I’m a big fan of San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie. Like, really big.

I follow him on Insta, FB, and invite all of you to join his social media Masterclass with me. I promise, you won’t be disappointed. Whenever I receive a notification from his account, I can’t wait to catch a glimpse of him in action. He reports on comeback stories from all over his somewhat struggling city. From the night markets in Chinatown to chatting it up with Grammy winner Sam Smith in the Castro, to the Tenderloin, to the Marina District, where the college grad is hunkered down in a one-year studio lease, he is single-handedly reshaping his community. Mayor Lurie is showing all of us why he believes San Francisco is on its way back. Come along for the ride.

He films daily video montages from the streets of SF and ends each segment with varying degrees of emphasis on his signature Tom Brady phrase, “Let’s Go (San Francisco) !”

“I believe you can’t solve what you can’t see,” he began in a video he filmed this week as he walked along a side street in the Mission District. “I’m going to be talking to our small business owners, I’m going to be talking to those parents who are walking their kids to school on the streets every single day, making sure they’re safe.”

He goes on to say that his office is laser-focused on public safety. “We’re going to continue getting those that are struggling with addiction off the street and into recovery…the city is getting better every day. Let’s go, San Francisco!”

He’s the town’s cheerleader, and slowly, the whole city is transforming into a place everyone is proud to call home. I think cities like Red Bluff, Los Molinos, Corning, Rancho Tehama, and all points in between can take a page out of Lurie’s playbook.

Lurie implemented a ‘fentanyl state of emergency’ which allowed the city to eliminate competitive bidding, solicit private donations, and hire more public safety and health workers outside the city’s bargaining units. Former drug addicts came back to the very streets they roamed, and helped their struggling friends. The videos are powerful.

His fentanyl ordinance included a 24-hour ‘police friendly stabilization center,’ which encourages police to drop off people with urgent mental health and substance use needs to keep them out of the city’s hospitals and jails. The New York Times reported that 344 people were admitted in the center’s first five months. Imagine the burden taken off hospitals like St. Elizabeth’s and Enloe if we had a stabilization center.

Tehama County could really take a page out of the mayor’s budget playbook. With federal spending cuts reaching cities and counties, Mayor Lurie ordered his department heads to cut over $100 million in 2026, resulting in nearly 500 positions. He says his city must cut $400 million in ongoing funding, which means employees and those pesky ongoing benefits.

If ChatGPT is close to accurate, Tehama County has a population of about 64,000 and almost 900 county employees. In fiscal year 2024-25, a deficit of about $18 million is reported, with $4-7 million covered by dipping into reserves.

When costs are growing faster than tax revenue, it’s time to take a hard look at how we do business in this county. With a struggling ag economy, raising fees on farmers is not the solution. What other industries are in Tehama County? Timber is bleak, tech is non-existent and small businesses are barely getting by.

Tehama County politicians are like Mayor Lurie. Instead of hiding behind keyboards, criticizing the opposition, go out and walk the streets in your districts and see what’s really going on in our neighborhoods, our schools, our farms and small businesses.

First and foremost, help make our communities safer. If we don’t start there, we may never grow our economy and our young people may never return home to reinvest in our beautiful north state.

Together, we can do this. Let’s go, Tehama County!

Shanna Long is the former editor of the Corning Observer and a fourth generation journalist. She has served as a member and president of the Corning Union Elementary School District. She currently is a member of the Tehama District Fair Board and is a farmer’s wife, mother and advocate for agriculture and water She can be reached by email at: sjolong@gmail.com or follow her on Instagram @sjolong