SF nonprofit paid out $5.6M without checking whether anyone did the work

An audit released Wednesday by the city controller found a pattern of financial mismanagement involving a Japantown nonprofit, including payouts of $5.6 million in stipends over five years without documentation verifying that recipients had performed the work. City auditors determined that the Japanese Community Youth Council’s work training program was structured in a “vague and fragmented” manner, leading to a “lack of city oversight, mismanagement, and accountability.” While the nonprofit’s grant increased from $1.95 million in 2019 to $13.3 million in 2023, participation in its programming remained low. Mayor London Breed promised it would serve 3,000 young people per year, but auditors found it fell far short of that. The program — part of Breed’s 2018 Opportunities for All initiative — was funded by the city’s Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families and managed by the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission, which Mayor Daniel Lurie last year merged into the Agency for Human Rights, has faced major scandals, including corruption charges in March against its former executive director, Sheryl Davis . The audit says the Japanese Community Youth Council hired Davis’ sister as its program manager, at Davis’ request. It does not name Davis’ sister. According to the report, the nonprofit refused to hand over the contract for Davis’ sister, saying it was outside the scope of the audit. That left auditors unable to determine her role at the nonprofit or details about her work. “The audit found a disjointed structure to execute the agreement and the entities involved … were confused about their respective roles and responsibilities,” the audit states. “This lack of clarity contributed to JCYC’s deficient fiscal controls and practices surrounding budget, invoicing, payroll, and record retention in addition to inadequate city oversight, mismanagement of the agreement, and weak accountability in both the fiscal and programmatic sides of the OFA program.” Among the audit’s findings: The Human Rights Commission directed that Japanese Community Youth Council program participants be paid stipends rather than wages. “This created changes in how participants were classified, eligibility was determined, and evidence of work performed. In total, JCYC paid $5.6 million in stipend payments to OFA participants without verifying they were eligible to work, without ensuring they had performed the work or completed assignments, and without documenting how the amount paid to each was determined,” the audit states. The Japanese Community Youth Council “could not demonstrate that 14 of 20 program operating expenses we reviewed were appropriate and compliant due to difficulty in providing records or inaccurate, insufficient, or inconsistent records.” The Human Rights Commission and Japanese Community Youth Council “generally lacked documentation and records for program and payroll decisions and directions given during the five-year period of the grant agreement reviewed, fiscal years 2019-20 through 2023-24.” The Human Rights Commission did “not responsibly manage the program,” and “key documents and records” were not accessible to the city. A spokesperson for the Agency for Human Rights said the department agrees with the audit’s findings and has made changes in response to 27 recommendations from the controller’s office. “The young people who participate in this paid internship initiative deserve nothing but the very best in terms of program management, service delivery, and professional practice. The Human Rights Commission is committed to ensuring this happens going forward,” Devi Zinzuvadia said in a statement. Jon Osaki, executive director of the Japanese Community Youth Council, said in a statement, “The audit report identifies several opportunities to strengthen JCYC’s financial management, internal controls, and documentation. While most improvements are already underway, others will continue to be implemented through the organization’s commitment to continuous improvement.” In a follow-up email, Osaki said that his organization processed payments in accordance with the city's instructions. He added that the Japanese Community Youth Council only learned that they had hired Davis’ sister after Davis resigned from the Human Rights Commission. The Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families did not respond to a request for comment. The findings come nearly two years after a City Hall scandal erupted when The Standard discovered that Davis was sharing a home with a nonprofit executive with whom she had signed contracts. The revelations cast a shadow on Breed, who was close to Davis and had charged her with overseeing a signature program called the Dream Keeper Initiative, which directed tens of millions of dollars toward the Black community. In March, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins charged Davis with 19 criminal counts, including felony misappropriation of public funds and felony perjury. Jenkins also charged James Spingola, the former executive director of Collective Impact and the man to whom Davis had directed contracts.

Lurie rejects core reforms of homelessness oversight audit

Mayor Daniel Lurie rejected several key recommendations from a highly critical San Francisco civil grand jury report on the city’s oversight of homelessness services, including proposals to publicly track deaths and overdoses by individual housing sites and subject nonprofit contracts to greater scrutiny. The June report found serious gaps in how the city oversees the nearly $500 million it spends annually on nonprofit homelessness contracts. The grand jury found that, despite collecting reports on hundreds of deaths, overdoses, and other serious incidents, city leaders have failed to systematically analyze related internal data to identify troubled housing sites or service providers. The investigation also questioned whether the 3-year-old Homelessness Oversight Commission is doing right by its name, finding that it had largely stopped reviewing contract renewals and extensions and had not fully used its authority to hold the Homelessness and Supportive Housing Department and its outside contractors accountable. The grand jury recommended that the oversight commission request audits of permanent supportive housing sites following spikes in overdoses and deaths at the facilities. Lurie wasn’t on board with that. In a detailed response to the grand jury released Monday, the mayor’s office acknowledged that the oversight commission has the authority to conduct performance audits of the city’s homelessness department, as well as systemic factors behind overdoses and deaths. However, the mayor’s office said the commission has limited analytical capacity and staffing. And Lurie hasn’t indicated a desire to change that. His office added that the homelessness department “is already partnering with departments to strategically address issues of overdoses in [permanent supportive housing].” The grand jury also recommended that the homelessness department regularly bring contracts to the Homelessness Oversight Commission for review and approval — an idea also rejected by Lurie. His office declared that contract renewals and extensions are administrative matters handled by the homelessness department’s director and aren’t under the purview of the oversight commission, based on the San Francisco’s city charter . “Returning all renewals and extensions to the consent calendar would add administrative burden without a corresponding increase in oversight value,” the mayor’s office wrote. Why the mayor responded Lurie’s responses Monday offer a view into whether the oversight commission — formed after voters approved Proposition C in November 2022 — has proven effective. His office had 60 days to respond to the grand jury. In a letter Monday , Lurie and Mike Levine, the homelessness department’s executive director, thanked the Civil Grand Jury for its work. “We commend the Jury’s desire to strengthen transparency and data-driven oversight across the City’s homelessness response system,” the letter said. “Further, we thank the Jury for raising the importance of client safety in HSH-funded programs and for the time its members devoted to examining how data can improve services and outcomes.” Every year, the San Francisco Superior Court staffs the jury with 19 members selected from a pool of applicants to serve a one-year term. They choose a few issues to investigate and issue reports by the end of June every year. While the mayor’s office disagreed fully or partially with all but one of the grand jury’s findings, it did indicate it will implement a few of the report’s recommendations. That includes evaluating nonprofit operators of housing sites using resident safety outcomes and developing automated alerts for when housing sites deserve greater scrutiny. Should internal data be made public? A quarter of all overdose deaths in San Francisco occur at permanent supportive housing sites, according to 2024 data cited in the grand jury report. When a death, overdose or other serious incident occurs at a housing site, nonprofit operators are required to submit a critical incident report to the homelessness department within 24 hours. Hundreds of those reports are filed to the city over the course of a year, and the grand jury found that city leaders aren’t using data from them to identify housing sites with troubling safety trends, such as a spike in overdoses or deaths. The finding isn’t new: The controller’s office flagged that issue in a report two years ago. On that point, Lurie agrees. The mayor’s office acknowledged that the city’s homelessness department could be using data from critical incident reports from nonprofit service providers to “more systematically identify safety trends.” One of the grand jury’s key recommendations calls for data from critical incident reports to be aggregated and anonymized into quarterly reports to the Homelessness Oversight Commission. The grand jury also recommended publishing the data on a public dashboard. Lurie rejected both recommendations. “The City will not implement this recommendation,” his office wrote in its response. “HSH already reports relevant public-safety data monthly for neighborhoods with high concentrations of HSH-funded sites and shares CIR information with the Department of Public Health and other operational partners as needed to support oversight and safety planning.” Lurie’s office added that some data could be made available to those who file public records requests. The grand jury report emphasized that outcomes for unhoused people at permanent supportive housing sites must be among the main benchmarks city leaders use when reviewing the work of contracted service providers — typically nonprofit organizations — running those sites. The report also noted that the 2024 statistic — that 26% of overdose deaths took place at permanent supportive housing sites — was an increase from prior years .

SF tried to ban its way to lower rents. Then the AI boom hit

To combat rising rents, San Francisco banned landlords from using software that tells them what to charge. Two years later, the city has yet to bring a single enforcement action under the law — even as rents soar to record heights . The city attorney’s office and the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition told The Standard they haven’t filed any civil action against a landlord for potential violations. In July, a San Francisco tenant sued Greystar Management Services in federal court, alleging the company violated the statute — the first known legal test of the ordinance, brought by a renter rather than the city itself. Meanwhile, the rents the law was meant to curb have only gotten worse. The San Francisco law, believed to be the first of its kind, was designed to target “revenue management” tools like those sold by Realpage and Yardi that used nonpublic competitor data to recommend rental rates. It followed a 2022 ProPublica investigation that put the issue on the national radar and fueled calls for reform. City leaders and tenants’ rights advocates worried that the software was exacerbating the housing crisis and inflating rent prices. Under the law, violators could face civil penalties of up to $1,000 each per offense. At that time, early signs that artificial intelligence was on track to transform San Francisco were just starting to emerge. AI workers were toiling away in Hayes Valley hacker houses, Anthropic and OpenAI began leasing huge chunks of office space, and Waymo robotaxis were becoming a fixture on city streets . Now that impact is reshaping the rental market. The city controller’s office declared in a report this month that San Francisco is “entering an accelerating period of economic growth, primarily driven by the AI investment boom.” San Francisco office leases are picking up, and asking rents for apartments rose 14% from March to July, according to ApartmentList. That raises the stakes for people who lose their housing or are trying to enter the rental market for the first time. The law was authored in 2024 by Aaron Peskin, who at the time was president of the Board of Supervisors and running for mayor. He said it would “allow the market to work and bring down rents in San Francisco.” Peskin now says that even without a single civil action filed, the ordinance was effective — at least upon its initial adoption — in naming and shaming a practice that was hurting tenants. “I think at the time it helped stabilize rents for sure,” he said. “But obviously that was before a trillion dollars of AI capital was invested and rained down on poor San Francisco again.” Other cities and states followed San Francisco’s lead and adopted restrictions on rent-fixing software. The Department of Justice sued Realpage, the dominant maker of such technology, alleging that it helped landlords coordinate pricing and monopolize the market for rent-pricing technology, driving up rents in the process. A settlement agreement reached late last year placed limits on how the company can collect and use nonpublic data. Still, the current spike in rental prices is much more likely the product of a demand shock than collusion, according to Hemant Bhargava, a professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. High-paying AI jobs are pulling workers into a market that was already tight, the result of years of underbuilding and restrictive zoning. Bhargava said the mismatch shows the importance of slower-moving supply-side fixes and how far San Francisco has fallen behind on them. “The demand can change very rapidly, but the supply cannot,” he said. The city’s history of rental-market volatility, which in recent years has largely tracked booms and busts in tech, can also be compounded by ownership concentration, he said. Landlords who own hundreds of units can afford to hold some vacant while keeping rents high. “Banning algorithms or AI software on pricing is really barking up the wrong tree,” Bhargava said, “and that’s why it hasn’t fixed the problem.” When the law was passed in 2024, Peskin’s office estimated that as much as 70% of San Francisco’s rental housing stock was controlled by companies using such software. Realpage, however, said at the time that its software served 10% of rental units in San Francisco and that the ordinance would “do nothing to make housing more affordable.” The company echoed that sentiment this week. “Blaming algorithmic pricing tools for high rents is both fundamentally incorrect and a distraction from the real opportunity to address housing affordability,” Patrick Mendoza, a spokesperson for Realpage, said in a statement. “In areas like San Francisco that have passed bans on software but have failed to build more housing, rents have continued to climb.” Supervisor Connie Chan, who co-authored the legislation and later broadened it, argued that additional AI regulations are needed to protect tenants and consumers. She highlighted her support for another bill moving through the state Legislature that would prohibit retailers from setting prices for goods based on data collected about individual shoppers. Chan said she isn’t convinced that all landlords in San Francisco have stopped using rent-setting algorithms and encouraged renters to contact the city attorney or tenants’ rights groups if they feel they were affected. Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated that no landlord had been sued under San Francisco’s rent-setting algorithm ban. One lawsuit has been filed in federal court.

Housing advocates sue SF, saying it illegally carved SoMa out of state density law

A coalition of YIMBY groups has filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco to overturn a local ordinance that exempts SoMa and other eastern neighborhoods from a state transit density law. The law, SB 79, authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, took effect in July. It allows taller, denser housing near public transit stops, creating the dense, walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods of urbanist fantasy. But in May, Mayor Daniel Lurie signed a bill that would exempt parts of SoMa, the Bayview, and the Bayshore from SB 79. The rationale was two-fold. First, the mayor’s Family Zoning Plan already allows for taller buildings across the city. Second, SB 79 gives local governments the option to create and adopt “alternative plans,” provided they deliver the same net housing capacity as the state law would if adopted unaltered. But YIMBY Law and other groups are claiming that the ordinance actually subverts the state by repackaging housing capacity from the Family Zoning Plan and the state density bonus law as new capacity created by SB 79. “It’s effectively triple-dipping,” said Ryan Patterson, an attorney for YIMBY Law, which filed the suit Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court. The state Department of Housing and Community Development gave SF’s alternative plan conditional approval . (The lawsuit also names HCD as a defendant.) “San Francisco can’t have it both ways,” said Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law. “This is a naked attempt to prevent new housing from getting built in San Francisco at a time where one-bedroom apartments are renting for $4,000. It’s illegal, and this type of obstructionism is what keeps San Francisco’s housing costs so astonishingly high.” Alex Barrett-Shorter, a spokesperson for the city attorney, said the office will review the complaint and respond in court. She declined to comment further. The lawsuit comes as the city faces an explosion in rental prices and a lack of housing choices for newcomers. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $4,300, according to Zillow, a figure experts have blamed in part on an influx of highly paid workers in the artificial intelligence sector. This is the second time YIMBY Law has sued the city this year. It filed a complaint in February claiming that the Family Zoning Plan is insufficient to meet the state’s housing production mandate for San Francisco. California has tasked San Francisco with planning for 82,000 new housing units by 2031. The Board of Supervisors approved Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan in December. It required rezoning for 36,000 units over the next six years. San Francisco has also faced legal threats from those on the opposite side of the housing debate. The NIMBY groups Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward sued in January, claiming the Family Zoning Plan violates the California Environmental Quality Act. Neither the mayor’s office nor Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents SoMa, responded to requests for comment.

Lurie wanted San Francisco to bounce back. Now he’s got an affordability crisis

For years, the overwhelming perception of San Francisco was that of a crime-ridden liberal hellhole from which residents were desperate to escape. Now it feels like the hottest city in the country. The reversal comes as AI money pours in, with companies filling long-empty downtown offices , and their high-income workers driving a red-hot housing and rental market . Mayor Daniel Lurie, who rose to power in 2024 on a campaign promise to focus on public safety, has prioritized reselling San Francisco as a city on the rise — one Instagram reel at a time . It’s a remarkable turnaround for a city that spent years trying to convince residents, employers, and investors that its best days weren’t behind it. Now, as that recovery takes hold, it is reshaping Lurie’s governing agenda. The boom that is reversing the doom-loop trend has also revived San Francisco’s oldest challenge: affordability. Lurie, who spent his first 18 months in office cleaning up San Francisco’s streets , is discovering that he has a more pernicious problem to solve. “I am the first one to say we are not where we want to be,” the mayor said this week in an interview with The Standard at his City Hall office about his proposals to mitigate the high cost of living. “We have to make this city more affordable, so that families can stay here and thrive here.” That San Francisco is expensive is not breaking news. But if living costs were pricey before, there’s no adequate adjective to describe current conditions. The typical home value was about $1.4 million in June , according to Zillow, which city economists reference for their data analyses, a 9.5% increase from the year before. The median monthly rent has surged 19% over the last year to $3,558 , according to Apartment List’s July report. Those numbers illustrate the paradox facing City Hall. The economic recovery that has made San Francisco one of the country’s most attractive real estate markets is also making it harder for many people to afford living here. “It has been the fastest increase that I’ve ever seen in one single season,” Compass agent Ruth Krishnan said. Before you ask: “Yes, AI is definitely part of what is increasing the price, and it’s probably going to increase it more,” she said. “Now these companies are going to go public, and there is going to be even more money.” Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, said the eye-popping prices come after a “major adjustment” during COVID, when tens of thousands fled the city, according to state population estimates , chilling the housing market. During that time, San Francisco went from being extremely expensive compared with most cities to just expensive, Egan said. Rents that were once three times the national average are now a little more than double. Even so, “our rents are growing much faster than in other places, and AI is the big reason for that,” said Egan, who himself made the choice to relocate out of San Francisco to a smaller city outside the Bay Area. But the consequences extend well beyond the housing market. Rising prices are forcing City Hall to confront a broader question: Who can still afford to live in San Francisco if the recovery continues at this pace? San Francisco prices long ago pushed out a good chunk of the working-class population. But the appealing new image means that even some high-earning workers can’t afford to stay — fueling the fear that the city is becoming a haven solely for millionaire AI and tech workers. “This is not an issue that is unique to lower-income workers versus middle-class versus even tech workers,” said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who recently clashed with the mayor over grocery affordability legislation . “Every single person I represent in District 5 has said it is too expensive to live here.” Lurie told The Standard it shouldn’t be — and can’t remain that way if the recovery is to last. “I want families working in every industry to be able to stay and afford to live here,” he said, adding that San Francisco’s economic recovery is dependent on a diverse workforce outside the tech sector. Lurie is acutely aware that San Francisco has ridden a series of tech booms and busts over the past three decades. While AI is fueling the latest resurgence, the city can’t afford to become overly dependent on a single industry again, he said: “It cannot be one industry, and that’s why we’re talking to business leaders of all backgrounds, saying, ‘We want you here.’” Part of that strategy is recruiting universities to the city, including Vanderbilt , which Lurie hopes will create a more stable mix of jobs and activity beyond the AI sector. He said the city is talking to universities focused not just on technology but on arts, culture, and manufacturing. “We have focused on how we attract universities. Not one, but multiple universities downtown. How do we get more professors and teachers, and how do we have more life in our downtown core?” Diversifying the workforce, however, will require far more housing. Lurie pointed to his signature Family Zoning Plan , which he said will pave the way for tens of thousands more housing units over the next five years. He is also working with Supervisor Myrna Melgar to shore up funds for affordable housing through the city’s Housing Trust Fund . “We need to build more housing. For decades, we in this very progressive city have said no to new neighbors,” Lurie said. But affordability is about more than housing, he pointed out. He has also zeroed in on two of the biggest recurring expenses for families: childcare and transportation. He noted that San Francisco is “the first city in the country to provide access to free early childhood care ” for certain families with children up to age 5. “I’ve had many parents say, ‘You’re saving me $36,000 a year per child,’” Lurie said, emphasizing that San Francisco is the first city to offer such a robust program. ( Take that, Mamdani .) “If they have two, that’s $72,000. It’s made a big difference for some families.” Lurie has also worked to qualify a local parcel tax for the November ballot that is expected to generate around $150 million annually for Muni, plus another $10 million to strengthen transit services. “I want people to be able to get around our city so they don’t have to use rideshare, they don’t have to buy a car, they don’t have to have car insurance, they don’t have to pay for monthly parking.” Cyrus Hall, a transportation advocate, said Lurie’s support is a major boost. “The fact that he is popular and the fact that he is willing to spend political capital on this is great,” Hall said. A thriving transportation system is critical for working-class families who can’t afford car expenses and rely on an affordable public transit system to get around town, Hall said. But Lurie admits that some of his efforts will take time — long after he leaves office — before families feel the broader financial impact. “The unfortunate part is it’s not going to be solved overnight,” Lurie said. “When you have 30-plus years of not building enough housing, it’s going to take us years and years to get there, if not longer.” Critics say that’s exactly the problem. Whether the Family Zoning Plan will make a meaningful difference is debatable. San Francisco faces a state mandate to plan for more than 80,000 new homes by 2031 . The city completed 2,832 units in 2025, with roughly half designated as 100% affordable, according to the Department of Building Inspection. So far this year, 413 units have been completed, 276 of them affordable. “The problem with affordability in San Francisco is we are always working on the thing that we should have been working on 10 years ago,” said Mahmood, who is a renter. “The city is doing the bare minimum to comply with state laws, rather than thinking about how to fundamentally solve the problem.” Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action, said San Francisco is “at best treading water” on solving the housing crisis. She argues that the city should pursue more aggressive short-term measures while waiting for new housing to be built. More immediate action to lower costs, Foote said, could include declaring a housing emergency to streamline production, waiving all impact fees, or proposing “ single-stair reform ,” which would allow certain apartment buildings to have one exit stairway instead of the required two. “I’m not saying they are doing nothing,” Foote said. “But there are bolder actions they are not taking that would have an impact today.” Advocates worry that without immediate action, San Franciscans across the socioeconomic spectrum will continue to leave. They range from hospital workers and police officers who were born in the city to young parents who hoped to raise first-generation San Franciscans but are giving up on that dream because it feels unattainable. Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, warned of a future in which restaurant, hotel, and construction workers can’t live in the city they serve, and first responders are forced to turn down jobs because commuting to a San Francisco hospital isn’t possible. “There is nowhere for them to go,” said Tavaglione. She worries that Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune, is relying on “ corporations and the billionaires, the millionaires ,” to rebuild San Francisco, “but without a plan on where people are going to live.” “Working people are the only ones who keep neighborhoods vibrant,” she said. “So losing working people will destroy neighborhoods.” Whether San Francisco’s comeback becomes a broad-based recovery — or a boom that benefits primarily those who can already afford it — may be the question that defines Lurie’s mayoralty.

Mamdani-inspired tax on SF’s empty grocery stores is off the ballot, but not off the table

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood spent months working on legislation to tax San Francisco’s vacant grocery stores. But when it became clear that the measure wouldn’t have the votes to make it through committee, let alone to the fall ballot, he changed tack — reaching out to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s team, whose own push for city-run grocers inspired his plan in the first place. Now, instead of bringing a measure to the city’s electorate , he’s asking the Board of Supervisors to pass a narrower version by ordinance. The new proposal will trade what he called his original “carrot-and-stick approach” for incentives alone: fee waivers, corner-store conversions, and a zoning reform borrowed from New York City. Mahmood’s original measure, the Affordable Groceries Act, aimed to subsidize new stores primarily by taxing large chains that leave storefronts vacant. The District 5 supervisor said the fight was never just about empty storefronts: it was about who has to trek the farthest to fill a grocery cart. He represents the Tenderloin, which has the highest concentration of children in the city, and Japantown, which has the highest concentration of seniors. “Even having to walk more than a couple of blocks to get your groceries is a point of inequity,” he said. After Supervisor Connie Chan, the Budget Committee chair, pulled it from the agenda earlier this month, Mahmood asked the Rules Committee to send it directly to the full board instead. Supervisor Shamann Walton, who chairs the rules committee, agreed to hear the motion, a decision Mahmood thanked him for publicly. But based on conversations with other members this week, Mahmood concluded he didn’t have the votes to move it forward. Rather than force a vote he’d probably lose, he asked for a continuance, technically leaving the measure alive for “a future date,” according to a press release from his office. In practice, with the ballot filing deadline days away, that forecloses this November. Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, one of the measure’s original co-sponsors, was among those Mahmood said would not support advancing it. So, Mahmood went back to the drawing board. His retreat, he said, reflects a read on what would actually pass, not a change in goals. “I’m driven by results,” he said. “It’s clear that City Hall right now does not have consensus on a mix of a carrot-and-stick approach. But there does seem to be consensus around incentive-based approaches.” When the ballot measure started to falter, Mahmood said, he called Mamdani’s team for advice on an alternative. They pointed him toward zoning: a density-bonus program for housing developments that include ground-floor grocery stores, part of what New York calls its FRESH program. The plan Mahmood will introduce Tuesday sets out three legislative proposals, which he hopes his colleagues will pass on a rolling basis over the coming year. The first restores funding to Healthy Retail SF , a program that helps convert corner stores into outlets for fresh produce — an idea Tenderloin community groups have pushed for years. The second priority is to expand existing incentives: one that waives permit fees for new grocery stores, which Mahmood’s office estimates could save $50,000 to $80,000 per store, and another that bankrolls capital build-outs for stores opening in neighborhoods without full-service grocery access. The third proposal borrows from New York City’s FRESH program, offering density bonuses to housing developments that include a grocery store on the ground floor. The density bonuses would pair with zoning changes to make it easier to subdivide the oversized empty parcels, often 50,000 to 60,000 square feet, that Mahmood said have deterred new grocers, which typically need only 10,000 to 20,000 square feet. The collapse of the ballot-measure approach caps weeks of tension at City Hall. Mahmood’s measure had cleared an earlier hurdle only to be pulled from the Budget and Finance Committee agenda in mid-July — a move Mahmood said came at Mayor Daniel Lurie’s request. Lurie’s office has said it supports Mahmood’s proposed Affordable Grocery Fund but opposed the vacancy tax meant to help pay for it. “More taxes won’t achieve” more grocery stores, mayoral spokesperson Charles Lutvak said last week. Budget Committee chair Connie Chan’s office struck a similar note, saying through a spokesperson that she agreed with the measure’s intent but felt it wasn’t ready. Mahmood has also pointed to opposition from Amazon, which owns the shuttered Whole Foods on Market Street and would have been subject to the tax. He said a company lobbyist floated the idea of an exemption for that location, which he declined to grant, and warned that Amazon could spend heavily to defeat the measure — comparisons Amazon lobbyist David Noyola has disputed as inaccurate. Even with the ballot-measure setback, Mahmood’s push forced City Hall to reckon with the issue at a moment when food affordability has become a national flashpoint. A poll he commissioned in July found 61% of likely voters in San Francisco backed the vacancy tax, he noted. Public sentiment was on his side, he said, it was just a matter of political will. Mahmood’s pivot mirrors a broader search playing out in cities nationwide for politically viable ways to fight food deserts and tackle rising grocery costs. In Seattle, Mayor Bruce Harrell issued an executive order this year directing city departments to explore tools, including eminent domain, to keep grocery stores open in underserved neighborhoods. In Congress, a bipartisan bill would offer tax credits to small grocers serving food deserts, while a separate proposal would fund a USDA grant program to help open new stores in underserved communities. “Affordability is the crisis of our generation,” Mahmood said. “Every year, more families are forced to make impossible choices between rent, groceries, medicine, and childcare. This proposal may have been blocked, but the problem it sought to solve has not gone away.”

Three grocers walked away from a vacant Fillmore Safeway. Now it’s a political battle

Three separate efforts to bring a grocery store back to a vacant Safeway site in the Fillmore have collapsed, deepening a political fight over who’s to blame — and what San Francisco should do about it. Grocery Outlet, Smart & Final, and Sprouts Farmers Market have all explored taking over the former Safeway at 1335 Webster St. on a short-term basis, as Safeway finalizes the sale of the property to Align Real Estate, which intends to build housing on the site. The collapse of all three efforts leaves the Fillmore, a historically Black and low-income San Francisco neighborhood, without a full-service grocery store for the foreseeable future — more than a year after Safeway’s Webster Street location closed. The failed talks come amid a broader political fight: Supervisor Bilal Mahmood is pushing a ballot measure to tax vacant grocery stores and subsidize new operators, an effort now tangled up with accusations that Safeway hindered efforts to bring in a new grocer . In an interview, Mahmood said negotiations to bring a grocer back to the site are dead in the water, and emails his office provided in response to a verbal records request back up that account. Sprouts’ interest in the site has not been previously reported. “Oh my God. It’s devastating news,” said Majeid Crawford, a Fillmore native. “We were really hoping something would happen; the community has been waiting and hopeful.” In the months before Safeway closed in February 2025, neighbors rallied and pushed for the grocer to stay open, or for a new grocer to take over the space. Crawford — executive director of the New Community Leadership Foundation, a group trying to prevent the Fillmore’s gentrification — said the failure to find a new grocer will send shockwaves through the neighborhood. Safeway’s Webster Street store served the Fillmore community for four decades. The new owner, Align Real Estate, plans a mixed-use project on the site with more than 1,800 housing units and a ground-floor grocery. Lawmakers had hoped a temporary grocery store could load Fillmore neighbors’ shopping bags in the years before the project breaks ground. Mahmood is hoping his ballot measure to establish a fund to subsidize grocery stores and levy a tax on vacant supermarkets will pressure grocers to lease to new operators or reopen. The idea resembles one from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose proposal would establish government-subsidized grocery stores. While Mahmood’s proposal faced a setback last week from the Board of Supervisors and opposition from Mayor Daniel Lurie , he’s planning to introduce a motion Tuesday for the Board of Supervisors to re-hear the measure by the end of the month, which would restart the process of placing it on the ballot. Lurie previously said he’s working to bring more grocery stores to San Francisco, but new taxes won’t help that effort. Mahmood alleges the negotiations between the three grocers, Safeway, and Align Real Estate failed because Safeway impeded efforts to find a replacement grocer. Emails Mahmood provided offer a behind-the-scenes look at negotiations marked by canceled meetings, stalled talks, and growing frustration. “It shows us that Safeway was never intending to actually put a grocery store in there,” Mahmood said of the emails. “We know of three grocers who were made an offer to go onto that property.” Safeway, Grocery Outlet, and Sprouts declined to comment. Smart & Final did not respond to a request to comment. David Balducci, a principal at Align Real Estate, told The Standard they’ve not given up. “The Fillmore community deserves a grocery store, and we will do everything we can to bring one to the site,” Balducci said. “Unfortunately, Supervisor Mahmood’s tax on grocery store vacancies would only make it more difficult to open a store.” Mahmood told a different tale. “Align told me that there is no plan to do a short-term activation with another grocery operator anymore,” he said. The effort was difficult from the start — Safeway promised to rip out its freezers at the end of 2024, before it even closed, making it more difficult for a new grocer to move in. In January last year, Grocery Outlet made an offer to Safeway to take over the site. In an email sent Jan. 9, Bill Coyle, vice president of real estate with Grocery Outlet, aired a hopeful tone about his meeting with the supervisor and Align Real Estate. “You have [Grocery Outlet’s] commitment we shall pursue with vigor and hope for the best outcome,” he wrote. On Jan. 22, 2025, Grocery Outlet sent a proposal to Safeway, outlining a “scaled-down” version of its store for two to three years, paying Safeway $400,000 in annual rent. The hope, Coyle wrote, was that Grocery Outlet would become a permanent grocer once Align Real Estate’s project was complete. “Politicians happy. Community happy,” he wrote. His optimism was short-lived. Coyle said he wrote to Mahmood Feb. 4 that “I have NOT heard back” from a consultant working for Safeway. In an email venting his frustration over the process, he alleged Safeway has a pattern of making it difficult for other grocery stores to open. “It’s what they do,” he wrote to Mahmood, “impede competition.” By Feb. 19, the parties met once again. Coyle emailed Mahmood shortly before, noting that the cost to open a grocery store there — even a temporary one — would be at least $2 million. Emails revealed the deal’s definitive end in April: Eric Holzer, senior director of corporate real estate at Albertsons, which owns Safeway, wrote to Mahmood acknowledging that Grocery Outlet “dropped their interest.” In the intervening months, Safeway and Align Real Estate held discussions with Smart & Final, a grocer with other San Francisco locations, and Sprouts, a Bay Area staple exploring its first San Francisco location in the Showplace Square neighborhood. Sources with knowledge of the deal rejected the notion that Safeway had impeded efforts to bring in a new grocer and said the grocers walked away from the deal for financial reasons. The amount needed to bring the building up to code, which may have been $2 million to $4 million, was so high that they would need to operate a store there longer than the proposal allowed for it to pencil out. Mahmood said the emails show Safeway “intentionally dragged their feet to allow the deal to die.” The lack of a local grocery store hurts low-income Fillmore families, people with disabilities, and seniors who can’t travel far, according to Crawford, the neighborhood advocate. He knows its importance personally: His mother was an artist and single parent who shopped at Safeway when he was a child. She would stretch her limited dollars and buy ingredients to whip up a family favorite: spaghetti and meatballs. “To hear all those things fell through,” he said, “it feels like our community is being erased.”

SF was headed for Mamdani-style grocery stores. Those plans have been spiked

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said Mayor Daniel Lurie and another lawmaker have derailed part of his government-backed grocery store proposal after it was kept off the agenda of a committee hearing. He said Amazon also played a role in its destruction. The proposal, a two-part ballot measure authored by Mahmood last month, would establish a fund to subsidize grocery stores and levy a tax on vacant supermarkets and pharmacies owned by large businesses. Mahmood said he received a call Thursday afternoon from Supervisor Connie Chan, chair of the Budget Committee, informing him that the tax proposal would be stricken from Wednesday’s Budget and Finance Committee agenda. Chan told Mahmood of her disapproval and signaled that the mayor was opposed to the legislation, he said. “This is frankly just bad governance at the board,” said Mahmood. Mahmood said Lurie and Chan’s intervention makes it difficult for the proposal to move forward since it needs to be heard by the full Board of Supervisors by late July to make it to the November ballot. The dispute highlights competing visions for reviving San Francisco’s economy. Mahmood argues that vacant grocery and pharmacy sites should face financial pressure to reopen or lease to another operator, while Lurie has emphasized incentives and public-private partnerships to encourage businesses to return downtown. “Mayor Lurie is working to bring grocery stores to San Francisco’s communities,” his spokesperson, Charles Lutvak, said in a statement. “More taxes won’t achieve that. We support the Affordable Grocery Fund and will continue working with Supervisor Mahmood and the entire board to bring more grocery stores to the city.” Robyn Burke, a spokesperson for Chan, said the supervisor “agrees” with the intent of the measure, “but she also understands that much work needs to be done to this measure. Supervisor Mahmood has amendments he wants to make to his legislation. With that, she came to the conclusion that this measure is not ready at this time.” Mahmood says he has faced stiff opposition from business groups opposed to the proposal, including Amazon. The supervisor said a lobbyist for Amazon suggested last month that the retail giant could mount a campaign against the tax and requested that its vacant Whole Foods storefront on Market Street be exempt from the legislation. The supervisor declined to grant the exemption. Amazon lobbyist David Noyola denied this. “Amazon is in full overdrive trying to kill this ballot measure,” Mahmood told The Standard, adding that the company doesn’t “want to be held accountable for the zombie stores they hold,” using a term critical of companies that close a storefront but continue to hold the lease. Pro-business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce and Advance SF, have expressed skepticism about the idea to the supervisor. Nationally, the idea has proved controversial as moderate Democrats contend with a growing populist fervor within their party and the country reels from an affordability crisis. Amazon’s Whole Foods site on Market shuttered in 2023 after being open for a little over a year, emblematic of the anxieties surrounding downtown’s post-pandemic economy and worsening street conditions at the time. Since then, Lurie and others have launched efforts to rehabilitate the neighborhood, as office vacancies remain a challenge. Recent figures show some recovery as artificial intelligence companies increase demand. In April, the Downtown Development Corporation, a group created by Lurie’s allies in an effort to revitalize the neighborhood, announced a $25 million initiative to help businesses with below-market rate loans and move-in grants. Mahmood said he is spearheading the ballot measure because of the growing problem of disappearing supermarkets and pharmacies across the city, as well as rising food prices that are a national problem. Mahmood’s district covers the Tenderloin, a neighborhood known for a lack of pharmacies and supermarkets. The city in 2024 opened a free grocery store for low-income residents in the Bayview. Mahmood’s ballot measure would have a dual purpose. It would create a fund, fueled by philanthropic dollars or city coffers, to subsidize the conversion of corner stores into grocery stores with fresh foods or, as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has suggested, to lease out city-owned spaces at below-market rates to affordable grocers. It would also tax vacant grocery stores and pharmacies operated by large chains at $3 per square foot in the first year, $5 in the second, and $10 annually thereafter, capped at $250,000. Mahmood maintains that the tax would not affect small businesses, and that the affected companies would be able to avoid the penalty if they lease their vacant space to someone else, abandon their lease so someone else can take it over, or reactivate the storefront themselves. He said the argument businesses have used to defend closures — that crime and homelessness make it difficult to run a storefront — doesn’t pass muster. “I recognize during COVID there were concerns, but the data show that crime is down,” he said. “That excuse is no longer valid.” Amazon’s vacant Whole Foods site is roughly 65,000 square feet. A report from the city controller on the proposal’s cost is pending, said Mahmood. He claims the measure could generate several million dollars in tax revenue. Noyola pushed back against Mahmood’s description of Amazon’s position. “That’s an inaccurate characterization of a conversation I had with Supervisor Mahmood. Full stop,” the lobbyist said, adding that the business community at large tried to propose an exemption for the downtown neighborhood, not for the Whole Foods site specifically. Mahmood stood by his account, saying Noyola told him Amazon spent $250,000 opposing Proposition D — the Overpaid CEO Tax that failed in June — and could spend a similar amount opposing his measure. New York City’s Mamdani, whose progressive politics have proved popular after a slate of congressional wins by democratic socialist candidates during the city’s June primary, announced his first city-owned grocery store in May at an affordable housing complex in the Bronx. The SF Board of Supervisors’ rules committee is set to vote Monday on the fund aspect of Mahmood’s law. Mahmood said he has four supporters of his proposal: Supervisors Cheyenne Chen, Danny Sauter, Stephen Sherrill, and Myrna Melgar. He would need a vote from one more supervisor to move the fund measure from the full board to the November ballot.

After Swalwell and Platner, Cheyenne Hunt is building a new #MeToo movement

Former East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell dodged more than a decade of misconduct rumors on Capitol Hill. Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner withstood allegations of physical misconduct, disturbing Reddit posts, and a Nazi tattoo. Then they encountered Cheyenne Hunt. A 29-year-old political activist, attorney, and content creator with a vast social media following, Hunt has spent several months organizing women behind the scenes to amplify allegations of sexual misconduct, including rape, against both Swalwell and Platner . She has connected accusers with lawyers, therapists, and reporters while using her own online platforms to share their stories. The result: Swalwell resigned from Congress, shelved his campaign for governor , and has largely disappeared from public view amid multiple investigations into his alleged misconduct. Platner is thought to be on the verge of dropping out of his Senate race after losing critical endorsements from key progressives , including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Rep. Ro Khanna. Swalwell and Platner have denied the allegations. “This is a reckoning,” Hunt told The Standard on a Thursday morning in June from the living room of the inland Orange County house she shares with her boyfriend, where stacks of law books fill three large shelves and a vase of pink peonies serves as the backdrop to the Zoom calls that fill her schedule. “No predators in power.” Hunt hasn’t had time for a break in the three months since the Swalwell story broke. Her days start early and end late, a drumbeat of staff meetings and check-ins with organizers. She forgets to stop and eat, she said, and her boyfriend often reminds her she needs a meal. During a day spent shadowing Hunt, The Standard watched her prepare for another cycle of chaos. In between back-to-back meetings, she was on frequent, feverish calls with a Politico reporter working to break the Platner story. Even she is shocked by what has unfolded in the weeks since her friend Annika Albrecht texted to ask if Hunt would post a video about the sexual harassment Albrecht claims she experienced from Swalwell . Hunt didn’t know that her March 31 video , which has generated more than 150,000 views on TikTok and Instagram, was the beginning of not only Swalwell’s downfall but her new mission. But Hunt wasn’t working alone. Arielle Fodor, a content creator and former teacher who goes by “Mrs. Frazzled” online, had also been posting cryptic messages about rumors of misconduct by Swalwell. Hunt, Fodor, and Albrecht teamed up to take the allegations that were circulating on social media to reporters. They collaborated with CNN for a story that broke April 10 with Albrecht’s allegations, along with accusations from three other women that ranged from harassment to sexual assault. Hunt has since resigned as executive director of the advocacy organization Gen-Z for Change and started Reckoning Action, a political organization with the goal of ending misogyny in places of power. Fodor is an adviser to the group, as are some of Swalwell’s accusers. Hunt said the group’s goals are to change sexual harassment laws and raise enough money to build a robust network of legal aid and other support services for victims. But this is not a millenial #MeToo movement. A key pillar of Reckoning Action is leveraging social media to inspire cultural change. TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram are increasingly where people — especially Gen Z — find, read, and talk about serious issues, Hunt said. And with her 220,000 followers on TikTok and 222,000 on Instagram, she is uniquely positioned to use social media as a tool to spark another #MeToo chapter, this one adapted for a digital-first era. “If you’re not having conversations with people where they’re listening, then you’re not in the conversation at all,” Hunt said. “It was content creators that blew the door open and found all these sources and made it happen.” ‘I had something to say’ Hunt’s political activism began in California’s rural Lake County, where she was raised by her single mom and grandmother. Hunt moved to Orange County when she was 14 and, two years later, graduated early from high school. She went to the University of Denver and moved back to Orange County for law school at UC Irvine. It was at law school in 2020, when she joined Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s office as a Senate Judiciary Committee law clerk, that Hunt found her calling in politics. She arrived in D.C. just as the first impeachment trial against President Donald Trump was beginning. It was evident how toxic a workplace the Capitol could be, Hunt said, especially for the many “hungry, ambitious young women” staffing lawmakers’ offices. “Many of whom this is the first job that they have ever had, and they’re looking for their big break,” she said. She returned home for law school graduation and to take care of her dying grandmother, then moved back to D.C. to work as a Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen, a left-leaning consumer advocacy organization. “She’s a troublemaker,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said of Hunt. “A good troublemaker.” Weissman said he was impressed by Hunt’s creative approach to using social media to identify and solve problems. “It’s not just having the information, but how to frame the information, present the information, in a way that excites people in the algorithm nowadays,” he said. “And she had found a key.” Disillusioned by the lack of Gen Z representation in Congress, Hunt returned to Orange County with a plan to run for Congress in 2024 against Republican Rep. Michelle Steel in what was then California’s 45th District. She lost badly, earning just 8% of the vote in the March primary. “At the end of the day, like, I had something to say,” Hunt said of the experience. “There was a generation of women that was completely unrepresented at the federal level, and I wanted to take my swing at it.” As executive director of Gen-Z for Change, an organization that uses social media as an advocacy tool for progressive causes, it became her job to be “chronically online,” she said. But after the Swalwell news broke, Hunt said it became clear that she needed to focus on the strategy full time. She started Reckoning Action and, as executive director, oversees a team of about half a dozen women and men. “I have a habit of doing things that people think are insane,” she said. “But I think them through. I didn’t want to start something unless it was really clear that there was a place in the movement for it and that it would be sustainable.” Responding to #MeToo backlash Hunt said hundreds of women have reached out in the weeks since Swalwell resigned with their own experiences of sexual misconduct. It became clear from those conversations how much had changed since the #MeToo movement first went viral in 2017. What she learned: #MeToo is out; the manosphere is in. “I just think that we see politics so often function as a pendulum, where there’s progress, and then there’s backlash,” Hunt said. “And the backlash to the #MeToo movement was a generation of men that, for the first time, was realizing that they may not be able to act towards women with impunity anymore, and that was stark.” Young men are increasingly enamored with media figures like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Christopher Rufo and the late Charlie Kirk, and even far-right extremists like Nick Fuentes, an antisemitic white nationalist streamer. Hunt blames much of the rise of the manosphere on social media and its proliferation of right-wing accounts that once existed on the fringe but in recent years have exploded into the mainstream. Right-wing content creators have gamed the algorithm to prey on lonely young men, Hunt said, “offering them something that looks like community and is really just isolation, for their own kind of political agenda.” Hunt worries about women too. After a decade of the #girlboss, women seem less interested in the C-suite and more intrigued by the “Make America Healthy Again” and “trad wife” movements. From Hunt’s perspective, the same digital rabbit hole that pulls men into the manosphere is working to drag women back to the 1950s. “That’s why MAHA content exists,” Hunt said. “It starts because they’re, like, making banana bread, and then at some point they start talking about, I don’t know, fucking ivermectin or something.” A key pillar of Reckoning Action is promoting “narrative change,” not just through stories in traditional news outlets but through social media. Hunt wants to replicate the right-wing playbook of going viral, but to the left’s benefit. To do that, she envisions contracting with left-wing influencers on paid anti-misogyny campaigns, leveraging their specific brands to appeal to broader audiences. Hunt imagines collaborating with the podcast “The Basement Yard,” a comedy show with Joe Santagato and Frank Alvarez, who spend an hour gabbing about random topics. Under Hunt’s playbook, they would be paid to spend a few minutes railing against misogyny. “The people that listen to ‘Pod Save America,’ they already agree with us,” Hunt said. “That’s not going to reach new audiences and make meaningful difference. It’s not going to break out of the echo chamber. We need content that can compete with their content. Entertainment-first content.” Fodor has been doing this for years. Users might come to her initially for education news , but they will also find her “gentle parenting” spoofs on political topics, like a recent video in which she pretends to talk to a kid about how “yucky” it is that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of states with bans on transgender kids playing in girls sports . “I think everybody tries to hit it differently. And that’s kind of a cool thing about content creators,” Fodor said in an interview. “Is that everybody is pulling on their little thread in their corner in their own way.” Omar Wasow, an assistant professor of political science at UC Berkeley, said social media has always been an incubator for social and political movements, many for progressive causes. The #MeToo movement started with a hashtag, of course, and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 began with the video of George Floyd’s murder spreading online. “In the U.S. and around the world, we’ve seen movements that can emerge almost out of nothing,” Wasow said. But the right has commanded social media in recent years, to great political effect. “It’s not just activists who are taking this up. It’s the most powerful people in the world in the current presidential administration,” Wasow said. Hunt noted that right-wing influencers have become “masters” at pushing online fringe ideas that eventually make their way into real-life politics. What was once considered “radical” is now law, Hunt said, like the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and subsequent state legislation to criminalize women who get abortions. That same strategy won’t have an immediate impact for Hunt’s cause, she conceded over a lunch of vegan pho at a favorite Orange County Vietnamese restaurant. “I’m known for being pretty impatient, but I also understand that’s going to take time,” she said. “Institutional change takes time.” Her goal of ending misogyny in places of power is going to require a coalition of “unlikely bedfellows” working together. One of her goals, for example, is to change House ethics rules to make it safer for accusers to come forward with claims of inappropriate behavior. Reckoning Action is already working with the Democratic Women’s Caucus on the effort, but Hunt acknowledged, “we’re gonna need everybody on board,” perhaps including some Republicans. Old and new media partnerships But there could be limits to Hunt’s vision. Putting such an emphasis on social media is risky, said Juliet Williams, a gender studies professor at UCLA. The country’s major tech companies are run by “a bunch of super regressive dudes” who have cozied up to Trump. Old-school, grassroots organizing is still important, she said. “There’s no feminist Elon Musk,” Williams said. “Technology, social media, influencing — these platforms are not why #Metoo didn’t go where we wanted it to, and it’s not what is going to save us now.” There’s also a line that content creators can’t — or shouldn’t — cross. Both Hunt and Fodor said there was a limit with the Swalwell allegations that they felt comfortable posting on their pages. That’s when they turned to legacy newsrooms with the story. “I don’t want to see creators thinking that they should be talking about sensitive sexual assault stories or anything that’s of that level of consequence,” she said. “Because they don’t have the resources to do the corroboration and the independent fact-checking and what needs to be done for those [stories] to be told in a way that’s absolutely unimpeachable.” But even news organizations can’t prevent the repercussions victims may face after coming forward. A private investigator has contacted at least one former Swalwell staffer about her time working for the congressman, according to the news site NOTUS . Swalwell’s attorney Sara Azari confirmed to the outlet that she had hired the New York firm Beau Dietl & Associates as part of an investigation into the allegations. Azari did not respond to The Standard’s request for comment. “That is purely an intimidation tactic that is all about intimidating these women and trying to silence other ones from coming forward,” Hunt said. It’s why many women never come forward with their stories, said Gloria Allred, a women’s rights attorney who has represented victims in cases against Harvey Weinstein , Bill Cosby, R. Kelly , and Jeffrey Epstein. Allred said she wants women to know there is “another option.” “And that’s within the justice system,” she said, which allows victims to receive compensation for alleged abuse without any impact on their public image or threat of retaliation tactics like defamation lawsuits. “There are still some people who do not wish to live their life on the internet.” Allred said. “I understand the desire that young women have to hold the accused accountable. I agree that the accused should be held accountable. The real issue is, how can they best achieve that with the minimum harm to themselves and a maximum benefit to themselves?” If there’s anything Sacramento lobbyist Samantha Corbin has learned since she helped launch “ We Said Enough ,” the #MeToo movement in the California Capitol, it’s that “no one cares about women.” Corbin said since the coalition launched with an October 2017 letter exposing the “pervasive” culture of sexual harassment in the Capitol, she has received weekly calls from people alleging misconduct in and around the Legislature. The group notched some initial wins when several lawmakers resigned amid allegations of misconduct. Additionally, the Legislature in 2019 launched a Workplace Conduct Unit to independently investigate anonymous complaints of wrongdoing in the Capitol. The unit has received roughly 840 complaints, according to a February report, and “resolved” around 97% of them. Corbin acknowledged how difficult it is for advocates to maintain the momentum and progress made after a news cycle ends and public attention inevitably turns to other issues. “You consistently have to have people who have energy, who have a new way of telling the story and engaging people,” Corbin said. If Hunt is willing to carry the baton — and use new tools to tell women’s stories — then “fuck yeah, girl, get it.” Beyond Swalwell and Platner During a recent Zoom meeting with Reckoning Action organizers, Hunt was grappling with what comes next. The group was planning several weeks’ worth of social media and Substack content, not just on Swalwell but on other topics that could help push their anti-misogyny message. She was also preparing, ahead of Politico’s Platner story, to face down the same accusations that surfaced during the Swalwell allegations: that she was secretly working with Republicans to sabotage Democrats, that she was a shill for billionaires who want to buy U.S. elections. In his statement denying the allegations, Platner accused “out-of-state establishment operatives” of working to sabotage his campaign, a characterization that Hunt laughed at during her CNN interviews . These are the moments when Hunt refers back to her mission: No predators in power. “Period,” she said. “Women should not be sacrificed at the altar of the next election,” she argued. “If you think that it’s politically strategic to knowingly put someone in power that has a history of violence against women, then you are ceding the moral high ground that we so frequently claim to differentiate ourselves as Democrats.” Hunt, and Reckoning Action at large, has called on Platner to withdraw from the Senate race before a July 13 deadline for Democrats to replace him. Beyond Swalwell and Platner, Hunt has big plans over the next year for Reckoning Action. She wants to hire more organizers, and dreams of getting federal legislation introduced this year to ban politicians who are accused of misconduct from using campaign funds for legal bills. (Swalwell has used more than $300,000 in campaign funds to pay his attorney , according to state financial records.) The team also wants to ramp up messaging around the “Epstein class” and to target vulnerable Republicans in the midterms who voted against making the Epstein files public . Hunt was spending her birthday Tuesday evening recovering from the exhausting media blitz following the Platner revelations and fielding a steady stream of profile requests from reporters. “Eventually, this reckoning media moment, it will end,” Hunt said. “Does that freak me out, that we won’t squeeze every bit of juice out of it that we possibly can? To hold every single predator accountable that we possibly can? Yeah.” For now at least, the reckoning is still trending.

Scott Wiener got heckled at the Trans March. Then he got a ton of donations

State Sen. Scott Wiener may still be recovering from his beratement at Dolores Park , near the Trans March, but Power Play has learned his rough day had a silver lining. Over the weekend, Wiener’s congressional bid saw the highest number of donors in a single day since the campaign launched. “Since Friday, I’ve just had a tidal wave, an outpouring of support,” Wiener told us. “I have hundreds and hundreds of unread text messages I have not gotten to yet, and direct messages and emails and calls from people.” “I’m just really grateful,” he said. A spokesperson for the campaign declined to share the number of donations or the amount raised. We caught up with Wiener at the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club Pride breakfast, where his viral video was the talk of the annual event, attended by hundreds of volunteer organizers, politicos and their staff under the rainbow-hued lights of the Embarcadero Hyatt. Even gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra had something to say about the incident, telling us, “We want people to be able to express their First Amendment right, but do it in a way that respects one another.” Other support emerged online. Mayor Daniel Lurie condemned the incident as “targeted, hateful, and antisemitic.” The Senate Democratic Caucus called the “harassment and violence” unacceptable, noting that Wiener has advocated for LGBTQ+ people even when it wasn’t politically popular. Retired Politico journalist Carla Marinucci said on X: “I don’t care where you are on the political spectrum — this is an abhorrent attack on an elected official who has dedicated years to public service.” A video of Friday’s incident that went viral, racking up millions of views over the ensuing day, shows Wiener being hounded out of the park by a crowd of people flipping him off and denouncing his past support of Israel. The guy who filmed it, a longtime critic of Wiener named Dimitry Yakoushkin , can be heard shouting: “It sucks because you’ve been wonderful … for trans people, and you’ve been terrible … on Gaza.” When Power Play caught up with Wiener a couple days later, he said his views on Palestine are clear. “I believe it’s a genocide,” he said. “I’m not going to support funding for the Israeli military, and I’m not taking AIPAC money. These are all like crystal-clear positions that people choose to ignore for purely political reasons.” — Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez SAVING IT UP : Lurie has accumulated a Levi Strauss-level fortune of political capital during his 18 months in office. Most elected officials would relish the opportunity of spending it in pursuit of building their political dynasty. Just look at New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani , who leveraged his popularity to establish himself as a political kingmaker with a list of congressional primary wins last week. Instead, Lurie is reluctant to flex his political muscles, choosing instead to stay on the sidelines of San Francisco’s — and California’s — biggest ballot box battles. He didn’t help former Supervisor Joel Engardio , an ally on the board , when he was recalled from office in September. He declined to endorse anyone for California governor. Instead of coming out firmly on one side of the business-vs.-labor tax battle in June, Lurie told voters to reject both Propositions C and D . So it will likely go to a heated contest to replace retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Congress, a once-in-a-generation race with lasting consequences for San Francisco. Lurie has so far avoided adding his name to either Supervisor Connie Chan ’s or Wiener’s endorsement lists — and his spokesperson, Max Szabo, said the mayor has no plans to. Things could always change. And in that case, Lurie would have to weigh the risks and rewards of either choice. Lurie, a moderate Democrat, is more politically aligned with Wiener, a pro-business YIMBY who is backed by some of the same wealthy donors who supported the mayor. But, but, but … Wiener was a staunch ally of former Mayor London Breed , so it’s not unfathomable that Lurie would withhold his endorsement. And, yet … the race is Wiener’s to lose. Lending his support to Wiener and having a like-minded congressman in Washington could benefit Lurie’s political agenda in San Francisco. That would almost certainly fracture Lurie’s ties to Chan, a progressive with whom he’s had an unexpectedly good relationship despite their vast policy differences. Plus, she’s endorsed by Pelosi, a San Francisco icon whom Lurie interned for in college and called a mentor when she announced her retirement in November. Still, Chan did not support Lurie in the 2024 mayoral race. And despite their good working relationship, she has still opposed some of Lurie’s policy priorities, including his signature Family Zoning Plan. Wiener’s and Chan’s campaigns did not respond to requests for comment on whether they had sought the mayor’s endorsement. Szabo declined to comment on Lurie’s decision not to support anyone. But one person familiar with the mayor’s thinking said Lurie “doesn’t alienate people who he needs to work with.” “He understands the importance of maintaining working relationships with everyone on the board,” the person added. “I think he has worked well with [Chan]. And that’s not a foregone conclusion in politics. I would expect that to be the biggest hurdle. Because he and Scott are more aligned.” — Hannah Wiley PROGS HURTIN’ IN SF : Mamdani’s clean sweep of endorsed congressional candidates during the June 23 primary has everyone asking why the heck are progressives doing so well on the East Coast but can’t get their act together in San Francisco . Lincoln Mitchell , a Columbia University politics professor who splits his time between New York City and San Francisco, spoke with Power Play on why the East Coast city is seeing such a lefty renaissance — and why San Francisco isn’t. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. How is the progressive voter in New York different from the one in San Francisco? Mamdani’s core base is not the proletariat; it’s the precariat . It’s the 30-year-old who has a college education, maybe even a decent job, because the market is tough, not easy in New York, and maybe is struggling and working at a couple of gigs to make ends meet, and just doesn’t have a big enough apartment if she and her partner want to have a kid. “How am I ever going to afford to raise a kid in New York?” That is different than, “How am I ever going to afford food for the next two weeks?” And it’s the former that are Mamdani’s base. Those people in San Francisco, I think they skew more rightward because they’re all there to work in tech and AI, for the most part. Has San Francisco changed culturally in ways that hurt progressives? I think New York is still a place where young people go with a dream. San Francisco has become a place where people go with a good job in AI. When I was growing up in the ‘80s, I can’t tell you how many times as a kid in San Francisco, some hippie-looking dude saying, “Yeah, I came out here in 1972 because of my girlfriend or the Grateful Dead show.” But now we’re in 1992 and they’re still there, right? That’s not San Francisco anymore. “I came out here because I could get a really good job with Google, but now I’m with Anthropic.” Is there any chance for progressives to regain political territory? If the AI boom continues and suddenly you know just the rental market goes up and up, that income just gets greater, then there’s no chance, right? This just becomes a different city. So, from that respect, no. — Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler WHAT JUST HAPPENED? They’re calling it the craziest ballot negotiation deadline in years. In a frantic dash to avert a transfer tax apocalypse, state legislators introduced one compromise, scrapped it, and introduced and passed another — all in a matter of days. Let’s back up. The powerful Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a measure for the November state ballot in May that would cap transfer taxes at 0.11% of sale value and require a two-thirds majority for voters to pass new ones. For context, that would slash San Francisco’s transfer tax rate by roughly 98%, wiping out a major source of revenue that the city — and many other California cities, particularly in the Bay Area — relies on to fund public services. So East Bay Assemblymember Buffy Wicks devised a legislative compromise — a bill introduced Monday that would cut most transfer taxes to 1.5% and some to 3% — in the hopes that she could convince HJTA to pull its measure. Her solution would still mean cutting SF’s 6% transfer tax in half, and housing justice advocates hated it. HJTA wasn’t sold either , and president Jon Coupal announced his group’s measure was staying on the ballot. By Thursday — the deadline to finalize ballot measures for November — Wicks’ bill was dead, and a new deal was on the table: a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds vote to approve future transfer taxes while leaving existing ones untouched. The legislature quickly approved it, and Coupal agreed to withdraw the original initiative. The compromise pleased almost no one. Anti-tax hardliners wanted the original measure to stay on the ballot. Progressives argued lawmakers should have fought it instead of negotiating. Even some YIMBYs who wanted existing transfer taxes reduced came away disappointed. “Politics is often about navigating imperfect choices. Today’s vote protects critical local funding and removes a catastrophic threat to the fiscal health of our cities,” Wicks said in a statement. But there is one thing everyone can agree on, expressed best by tenant advocate Shanti Singh who was in Sacramento Thursday: “Today has been the biggest clusterfuck I’ve seen in six years of doing this.” — Max Harrison-Caldwell POLITICS IS IN VOGUE: City Hall opened its doors to an illustrious guest this week: Fashion icon and former editor-in-chief of Vogue , Anna Wintour . Wintour was spotted leaving City Hall on Thursday afternoon with her swagged-out entourage before ducking into a black luxe SUV, according to a City Hall employee. A few moments later, the mayor’s Chief of Staff, Staci Slaughter , exited the building. The Mayor’s office declined to comment, but a spokesperson for Conde Nast confirmed that the reason for Wintour’s visit revolved around Vogue’s exploration of having Vogue World in SF, “Anna’s trip is an exploratory one to listen/learn,” they said, The night prior, Wintour co-hosted a party at Penny Coulter , the mayor’s chief of protocol at her home in Presidio Heights to some six dozen of the city’s biggest power players from Garry Tan and Paul Pelosi to Democratic megadonor Susie Tompkins Buell . Read more in The Waggle here . — Sam Mondros DOUBLE YOUR DOLLAR: San Francisco’s budget is finalized, with little fanfare and little controversy. The process got wrapped up on Thursday, and in a surprise to any veteran of the usual long nights and harried weekends, this was tied up in a bow rather quickly. Look for Chan to crow about a few budget wins on the congressional campaign trail: Free City College’s debt relief fund for impoverished students was restored, and nonprofits that were facing massive layoffs are now facing far less draconian cuts. The Mayor’s Office also added back funding for the Board of Supervisors staff and the City Controller’s Office. One group within the city government that not only emerged unscathed but came out ahead in the mayor’s budget is the Mayor’s Office itself. Its salaries and benefits costs totaled $9.2 million under Mayor London Breed in the 2023-24 fiscal year. By the 2027-28 fiscal year, Lurie’s budget has them reaching $10.7 million. Now, to be fair, some of that owes to cost-of-living increases. But not all of it. Lurie instituted a new policy chief structure, with top-tier mayor’s office staffers advising the mayor on key areas, such as public safety and homelessness. That came with a cost — under Breed’s administration, only four mayoral staffers busted the $200,000 salary range (not counting Breed herself). Under Lurie, eight staffers now bust $200,000. As of this week, according to the San Francisco Department of Human Resources, the mayoral staff at the top of the range include Alicia John Baptiste at $276,432, Kunal Modi at $276,432, Ned Segal at $276,432, Staci Slaughter at $276,432, Jessica Macleod at $253,739, Sophia Kittler at $222,622, Aly Bonde at $217,214, and Han Zou at $207,085. — J.F.R.

Asian Art Museum

Office of the City Administrator

Adult Probation Department

Airport

Arts Commission

Office of the Assessor-Recorder

Board of Appeals

Office of the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors

Office of the City Attorney

Department of Children, Youth and Their Families

Controller's Office

Planning Department

Civil Service Commission

District Attorney's Office

Department of Building Inspection

Department of Early Childhood

Department of Emergency Management

Department of Police Accountability

Department of Public Health

Department of Public Works

Office of Economic and Workforce Development

Environment Department

Ethics Commission

Fine Arts Museums

Fire Department

Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing

Human Rights Commission

Department of Human Resources

Human Services Agency

Health Service System

Juvenile Probation Department

Public Library

Municipal Transportation Agency

Office of the Mayor

Public Defender's Office

Police Department

Port

Public Utilities Commission

Recreation and Park Department

Department of Elections

Retirement System

Rent Board

Sheriff's Department Office of Inspector General

Sheriff's Department

Department of Technology

Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector

War Memorial

Department on the Status of Women

General City Responsibilities

General Administration & Finance

Culture & Recreation

Community Health

Human Welfare & Neighborhood Development

Public Works, Transportation & Commerce

Public Protection

SF Civil Grand Jury

STATUTORY signing duty: indictments 'signed by the foreman' (Penal Code 940); presides

SF Civil Grand Jury Foreperson

SF Superior Court

SF Superior Court Presiding Judge

judicial assignments; court administration (CRC 10.603); CEO direction

The Abatement Appeals Board provides a final review process for City permitting decisions. It ensures fair and efficient adjudication of permit-related disputes before an impartial panel. The board holds authority to make binding decisions on appeals concerning notices of abatement.

Abatement Appeals Board

Abatement Appeals Board Commissioner 1

Abatement Appeals Board Commissioner 2

Abatement Appeals Board Commissioner 3

Abatement Appeals Board Commissioner 4

Abatement Appeals Board Commissioner 5

Abatement Appeals Board Commissioner 6

Abatement Appeals Board Commissioner 7

The Access Appeals Commission provides final reviews for a wide range of City permitting decisions. It ensures an efficient, fair, and expeditious permit issuance process through an impartial panel. The commission holds authority to make binding decisions on appeals related to City permits.

Access Appeals Commission

Access Appeals Commission Commissioner 1

Access Appeals Commission Commissioner 2

Access Appeals Commission Commissioner 3

Access Appeals Commission Commissioner 4

Access Appeals Commission Commissioner 5

The Adult Day Health Care Planning Council advises on the development and improvement of adult day health care services. It provides expertise in healthcare planning, policy recommendations, and program evaluation. Key responsibilities include assessing community needs and advising on service delivery enhancements.

Adult Day Health Care Planning Council

Adult Probation Department supervises individuals on probation and facilitates their reintegration into the community. It provides reentry and rehabilitative services, including victim restitution and financial assistance for crime victims. The department values public safety, offender rehabilitation, and community partnerships.

Cristel Tullock

The Advisory Committee of Street Artists and Crafts Examiners evaluates arts and crafts applicants and monitors program compliance. It conducts studio visits and public screenings to ensure adherence to established criteria. Members also revise program criteria and undertake additional tasks as needed.

Advisory Committee of Street Artists and Crafts Examiners

The Advisory Council on Human Rights advises on anti-discrimination laws and racial equity initiatives. It provides expertise on reparations and public policy impacts on Black communities. It guides efforts to establish partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities in San Francisco.

Advisory Council on Human Rights

San Francisco Airport manages air traffic operations and ensures safe aircraft movement. It provides parking facilities and maintains airport infrastructure to accommodate travelers and staff. The department oversees ground transportation and coordinates with airlines for efficient passenger services.

Mike Nakornkhet

The Airport Commission oversees policy and strategic planning for San Francisco International Airport. It makes key decisions on airport development projects and financial management. It ensures compliance with regulations and collaborates on initiatives like terminal naming.

Airport Commission

Airport Commission Commissioner 1

Airport Commission Commissioner 2

Airport Commission Commissioner 3

Mark Buell

Susan Leal

Airport Director

Animal Care and Control Department manages animal sheltering, adoption, and emergency response services. It enforces animal-related laws and regulations, ensuring the humane treatment and safety of animals. The department also provides public education on responsible pet ownership and animal welfare.

Animal Care and Control Department

Virginia Donohue

Animal Care and Control Department, Director

The San Francisco Arts Commission oversees the integration of arts into city life and ensures public access to cultural experiences. It makes decisions on public art programs and allocates grants to support local artists and performances. The commission actively shapes policies affecting the arts ecosystem in San Francisco.

Arts Commission Commissioner 1

Arts Commission Commissioner 2

Arts Commission Commissioner 3

Arts Commission Commissioner 4

Arts Commission Commissioner 5

Suzanne Ferras

Jessica Rothschild

Seth Brenzel

JD Beltran

Marcus Shelby

J Riccardo Benavides

Nabiel Musleh

Charles (Chuck) Collins

Lydia So

Arts Commission Commissioner 15

San Francisco Arts Commission invests in a vibrant arts community and shapes cultural policy. It enlivens the urban environment through public art programs and supports diverse artistic expressions. The commission facilitates meetings and discussions to engage the community in cultural development.

Ralph Remington

Arts Commission, Director of Cultural Affairs

The Asian Art Commission determines policy and administers the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. It oversees museum operations and collaborates with the Asian Art Museum Foundation on fundraising efforts. Commissioners ensure the museum's strategic direction and financial sustainability.

Asian Art Commission

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 1

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 2

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 3

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 4

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 5

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 6

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 7

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 8

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 9

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 10

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 11

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 12

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 13

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 14

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 15

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 16

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 17

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 18

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 19

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 20

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 21

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 22

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 23

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 24

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 25

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 26

Asian Art Commission Commissioner 27

Asian Art Museum showcases Asian art and culture through exhibitions and educational programs. It offers diverse collections and hosts special events to engage the community. The museum fosters cultural appreciation and understanding by providing access to its extensive art collections.

Dr. Soyoung Lee

Asian Art Museum, Director

The Assessment Appeals Board #1 hears property tax assessment appeals in San Francisco. It evaluates evidence presented by taxpayers and the Assessor to determine property values. The Board has the authority to make final decisions on assessments regardless of property type or value.

Assessment Appeals Board #1

Assessment Appeals Board #1 Commissioner 1

Assessment Appeals Board #1 Commissioner 2

Assessment Appeals Board #1 Commissioner 3

Assessment Appeals Board #1 Commissioner 4

Adena Gilbert

Paul Bellar

Quirina Mitchell

Hilary Winslow

The Assessment Appeals Board #2 adjudicates property tax assessment appeals for San Francisco taxpayers. It evaluates evidence presented by taxpayers and the Assessor to determine accurate property values. The Board exercises authority to render final decisions on residential properties and specific real estate assessments.

Assessment Appeals Board #2

Assessment Appeals Board #2 Commissioner 1

Assessment Appeals Board #2 Commissioner 2

Assessment Appeals Board #2 Commissioner 3

Assessment Appeals Board #2 Commissioner 4

Louisa Mendoza

Joyce Lewis

Nicholas Goldman

Michelle Domingo

The Assessment Appeals Board #3 provides a platform for San Francisco taxpayers to contest property tax assessments. It conducts hearings where evidence from both taxpayers and the Assessor is evaluated. The Board makes binding decisions on property assessments based on presented evidence.

Assessment Appeals Board #3

Assessment Appeals Board #3 Commissioner 1

Assessment Appeals Board #3 Commissioner 2

Assessment Appeals Board #3 Commissioner 3

Marc Dickow

Assessment Appeals Board #3 Commissioner 5

Assessment Appeals Board #3 Commissioner 6

Assessment Appeals Board #3 Commissioner 7

Assessment Appeals Board #3 Commissioner 8

Assesses property, applies exemptions, collects transfer taxes, and records official documents.

Assessor-Recorder