San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie Takes Your Questions
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. Daniel Lurie cruised to victory in the San Francisco mayor's race promising common sense politics. What would he do? He'd do the smart right thing. A month into his term, we check in with him about whether his brand of pragmatism can hold up in the wilds of San Francisco politics or not.

What surprised him about leading the city and his plans to deliver on his promises around fentanyl, homelessness, and city governance? That's all coming up next, right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. I'm of two minds right now about San Francisco. On the one hand, I spent Saturday in the Presidio and in Japantown, and those places were just packed and fun and vibrant, like as good as a city can get.

And on the other hand, the MTA is in trouble, the federal government may attack us, and the empty retail and commercial space in downtown feels like it may never fill back up. I've never been higher on San Francisco as a place of refuge in a country with a national government that's turned hostile to all kinds of diversity. And I'm worried that the pandemic lit a fuse on a string of economic explosions that we have not seen the end of.

All this to say, we've got the mayor with us, Daniel Lurie, the first outsider to San Francisco city politics in a long, long time to hold that office. And he's a month into his job. And it feels like this city is going to go hard in one direction or another during his tenure. Welcome back to Fork, Mayor Lurie. Alexis, it's great to be with you again.

So if you imagine, you know, four years from now, say, what had to go right for the city to be on firm financial footing and also, you know, thriving and vibrant the way we want it to be?

That we were cleared-eyed in taking on our biggest challenges, that we are having departments working really well together, that the Board of Supervisors and myself are working well together to meet the moment. And that is that we have a historic budget deficit, close to a billion dollars and possibly growing, and that we have really committed ourselves to making the tough decisions that

And four years from now, that shows the world that we are open for business, that people have said San Francisco has its house in order and we want to be based there, that we have retail shops opening again, not closing, that the vacancy rates in downtown are not 37 percent, but they're 10 percent. And we have a lot of work to do. But for things to go right –

We have to work together. And I am so pleased with how the first month has gone with myself and the Board of Supervisors. You and I were talking about this off air that I believe that they all understand what I understand. And that is that the people of San Francisco want us to focus on getting results for the people of San Francisco and not start thinking about things outside of our control, but get our house in order. Yeah.

So this afternoon, you're signing this directive around fentanyl. People may have heard of it, but give us the quick summary of what powers this sort of brings to the city. It's just the fentanyl state of emergency ordinance that passed 10 to 1 is going to allow us to streamline permitting to get more mental health and drug treatment beds up, more shelter beds up, allow us to hire police, hire clinicians, case managers more quickly.

If we had tried to do what we're about to do over the next year, we would have had to have gone to the Board of Supervisors up to 50 different times. And so this is going to allow us to bypass that. They still will get input. They'll have 45 days to approve any large contracts, but it allows us to move with speed and orderly.

and meet this crisis head on. Yeah, it's fascinating. What did they want in exchange for, you know, giving more power to the executive branch of the city government, right? That they are giving up oversight. I think what they wanted was just a time horizon on it. And we made a deal around a year allowing us to really jumpstart the construction of mental health and drug treatment beds, standing up more shelter beds,

They are still going to be informed. We are going to have report outs to them. We will have report outs to the public. You all, everybody will see what we are doing in real time. We're not going to try to hide anything. You're going to see it in real time. We will keep people apprised of it. But I think they understood that whatever we've been doing out on the streets, Alexis, and I'm out there every single day, including this morning, it's not working and we have to change course.

So, you know, one of the key components of the measure is this ability to kind of solicit private dollars to funnel into battling this crisis in the street. How much private money do you think is needed to really put a dent in the crisis?

I think it's less about how much private money is needed and more about speed and showing people what is possible instead of having to wait six months or 12 months to stand up 50 treatment beds. Can we do it in a month or two months? What I have to tell you, what's been amazing about this job is we signed a –

Okay. Sure. Sure.

Yeah, cut down on retail crime, or at least that's its intent. And that retail crime. So things move so slowly, Alexis. Right. And you know that, but it moves even more slowly than you can possibly imagine. So allowing us to solicit private donations will help us just speed things up. It's not necessarily the amount. It's demonstrating what is possible and then allowing government to follow on with the big dollars. Yeah.

So one of the first bits of news that's come out is this behavioral health center at 822 Geary. Citi bought the building right in 2021, speaking to your point about how long things take. But it has...

basically been vacant and construction is just getting going on it. So like how like for something concrete like that, how does this ordinance sort of play into your ability to build out that space? Well, we're going to open it in April. It's going to impact and help us get 25 people a day off the street who otherwise would be likely taken by either a hot team or police or

to SF General. And if you go to SF General on any given day, there are people in the throes of addiction coming down that are lined up in hallways right now. We need to have other places to take people to, freeing up emergency room. This thing might have been done by the end of summer. It'll be open in April. So it's just going to help us stand it up much more quickly without having to go to board approval on that.

Um, another one of these initiatives, you know, over in the kind of six street corridor, um, a triage center is getting built up right by the, by the office. Um, you know, our, our reporters here on the team have lots of questions about sort of what are the goals or measures of success for that triage center? You know, how long is it going to be there? Um, you know, when is it going to be fully operational? It, it, it's up and running. It's a pilot. We're going to see how it works.

Every department that is part of DMACC, whether it's the sheriffs, whether it's public health, whether it's police, whether it's the DA, we have Code Tenderloin out there helping people. Right now, if you are dealing drugs or you are openly using and you are cited, you can be brought to court.

You know, a police station where you then have those two officers who have cited, let's say, two people. They go spend two, three, four hours back at the station instead of being walking the beat on 6th Street. Now you pick somebody up and you say, listen, we got help for you right 100 yards around the corner at this parking lot.

Police walk them there. They can be seen by DBH, DPH. They can get care, wound care. They can get assessed. And then we can find a spot for them either in a mental health or drug treatment facility, which, by the way, we don't have enough beds. So that doesn't often happen. Also, we need to find them shelter. So it allows police or a hot team to quickly drop somebody off and then get back on the street. I'm walking down 6th Street.

A dozen times now already. And I have to tell you, people are in desperate need of help. And they want it. They asked me for it. And by the way, they also they also thank us every day for trying to do something about what's going on on 6th Street.

So that's already up and running. I mean, is it already processing people? Does it have goals or metrics it's trying to hit? We're trying to get to the basis of numbers. We're going to have week over week numbers. I'm leaving here. I'm going to the DMACC meeting. That is the...

the group of departments that have been working hard on 8th Street, which they did a good job cleaning up. Then they went to 7th Street. They've been on market over the past year. We have a cross-department collaborative process at DMACC that allows these departments to talk to each other, collaborate with each other, and get people off the street. And now we're applying that to 6th Street, which has been our challenge

for 40 years. So Alexis, I'm all about the data right now. The data I'm looking at is I've gone down there on multiple weekends and sometimes I'm picking up my son from soccer and my daughter from ballet.

And I know this isn't a hardcore numbers. I want to take them down there one time and be able to have them get out of the car with me and walk the street. And right now, I won't let them do that. There are too many people using, dealing, and in the throes of addiction. I saw somebody sticking their arm with a needle and just throw it into the middle of the street. I see women that are walking into oncoming traffic.

I can't sit by. And so we're trying this triage center. We are going to...

that people move from the street and into that place where they can get a cup of coffee, they can be seen by somebody. But I'm not going to be able to drive down 6th Street anymore and just say, well, it's always been this way. So we're going to try something new, and that's what the triage center is doing. I think a lot of people have those kind of heuristics, the spots they go. For me, it's Cap Street. You walk through Cap Street and you say, well, what's happening here? And that's kind of your way of kind of manifesting

measuring as a single person walking through the city, you know, how much suffering is on the streets and what's been able to be done for people and what still remains to be done, which is a lot. Alexis, so Julian Alley just drove by it on the way here in the mission. You know, we are trying to disrupt what's happening on 6th Street. And people say, well, they're moving to Julian. And they may be. And what I don't want is...

There was 100 kids waiting for Muni to go to school right at 8.20 this morning. And they are walking by a scene where there are a dozen people using at 8.20 in the morning. Mm-hmm.

We can't tolerate that for the kids and for those people that are harming themselves and dying. We had 633 people, 633 people die of overdose last year on our streets. What we are doing and have been doing has not worked. There are promising signs when we bring these departments together, when we get behavioral health involved and DPH involved, we can do better and we will.

We're talking with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. Of course, we want to hear from you. What's one thing you'd like Daniel Lurie to accomplish in his first year in office? You know, what are the things that are making you optimistic or worried about the future of San Francisco? You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786.

That's 866-733-6786. Forum at kqed.org. Find us on all the social media things. We'll be back with more with Daniel Lurie right after the break.

Turing with Tia is the quirky YouTube talk show where Tia Creighton is the host and all her guests are talking AI chatbots. Whether it's health and beauty, science and technology, pop culture, or current events, Turing with Tia delivers answers about everything. That's T-U-R-I-N-G, Turing with Tia, a funny and fascinating way to experience artificial intelligence. Only on YouTube at Turing with Tia.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie about his plans, about what's going on in the city right now.

I've got to talk about the relationship between the kind of national political scene and what's happening here. You know, the Board of Supervisors has reaffirmed the city's commitment to being a sanctuary city. And at the same time, we know that President Trump is both pushing for deportations and threatening local officials, local cities with pulling federal funding if they don't comply with his administration's demands. So...

For history, what will your response be if and when the Trump administration decides to come to the city to deport undocumented immigrants? Well, we actually had a meeting with all the immigrant communities and leaders of some amazing groups just two weeks ago in the office in City Hall in response to that meeting.

rumor that ICE agents boarded Muni. And what we all agreed to was to make sure that we're communicating, that we're communicating what is really happening on the ground, that we're in constant communication. And let me just be very clear. We follow all laws. Our local policies keep us safe. And we're not

in opposition to federal law. It is local law enforcement. I want them out on the streets keeping San Franciscans safe. I want them arresting those that are dealing drugs. I want them protecting our citizens. And nothing about our policies contradicts federal law. So

We're focused on local law enforcement doing keeping our citizens safe. And our policies have done that for years. And I will continue to uphold those. So not everything that the Trump administration has done has been strictly rational, particularly in meeting out punishment to to enemies of the administration or people they perceive as enemies. R.J. writes in to say, what will you do if HUD cuts homelessness and supportive housing funds to our sanctuary city? Yeah.

I cannot react to the news of the national at the moment, as you and I were talking about. I mean, it's hourly what is coming out of D.C. And all I can control is what I can control. And our departments and their budgets, we have a billion dollar budget deficit as it is right now. I mean, it's close to that.

And if further cuts come, then we're going to have to do our belt tightening. This is not a city that is lacking in resources. It's how we spend our dollars. We have to get smarter in the coming years.

These one-time funds that came from the federal government and from the state during COVID, I can't tell you how many people in Sacramento and other elected leaders that have been around for a while said, we were living high on the hog, spending...

spending a lot. Those days are over. So we have to spend wisely. And we're going to focus on getting the biggest bang for our buck. That's how I would answer that question.

I mean, it's an interesting question how much you can control. It's true that you can't control everything here. On the other hand, there are some worst case scenarios that I'm sure the office is planning for. Right. I mean, how much let's say that there that because San Francisco is a symbol of progressive America, right.

All kinds of holes are blown in the budget. Do we have disaster scenario planning that's going on? I would hope there is. Alexis, we do have reserve and rainy day funds. And so we, of course, have those. But let me just be very clear. This is a tough budget situation that we are in without other things coming. And so we...

We have to get smart. We have to make sure that our departments are being asked right now to bring us 15% across the board cuts. It was started by the previous administration. I continued that directive. We're getting those numbers back on February 21st next week from all the departments. And

Some of them may not come back with 15% cuts. And they can listen to me right here and now. Like, I want to see it across the board. Now, not for public safety, not for public health, but we have to make sure that we get more effective, more efficient with our dollars. It's going to be a good practice for us if worst case scenario comes through.

Well, let's take one of the just one of the tough budget situations, you know, police overtime. Audit came back at the end of last year showing that overtime payments to police are up 317 percent since 2018, reached 108 million dollars in 2023. What do you think should be done about the police? We need to fully staff the police department so that we are not depending on 14 or 1500 officers to do the work of 2000 officers.

This is why that triage center is so important, because I don't want one officer, you know, arresting one drug dealer and then having to go spend four hours back at the station. I want more bodies out on the street walking the beat, keeping our community safe.

doing community policing, having less mandatory overtime. And so we absolutely have a lot of overtime, but it's because we are so short-staffed. And so we're going into a huge weekend, which I know we're going to talk about. I'm excited to talk about Lunar New Year parade and NBA All-Star game. We want to be able to pull off world-class events, but we are short-staffed and that contributes to that high overtime.

Let's bring in some callers here. Let's go to Colby in San Francisco. Welcome.

Yeah, hello. So, Mayor Lurie, earlier when we were talking about the drug use problem, you were describing these triage centers where police officers would usher drug users from the street to a parking lot where they would end up at a rehab facility or other such place. Well, I imagine most people would resist that and not want to do that. So what's going to happen then? Can we, like, force people to go to a rehab facility or what?

you can give people options and that's what

But the fentanyl state of emergency ordinance is going to allow us to do right now. We do not have enough mental health beds. We do not have enough drug treatment beds. We have applied for Prop 1 funding that we hope comes through in May with beds opening up in September. Once again, things take time, but we hope to have 100 locked beds where people can get treatment out of those Prop 1 dollars. But then, yes, you're going to have an option, treatment or face treatment.

Like there has to be options for people. Right now we don't have those. So what usually happens is you're cited for possession and you are back out on the street using, you know, within an hour or two hours. And my feeling is that what I am seeing on 6th Street and Julian and other places is people dying instantly.

before our very eyes, and we need to change course. And so the idea is to try to get as many people into treatment. And there's a lot of people on some of these streets also saying, I just want a shelter bed, and we don't have enough of those. And so the opportunity before us is to create real options for people, because right now they're not there.

How much of the picture here do you think is going to be more affordable housing in the city? Or is it really about shelter beds? Like, is it really about like right now, given the situation on the streets, we need to just focus on building those?

Right now, the focus is on building shelter. We absolutely we need more housing in this city. I'm a proponent of it at all income levels. We need more housing statewide. It's imperative. We need more housing for our teachers and our nurses and our firefighters. The idea that our teachers have to travel an hour and a half, two hours.

It's unacceptable. Same with our police and first responders and firefighters. You know that teacher housing, I think Alexis, you and I talked about this back during the campaign. That teacher housing opened, but then the Chronicle wrote an article about how hard it is for teachers to actually get into those units. So we also have to cut the red tape once these buildings are up so that we allow people into these BMR units, below market rate units, buildings.

Because we make it so difficult to not only build housing, but then to access it once it's open. But yes, right now the focus is on standing up shelter, 1,500 shelter beds in the first six months, but always having our eye on the prize of building more housing at all income levels in San Francisco, but also statewide. Yeah.

Brief reprieve from the litany of problems that we are talking about here. I do want to talk a little bit about the NBA All-Star Game, not just because it's the NBA All-Star Game and I'm a Warriors fan and those things.

What is this sort of the business case, I suppose, or the cultural case for the city to do these kind of events or, you know, to try and attract the J.P. Morgan Health Care Conference or these other dream force, these other things that it does appear to me like the city works quite hard to try and bring to San Francisco? That's because it there is.

So much evidence that having the eyes of the world on our city brings tourists here in out years. It'll help this weekend just with our bars and our restaurants being packed. Mission Bay is going to be packed.

Yeah.

to the outside world, having them be here, having them eat our food, go to the greatest arts and culture institutions in the world, and actually seeing firsthand that this is the best city in the world,

But that is huge for us. And these conferences bring in jobs. I mean, just outside City Hall, they're standing up a tent for some party that's happening this weekend. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of jobs. And guess what? That's a lot of tax revenue to the city.

I feel like the case in my mind is basically that tourism revenue is kind of like the secret sauce of San Francisco budget. And that's been one of the huge problems right over the last few years. I mean, it's not the secret sauce. It's the number. That is the main component. That is the tomato sauce and everything else is additional. I mean, you know, you get into business and tech and all.

Tourism drives our economy. And so for us to be hosting the NBA All-Star Game, Super Bowl 60, six World Cup matches, this is an exciting time to be in San Francisco. And the eyes of the world are going to be on us for the next 18 months. I mean, it couldn't be better for us. Let's bring in Madeline. Back to depressing things. Mayor Lurie, here we go. Madeline, San Francisco, welcome.

Hi. Thank you. Hi, Rabbi. Mayor Lurie, I have a question. How are you going to expedite housing or retail for empty spaces such as where the Safeway was on Fillmore Street? Thank you. Thank you, Mena. I'm excited. We're going to have an announcement tomorrow, a

We've been talking about this for a long time around making sure that permitting is easier for our small businesses, for our restaurants. Right now, you have to go through 61 different steps to start and open a restaurant in San Francisco.

Mind-boggling. Broken system. Now, I will say if you go to the— How do you fix that system? Can we stay there for one second? Well, you streamline it. You make these departments work together. So right now you walk into the permit office at 49 South Van Ness. And by the way, they've done a really great job with setting it up. You can go to the fire department. You can go to DPH. You can go to eight different departments, and they all have windows and employees—

But Alexis, you are still given two different paper copies that you fill out with a pencil and a paper and you go to each window and each employee at each different department enters that into a different database. Yeah.

Yeah. What is this? Healthcare? It's crazy. So we are going to streamline that. And we have some, we have an announcement tomorrow, so I can't step on that. But listen, I said it during the campaign and I'm telling everybody now, we have to make it simple and easy for small businesses to get up and running and for housing to get built in San Francisco. And we're going to

We're going to do that. Yeah. I mean, it seems like there's a lot more hope in my mind, at least for the small business stuff, in part because it seems like everyone wants that right within city government, outside of the city government, like everybody kind of. But but this system got built over time that even though its intentions were pure, you know, ended up with this.

I think you said it right. There was good intentions, but it has layered upon layer upon layer to the point now where it's unrecognizable. And the small business owners are like, why would I want to open up another business? Why would I want to add a 20th employee? Because now my cost goes up.

50%. I mean, the cost of doing business in San Francisco is so extraordinarily high that we have to get competitive. We have to make it easier. We had a prop that helped reduce taxes on those small businesses making up to $5 million. That's a good first step, but there is so much more work to do and we are focused on it. Let's bring in Michael in San Francisco. Welcome, Michael.

Good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations, Mayor. I'm so glad that you're where you are. I've been really enjoying hearing what you're saying. Thank you. I got about two minutes. I got to go into... Yeah, congratulations. I got to go into school here. I teach at the oldest middle school in the city, Francisco Middle. We're 100 years old this year. Awesome.

Yeah, and the working class, the immigrant class we serve at the school is really suffering. I need to know what you can do about the schools. SFUSD has been in shambles for 20 years. I mean, they just lost $30 million of special education money. Please help us. Please.

I'm with you, Michael. Well, Michael, first, thank you for doing what you do and for taking care of our kids. There's no more important profession than yours. So thank you. And, you know, we we've offered our support and help to Maria Sue in any possible way. Once again, the financial constraints are enormous.

incredibly large over there. And what I heard out of last night's meeting was that, you know, a lot of the cuts will be focused on the district level and trying to make sure that we preserve as many of teaching positions as possible. But we face hard challenges

choices in the months ahead, and we're going to have to make those. We can't keep kicking the can down the road. That's what elected officials have been doing for a very long time. I think everybody at the Board of Supervisors and myself understands that we're going to have to be clear-eyed about these tough decisions coming our way, and school districts is going to face some of those as well.

You know, when we talk about tough decisions, one of the big ones are the layoffs. Lucy writes in to say the mayor's placed a hiring freeze on the city's workforce due to the budget deficit. What does he say to the city's union to claim the city is short-staffed already with vacancies and critical departments? Executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council kind of took a shot across the bow on the standard saying, it's not like the relationship will end if we come up with conflict around the budget. It doesn't work that way. But we do have pretty good memories of the

She said. So how how what's the sort of ability to make layoffs at the at the city given? Well, we've just started with we said hiring freeze for right now. And like I said to you earlier, we are waiting for department heads to come back with their proposed budget reductions of up to 15 percent. And we're going to see where we come out with it.

$867 million budget deficit, we have to spend less. There's just no way around it. And there's people out there talking about how there might be a surplus of funds. That's not reality. The reality is we have nearly a billion-dollar budget deficit. And as you pointed out, we have a state government and a federal government that we cannot rely on

more funds for. So I don't know about anyone else, but when you have less dollars, you have to spend less. And we as a city have to get our fiscal house in order. I'm not going to be scared to make tough decisions. I look forward to working with my friends in labor, but they have to understand that this is going to be a tough couple of years in terms of the economics of San Francisco's budget. Yeah.

We're talking with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. Of course, we want to hear from you. We're taking your calls. We're taking your comments. If you can't get through on the phone lines, you might want to try forum at kqed.org. Or you can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, or KQED Forum. Of course, you can join the Discord community as well.

Some folks are also just saying, you know, I've grown up in the Bay Area and lived in San Francisco for 20 years. I understand change. Our wonderful city seems to attract an exploitative winner-takes-all mindset. We had some reprieve during the pandemic, but I see it trickling back. You know, how can the mayor's office influence those coming for the opportunity to be more community engaged? We're going to be back with more with Mayor Daniel Lurie right after the break.

Turing with Tia is the quirky YouTube talk show where Tia Creighton is the host and all her guests are talking AI chatbots. Whether it's health and beauty, science and technology, pop culture, or current events, Turing with Tia delivers answers about everything. That's Turing with Tia.

That's T-U-R-I-N-G, Turing with Tia, a funny and fascinating way to experience artificial intelligence. Only on YouTube at Turing with Tia. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Star One Credit Union, now offering real-time money movement with instant pay. Make transfers and payments instantly between financial institutions, online or through Star One's mobile app. Star One Credit Union, in your best interest.

Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here with your San Francisco mayor, Daniel Lurie. You know, before the break, we were talking about arts organizations. One of our listeners wrote in saying, kind of like, how can we encourage the arts? Talk to me. What can we do? The arts are going to lead us back. There's no question. KALW just bought a building on Market Street. ODC, the dance company, is building a new building on Market Street. I can't...

tell you how excited I am about the arts and culture scene here in San Francisco. We had Arts Week. It was packed all over the city from Fort Mason to the ballet opening. It is...

It's hopping right now. We have so many exciting opportunities in front of us. And this is why, like when we do welcome the world, we get to show off our arts and culture, which has always, always kept us not only going during tough times, but also led us out and into the boom times. And so I just couldn't be more excited about that. When it does seem like

Now is kind of the time for arts orgs to make these structural moves that keep them in the city. Like to me, there's a pretty big difference between like, you know, kind of ephemeral party that's like interesting and that activates a part of the city and like getting a building financed so that you can stay. So the ICA started in the dog patch, just moved into a building downtown in the middle of the financial district with help from a realtor.

a firm, a real estate firm. I'm blanking on the name, but go check out the ICA. Just taking advantage of a time where this building was sitting vacant on the entry level, street level space. And oh my goodness, I've been to the opening for that. I went to it to kick off Arts Week. There was 3,000 people at this opening night event for Arts Week. And Allie Gass, who runs it,

I mean, they had to have a wait list.

on a Saturday night of a long weekend, you would have thought downtown was dead. It was hopping. And you and I were talking with your producer and your team about what's going on in West Portal right now. The restaurant scene is, it's happening in San Francisco. So we, listen, I can get down in the weeds and we can talk about fentanyl and the homelessness crisis, which is top of mind always for me. But what also is top of mind is we got a lot of restaurants opening up

We got a lot of good things happening in so many of our neighborhoods and in downtown, like those buildings on Market Street being taken over by great arts organizations. Let's bring in Colin in San Francisco. Welcome, Colin. Good morning. Good morning. Mr. Mayor, I'm...

Aside from the threat of the Trump administration withholding money from San Francisco over the sanctuary city status, wouldn't collaboration with ICE make sense in circumstances such as when we know of a violent offender in the city's custody? Why not...

look towards the example of what Mayor Eric Adams is doing in New York City in terms of establishing a more positive relationship with federal immigration authorities. Well, let me just be clear. Under the Biden administration, this DMACC program

that I was talking about meets weekly. And the U.S. attorney, who is still the U.S. attorney, Izzy Ramsey, sits in on those meetings. And just remember, Biden administration, Izzy Ramsey would take candidates

cases off the U.S., the district attorney, Brooke Jenkins's desk, and prosecute them federally going after drug dealers. And so that has been happening, continues to happen. I want my police to go after people that are committing violent crime, committing crime in San Francisco. And just to be very clear, if federal authorities have a warrant,

We abide by federal law. So there's nothing incongruent about that. Can I just say also, maybe not following the example of Eric Adams, just in kind of in a general sense, seems like. Yeah. Let's bring in Luna in San Francisco. Luna, are you there? Yeah. Hi. Hi.

Hi, Luna. You know, I just wanted... Hi, Mayor, Laurie. You know, I just wanted to comment that, you know, last year I was robbed four different times. I had somebody do my mail. I had some porch pirates take a bunch of packages. I had somebody steal something out of a car.

It's been crazy. And I have video of every single one of them. And I've given it to the police. And I feel like their closure rate is very low. The crime rate is high. I mean, it kind of makes sense that there's so much crime, given that there's no repercussions for it.

Luna, this is where, you know, as a candidate, I was so upset about things and I totally get it. And to hear you go through that now as your mayor, it's unacceptable and we have to do better. And this is where I believe that we need the fully staffed police. We need a fully staffed Sheriff's Department and a fully staffed 911 dispatch office so we can respond quickly, but also...

If you see police walking the beat in neighborhoods, then people say, oh, OK, I see people. I'm not going to go steal things off of people's porches. Small businesses won't be broken into as much. I was just looking at all the crime statistics year over year that I got from January through February 9th as of yesterday.

And once again, I'm the first person. It's about vibes. It's about how we feel. And when you walk down the street right now in some parts of downtown and Soma, you're concerned. But our...

Stats are down. The stats look pretty good. The stats, the car break-ins are way down. And I applaud SFPD for their work on that front. So things are moving in the right direction when it comes to stats. But vibes, we got work to do. And I am committed to it. I understand what you're saying and I feel it too. And so I'm going to just work tirelessly to make sure that you feel better and that San Franciscans feel better.

So listener question, I'm going to tack on to it too. Listener writes, you know, I don't understand how we have this deficit. Is there not a way for San Francisco to tax all these wealthy tech and biotech companies that use our city instead of making more cuts? It's kind of an interesting question, in part because a lot of tech companies actually fled our city during the pandemic. And one of the things that I think a lot of people are counting on is them coming back and

And I think that some of the appeal, your appeal for voters was that you could sort of unite some of these different factions within the city, including the sort of tech world. You know, you appointed Sam Altman to your transition team from OpenAI across the street. And right now we're in a kind of interesting spot with respect to the tech world because Sam Altman, Mark Benioff and others have cozied up to Donald Trump in tweets and also in their official capacities.

And does that make it more difficult to bring tech people back to the city? Does it complicate your relationship with them?

I think how I think about it is that it starts with what the last call, what Luna said. It's about public safety. It's about making sure that public transportation is working, that we have clean and safe streets. And once we do those basics, we are going to have business come back. And I have been telling everybody that we are open for business because when big business comes back, our small businesses thrive. And yes, I'm reaching out to leaders who...

went to Texas, have moved to New York. And they moved for a variety of reasons. And the tax issue is one that we have to be competitive. We are currently not competitive with Brisbane or South San Francisco or San Jose. You move your company out of San Francisco and you are going to pay a lot less in taxes, not in New York or Florida, but

two miles across the border or, you know, 40 miles down in San Jose. So we have to get competitive again. And what I'm telling business leaders is I want you here, but I need you to be part of the community. I want you investing in our schools. I want you investing in our arts and culture. And I do think that that is what

I've done throughout my career is making sure that people understand their obligations to community. And we need these business leaders to help San Francisco beyond just bringing jobs and revenue to our tax base.

It's tough, though, too, right, because we need this tax base to help with the deficit. And also you're saying we also need to have lower taxes so that these folks can will locate here at all. Well, every single candidate who ran for mayor approved of reducing taxes on small businesses up to five million dollars. We have to, you know, like, you know, there are many different issues right now where we are so out of whack now.

that the taxes are not bringing in any revenue. They're so high that, you know,

100% of a 10% tax increase is zero. And so let me just be very clear. We want to get a fully staffed police department so that our shoppers, our tourists, those that live and work in the city like Luna don't have their cars broken into. They feel safe coming downtown. And we start inviting businesses back and we are going to make sure that they are engaged and involved in the community. Yeah.

Yeah, we've had some pushback here on the show. I would say kind of from the right here. Here comes something from the left. Ernst writes to say the other day, cops chased someone from Stonestown to the mission where they crashed, causing multiple injuries. They should not engage in dangerous high speed chases like this. And your administration has emboldened them to do that. Just parenthetically, that was approved before those changes were approved before your administration. This

This needs to stop. Your administration has set up what is in essence a migrant deportation center on 6th Street, giving bus tickets to, quote, undesirables with no support or help waiting for them. The city's D.A. is publicly named judges she disagrees with. This shouldn't not be the sort of city we live in. What can you do to stop our city from following the cruel right wing trends of the rest of the country? Listen, what we are doing is common sense. And I would ask that writer that question. Come walk down 6th Street.

Come down and walk 6th Street with me. I gathered all of our department heads and passed a woman who was sitting in her own feces, and I've seen her now every day for the last week walking into oncoming traffic. So,

What we are doing right now is not safe. It is not dignified. It is not humane. We've been offering bus tickets home to people in San Francisco for the last 20 years. We stopped. It was a program that was working. It was getting people back to loved ones. So I stand behind that. As far as what happened on 24th and Mission,

I am so grateful that people were okay, but we are investigating. And so I'll wait for the outcome of that investigation. We have to be safe when we do those chases. And so let's see what happens. But we also need to use technology. Let's instead of, you know, let's use a drone to get up there.

We don't Luna was talking about her car being broken into. This was a stolen vehicle like people should not be able allowed to steal vehicles either. So let's get a drone up and follow. And so we need to use technology. We need to use everything at our disposal right now. But let's wait to see what that investigation reveals. Yeah.

You know, last Friday you announced you'd be restarting, I think it was last Friday, the Dream Keeper Initiative. So, you know, former London Breeds Initiative to invest $120 million into San Francisco's black communities. You know, it got paused after there were some scandals that emerged in the disbursement of funds. But you're bringing it back. I am really curious, you know, what led to that decision and what might be different this time? Let me be clear what I said. Sure, sure. Okay. Because, you know,

What I said was investing in the black community is a critical component of my administration. We're going to continue to invest in the black community. It will be done with accountability at its core. Any nonprofit that receives funding will be audited fully. There will be a request for proposals brought in to the

HRC, Human Rights Commission, by March 21st. We're going to look at every group that has been part of the Dream Keeper initiative. And if there was malfeasance, they will not be getting funding. But we are going to invest in the Black community like we are going to invest in every other community. And when we do, there will be accountability at the core of everything.

And by the way, it's not just about the nonprofits being held accountable. Because there are a lot of great nonprofits out there that measure and track results. My department heads also need to be held accountable. And that is going, it is a new day in San Francisco of accountability, of service, and we are going to see changes. And it's not just about the nonprofits executing. It's also about my department heads executing. And we all have to do better, and we will.

Last, we'll see how many we can get to. Lightning round. Lisa in San Francisco, welcome. Good morning, Mayor. Good morning. My question is to do with accountability and transparency to the community by the SFPD. I think you're probably aware that in 2016,

Ed Lee asked then-police chief Greg Surr to resign because of a history of excessive force, controversial shootings of minority suspects, and racist and homophobic texts. And Obama's Justice Department responded with an in-depth investigation of the force, and they did indeed find racial bias, secrecy, use of excessive force, all of it.

and they recommended 272 reforms, which have only very recently been completed. Bill Scott replaced Sir and was charged with implementing the new... Lisa, I want to make sure we get to your question just so that we can get an answer from the mayor. ...is Max Carter Oberstone is on our police commission. He is a champion of justice and a defender of civil rights, and he was brought in...

to, well, so his job is to show accountability to the community. And I understand that you're calling for his removal. And I just wonder why that is. Every commissioner that I appoint, and I'm meeting with the presidents of all commissions, whether they were supervisor appointed or mayoral appointed. And what I want from people

people that are serving on commissions is to work collaboratively and to communicate well and to work well together. I look forward to, you know, we have a new police commissioner coming on board that's being voted on. I don't think I can say the name yet. And so we are

Need commissioners that work well and collaborate together. And I look forward to future appointments in that vein. And the determination that you made was that he was not working collaboratively with the rest of the police commission. Is that the rationale? You know, we had some conversations not only with him, but with other folks. And it was clear to me that we needed to go in a different direction. Yeah.

All right. With our last sort of minute here, I just I just wanted to talk about the work that you've been doing with the Board of Supervisors and whether you think it's sort of a durable arrangement or, you know, this is sort of a grace period here.

I'm an act with mutual respect always. What I've asked all of them to do is to pick up the phone and call me, and they are. I'm walking down the hall and I'm visiting them in their offices. I'm inviting them in to my office. These are colleagues of mine. We need to work together. I'm not looking for six, five votes on every issue. I want 10-1 votes like we got for the fentanyl state of emergency ordinance. And what I want them to know

is that I respect them and I want the same respect back and let's have clear lines of communication. They know what I know and that is that San Franciscans deserve a government that works and gets results for them and for far too long it's been a

a battle of wills over there. And it's a new day in San Francisco, and I look forward to working with them for the next four years. We have been talking with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, just took office about a month ago. Thank you so much for joining us, Mayor. Alexis, thank you for having me. Thank you so much to everybody who called in and wrote in. Obviously, we couldn't get to everybody, but really appreciate your thinking about the city.

I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim.

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