‘Absurd’: City officials laugh off PG&E’s $20B price tag for San Francisco’s grid

“Absurd.” “Fantasy.” “Inflated.” When reacting to Pacific Gas & Electric’s price tag for its San Francisco grid — a whopping $20 billion — city officials pulled no punches Thursday. “It’s a ridiculous number,” said Supervisor Myrna Melgar. “This is like selling your house, and you want to get the most.” To put it into perspective: The city’s annual budget is $16.9 billion. The Warriors are worth $14.5 billion. The GDP of Afghanistan is about $17 billion. So why did PG&E throw out the big figure — nearly six times the price the city put on the utility’s assets? Supervisor Stephen Sherrill summed it up as a negotiating strategy. “I’m not surprised to hear PG&E anchor their pricing at an incredibly high end,” he said. “These are opening salvos.” Other city officials shared similar sentiments, noting that the math doesn’t add up. “PG&E’s entire electric system is worth about $60 billion, and San Francisco accounts for only a tiny part of that — representing about 5% of PG&E’s electricity system demand,” said Nancy Crowley, a spokesperson for the city’s Public Utilities Commission. “We’ve gone to the state utility regulator to get an impartial assessment of what the assets San Francisco wants to buy are really worth.” The SFPUC would be in charge of the public power system if the city were to take over the grid. City Attorney David Chiu described PG&E’s price as “quite bold.” He added that San Francisco has “had 40 large-scale outages in the last year,” referring to a figure the city cited in a letter to PG&E this month. “PG&E has not provided any information to back up their absurdly inflated number, but we look forward to learning more through the CPUC valuation process.” There’s one person who remains tight-lipped about it all: Mayor Daniel Lurie. In an interview with The Standard on Thursday morning at Salesforce Park, Lurie said “all options are on the table” on the issue of public power. When pressed on what would be the deciding factors in his decision-making, he said, “I’m not happy with the performance of PG&E right now, and I’m going to leave it at that, because it still needs to go through a lot of process before we can make a determination.” The answer is in line with The Standard’s previous reporting on Lurie’s position on public power: He’s skeptical about the process but also angry at PG&E, especially since the December blackout that left wide swaths of the city without power. A possible takeover of PG&E’s grid has been discussed for decades. December’s blackout prompted increased calls for a divorce between the city and the utility, and there’s widespread support among the Board of Supervisors to take such action. The board unanimously rejected the utility’s bureaucratic maneuver to delay the takeover through a California Environmental Quality Act appeal. The city has argued that a municipal-owned utility, as opposed to PG&E’s investor-owned model, would be cheaper for ratepayers. But PG&E has opposed the idea for years, claiming that the city is in no position to take over its infrastructure. The $20 billion figure, announced Wednesday evening by PG&E CEO Patti Poppe, is part of an ongoing evaluation proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission to determine the value of San Francisco’s grid. The proceeding, started under Mayor London Breed’s administration, will culminate in state regulators placing a price tag on the city’s electrical system. In April, the city revealed its own number: $3.4 billion, stating that this was “based on new information, including additional asset details identified by PG&E and updated cost estimates.” Jennifer Robison, a spokesperson for PG&E, said Thursday that the two figures — the city’s and the utility’s — are “not an apples-to-apples comparison,” explaining that San Francisco’s estimate does not include the totality of expenses associated with a public power takeover. Robison said the city’s missing expenditures include severance, which is the price of shifting costs to remaining PG&E customers for mandated statewide programs like wildfire risk reduction. (Robison did not comment on the city’s claim that the total value of PG&E’s system is $60 billion.) “My coworkers and I love serving San Francisco. San Francisco’s expectations are high, and we intend to measure up,” Poppe said in a statement Wednesday. “We have 600 people who serve you every day, and if San Francisco were to take over those assets, those people would leave. I imagine a day when a whole convoy of blue-and-white trucks are driving across the Bay Bridge heading to Oakland, never to come back. I don’t think that’s in San Francisco’s best interest.” Before San Francisco makes the final plunge for public power, there are hurdles to overcome. The first step is the back-and-forth between the city and PG&E at the CPUC. The utility will provide more details on its rationale for the $20 billion figure in its response to the CPUC on Tuesday. According to the SFPUC, the city has until Feb. 22 to respond to that, and PG&E can respond again by March 24. Evidentiary hearings could take place in the spring or summer. A lawsuit could stretch out the process for years. The CPUC did not respond to a request for comment. Some don’t feel the city will get a fair shake during the state proceedings. Loretta Lynch, former president of the CPUC and a supporter of public power, said she is concerned that state regulators will be overly deferential to the utility in the valuation proceedings, a criticism made by other officials over the years. She compared the situation to Volodymyr Zelensky negotiating with Vladimir Putin — San Francisco being the president of Ukraine, and PG&E being the president of Russia. “I’m worried the CPUC is Donald Trump,” Lynch said, referring to criticism that the president is too obedient to Putin. Lynch, who has observed the public power debate for decades, said the $20 billion figure puts the takeover issue “at the end of the beginning.” “This will be one of the defining issues for the future of our city,” she said. “It will define who we are as San Francisco.”

Recliners, snacks, back on the street: SF’s $19M RESET Center has become a revolving door

Each time Chris G. has left San Francisco’s new law-enforcement-led sobering center, he has ended up back in the same place. Officers have brought the 45-year-old to the RESET Center five times since it opened in May , and each time he declined further care, such as addiction medication or detox. After one visit, staff offered him a cab. He took it straight to Sixth and Mission streets — “where the dope is.” Chris, who is addicted to fentanyl and declined to provide his last name, speaks highly of the center and its staff. “It’s a little reprieve from the insanity out here,” he said, pointing to the juice, cookies and comfortable recliners. But so far, the respite hasn’t led him to seek recovery. Chris’s experience illustrates the core tension facing the RESET Center, a flagship initiative in Mayor Daniel Lurie’s strategy to curb public drug use and improve street conditions. The center, which will cost about $19.4 million to operate and secure over roughly two years, is running well below capacity, and the city cannot say where people who are referred to care end up. Far below projections Located on Sixth Street in SoMa, the center was designed as an alternative to jail or the hospital for people who are publicly intoxicated. After police drop them off, individuals are screened and assigned to one of 25 reclining chairs. They are expected to stay until staff consider them sober, which has averaged 7.5 hours. The center has several goals: get more people off the streets, connect them with treatment, and cut the time it takes officers to process detainees and get back on patrol. Colin LeClair, CEO of Connections Health Solutions, the for-profit company contracted to run the site, projected in April that it would serve up to 2,500 people a month and keep chairs “about 80% full.” Instead, the center has logged about 2,250 admissions in roughly its first five months, about 450 per month. While daily admissions more than doubled from 10 in July to 21 in September, the facility remains drastically underused. With an average stay that would allow each chair to be turned over at least three times a day, the center has the capacity to serve more than 75 people daily. But even with the recent bump in visits, a Standard analysis of Sheriff’s Office data reveals that it’s operating at less than 30% of its potential scale. City officials cite several reasons for the low occupancy, including a phased ramp-up, police understaffing, a narrow geographic intake zone, and strict eligibility rules. People cannot be admitted to the center if they’ve been given Narcan, have active warrants, or are exhibiting violent behavior or certain medical conditions. Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said the low intake at the start was intentional, and “pretty much everyone considers this so far a success.” “We were planning on keeping it at lower numbers and then expanding as we went,” he said. “We’re in a good place now.” To bring more people in, the Sheriff’s Office and Police Department recently expanded nighttime enforcement and added a wagon detail to some patrols. Lurie spokesperson Charles Lutvak said the “early results are promising,” and “every person who enters the RESET Center is a person who’s no longer doing drugs on our street and has a chance to get on the path to stability.” For police, the center’s value is time saved. SFPD spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky said dropping someone off at RESET takes less than five minutes — far faster than a jail booking or hospital transfer. “Success can be measured in a number of ways, including how RESET is maximizing an officer’s time on a call,” Sernoffsky said. For neighbors, the measure is what they see on the sidewalk. Leah Edwards, who has lived in SoMa for more than a decade, said she hasn’t noticed a difference in street conditions since the center opened. “Some days are really bad, other days are better,” Edwards said, “but there are still plenty of people incapacitated.” Referred where? What happens to people after leaving the RESET Center remains largely unknown. The Sheriff’s Office reports that 38% accept referrals to additional care, including addiction medications, short-term shelters, other sobering centers and detox. But that figure only reflects initial agreement, not whether someone follows through and sticks with it. Connections Health Solutions also hasn’t provided the agency with a breakdown — making it unclear how many people take advantage of different forms of care, or which specific programs clients end up using most. Joel Conger, president of Connections’ western region, said the company was still validating the data and deciding how to share it. For people like 41-year-old Kyle Wellington, referral numbers fail to capture the full picture. Officers have arrested him and brought him to the RESET Center about 10 times, he said. Half of those times, he was turned away for high blood pressure tested too high for admission and diverted to an emergency room instead. When he was admitted, he said he napped, watched TV and ate Uncrustables until he was permitted to leave. The one time he accepted a referral, he was taken to another short-term sobering site on Mission Street. He stayed a couple of days, stepping outside periodically to get high, before abandoning his attempt at detox. A fight over expansion Broadening the center’s geographic reach could potentially help boost intake numbers, but the idea has triggered a sharp debate among city officials. Police currently only bring in people arrested in SoMa, but Miyamoto said the goal was always broader. “I would love to expand into the Tenderloin immediately,” he said, adding that he’d like to open another center near Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who represents the Tenderloin, agreed that expanding the reach could help fill more seats. Restricting pickups to SoMa, he argued, merely “pushes people out of that area into the Tenderloin.” But Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents SoMa, opposes bringing people arrested in other parts of the city to the center. The longer drives would undercut the police time savings that justify the model, he said, and would break a promise to SoMa residents. “There’s going to be a lot of pushback, including from the district supervisor, if we’re going to renege on that commitment,” said Dorsey, who added that he’d support opening more centers in other neighborhoods. Edwards sided with Dorsey, calling any geographic expansion a “bait and switch.” “If they aren’t able to fill it now, then the program doesn’t seem to be working as intended,” she said. “They should figure that out before trying to open it up.” Chris G. has his own idea of what’s missing. He was sober for 21 years before relapsing three and a half years ago. And to quit again, he believes, he first needs stable housing. In the meantime, he sees value in what the sobering center offers. “The shower, the food, the TV — all those things remind people of the life they could have,” Chris said. “It might not happen today, but something could click six months down the line.” He’d even go back to the center on his own if the rules allowed it. “I actually tried to see if I could go without the cops,” he said. “But they don’t let you do that.”

We asked candidates if SF should keep Flock surveillance, or tell it to Flock off

Flock Safety’s AI-powered license-plate readers are igniting national debate. Opponents fear an ever-expanding surveillance state, with concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could gain an easy roadmap to track and deport undocumented immigrants. Supporters argue that the cameras are a powerful tool that can help police quickly identify suspects, find stolen vehicles, and solve serious crimes. That debate is now spilling over into elections, locally and nationally. In Congress, it is one of the issues animating both Democrats and Republicans. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) last week introduced the Flock-Off Act, seeking to ban federal funding for the cameras. Cosponsor Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) gave a full-throated takedown of the technology on the House floor. “We can’t have a surveillance state in America,” Khanna said. “Americans are for safety but not for the abuse of their privacy. We need guardrails on this technology.” Bay Area cities have been wrestling with how to balance public safety and privacy concerns as they weigh Flock contracts. Several cities have cut ties with the company, while San Jose, Oakland, and Richmond have doubled down. Berkeley, the nation’s first sanctuary city, was on the verge of a $2 million expansion of its Flock contract before pulling back amid fierce public backlash. While San Franciscans haven’t mounted light poles and spray-painted Flock camera lenses en masse, the Sunrise Movement and Jobs with Justice have led local protests against the technology. The San Francisco Democratic Party last week stalled a vote that would have put members on the record as pushing for more privacy protections around Flock, while candidates for the Board of Supervisors are staking out positions for and against the surveillance technology. The worries aren’t theoretical: In June, the San Francisco Police Department revealed that out-of-state and federal agencies have accessed data from the city’s 400 Flock cameras hundreds of times, in violation of California law. While the authority to extend Flock Safety’s contract may rest with the SFPD , the Board of Supervisors can vote to make exemptions to, or tighten, the city’s surveillance policies. And even without direct authority, politicos of any office can apply pressure for such contracts to end. So, who in San Francisco is telling the surveillance company to Flock off? The Standard asked candidates running for office if San Francisco should continue its contract with Flock when it’s up for renewal in February. Here’s how they responded. Flock-ing together in support Supervisor Matt Dorsey Race : Supervisor District 6, representing South of Market, Mission Bay, and Treasure Island The reasoning: Dorsey said San Francisco has some of the nation’s “most stringent safeguards,” from the Police Commission to the Department of Police Accountability. Police reforms, which Dorsey helped work on, were enacted to “make sure we’re engaged in constitutional policing.” Dorsey said license-plate reader surveillance technology is “too important” to a functional justice system to tolerate abuses that could diminish support for it. That said, he supports renewing the contract with Flock because he thinks the concerns are speculative. He said he would reconsider if problems emerge with the contract, but overall, the cameras are working. “ I’m grateful to Bay Area jurisdictions banning [license-plate reader] technologies,” he said, “because I want the crime community to know there are soft targets in the Bay Area that are not San Francisco, where they have less chance of getting caught.” Theo Ellington Race : Supervisor District 10, representing Potrero Hill, Visitacion Valley, and the Bayview The reasoning: Ellington told The Standard he “supports the safety tools neighbors ask for at every door,” including community policing, cameras, and license-plate readers to help solve break-ins and illegal dumping. He has fought back against police overreach; at 24, he organized a petition drive to keep stop-and-frisk policies out of San Francisco. His support for renewing Flock’s contract would be contingent on “strict retention limits, independent audits, public transparency reports, and an absolute bar on sharing data with federal immigration enforcement.” Supervisor Stephen Sherrill Race : Supervisor District 2, representing the Marina, Pacific Heights, and Cow Hollow The reasoning: The SFPD should have the tools to act quickly if a child is missing or a vehicle is used in a violent crime, he said, “because each minute matters.” So far, Flock has delivered consistent public safety results, Sherrill said. “If that changes or civil liberties are impacted, then I oppose it,” he added. That’s why it’s the board’s role to regularly review these contracts.” Manny Yekutiel Race : Supervisor District 8, representing the Castro, Noe Valley, and parts of the Mission The reasoning: At a District 8 forum this week at the Randall Museum, Yekutiel said residents and merchants have told him they support Flock’s license-plate readers. Yekutiel said he has “personally heard people getting shot and killed” from the Mission salon and cafe that bears his name. “When I say I want to give our public safety professionals the tools to fight crime, it’s personal,” he said. He believes in safeguards to prevent the technology from being abused. Though he told Mission Local he’s in favor of Flock’s contract, at the forum he added, “I do support the use of cameras and drones, [but] I have no allegiance to Flock.” ‘Serious concerns’: The anti-Flock crowd Dion-Jay Brookter Race : Supervisor District 10, representing Potrero Hill, Visitacion Valley and the Bayview The reasoning: Campaign manager Ryan McGilley said Brookter’s experience on the Police Commission informed his belief that public safety must protect residents and their privacy. “Recent reports raise serious concerns about collecting and retaining data that residents do not need to have collected,” McGilley said. Instead of mass surveillance, Brookter wants San Francisco to invest in crime prevention by creating pathways to jobs and opportunity, McGilley said, like the candidate does in his position as director of the nonprofit Young Community Developers. Brookter believes “public safety should be proactive, accountable, and rooted in community, not expanded surveillance,” McGilley said. Supervisor Connie Chan Race: Congressional District 11 The reasoning: In 2023, the Board of Supervisors voted to amend the city’s technology policy to allow the SFPD to adopt the Flock readers. At the time, Chan said, “I supported a limited tool for investigating serious crimes — not a privately controlled national surveillance network.” The safeguards that were supposed to protect the public “have failed,” she said, citing incidents nationally in which Flock’s network has been used to assist federal ICE tracking, stalk women , and monitor protesters. “A system that indiscriminately records millions of drivers’ movements and makes them searchable without a warrant is mass surveillance,” she said. “In Congress, I will fight to end federal funding for Flock.” JR Eppler Race : Supervisor District 10, representing Potrero Hill, Visitacion Valley and the Bayview The reasoning: Eppler cited improper searches of San Francisco’s Flock surveillance data. “A surveillance vendor entrusted with a detailed record of people’s movements does not get the benefit of the doubt after safeguards fail on that scale,” he said. While license-plate readers can help solve serious crimes, “the issue here is whether Flock can be trusted to protect San Franciscans’ data. It cannot.” Eppler said if San Francisco continues using license-plate readers, it should find a new vendor through a competitive process requiring shorter retention periods, enhanced barriers against unauthorized access, and meaningful penalties for misuse. “Public safety does not require blind trust in a private surveillance company. Flock failed the test, and San Francisco should move on.” Gary McCoy Race : Supervisor District 8, representing the Castro, Noe Valley, and parts of the Mission The reasoning: McCoy compared the reported Flock data breaches to the facial-recognition cameras in Castro bars that have spurred controversy . Visitors to the Castro deserve privacy and safety, McCoy said, particularly since some people may not be out of the closet. “Flock is a danger not just to the LGBTQ community and to everybody’s privacy and safety, but also to our undocumented community,” he said, noting that federal agencies access Flock data. “I have refused money from [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], from Flock lobbyists and staff, from AI companies, from private equity companies. I don’t know that other candidates in this race can say that,” he added. Michael Nguyen Race : Supervisor District 8, representing the Castro, Noe Valley, and parts of the Mission The reasoning: “I don’t think it’s worth the trade-off of public safety to have this huge loss of civil liberties,” Nguyen told the District 8 forum. A patent attorney and drag queen, Nguyen cited concerns that surveillance companies broadly are using facial-recognition software to track people’s movements. Nguyen called for more federal and state regulation of AI and technology-enabled surveillance. Darshini Patel Race : Supervisor District 8, representing the Castro, Noe Valley, and parts of the Mission The reasoning: “So, there are different types of public safety surveillance. Some work, and others absolutely do not,” Patel, a DoorDash staffer, said at the District 8 forum. Red-light cameras or stop-sign cameras are effective because motion detection ensures that the only people surveilled are those breaking laws, she said. By contrast, Flock is a “violation of our personal privacy” that is “not well governed.” “I would not renew Flock because it’s a violation of our personal privacy, and until we’re able to properly regulate it,” she said, adding that until “we see that it’s actually effective at doing its job, we should not be paying many millions of dollars.” She also voiced doubts that Flock has meaningfully improved public safety. The holdouts: No position on contract renewal Assemblymember Catherine Stefani Race: Assembly District 19, including western San Francisco neighborhoods, South San Francisco, Daly City, and Colma The reasoning: A staffer said Stefani is “declining to answer” whether San Francisco should continue its contract with Flock Safety. However, in a statement, the assemblymember said Flock cameras are a “valuable tool in stopping some of our most heinous crimes,” pointing to a recent San Francisco Chronicle story detailing how police used the technology to find a teenager who was being sex-trafficked. But, Stefani added, “abuses make clear that we need stronger safeguards, oversight, and consequences for misuse.” State Sen. Scott Wiener Race: Congressional District 11. The reasoning: Wiener’s campaign spokesperson, Joe Arellano, declined to state a position on San Francisco’s Flock Safety contract. Wiener’s position is nuanced, he said, and the candidate has been working to restrict license-plate reader data since 2020, “before anyone had ever heard of Flock.” Wiener’s License Plate Privacy Act of 2021, which failed in committee, would have required audits of the surveillance, restricted data sharing, and required license plate data to be deleted 24 hours after determination it was not a match for a vehicle involved in criminal activity. Wiener supports the use of the readers “in a responsible way to help fight crime in San Francisco, like car break-ins, and to catch violent criminals who are on the run,” Arellano said, but only with strict guardrails to prevent the Trump administration or other bad actors from misusing the data. As far as the vote to renew use of Flock Safety cameras in San Francisco, “Mayor [Daniel] Lurie and the Board of Supervisors will evaluate [automated license plate recognition systems] in San Francisco and decide whether to renew the contract and with what changes,” Arellano said, while Wiener “will continue to support and advocate for policies that restrict retention and use of this sensitive data.”

Lurie vowed to add more shelters. A $7M cabin community has sat empty nearly a year

Sixty tiny cabins, purchased by San Francisco for about $7 million to combat homelessness, currently shelter no one. For nearly a year, they’ve sat vacant in a Bayview parking lot — doors shut, windows dark — next to a nearly identical cabin community that’s fully operating on the other side of a green construction fence. City officials have not explained why half of the site, known as Jerrold Commons , houses older adults while the other sits empty, undercutting Mayor Daniel Lurie’s repeated pledges to reduce homelessness and clean up the streets. Earlier this year, Lurie touted the city’s lowest number of unsheltered homeless people — those living on the streets, in tents, or in vehicles — in 15 years. But this year’s point-in-time count, which tallied 3,400 unsheltered people, used a different methodology, making it hard to compare with prior years. A block away from the Bayview cabin site, a small encampment of tents, cardboard, and discarded mattresses lines the sidewalk. For Johnte McDowell, 50, who grew up in nearby Hunters Point and fell into homelessness following a divorce four years ago, the fix is obvious. “If they opened up those extra cabins, they’d fill them right up,” McDowell said. “Having my own little box sounds very appealing.” Purchased during former Mayor London Breed’s administration for more than $100,000 apiece, the cabins were designed as a temporary bridge to more stable housing. They opened on a Mission lot in 2024 as an “innovative shelter model,” offering privacy that dorm-style shelters couldn’t. But the Mission location was always meant as a placeholder, set to clear out once a long-planned affordable housing project broke ground. As the Mission deadline approached last fall, city officials and a partner nonprofit quietly began laying the groundwork to relocate the cabins to a vacant SoMa property and pair them with on-site addiction treatment, according to emails obtained by The Standard through a public records request. But within two weeks of the plan surfacing publicly, the mayor’s office abruptly pulled the plug and instead moved the cabins to the Bayview lot, where they’ve sat unused ever since. The vacant cabins stand as an expensive, and seemingly forgotten, symbol of policy inertia in San Francisco. Driven into storage by lease disputes, site complications and neighborhood backlash in SoMa, and now caught in a political fight over the concentration of homeless services in the Bayview, the cabins demonstrate how quickly a shelter plan can unravel — even in a city where a total of nearly 8,000 people remain homeless on the streets and in shelters. Lurie’s office and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing did not provide an explanation for why the cabins remain in storage or whether the city is actively pursuing alternative locations to bring them online. The mayor’s office declined to make Kunal Modi, Lurie’s senior homelessness adviser, available for an interview. A statement from Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for the homelessness department, focused on the decision to scrap the SoMa project, citing failed lease negotiations and noting that “not every property the city evaluates ultimately works.” Asked about the idle cabins after a press conference Tuesday, Lurie did not comment directly on the cabins but said his administration was “being thoughtful” about the kinds of shelter beds it opens. It’s a similar response to the one his office gave when it walked back a signature campaign promise to add 1,500 shelter beds within Lurie’s first six months in office. “Just standing up a shelter bed … does not work for everybody,” he said. “We need to get people off the street and into the right kind of bed.” Steve Good, CEO of Five Keys, the nonprofit tapped to run the shelter in SoMa before the plan was scrapped, said city officials have not reached out to him in the last year to discuss alternative sites for the cabins. “It’s unfortunate that we have 60 beds that can’t be utilized,” Good said. “It seems like a lost opportunity.” How the SoMa deal collapsed Quiet maneuvering began about three months before the Mission site’s November 2025 closing deadline. Staff at the Housing Accelerator Fund — a nonprofit helping to manage Lurie’s $49 million donor-backed Breaking the Cycle initiative — found what looked like an ideal replacement. The SoMa property is a vacant, triangular lot at 428 11th St., wedged between U.S. 101 and Costco, with few nearby homes or retailers and a “very reasonable” $270,000 annual rent. The Housing Accelerator Fund hired architects and signed a letter of intent for a three-year lease while the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing helped secure an expedited permit review. Officials also developed a plan to use the new location to expand RESTORE, a Department of Public Health program that pairs shelter with medication-assisted treatment. As momentum built, internal warnings about the tight timeline began to surface. On Aug. 15, 2025, Kate Hartley of the Housing Accelerator Fund emailed Modi that storing the cabins before deploying them to 11th Street was “not a viable option” given the cost and wear of two moves. Moving them directly to 11th Street was the “clear path forward,” she wrote. There were also concerns about the lease and site infrastructure. The property owners rejected a short-term exit clause, demanding a full three-year lease commitment instead, and officials worked to structure a guarantee without directly binding the city to it. Meanwhile, the site potentially needed a PG&E service upgrade, so officials were considering opening it at partial capacity and running it on temporary power at the outset. Neighborhood politics posed another challenge. City officials repeatedly delayed their public outreach strategy about the 11th Street project through August and September, according to the emails. The planned public outreach was undercut in mid-September, when SF Yimby , then the Chronicle, published articles about the plan. SoMa residents and merchants objected to the location because the area had already taken on more than its fair share of homeless housing and supportive services. Members of the SOMA West Community Benefit District met with Modi on Sept. 24 to voice their concerns that a new site would worsen existing problems — drug use, violence and break-ins — that they argued the city had failed to address at a nearby supportive housing complex. “You need to solve the current problem. Don’t create more issues for us,” SoMa resident Douglas Geerdes recalled saying during the meeting. “If you can’t even manage what’s existing, why are you taking on other projects in the neighborhood?” Four days later, Modi told Cohen, the spokesperson for the homelessness department, to pause community outreach on the project. Two days after that, the plan was dead. A pivot to the Bayview On the morning of Sept. 30, Foster emailed Modi that a decision was needed by the end of day, as the 11th Street lease letter of intent was set to expire the next day. She offered two options: The city could sign a letter guaranteeing the landlord its financial capacity for the three-year lease and proceed — permits were already in hand, with the site ready for a November cabin move — or abandon it for the Bayview. The Bayview option, which was raised in a meeting the day prior, meant walking away from roughly $300,000 already spent on architecture and design — a loss that would need to be disclosed to donors, Foster wrote. Later that day, Modi notified Foster in an email that the city was scrapping the 11th Street plan and moving the cabins to the Bayview strictly “as ‘storage’ at the moment.” Modi told Foster he’d call her to discuss how to “appropriately communicate with our funders” and that he was “confident much of the work will be useful in a new location at Jerrold,” according to an email. (The Standard obtained this email, among others, in response to a public records request with the homelessness department. The mayor’s office later said it had no record of the email when The Standard requested Modi’s correspondence with Housing Accelerator staff.) Nearly a year later, the storage designation stands, with no timeline, budget, or plan to reactivate the cabins. The day after the SoMa project was scrapped, Cohen circulated internal messaging on “why we are not moving forward with the proposed recovery cabins.” The statement said the city and property owners “were unable to reach mutually agreeable terms,” but officials would continue looking for alternative sites. Foster said in an interview this week that the Accelerator Fund hasn’t been involved in identifying any new sites since the SoMa lease fell through. In all, $219,000 was sunk into the project, according to a city record of Breaking the Cycle fund allocations. The sudden decision to move the cabins to the Bayview ignited a fresh political battle. Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents the Bayview, blasted the mayor, calling him an “oligarch” and accusing him of pulling a “bait and switch” by attempting to expand the Jerrold Commons shelter site without proper community engagement. While the Lurie administration framed the Bayview move as a temporary logistical stopgap, Walton argued that the district was already saturated with homeless services and was another example of city officials pushing more of them into lower-income neighborhoods. The complaint landed amid a broader debate inside city government over the uneven distribution of shelters and behavioral health facilities. San Francisco’s shelter system remains heavily concentrated in the Tenderloin, SoMa, Mission, and Bayview-Hunters Point, while many west-side neighborhoods don’t have any shelter beds. Shelter data for Walton’s district paints a more complicated picture. Bayview-Hunters Point accounts for 21% of the city’s unsheltered population but holds just 11% of its shelter beds, while SoMa holds 28% of the city’s beds but has just 11% of its unsheltered population, according to a January report from the homelessness department. Walton did not return calls or emails for this story. An aide for the supervisor declined to comment. To address these disparities and reform San Francisco’s homeless service system, the city adopted legislation last year aimed at capping new shelters in heavily saturated districts and, on Monday, launched a multiyear effort to overhaul how it awards homeless service contracts. Yet for community members eager to see improved street conditions, administrative policy reforms ring hollow when 60 usable cabins remain stuck behind a fence. “The current administration needs to fix this problem,” Geerdes said. “Sixty people aren’t housed because the city is not doing anything to solve it.”

City moves ahead with OpenGov software extension worth up to $38.9M

A Board of Supervisors committee on Wednesday unanimously approved extending a contract worth up to $38.9 million for OpenGov, a controversial software that Mayor Daniel Lurie has championed as part of his efforts to overhaul the city’s clunky permitting system. The 3-0 vote by the Budget and Finance Committee cleared one of the final hurdles for the city to lock in OpenGov as its permitting software for the next five years. The vote was approved by the committee without a recommendation, which occurs when there is disagreement among the voting members, and dissent came mostly from Supervisor Chyanne Chen. The contract extension is being handled by Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, and the full Board of Supervisors is expected to make a final decision in the coming weeks. Sherrill said a last-minute change to the contract allows the city more flexibility if it wants to pull out of the software deal. Before the vote, supervisors asked hard questions about why the mayor’s office chose OpenGov. The Standard reported last year that OpenGov’s founders had connections to Lurie’s nonprofit and that city staffers had preferred a cheaper software. Following the report, Supervisor Jackie Fielder promised to hold a hearing on OpenGov’s procurement . She also asked the budget and legislative analyst to investigate how OpenGov was chosen. Sherrill defended the selection process. “The procurement was different. The contract is different. The speed of procurement and implementation is different, and by different, I mean faster. Different is hard, but sometimes different is necessary. Change is necessary. Have we had a permitting system that is good and facilitates the construction of housing? No.” Fielder said her goal was to determine whether the city was getting the best bang for its buck with OpenGov, which signed a $5.9 million no-bid contract with the city last year. Former OpenGov staffers told The Standard the deal was the largest and most complex the company had ever undertaken, and the software lacked key features at the time. The 2025 contract ends Sept. 30. “I want to make one thing clear: I am not questioning whether San Francisco should have an integrated and best-in-class permitting system,” said Fielder. “Improving the public’s experience with city permitting is absolutely valuable. I am, however, questioning whether we got the best deal for this contract.” A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s vote. Former OpenGov employees and current city workers told The Standard in May that the shift to the software has had significant delays and that the company was unprepared to take on such a large project. Lurie’s initiative — dubbed “PermitSF” — currently allows a small set of permits to be acquired through the OpenGov system. On Wednesday, one of OpenGov’s project leads said there have been problems with the time it takes to issue some permits under the new system. Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, chalked up issues with implementation to “growing pains.” “The original implementation was months behind schedule, and as has been acknowledged, for some permit types, in fact, processing times are actually longer today than they were even under legacy systems,” he said. “I think we can accept that.” Dorsey said the flexibility of allowing the city to exit the contract was critical in his support for proceeding with the extension. Both Dorsey and Sherrill — allies of the mayor — were involved in pushing for the last-minute changes with Lurie’s office, Sherrill said. Lurie’s vision is to create a centralized permitting system. Today, those seeking permits that aren’t under OpenGov’s new system have to deal with multiple city departments using outdated software. Critics say the permitting infrastructure encourages corruption and delays construction projects. While there is no official count of the permit types available in the city, the estimate is 570. Lurie has denied that favoritism was involved in the selection of OpenGov. In February 2025, he set an aggressive benchmark for the city to stand up a new permitting infrastructure within one year, a timeline the mayor’s office said was part of its decision to rapidly select a vendor. “Had we done a [competitive bid], it would have likely added upward of six months to a year of additional process, delaying modernization and progress that our small businesses, homeowners, and home builders deserve,” said Liz Watty, a Planning Department official and a lead on the OpenGov project. Watty said OpenGov was “solidly under the average” price point, according to a Gartner Consulting Group report commissioned by the city in 2023. Watty acknowledged that the procurement of OpenGov could have been handled differently. She said the city should have had a standardized rubric for grading vendors. She also said that when the mayor’s office was seeking vendors last year, it used language suggesting that the city was not ready to make an immediate decision but quickly signed a contract with OpenGov within a matter of months. Watty said the mayor’s office will not use this type of language when procuring vendors going forward. Fielder said Ned Segal, a mayoral office policy chief who helped oversee the OpenGov project, was invited to testify at her hearing but did not appear. Watty said she helped make the final decision on OpenGov with Segal. Fielder asked whether Segal had contacted executives at other vendors before the city formally notified companies of its permitting needs, as he had with OpenGov’s CEO. Watty said she did not know because she joined the PermitSF project in June 2025, after those conversations took place. During Wednesday’s hearing, the budget and legislative analyst presented the findings of its inquiry. The office found that the original OpenGov contract was eight times the price of other no-bid software contracts and said Lurie should have issued a competitive bid for the software. “The best practices state that IT procurement must balance transparency and fairness in the procurement process with flexibility, and it’s the transparency and fairness aspects that we found lacking in this process,” said Fred Brousseau, director of policy analysis at the budget and legislative analyst’s office.

Rare alliance backs SF supervisor after board president boots him from committees

It isn’t every day that one of the city’s influential moderate political groups and its largest public-sector unions stand arm-in-arm. The odd bedfellows — GrowSF and SEIU Local 1021 — have come together with a handful of other organizations to protest Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s removal this month from two board committees. Mahmood on Aug. 17 accused Board President Rafael Mandelman of stripping him of his membership in the Land Use and Transportation and Government Audit and Oversight committees over disagreements about a historic preservation bill authored by Mandelman. “We find the removal of Supervisor Mahmood for simply engaging in the normal legislative process to be unjustified,” states the letter, which was obtained by The Standard. “San Franciscans expect their legislators to debate, amend, and compromise in public, without fear of retaliation. Absent any demonstrated malfeasance on the part of a supervisor, the decision to remove one involuntarily based on policy disagreement is both undemocratic and is not in the best interest of the city.” The letter, also signed by SEIU Local 2015, UA Local 38 Plumbers and Pipefitters, Sheetmetal Workers Local 104, SF YIMBY, and the Council on American Islamic Relations (Mahmood is the sole Muslim member of the Board of Supervisors), requests that Mahmood be reinstated to the two committees. “[R]egardless of one’s perspective on underlying legislation, committee assignments should not be lost due to disagreements on policy — that is fundamental to the democratic process,” it states. “City Hall works best when these disagreements are handled through open debate at the dais, not through unnecessary and unwarranted committee demotions.” In an interview, Mandelman said he’s unlikely to change the current assignments. “Committee assignments are a complicated thing,” he said. “Each move impacts other supervisors. I think I’m pretty OK with the assignments we have now.” Mahmood — who helped draft the letter with the signatories — said the organizations backing him “don’t normally agree.” “But I think for them to come out in this moment to make a statement is a unique consensus position not about one individual,” he added. “It is about standing up for good governance.” The disagreement stems from Mahmood critiquing as anti-housing Mandelman’s effort to streamline historic landmark designations, a bill supported by Mayor Daniel Lurie. Mahmood has tried amending the bill, changes Mandelman claims would add bureaucracy to landmarking. Steven Buss Bacio of GrowSF said that even though he considers Mandelman a “good ally,” he was “really disappointed” to see the board president remove Mahmood from the committees. “Bilal has been an incredible ally and force for more housing in the city,” Buss Bacio said. “I was really disappointed to see him get unceremoniously removed from the land use committee. I think he was doing a really good job. I don’t like the way it went down.” Brandon Powell, the Bay Area organizing director for YIMBY Action, described Mandelman’s move as “just inappropriate.” Asked if he’d gotten any clarification from Mandelman over the intent of his legislation, Powell said, “I’ve only seen his dismissive quotes in the press. We think his responses don’t address our concerns in any serious way, and frankly, are beneath him.” A representative with SEIU Local 1021 did not respond to a request for comment. The Mandelman-Mahmood brawl may portend a political race. Mandelman has opened a committee to run for Assemblymember Matt Haney’s seat. (Haney may seek state Sen. Scott Wiener’s seat if Wiener wins his campaign to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi.) The Standard has reported that Mahmood has expressed interest in running for Haney’s seat, too, though he waved off the possibility when asked about it.

California Forever’s new city plan hits local resistance — but lawmakers could forge ahead

A plan to build a new, billionaire-backed city in rural Solano County has run into a fresh wave of local resistance. This time it’s over a last-minute deal led by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office to facilitate development of a major shipbuilding hub. Solano County leaders voted 3-2 on Tuesday night to oppose proposed state legislation that would make it easier for California Forever — the Silicon Valley-funded initiative seeking to build a city of up to 400,000 residents on open farmland — to develop a 1,350-acre site along the Sacramento- San Joaquin River Delta for shipbuilding by forgoing a new environmental review. The vote is the latest sign of how far California Forever’s pitch has shifted: what began as a proposal for a walkable new city has increasingly centered on shipbuilding and industrial development, with housing pushed to a later phase. The local pushback highlights the uncertainty surrounding the developer’s broader plans. Weeks after losing a top defense startup to Texas, the waterfront site has no active shipbuilders lined up, yet the proposed state legislation declares that “development of maritime uses in this area is urgent and a matter of statewide importance.” The proposed legislation, introduced in the final days of this year’s legislative session, was hashed out in closed-door meetings between the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, California Forever, and state and local lawmakers. It drew sharp criticism from environmental groups, residents and Solano County leaders, who argued Tuesday that they had not been given sufficient time to engage with stakeholders or weigh in on the proposal. Supervisor Mitch Mashburn, who voted to oppose the legislation as written, said the county shouldn’t be forced into a decision simply because time was short. Instead, he moved to keep working with all interested parties on a stronger proposal for next year’s legislative session. “I think that we need to continue to work on this legislation,” he said. “The piece, for me, that gave it urgency was worrying about whether the governor was going to cram it down our throats. And I got to tell you right now, I ain’t really that afraid of the governor.” Despite the county’s vote, state officials could still move forward with the legislation but they would need to act quickly before the legislative session ends on Aug. 31. By California Forever’s own account, the narrow scope of the proposed bill could be its undoing. Earlier this month, the company publicly opposed an earlier draft that would fast-track permitting for the shipyard and industrial park without including the Suisun City expansion — a plan to annex thousands of acres in the city for housing and manufacturing. California Forever said that such a fracturing would “guarantee that these employment centers are approved on paper but never get built.” The bill that emerged does just that. Endorsed by Assemblymember Lori Wilson, D-Suisun City, and Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, D-West Sacramento, it would designate a 1,350-acre waterfront site in eastern Solano County as a maritime industrial zone for shipbuilding and allows developers to rely on an 18-year-old environmental report instead of requiring a new environmental review. Both Cabaldon and Wilson stressed Tuesday that the proposed bill did not include the annexation plan, that no shipyard proposal has been submitted and it did not force county officials to approve any future projects. Wilson characterized it as “a decision to prepare, rather than a decision to develop.” Solano Together, a coalition of local residents and organizations opposed to California Forever’s vision, has called the effort a “billionaire power grab.” Rio Vista Councilmember Sarah Connelly said she was “appalled” California Forever was trying to bypass the state’s environmental laws, calling the initiative a “Trojan horse.” Lucía Muñoz, a policy associate at the environmental nonprofit Save The Bay, said that allowing the bay to be dredged for a shipyard without first requiring a new environmental impact report would “set a terrible precedent.” California Forever’s vision was originally sold as an idyllic, walkable city of 400,000 with European-style architecture built on rural pastureland. The plan became public in 2023, after the company spent years secretively buying up property under an umbrella entity. It’s backed by high-profile tech investors including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, and Michael Moritz, chairman of The Standard. The legislative push follows years of local opposition and a series of high-profile pivots. After withdrawing its proposed 2024 ballot measure that would have allowed residents to vote directly on the master plan, the company shifted to courting officials directly. The company anchored its revamped proposal in the shipyard and a 2,100-acre manufacturing hub, referred to as the Solano Foundry. They also reached an agreement with neighboring Suisun City to build out their city and thousands of housing units on annexed land. That strategy suffered a major blow last month when defense startup Saronic Technologies pulled out of negotiations to build a $3.2 billion shipyard on the site, opting for Texas instead. After the loss, California Forever said that every month without legislation to fast-track the development proposal was “a month in which Solano County and California lose more companies to other states.” This isn’t the company’s first high-stakes pressure campaign. According to CalMatters , California Forever mounted a similar drive last year when they pressed Solano County officials for a last-minute vote on shipyard legislation that ultimately fizzled out. This year, the company appeared to follow a similar playbook. To help advance its legislative push, California Forever brought on former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and former Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg as “special counsel.” The company also reached agreements with two major Bay Area building trades unions earlier this year, committing to use union labor for the majority of the project’s construction. In exchange, the labor groups launched a petition pressing elected officials to permit groundbreaking on the shipyard and manufacturing hub. A January 2026 report by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute projected the Suisun Expansion and Solano Shipyard would create more than 530,000 jobs and $16 billion in annual tax revenue. Despite the many political and commercial obstacles that remain, California Forever is still projecting confidence. In a June podcast interview , CEO Jan Sramek said the company expected to open a wait list for prospective homebuyers “later this year or early next year” — even as the shipyard and manufacturing hub — central to the company’s current pitch — still lack legislative approval to move forward.

San Francisco wins fight over billions in Trump-threatened aid

Billions of dollars in federal housing and transportation aid earmarked for San Francisco and other cities suddenly came with new strings last year after President Donald Trump directed agencies across the government to strip programs touching diversity, gender identity, abortion, and immigration. Even though grantees had already been awarded the funds after applying for them in 2024, the dispersal of such aid was held up as local governments challenged the president’s orders in court . One year later, the cities have won. A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday voted to uphold an order blocking the federal government’s conditions on housing and transportation grants. The ruling protects roughly $240 million in annual funding to the Department of Housing and Urban Development in San Francisco, including about $50 million for homelessness services, according to the city attorney’s office, which was one of eight plaintiffs that sued the federal government. Alongside those housing funds, the ruling protects some $2 billion the city receives from agencies under the Department of Transportation. “These grant conditions are not only illegal, but they also have nothing to do with the purpose or performance of these grants,” City Attorney David Chiu said in statement. The plaintiffs sued HUD and the Department of Transportation last year after the agencies rewrote grant agreements to require recipients to certify that they operate no programs that violate federal anti-discrimination law; promise not to spend funds promoting “gender ideology” or elective abortion; and verify the immigration status of individual recipients. U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle blocked the conditions last June. The administration appealed. Writing for a three-judge panel on the appeals court, Judge M. Margaret McKeown found that most conditions “far exceed the limited authority set out by Congress and superimpose onerous requirements well after the government already awarded grant funds.” Last year , the city was set to receive $56 million for 35 homelessness assistance projects under HUD’s Continuum of Care program, an annual grant since 1994. Such funds are meant to help organizations that assist vulnerable populations achieve long-term housing stability, such as the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp., which used $1.1 million in previous awards for the construction of a 70-unit affordable housing project at 180 Jones St. The panel did give the government one win, ruling that Title VI (of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) permits agencies to require nondiscrimination assurances covering federally funded programs. The panel sent the case back to Rothstein to narrow her initial injunction accordingly. Appeals Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, arguing that Congress gave HUD broad discretion over how its money is spent and that the court had “step[ped] into the political arena” and was “decid[ing] what we think is best for the country.” San Francisco and its plaintiff partners also sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over similar grant conditions and secured a preliminary injunction last summer. The federal administration has separately appealed this injunction to the Ninth Circuit. According to the city attorney’s office, San Francisco relies on approximately $325 million in non-Medicaid and non-Medicare HHS grant funding, which supports early childhood development, disease prevention, and mental health services.

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.

Could a San Francisco progressive like Abdul El-Sayed knock out moderate Dems?

Abdul El-Sayed just delivered for progressives in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. El-Sayed, a former public health official, ran his campaign on an unabashed pro-Palestinian platform, even going as far as to say Israel shouldn’t exist as a purely Jewish state . The eyes of progressives across the country are on El-Sayed as he’s set to face off with Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s general election, as his win may prove that left-wing politicians — and not moderate centrists — may be the right candidates to lead against Republicans, at least in some districts. El-Sayed’s victory is not the only sign that the Democratic Party’s left flank may be regaining some momentum. In New York, progressive Mayor Zohran Mamdani has emerged as a national power broker after helping elect a slate of left-wing congressional candidates. In Washington, D.C., democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic primary for mayor, effectively securing the job in the heavily Democratic city. And in Seattle, democratic socialist Katie Wilson took office as mayor earlier this year. Here in San Francisco, progressives aplenty dot November’s ballot, so at Power Play we thought we’d break down the likelihood that a similarly far-left candidate could catch fire here, particularly in light of our own nationally important race — the bid to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Congress. Well, just how popular was El-Sayed? That’s the first thing to know — while his own polling showed him comfortably leading Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate Democrat, he ended up finishing under a percentage point ahead of her when the race was called by the AP . It was a true squeaker. The New York Times detailed the bulk of his coalition: younger voters, college students, educated people, and wealthy white voters. How does that match up with San Francisco? “We certainly have the latter of those,” campaign consultant Daniel Anderson told Power Play. Though San Francisco’s wealthy white voters have leaned more centrist lately, as seen in the election of Mayor Daniel Lurie, as for younger folks, well, San Francisco has one of the smallest shares of under-30-year-olds of any major city , according to a recent data dive by the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s becoming essentially a very wealthy suburb,” Anderson said, “the voting behavior is looking more and more like that.” Didn’t we see a bunch of rabble-rousing young progressives screaming like BTS fans at former congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti’s Hasan Piker rally ? Absolutely, but it didn’t do him much good, in the end. In the District 11 congressional primary to succeed Pelosi , Chakrabarti lost to fellow progressive Connie Chan, with 18% to Chan’s 30%. More to the point, state Sen. Scott Wiener , considered a centrist, got nearly 41% of the vote. Chan is a progressive, but in the San Francisco mold: against corporate money in elections, yes, and not a fan of billionaires, but more interested in local issues like stopping tenant displacement than trumpeting international concerns. San Francisco’s sophisticated local politics guarantee a good chunk of voters are the same. Seattle just elected a democratic socialist mayor. What’s the lesson there? Wilson had never held elected office before unseating incumbent Bruce Harrell . A longtime community organizer, she made affordability the centerpiece of her campaign, calling for higher taxes on the wealthy to fund affordable housing and other public services. Like El-Sayed, her victory has fueled the argument that unapologetically progressive candidates can still win in expensive, Democratic cities. Speaking of the congressional race in SF, Wiener got a ton of backlash when he didn’t call the war in Gaza a “genocide.” Is that a major parallel with El-Sayed’s race, considering Palestine was one of his central planks? On the surface, it may seem like it, since both of San Francisco’s congressional candidates are now on record calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. But the prominence of the issue is what’s at play. “I would never expect it to be a defining issue in San Francisco,” Eric Kingsbury , a member of the San Francisco Democratic Party board, told Power Play, particularly for demographic reasons. San Francisco simply doesn’t have the same demographic makeup as Michigan, he argued — even our college-educated population is wealthier than other cities, he noted, a decidedly different slice to the demographic. The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC spent big against El-Sayed because of Palestine’s prominence in his race. Is that likely here, too? AIPAC reportedly spent at least $30 million to help El-Sayed’s rival, Stevens. While there have been mistaken call-outs of AIPAC money in the District 11 race, local AIPAC spending hasn’t reached those heights. “It’s like such a negative association among certainly progressives and liberals,” Anderson noted, that the money would almost certainly backfire here. Another Michigan difference: El-Sayed netted overwhelming support in Arab American and Muslim-majority precincts in Detroit and other parts of Michigan. Those groups don’t enjoy similar numbers here. Progressives are cooked, then, is what you’re saying? Not at all. Nadia Rahman, Chakrabarti’s political director and a San Francisco political consultant in her own right, noted that the city’s pendulum of power tends to swing back and forth between moderates and progressives. And as Wilson argued to voters in Seattle, “we’re at like the peak of a new affordability crisis here,” Rahman said, a national problem amplified locally by the AI industry boom driving up rent . Even Lurie , whose favorability numbers have been in the stratosphere, frequently topping 70%, has seen backlash in the comments of his social media videos from San Franciscans demanding more action on affordability. “Are people going to be out with their pitchforks, or is it like just a simmering boil right now?” Rahman said. That’ll make the difference for progressives. When the affordability crisis peaks, then, it’ll be like a Bat Signal to progressive Democrats who will swoop in with a solution? Not so fast. Rahman has her doubts. “Can a candidate like Abdul El-Sayed win here? That is likely a reflection of how strong and how organized” local progressives are, she said. “Right now, there’s like an absence of leadership in the progressive faction politically.” And there’s still time for Lurie and his moderate Democrat allies on the Board of Supervisors to tackle the affordability crisis. They’re certainly trying — Supervisor Danny Sauter has focused on paid leave for parents , and Lurie committed $34 million from this year’s budget to help low-income people keep their health insurance. “The congressional race will demonstrate where the city’s at and how coordinated the progressive camp can be,” Rahman said. “They have to get back to like their top tier of organizing again to pull something off like that.” Got tips? Send them to us at powerplay@sfstandard.com .

The Board of Supervisors enacts legislation and amends municipal codes. It approves budgets, oversees city departments, and confirms mayoral appointments. It holds the authority to reject appointments and propose city policies.

Board of Supervisors

Connie Chan

Stephen Sherrill

Danny Sauter

Alan Wong

Bilal Mahmood

Matt Dorsey

Myrna Melgar

Rafael Mandelman

Jackie Fielder

Shamann Walton

Chyanne Chen

The Mayor oversees the executive functions of San Francisco, implementing policies and managing city departments. Directs budget planning, prioritizes public safety, economic recovery, and homelessness initiatives. Exercises authority in appointing officials and shaping legislative agendas.

Mayor

Daniel Lurie

The Mission Bay Transportation Improvement Fund Advisory Committee advises on the allocation of transportation improvement funds in the Mission Bay area. It provides expertise on transportation needs related to events and local developments. The committee ensures funds address community and business transportation priorities effectively.

Mission Bay Transportation Improvement Fund Advisory Council

Municipal Transportation Agency manages San Francisco's transportation system, including driving, parking, buses, Muni, and paratransit. It develops performance measures and standards, ensuring safety, efficiency, and equitable service distribution. The agency also focuses on optimizing transit infrastructure and encouraging public transit use.

Municipal Transportation Agency

Julie Kirschbaum

The Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors oversees San Francisco's entire ground transportation system. It provides policy oversight, approves budgets, and sets fares, fees, and fines. The board appoints the Director of Transportation and ensures public interest representation.

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors Commissioner 1

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors Commissioner 2

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors Commissioner 3

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors Commissioner 4

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors Commissioner 5

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors Commissioner 6

Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors Commissioner 7

The Municipal Transportation Agency Citizens' Advisory Council advises on transportation policies in San Francisco. It focuses on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, congestion reduction, and carbon emission strategies. The council provides insights to enhance public transit efficiency and prioritize commercial access.

Municipal Transportation Agency Citizens' Advisory Council

The Paratransit Coordinating Council advises on paratransit services in San Francisco. It provides expertise on accessibility and transportation needs for individuals with disabilities. It offers recommendations to improve paratransit operations and policies.

Paratransit Coordinating Council

Public transit, traffic, parking, and transportation infrastructure