Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s efforts to reform the city charter and expand the mayor\u2019s power got a major cash infusion in recent weeks from a handful of tech and real estate investors, including Laurene Powell Jobs\u2019 Emerson Collective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lurie\u2019s ballot measure committee, Clean Up City Hall, reported $1.5 million in donations <\/a>\u00a0between June 16 and June 30 \u2014 $500,000 from the Emerson Collective, and $500,000 from venture capitalist John Doerr.\u00a0<\/p>\n Matthew Paige, a real estate investor with Twin Tree Venture and Anthony Salewski, a Managing Partner at Genstar Capital, a private equity firm, both gave $250,000 to the committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n It marks the first recorded support for Lurie\u2019s charter efforts by\u00a0 Emerson, a venture capital investor and philanthropic organization founded by Jobs in Palo Alto in 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lurie\u2019s committee is pushing three ballot measures that would remake City Hall if approved in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n One measure would raise the threshold of signatures needed to put a measure on the ballot, which critics say would make it harder for grassroots organizers, another would empower the mayor to reorganize and consolidate 24 city departments and fire their leaders, and a third would centralize government contracts through the city administrator\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n The donations raise the committee\u2019s total fundraising for the three measures to $8.6 million this year\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMayor Lurie is leading a broad coalition of small business, labor, and community leaders to modernize a broken Charter built by \u2014 and benefiting \u2014 City Hall insiders and special interests at the expense of everyday San Franciscans,\u201d Lurie\u2019s campaign spokesperson Max Szabo told Mission Local in a written statement. \u201cThe result is a system that breeds corruption, wastes taxpayer dollars, and shields government from accountability.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Emerson Collective and Jobs have long supported Lurie: Emerson gave $50,000 to the mayor\u2019s transition<\/a>, and Lurie and Jobs have reportedly met<\/a> to discuss a \u201cbranding campaign\u201d for San Francisco.<\/p>\n The Emerson Collective is a donor to Mission Local<\/a>.<\/p>\n