We are all, of course, glad that (for the moment) federal troops are not walking the streets of San Francisco. But the way this all came down tells us two things:
The billionaires are entirely in charge in this city today. Mayor Daniel Lurie was not the one who first called Donald Trump to try to get him to back off; two tech moguls, Mark Benioff and Jensen Huang did that. If they hadn’t decided to act (in part, I strongly suspect, because filling a tourist city with federal troops is very bad for business, and an ICE crackdown would have made it hard or impossible to hold large conventions at Moscone Center), then Trump would have gone ahead with his plans.
Thge good news about this, as Brian Edwards-Tiekert, the host of KPFA’s Up Front show, posted on Facebook:
I’m going to lay out a hypothesis about why Trump’s suddenly backing away from a crackdown in San Francisco (and possibly the rest of the Bay Area): 1) this place is organized, and 2) the wealthy, powerful people Trump listens to are especially vulnerable to organizing-driven-polarization.
Two weeks ago, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff publicly mused that sending the National Guard to SF was a good idea. Now he’s privately talking Trump out of it. Why?
Because he’s in a bad position to weather which-side-are-you-on moments.
Like other tech concerns, Salesforce has been chasing federal contracts (with ICE!) because . . . money. Like other Bay Area tech concerns, Salesforce runs off the labor of high-skilled workers whose politics land to the left of their bosses’ politics. Uniquely among other Bay Area tech concerns, Salesforce’s workforce is concentrated in the most prominent skyscraper in downtown SF – an *easy* and *obvious* target for protests over an ICE crackdown.
No company wants to be at war with its own workers. Lucky for capitalism, plenty of people can ignore moral compromises for the sake of a paycheck.
But ignoring it gets harder when masked thugs working for an authoritarian regime are snatching people off the street and lobbing teargas into crowds outside your window.
I was at a Litquake event Saturday, and one of the people reading mentioned Benioff, and the whole room shook with loud boos. That wouldn’t have happened a month ago.
Still: Not a good thing that the safety of thousands of people in San Francisco depends on Mark Benioff’s concern for his image.
The second thing we learned: Lurie is willing to work with Trump, to be “very nice” on the phone, and to act as if this is all remotely normal or acceptable. A convicted felon and pathological liar who is destroying democracy and imposing authoritarianism, terrifying communities, and arresting, disappearing, and killing people with no regard for the rule of law is not someone you should be “very nice” to.
This is not normal, and it’s not remotely okay, and the mayor of San Francisco needs to tell us he agrees. Unless he doesn’t, which is even more alarming.
One of the most powerful arguments against Lurie’s Rich Family Housing Plan is that it will allow developers to demolish buildings and displace hundreds of small businesses along commercial corridors like Geary, Clement, Judah, Irving, and Taraval.
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Sup. Myrna Melgar has proposed a “Small Business Rezoning Construction Relief Program,” which she says will help prevent widespread displacement, but it’s a somewhat unusual bill:
This ordinance creates the Small Business Rezoning Construction Relief Fund and the Small Business Rezoning Construction Relief Program. The Program will utilize monies collected in the Fund to assist Small Businesses displaced or impacted by increased residential construction resulting from the City’s residential rezoning program that will be adopted in 2025-2026 to implement the City’s housing production goals required by state law. The Fund will receive grants, gifts, and bequests, and monies appropriated by the Board of Supervisors. This ordinance also would allow taxpayers to designate up to four percent of their annual gross receipts tax liability for deposit in the Fund beginning with the 2025 tax year, with an annual total cap of $8 million in designated amounts from all taxpayers.
No specific protections for small businesses. No requirement that speculators and developers who make money by displacing existing small businesses pay to make them whole. In fact, there’s no money at all, unless enough businesses check the box that allows them to divert some money from their taxes for this (and that isn’t new money; it will come out of the General Fund).
Plus: $8 million? To address the needs of potentially hundreds of businesses that will need money to sign a new lease at a much higher price, move, let their customers know where they are, renovate new space, get permits … I don’t think this is going to solve the problem.
The bill comes before the Budget and Finance Committee Wednesday/29. The hearing starts at 10am.
Sup. Cheyanne Chen has another bill that would make permanent what is now a temporary requirement that a developer get a conditional use permit before replacing a legacy business with another commercial use. That doesn’t stop evictions and displacement, but it makes the process more difficult, and gives the community a chance to weigh in at a Planning Commission hearing. That’s before the Land Use and Transportation Committee Monday/27.
The Land Use and Transportation Committee, and then the full board, will also consider a measure by Sup. Danny Sauter than would undo decades of carefully crafted legislation to protect small locally owned businesses in North Beach.
The bill would abolish the North Beach Special Use District and wipe out limits on the size of commercial spaces, allowing bigger businesses to expand into several storefronts, wiping out smaller outfits. Stuart Watts, president of the North Beach Business Association, notes in a letter to the supes:
The Use Size Cap is a critical tool that has helped North Beach maintain its unique character as a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood. Its removal during recent Land Use and Board of Supervisors meetings occurred without consultation with the very businesses it affects. This cap ensures that no single type of business dominates our streetscape, preserving the diverse ecosystem of shops, services, and dining that makes North Beach a destination for both residents and visitors. We respectfully request this provision be reinstated to protect the economic diversity that has made our neighborhood thrive for generations.
The groups is also asking the supes to:
Exclude Health Services from Central North Beach: While we value healthcare access, medical facilities operate on fundamentally different economics than retail businesses. With substantially higher funding and revenue per square foot, health services can outbid traditional retailers, driving up rents across the district. Moreover, medical facilities typically restrict public access, creating dead zones in our walkable shopping district. Imagine if beloved community gathering spots became clinical spaces, the character of our neighborhood would fundamentally change. The neighborhood already greatly benefits from the resources of NEMS and UCSF’s urgent care clinic. Strengthen Restaurant Density Controls: North Beach already has the highest concentration of restaurants and bars per capita of any residential neighborhood in San Francisco. Our existing regulation preventing restaurants from replacing non-restaurant businesses has successfully maintained affordability and diversity. However, with 5 of 8 current vacant storefronts being former restaurants, we risk further concentration. Restaurant spaces require costly infrastructure that makes conversion difficult and expensive, potentially locking in uses that limit future flexibility. We need measured controls to ensure residents can still access essential services like hardware stores, markets, and specialty shops within walking distance.
Richard Drury, a lawyer representing Small Business Forward, notes:
The Rezone will entirely eliminate the North Beach Special Use District (“SUD”). In so doing, the Rezone will eliminate important protections for historic resources and displacement of residents and legacy businesses. The Rezone will also allow larger storefronts (up to 3,000 square feet rather than 2,000), will allow storefront mergers, will remove restrictions on restaurants in Jackson Square and North Beach, and will allow uses in North Beach that are currently prohibited, including walk-up facilities, first floor health services, and flexible retail. On Pacific Avenue, the Rezone would allow first floor health services, and flexible retail, all of which are currently prohibited. All of these changes will have potentially significant environmental impacts that must be analyzed and mitigated under the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”).
As Shayne Watson reported in 48hills in July, It would also threaten the legacy of LGBTQ history in North Beach:
State Senator Scott Wiener, newly elected Mayor Daniel Lurie, and District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter have decided that historic preservation—especially preservation rooted in queer, immigrant, and working-class history—doesn’t serve their political calculus. Their donor-driven, deregulation-first agenda has no room for cultural memory. Only demolition, speculation, and vertical profit.
Wiener, who has built his political identity on LGBTQ+ advocacy, is now actively undermining the physical legacy of the very community he claims to represent. You don’t get to wrap yourself in rainbow flags every June and then block recognition of the neighborhood where queer culture first took root in this city.
North Beach is where it started. Before the Castro, before Harvey Milk, there was Mona’s, the first lesbian bar in San Francisco—opened in 1933 at a time when queer people faced police raids, public shaming, and jail time for simply existing. North Beach was the city’s first queer neighborhood, with dozens of gathering places that allowed queer life to grow—underground, under siege, and against the odds.
The Land Use and Transportation Committee will hear the matter at 3pm Monday/27, and Chair Melgar intends to send the measure to the full board for its Tuesday/28 meeting.
