![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/-S3840x6254-FPNG.png\"\/)
A text message from PG&E representative Jake Zigelman sent to Mayor Daniel Lurie about the opera\u2019s status.<\/p>\n
In February, PG&E CEO Sumeet Singh said during a public hearing at City Hall that Lurie had personally directed the utility company to provide power to the opera house. PG&E immediately retracted the statement after The Standard reached out for comment on the remarks, and Singh later said his remarks were the result of a \u201cmisunderstanding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mayor\u2019s office has denied that Lurie, whose daughter was set to perform in the ballet \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d on Dec. 21 at the opera house, was involved in requesting that power to the venue be prioritized. Photos from Dec. 21 posted by PG&E on X (opens in new tab)<\/a> show trucks outside of the performance center.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s the second time the task force has found Lurie to be in violation of public records law. The body voted unanimously in January (opens in new tab)<\/a> that the mayor\u2019s office was improperly withholding documents related to an October phone call he had with President Donald Trump about the White House\u2019s efforts to deploy federal agents in San Francisco. In that case, the mayor\u2019s office said that no records exist other than undisclosable legal advice.<\/p>\n Whether the mayor\u2019s office will turn over any records in response to the two violations remains to be seen. The task force has limited powers and can\u2019t force public agencies to hand over documents, as a judge can. Lurie\u2019s predecessor, Mayor London Breed, was accused of deleting her text messages<\/a>.<\/p>\n Politicians’ text messages are public record under a 2017 California Supreme Court decision, San Jose vs. Ted Smith. Correspondence that is not about city business is not disclosable.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Standard\u2019s complaint to the task force, filed in April by reporter Gabriel Greschler, centers on a screenshot of a text message obtained through a public records request in which Zigelman updates Lurie on the status of PG&E restoring power at the opera house.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOpera house update,\u201d Zigelman wrote to the mayor. \u201cOur team is onsite and has been in touch with the opera folks. We\u2019ve been told they have enough natural light and emergency backup power to move ahead with 2 p.m. performance. We have a vendor mobilized to support temporary generation for the 7pm show. Not 100% on timing but working feverishly to make that happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Dec. 21 message shows correspondence \u2014 visible but not fully legible \u2014 above and below Zigelman\u2019s update. The Standard has sent requests for all messages exchanged between Lurie and Zigelman on Dec. 21 and on Dec. 20, the day the blackout began.\u00a0<\/p>\n In response, the mayor\u2019s office, represented by its legislative and ethics secretary, Dexter Darmali, has asserted that it has turned over all records in its possession.\u00a0<\/p>\n Have thoughts on this story?Start the conversation<\/p>\n During Wednesday\u2019s hearing, however, Darmali said that there are some messages between Lurie and Zigelman that the office had decided did not apply to The Standard\u2019s requests.\u00a0<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s spokesperson, Charles Lutvak, declined to answer whether the office would turn over more records following the ruling Wednesday. \u201cI\u2019m sure [Darmali] addressed all of this thoroughly last night,\u201d he said in an email.<\/p>\n Task force members pushed back during Wednesday\u2019s session on Darmali\u2019s contention that everything disclosable had been turned over.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is inconceivable to me that there were no texts between Lurie and Zigelman for two entire days following the blackout, and then suddenly they\u2019re talking about current status of the blackout,\u201d said Dean Schmidt.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wolfe concurred: \u201cI think this one [Dec. 21] text message is clear that there was a message before that, and there was a message after that, and I think that that is enough beyond speculation that there is more information and records to be disclosed, and anything to continue to hide it, to me, is a violation.\u201d<\/p>\n Members also criticized Darmali\u2019s explanations, with task force Chair Matthew Yankee calling them \u201cscripted\u201d and \u201cnonforthcoming.\u201d However, some members, including Saul Sugarman, pushed back on the idea that the mayor\u2019s office was concealing important documents.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that this case is quite the smoking gun that some of the members have made it out to be,\u201d he said. \u201cI am all for having the mayor\u2019s office cooperate \u2014 we have experienced struggles with this office in the past, and that makes us very wary of how they\u2019re behaving now.\u201d<\/p>\n The task force voted 8-1 on an additional violation finding that the mayor\u2019s office had not provided a representative \u2014 in this case, Darmali \u2014\u00a0who could explain the basis for withholding the records. Yankee voted against the first violation, while Schmidt voted no on the additional one.<\/p>\n Months into Lurie\u2019s tenure in 2025, The Standard reported<\/a> that the mayor\u2019s office was refusing to hand over his text messages in response to records requests, suggesting that they were being deleted or hidden. Weeks later, Lurie\u2019s office clarified<\/a> its position that the mayor\u2019s texts would be released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published Jun. 5, 2026at6:00am Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s office violated San Francisco\u2019s public records laws by not fully disclosing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[26034,636,3604,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-349755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-blackout","tag-daniel-lurie","tag-pge","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349755","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=349755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780769483_626_-S3840x2560-FPNG.png\"\/)
Lurie\u2019s office has denied that he was involved in directing PG&E to the opera house in December. | Source: Morgan Ellis\/The Standard<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780769485_632_-S3840x2560-FPNG.png\"\/)
PG&E CEO Sumeet Singh said Lurie directed the utility to the opera house but later retracted his remarks. | Source: Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770995554_750_-S3840x2562-FPNG.png\"\/)
The December blackout was caused by a fire at a Mission substation. | Source: Jessica Christian\/SF Chronicle\/AP<\/p>\n