{"id":202362,"date":"2026-03-03T16:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202362\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:15:09","slug":"remember-the-1-7-million-toilet-lurie-seeks-to-fix-rules-that-led-to-sf-embarrassment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202362\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember the $1.7 million toilet? Lurie seeks to fix rules that led to SF embarrassment"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was slated to be the most expensive way to relieve yourself in the country. The estimated $1.7 million to build a public commode in Noe Valley<\/a> drew national headlines, (opens in new tab)<\/a> producing an embarrassing pants-down moment that drew eyeballs to San Francisco\u2019s long, convoluted purchasing processes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, Mayor Daniel Lurie is trying to flush the rules that produced the exorbitant potty in the first place.<\/p>\n

The mayor will propose giving the City Administrator\u2019s Office sole authority over the city\u2019s purchasing laws as part of his charter reform package heading to the ballot this November, The Standard has learned.<\/p>\n

Last year, Lurie announced an effort<\/a> alongside Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman and the urbanist think tank SPUR to craft a 2026 ballot measure that would reform the maze of rules in the city charter \u2014 the 500-plus-page tome that essentially serves as the city\u2019s constitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A working group composed of labor and business leaders is mulling other wonky yet impactful recommendations to change the charter, including allowing the mayor more authority over commissions. Their next meeting is on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

While the ballot measure\u2019s passage wouldn\u2019t change San Francisco\u2019s purchasing laws overnight, it would give authority to City Administrator Carmen Chu to begin hacking away at the red tape that has led the city to pay inordinately higher prices than other cities do for many goods. <\/p>\n

If voters approve Lurie\u2019s measure, the city administrator\u2019s proposals could be rejected by the mayor or the majority of the Board of Supervisors. According to sources familiar with the matter, the board would retain authority over setting wages, crafting rules to help minority and women-owned businesses, and setting labor standards for projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rudy Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council, said the proposal initially didn\u2019t protect the board\u2019s ability to protect labor by setting worker benefits, apprenticeship opportunities or pay standards. Lurie changed that, Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that, we saw no downside with how the mayor is packaging things,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cWe\u2019re ready to offer our full-throated support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed Harrington, a retired City Controller and former director of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, has firsthand experience of the difficulty of contracting in the city.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He recalled a time at the PUC when his staff wanted to build a pump house for power, and had to go to his own commission three separate times \u201cbecause they didn\u2019t like the roof.\u201d His staff went back and forth between their architects and the commission until it hit the sweet spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember my staff going crazy about it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took an extra six months to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThreeLurie is proposing a number of changes to the city charter. | Source: Minh Connors for The Standard<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the time and costs balloon just because a contractor has to figure out who in city government they need to talk to. There are more than 9,000 references to the word \u201ccontracts\u201d or \u201cprocurement\u201d scattered across more than 100 sections of San Francisco\u2019s administrative code, according to a 2026 report from SPUR. The report, called \u201cCharter for Change (opens in new tab)<\/a>,\u201d urged the mayor to empower the city administrator to streamline those laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposal would also increase the dollar threshold for city contracts requiring approval from the Board of Supervisors. Right now, any contract over $10 million triggers a Board of Supervisors review. The new threshold would be $25 million, and would keep rising alongside the consumer price index, sources said.<\/p>\n

While there may be little opposition to the contracting changes, Lurie may propose other charter reforms alongside this one. Other parts of that package \u2013 including raising the number of voter signatures, or number of supervisors, required to place propositions on the ballot \u2013 have drawn criticism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel it\u2019s an equity issue for working people,\u201d said Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, of the proposed changes to the ballot measure threshold. \u201cIt becomes harder to help the citizens band [together] to do what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, the San Francisco Labor Council voted to oppose the mayor\u2019s charter proposal around ballot measures, which could put the rest of his reforms in the crosshairs as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was slated to be the most expensive way to relieve yourself in the country. The estimated $1.7…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[6702,21545,636,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-202362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-board-of-supervisors","9":"tag-city-charter","10":"tag-daniel-lurie","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202362","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=202362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}