The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 Tuesday to place a measure on the November ballot that would be a step towards creating the first city-run public bank in the country.<\/p>\n
A public bank would let the city issue low-cost loans to affordable housing<\/a> developers, small businesses, green infrastructure projects, and other entities that struggle to get loans from traditional banks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can build a public bank that prioritizes reinvesting back into what we all need to sustain our local communities,\u201d said Supervisor Chyanne Chen, who sponsored the measure. It will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot and requires over 50 percent of the vote to pass.<\/p>\n Supervisors Stephen Sherrill and Alan Wong were the two dissenters.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA public bank involves decisions about deposits, lending, credit regulation, and risk management. Those decisions carry real financial consequences. They demand institutional discipline, insulation from political pressure, transparency, and deep banking expertise,\u201d Wong said. \u201cOur city\u2019s track record shows that meeting those demands is harder than it sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n It is unclear whether Mayor Daniel Lurie will support the measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Professional bankers would be hired to administer the bank. Though they are rare in the United States \u2014 the only one that currently exists is the Bank of North Dakota<\/a> \u2014 they are common worldwide.<\/p>\n This November ballot measure is a first step: It would create the governance structure for a \u201cmunicipal finance corporation,\u201d an entity that would eventually turn into a public bank. For the bank to actually start functioning and dispersing loans, about $325 million in start-up money is needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n After that, the bank would be self-sustaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Feb. 3, Supervisor Jackie Fielder, a longtime proponent<\/a> of the public bank, introduced<\/a> a ballot measure that would have taxed certain financial institutions to fund the bank. That measure was withdrawn<\/a> in March, and Fielder co-sponsored Tuesday\u2019s measure.<\/p>\n It is possible that the bank could get funding through sources other than a local tax \u2014 the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act created grants for green finance institutions, for instance.<\/p>\n Supporters of the public bank are celebrating, calling it the product of years of advocacy. In 2019, California passed a state law allowing cities to create public banks. San Francisco then convened a Reinvestment Working Group, which in 2023 presented a plan for how the city could actually create such a bank.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is monumental,\u201d said Misha Steier, spokesperson for the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition. \u201cThe S.F. Public Bank will put people over profits to invest in what we all need \u2014 affordable housing, infrastructure, local small business, and green energy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 Tuesday to place a measure on the November ballot that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[380,35072,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-390263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-affordable-housing","tag-election-2026","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\/390263","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=390263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}