When a demonstration went sideways during his years as San Francisco police chief, Frank Jordan would be called before the Board of Supervisors to answer for it. Speakers lined up for hours: a broken arm, belongings seized, an assault by officers.<\/p>\n
Then, it was the chief\u2019s turn.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t raise his voice. He brought exhibits: police uniforms soaked in urine, a helmet with a face shield that had been split by a stick. He presented the facts as he saw them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do that calm, deliberately, without yelling, screaming, or swearing, like they did, pretty soon the audience starts to get on your side,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
He would need that patience in Room 200. Jordan, now 91, spent 33 years in the San Francisco Police Department before serving one term as mayor, from 1992 to 1996. He has watched The City cycle itself again and again \u2014 insurance, medical, high tech and now AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe seem to rejuvenate ourselves every decade or so,\u201d he said of San Francisco\u2019s capacity for swinging back.<\/p>\n
We met at San Francisco International Airport, where he described a city in which he won over the neighborhoods but rarely the Board of Supervisors, how his real power came straight from voters, and the battles he fought behind the scenes that left a lasting legacy in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
The citizen mayor<\/p>\n
Jordan said he never planned to run. The push came from the Chamber of Commerce, the Council of District Merchants, and lawyers and businessmen who wanted \u201cto change the dynamic of San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their symbol of what had gone wrong was Camp Agnos, the post-Loma Prieta encampment on the Civic Center lawn that emerged under his predecessor.<\/p>\n
Jordan credits Art Agnos with caring about homeless people.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you\u2019ve got to find a middle ground,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a level of conduct you don\u2019t go below, and if you do, you\u2019ve got to pay a penalty somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tension that would surface again in 2024 when current Mayor Daniel Lurie ran on a campaign of cleaning up the streets.<\/p>\n
Like Lurie, Jordan ran on public safety and quality of life, and he took office facing a deficit he puts at $250 million. He calls himself a \u201ccitizen mayor\u201d \u2014 no political career behind him, and no next office in mind.<\/p>\n
The map in 1992<\/p>\n
Jordan said those who held power when he took office were \u201clabor unions\u2026the chamber of commerce, the Council of District Merchants.\u201d<\/p>\n
The merchants spoke for 35 commercial districts and, he recalls, some 35,000 small businesses. They were \u201cthe lifeblood of San Francisco,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The board held the other half of City Hall. Its progressive members \u2014 including Terence Hallinan, Angela Alioto and Roberta Achtenberg \u2014 \u201cjust didn\u2019t see me as the right candidate for their point of view,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
Other constituencies carried their own weight. The gay community \u201cwas very powerful,\u201d he said, and its distrust of police often came from the East Coast and Midwest cities many residents had fled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had two strikes against me every time I would go to a meeting there,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
Even the Irish Catholic establishment had a stake: two Catholic hospitals, St. Mary\u2019s and St. Francis, held The City\u2019s disability contracts until he moved them in-house.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, you got the Irish Catholics against me too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Going around City Hall<\/p>\n
With the board against him, the swing vote was the electorate.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I did, I had to do by putting a ballot measure,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n
In 1992, voters approved his ban on aggressive panhandling.<\/p>\n
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Frank Jordan is seen at his campaign office on 19th Avenue during his 1999 mayoral run. He came in third, behind winner Willie Brown and Tom Ammiano.<\/p>\n
Wikipedia Commons<\/p>\n
Homelessness showed how the map split. Jordan\u2019s Matrix program, launched in August 1993, sent police into neighborhoods with large homeless populations to issue citations for offenses such as sleeping in doorways. Social workers were added that fall, following criticism.<\/p>\n
The backers of Matrix came from the coalition that drafted him: the chamber, the merchants, the neighborhood associations. The American Civil Liberties Union and advocates for the homeless, which sued, lined up with the board.<\/p>\n
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Colleagues back Supervisor Shamann Walton\u2019s call for 45-day moratorium on facilities to study effects, particularly on areas historically burdened with industry<\/p>\n
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