionaires and gun industry-aligned Republicans who fund them.” — H.L.
HORSE LAWSUIT: Nearly two years ago, The Standard broke a big investigation into years of alleged horse and employee mistreatment at Golden Gate Park, a story that ended up kicking out the riding company that had a contract there with the parks department.
Now, the owners of Chaparral Corp. are facing yet another lawsuit on top of the multiple legal challenges uncovered in The Standard’s 2024 article.
The previously unreported suit, filed in Monterey County on Feb. 20 against Chaparral and the city of Marina, alleges that sexual harassment, animal welfare issues, and discrimination occurred at one of the company’s ranches south of San Francisco. Filed by former employees Katrina Brehm and Colleen Knopf, the suit claims that higher-ups took no action after a ranch hand was accused of sexual harassment.
The two also say the ranch’s horses were not cared for — allegations similar to those The Standard uncovered in its own investigation. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that a former employee who had been abusing drugs continued to live on the property after his employment ended. They also allege that a parolee with an attempted murder conviction was hired as a contractor to avoid a background check, and that the individual worked around children.
The city of Marina and the co-owner of Chaparral, Sue Pennell, did not respond to requests for comment. — G.G.
Derrick Lew speaks after being appointed as police chief. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
‘HART’-LESS: This week, San Francisco Police Department brass quietly demoted a veteran commander who was nearly named its new chief. Former Commander Cmdr. Jack Hart was one of three finalists for the chief position that was eventually given to Derrick Lew.
While Hart and newly appointed Assistant Chief (opens in new tab) Nicole Jones were both unanimously endorsed by the Police Commission, which chooses the finalists, Mayor Daniel Lurie ultimately chose Lew, who barely made it to his desk with only four of seven votes.
Now, in the first major reshuffling of department leadership under Lew, Hart has been demoted from commander of risk management back to the rank of captain in the Strategic Investigations Unit, multiple sources say.
Anyone with the rank of captain can be elevated by the chief and, conversely, demoted back to captain. Cap. Stephen Jonas, who now heads the unit, is Hart’s new boss.
Hart, who changed his LinkedIn profile to reflect his new role, could not be reached for comment. Department spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky said the transfer was part of the command staff restructuring. — Jonah Owen Lamb