Daniel Lurie took the oath of office today in front of some 2,000 people in Civic Center Plaza. The people in the exclusive front seating were mostly white, mostly not from established political groups—and not surprisingly, San Francisco high society seemed well represented.
Lurie was sworn in, then proceeded to talk almost entirely about drugs and crime.
There are all sorts of issues and challenges facing the city, but Lurie didn’t propose any solutions to, say the affordable housing crisis. He barely mentioned housing at all.
He barely mentioned Muni and transit, and didn’t offer any proposals.
Instead, he devoted about two-thirds of his inaugural address to cracking down on Fentanyl dealers, making downtown safe for tourists (with more cops) and said, very clearly, “there will be zero cuts to sworn officers, 911 staff, firefighters or nurses.”
That means there will be a lot more cuts to the sorts of social service that can prevent crime in the first place.
Lurie gave a hint of that when he said the city would fund “high-performing nonprofits.” That means his administration can decide that some community-based organizations are no performing at his standards, and cut their money.
Not surprisingly, he never mentioned taxes or new sources of revenue. He never mentioned economic inequality. He never mentioned education.
He proposed two specific things:
He promised a “police-friendly” drop-off center where cops can take people who are arrested on drug charges as an alternative to the county jail, which is already badly overcrowded. Not sure how this will work; the treatment facilities needed for hundreds of new inmates don’t exist, and there’s no money to fund them.
Then he proposed a package of Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinances that he will send to the Board of Supes next week. “I look forward to working with the incoming Board of Supervisors for their quick approval,” he said.
The problem here is that, as MissionLocal reports, it’s not legal to declare a state of emergency over the Fentanyl problem. From a city attorney memo (again, thanks to MissionLocal):
“An emergency, for purposes of the Charter” is an “unforeseen occurrence or combination of occurrences which calls for an immediate action or remedy …” notes the memo. “The first test is whether the emergency situation is sudden or unexpected. The situation must be something that the City could not have specifically anticipated and prevented, such as an earthquake or a terrorist attack.”
That does not describe drug sales on the city streets.
I’ve looked at the basics of the ordinance he wants, and it would give him unusual powers to bypass the city’s contacting system (he could issue contracts without the supes approval), change the city’s hiring process to let him hire people without the normal checks and balances, and waive all rules against behested payments to allow him and his staff to reach out to rich people for money.
He also calls for a special Hospitality Zone Task Force to focus more cops on Union Square, Market Street, and Moscone Center.
All of this might make the wealthy folks who supported him more comfortable.
But Lurie made clear he’s going to continue the cops-first approach to social problems:
San Francisco has long been known for its values of tolerance and inclusion. But nothing about those values instructs us to allow nearly 8,000 people to experience homelessness in our city. Widespread drug dealing, public drug use, and constantly seeing people in crisis has robbed us of our sense of decency and security.
He also promised to expand the program that Mayor London Breed used to give people who are homeless or have mental health or substance issues tickets out of town. The idea, of course, is to send people someplace where they have supportive family; in reality, it exports our problems to other cities and towns.
Lurie talked a lot in his speech about “hope,” and and even (I would say rather inappropriately) quoted Harvey Milk, whose speech about “you have to give them hope” was not remotely about cracking down on drug use. That famous Milk quote, which is often abused by politicians trying to make points, actually came from a pretty radical speech. Just for the record, here is part of what Milk said in June of 1977:
There is probably no minority in this city that hasn’t been ignored—on the human level—by the present Board of Supervisors. It’s no longer the Seniors, the unemployed, the Asian community, the Gay, the Blacks, the Latins and so forth. They’re all US. It’s US against THEM. If you add up all the USes, you’ll find we outnumber the THEMS. And yet the THEMS control.
The THEMS get most of the pie, the anointed leaders get a few crumbs- -and therefore sing the praises of their masters–and the community gets a few invisible specks.
That was what Harvey Milk talked about when he ran for supervisor. It was not the theme of Mayor Lurie’s inaugural speech.
In fact, the “hope” mostly seemed about giving the already wealthy hope for cleaner streets, for never having to see the unhoused, or contend with the results of the economic inequality that has given them so much at the cost of so many lives.
I hope he comes to recognize that.
District Attorney Brook Jenkins stopped on her way to the inauguration to take a few questions from the press. I don’t think she realized I was there.
I asked her about the conditions in the county jail, where overcrowding and the problems of a population contending with withdrawal and mental health problems have created a dangerous situation for both prisoners and guards. If you keep arresting people for drug use, where are they going to go?
Jenkins told me she wants to see a “public health” alternative.
But the city doesn’t have the facilities to handle that; there’s no room at SF General Hospital, and there aren’t enough inpatient treatment facilities—not even close.
“We need to create that,” she said. (She also said she wanted to be sure the mayor didn’t cut her budget, so she could keep locking people up)
I asked: With what money will we create this alternative?
Jenkins turned and walked away.
I had a similar, but more cordial conversation with Sup. Matt Dorsey, who has called for 100 arrests a day of people using drugs in Soma. Where are you going to put them?
Dorsey admitted he didn’t have the answer. “That’s why I’ve done a letter of inquiry,” he said. “I want to get city departments to tell me how this could happen.”
Let me suggest: Not without a lot of money, or a lot of misery.
