As last year wore on, I noticed a stunning sameness to conversations I was having about Mayor Daniel Lurie, who on Thursday marks his first year in office. Everyone, it seemed, from New York to Chicago, and, yes, in San Francisco itself, wanted to buttonhole me to talk about the revival Lurie was leading. Over and over, always in this order, they said:<\/p>\n
The two assertions are inextricably linked. That Lurie is popular with San Francisco voters and beyond is irrefutable<\/a>. He is omnipresent, both in real life, showing up at every event and talking to every business owner, and on social media, with his digitally savvy aides broadcasting his frenetic jaunts around the city. He is the Energizer Bunny as public servant, a one-man Chamber of Commerce, a smiling promoter of good vibes, and a full-throated advocate for his constituents.<\/p>\n I once (opens in new tab)<\/a>pooh-poohed the notion that San Francisco merely needed better public relations (opens in new tab)<\/a>. Fix the problems, and that will fix the PR, I contended. Lurie has provend me at least partially wrong. As he told reporters in a 29-minute roundtable the week before Christmas: \u201cWhen I was running, people were like, \u2018Oh, God, San Francisco. \u2026 Are you OK? Are you safe?\u2019 I don\u2019t think people are asking that question now.\u201d<\/p>\n Facts, as the kids say (opens in new tab)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, such pleasantries beg the question of just how good a job Lurie is actually doing, compared to the perception of his performance.<\/p>\n At the risk of being the skunk at the Super Bowl (and World Cup and Dreamforce) party, I would argue that the right way to think about Lurie\u2019s first year is as a prelude for what comes next<\/a>. Objectively, he accomplished less than meets the eye in 2025. But that doesn\u2019t diminish the potential achievements he has put in motion.<\/p>\n Take public safety, his No. 1 campaign issue in 2024. A fact sheet the mayor\u2019s team distributed to reporters before our pre-holiday sit-down crowed about crime being down \u201cnearly 30% citywide and down in every major category (opens in new tab)<\/a>.\u201d While this is true and laudable, the mayor\u2019s office didn\u2019t mention that crime was down even more the previous year \u2014 27.5% versus 25.4% \u2014 when his predecessor, London Breed, was mayor.<\/p>\n On hiring more cops, the mayor\u2019s team bragged that \u201capplications\u201d for the San Francisco Police Department had risen. It didn\u2019t note that the number of sworn officers continued to decline through the middle of the year, the last time the SFPD reported those numbers. (See Page 8 of (opens in new tab)<\/a>this report (opens in new tab)<\/a>.)<\/p>\n So is the city safer under Lurie? Yes. But it already was trending in that direction. And as Lurie readily acknowledges, some parts of the city remain a mess. \u201cSafety isn\u2019t just a statistic,\u201d he said in his <\/a>inaugural address<\/a> a year ago. \u201cIt\u2019s a feeling you hold when you\u2019re walking down the street.\u201d That\u2019s still true \u2014 and as they walk through parts of the Tenderloin, South of Market, the Mission, Lower Polk, and elsewhere, many San Franciscans hold a feeling that isn\u2019t safety.<\/p>\n Lurie had a signal political accomplishment last year, the 7-4 passage at the Board of Supervisors of his Family Zoning Plan to increase housing densities in NIMBY-dominated parts of the city. Lurie and his economic development team, including the Planning Department under the direction of Sarah Dennis Phillips, whom Lurie named to the job, worked hard for this needed reform.<\/p>\n Municipal government wonks understand, though, that this process also began under Breed and was largely championed by a coterie with ties to state Sen. Scott Wiener. And despite the considerable drama, the responsible members of the board, particularly the self-styled progressive urbanist Myrna Melgar, a former Planning Commission head, were always going to vote for this plan, mindful as they were of the negative consequences<\/a> of rejecting it.<\/p>\n Where Lurie truly did break ground was by shepherding in two new business groups<\/a>, the CEO-heavy Partnership for San Francisco and the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation. Neither group has made its influence felt much so far, though both could make an impact this year.<\/p>\n In other ways, Lurie\u2019s results were a mixed bag. He succeeded in creating an atmosphere of comity in City Hall, notably working with supervisors on issues like permitting reform (opens in new tab)<\/a>. Then again, it\u2019s just as likely that the absence of progressive flamethrowers like Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin \u2014 whose (opens in new tab)<\/a>one-year prohibition (opens in new tab)<\/a> on communicating with city departments ends this week \u2014 was as responsible for this mini Era of Good Feelings as Lurie\u2019s impromptu drop-ins on the offices of supes.<\/p>\n Then there was the debacle over Lurie\u2019s appointment of the inexperienced Isabella \u201cBeya\u201d Alcaraz as District 4 supervisor. Despite this fiasco being catnip for those of us who spend too much time gossiping about local politics, Lurie\u2019s goof needn\u2019t be debilitating, especially if he and his team use it as a teachable moment. They\u2019ve learned the negative consequences of keeping their cards so close to the vest that they fail to reach out to community stalwarts who know what\u2019s what. They shouldn\u2019t make the same mistakes again.<\/p>\n In the coming year, Lurie faces far bigger political and policy challenges. His flashpoints with organized labor could be many. Unions disrespected Lurie late last year by forcing a ballot crisis<\/a> over a new business tax. In mid-December, the same day he met with reporters, he convened a meeting of labor and business to work out a compromise. I\u2019m told he asked the two sides to talk to each other, conversations that will continue this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019ll need all his political skills to pass a parcel tax in November to support Muni. Lurie is talking an atypically big game about the ballot measure, vowing to spend his considerable political capital on the issue, together with the coalition of transit advocates and business interests he has assembled. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that say you cannot put any taxes on the ballot,\u201d he told reporters last month. \u201cI say San Francisco doesn\u2019t recover without it, meaning it\u2019s existential to our recovery. I\u2019m going to go all in on it, and we\u2019re going to pass it.\u201d<\/p>\n It will be a busy year on the Board of Supervisors, with special elections of two incumbents: Alan Wong, whom Lurie appointed, and Stephen Sherrill, whom the mayor endorsed. Either of their defeats at the hands of progressives would erode Lurie\u2019s board support. The mayor is also committed to reforming the city\u2019s sprawling and overly prescriptive governing charter, which could become the most contentious issue of all.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll end by reflecting on my coverage of (opens in new tab)<\/a>Room 200 (opens in new tab)<\/a>. I have praised Lurie\u2019s <\/a>businesslike approach to governing<\/a>, his <\/a>smart handling of President Donald Trump<\/a>, and his <\/a>clever maneuvering in City Hall.<\/a> Knowing my personal fondness for the mayor and my certainty of his sincerity, some friends and readers have ribbed me for being too easy on him. But I have criticized the mayor plenty: for not <\/a>cutting enough from the city\u2019s budget<\/a>, for making a <\/a>poor supervisor pick<\/a>, and for <\/a>failing to support<\/a> an ideological ally. His fans think I am too hard on the well-loved mayor.<\/p>\n In any case, I sleep well at night knowing I\u2019m doing my best to call balls and strikes as I see them.<\/p>\n As for Lurie, he\u2019s recommitting to the boosterism and optimism that have won him such overwhelming popularity in his first year in office. He told reporters a few weeks ago he was looking forward to global sporting events and major conferences coming to town next year. \u201cWe have something close to 700,000 room nights for those conferences,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of people coming in who then go home and tell their family and friends about the state of our city. I think that the vibes are good, the feelings are good, and we still have a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n And so many videos to record about it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As last year wore on, I noticed a stunning sameness to conversations I was having about Mayor Daniel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[4752,636,101,103,102,104,106,105,12551],"class_list":{"0":"post-120805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-city-hall","9":"tag-daniel-lurie","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-the-lash"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}