San Francisco Dreamin’: Can a gov't outsider reawaken the slumbering city?
Disillusionment might have reached a nadir when Mayor Breed’s Dream Keeper Initiative—with its big promises for uplift—face-planted in scandal. Then there’s the economic flight from Union Square and FiDi. Restless SF voters chose Daniel Lurie, with no prior government experience, to replace Breed. City Journal’s Erica Sandberg welcomes the shake-up, but wonders if Mayor Lurie can deliver.
Breed’s pet project, the Dream Keeper Initiative (DKI), which cost $60 million annually prior to this year’s budget and siphoned $120 million from law enforcement, was supposed to boost the city’s black community. Instead, it became mired in scandal and cronyism. Sheryl Davis, executive director of the Human Rights Commission and a friend of the mayor, ran DKI. Davis resigned after reporters uncovered multiple financial improprieties, including her signing off on $1.5 million in contracts to a person she lived with, without disclosing their relationship.
While Breed’s friends did well for themselves, the San Francisco residents and business owners crying out for help were often ignored. Illegal vending in Chinatown crippled legitimate merchants; they got no help from authorities. When major retailers fled Union Square and the financial district hollowed out, city hall couldn’t stem the bleeding. Drug dealers turned the Civic Center area into a night market for all things noxious and unsafe. Though the mayor claimed that she would break it up, X documentarians such as FriscoLive415 proved that little had changed.
No one in city government seemed willing or able to do the hard work that residents and business owners expected. And no one in government seemed to pay a price for these failures. In the end, if you’re employed by the city, you’re family. You’re protected. Accountability is just a pretty word.
That’s where Daniel Lurie comes in. He appealed to voters largely because he’s not in the city family. The Levi Strauss heir, philanthropist, and founder of the anti-poverty nonprofit Tipping Point has never been a city supervisor, department head, or commissioner, or held any other political office.
Whether Lurie can lead San Francisco into its next great revival is unknown. Plenty of skeptics remain. For now, most citizens are grateful that he’s not part of a city establishment that has turned incestuous and lazy. But San Franciscans’ patience has run thin: if Lurie fails to deliver visible results after his term begins in January, positive opinion will likely fade fast.
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