San Francisco, CA
Mayor Lurie gets an A in vibes, San Francisco City Hall veterans say
Just over 100 days into his term, Mayor Daniel Lurie has done a few things right: schmoozing the Board of Supervisors, trying to clean up San Francisco’s streets and engaging in much-needed boosterism of a city with an unsavory reputation, said two veteran City Hall politicos speaking with Mission Local at an event on Thursday.
Eric Jaye, former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s chief strategist and now a political consultant, spoke on a panel with former city controller and PUC general manager Ed Harrington before a full house at Manny’s cafe. The event was moderated by Mission Local senior editor Joe Rivano Barros.
Both panelists said it was too soon to tell whether the Lurie administration would be a success, but that it is a sea change from the London Breed administration — at least in terms of vibes.
“I could make a long list of what he’s done wrong, a very long list,” Jaye said, of Lurie. “But I would give him honestly an A right now because the things he’s done right are so important.”
Those right things include: making good on the nice-guy persona that was a big part of his campaign talking up SF instead of tearing it down, and delivering chocolates to at least one supervisor on her birthday. The change in vibes at City Hall matters for getting his agenda through, Jaye said.
Lurie has also focused on cleaning up the streets. This is a huge undertaking that may not see quick success, but it’s one that is smart politically, said both Jaye and Harrington. “It’s a great goal to say we’re no longer going to tolerate open-air criminal activity in San Francisco,” Jaye said.
“The No. 1 job of the mayor is to keep the city safe. He should keep whacking.”
ERic Jaye
Said Harrington: “He seems to care. He’s out in the streets. I think that’s important.”
One of Lurie’s first high-profile moves upon taking office was to crack down on drug sales, drug use, and the sale of shoplifted goods in a few high-profile spots in the city, including Sixth Street in SoMa, and at the 16th Street BART plaza. He’s also conducted high-profile sweeps of areas like South Van Ness and Market, which led to mass arrests, but few charges.
In his victory speech, one of the few specifics Lurie offered was a promise that public safety would be his “No. 1 priority” and that he would focus specifically on drug dealing. “We’re gonna get tough,” he said, at the time. In an interview with Mission Local three months into his term, Lurie modified that statement: the city will not “arrest our way out of this problem” and needs to get people “into the help that they need.”
The mayor needs to tread a fine line, Jaye said. Mass arrests of people with substance use disorder are inhumane, he said. And to some extent, the mayor is playing Whac-A-Mole. Cracking down in one place will just shift the nefarious behavior elsewhere, in San Francisco, or across the wider Bay Area, Jaye said. But “the No. 1 job of the mayor is to keep the city safe,” Jaye said. “He should keep whacking.”
The true test of whether Lurie is going to be an effective mayor is the upcoming budget negotiation, both Jaye and Harrington said.
San Francisco faces an $818 million budget shortfall. Lurie will present the Board of Supervisors with his proposed budget on June 1. Supervisors can vote down his proposals up to a point, but will need to adopt a budget by July.
Lurie has asked all department heads to present him with a 15 percent cut to their department’s budget. The district attorney’s office has already pushed back. Lurie “has to make hard decisions,” Harrington said. “And we’re all going to be unhappy about them.”
San Francisco’s overall budget is about $15 billion, but lots of that is already earmarked for guaranteed services, said Harrington. There are rules requiring a certain amount of funding for things like libraries, parks, fire stations, etc.
In previous years, San Francisco had other sources of revenue, like pandemic-era funding, to help cover the gaps, he said. But, those funds are gone or have been spent down by prior administrations. Some remaining city reserves cannot be legally released if revenue is rising — and it is, albeit slightly, even as expenditures are outpacing revenue.
The “easy ways” of fixing a budget deficit, Harrington said, have run out.
Of the money that is available for cuts, about two-thirds of it is employee salaries, Harrington said. Salary freezes, cuts or layoffs will mostly need to be negotiated with unions, he added.
But Lurie ran for office as a political outsider — unions backed his opponents in the race. He hasn’t done much since to curry union leaders’ favor, Harrington said.
“The biggest mistake he’s made is that he’s been very weak with organized labor,” Jaye added. “To make change in San Francisco, you have to make labor your ally. Otherwise they are going to wait you out, slow walk you, make problems for you.”
The budget battle, Harrington said, is one he would not want to deal with personally. Lurie has to say, “Look, the money’s not there,” Harrington said. “I don’t know that he has the wherewithal to do that, or the guts to do that, but I think that he doesn’t have much of a choice, because this is a big, big number.”
And how long does Lurie have before voters get restless? By the end of 2025, both said. If issues around neighborhood safety or the affordability of housing are not headed in the right direction, patience will wear thin.
“I don’t think anyone expected him to solve homelessness in 100 days,” Harrington said. “I think by the end of this year, though, if people don’t see more housing, if they don’t see a difference on the streets, they will be very upset.”
Good morning. Extremely lean and mean (well, merry, really) for the rest of this week as we head into our annual winter break.
We’ll hang things up for the year on Dec. 24 and pick things back up on Jan. 5.
Happy holidays. (Yippee-Ki-Yay.) —AN
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What happened when Waymo robotaxis met a San Francisco blackout
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images
An extraordinary experiment happened over the weekend in San Francisco.
What would a fleet of autonomous vehicles do when a widespread power outage knocked out traffic lights across one-third of the city?
We quickly found out—and the results were plastered all over social media.
On Saturday afternoon, Waymo vehicles throughout SF opted to stop where they were or pull over and throw on their hazard lights—“blocking intersections” and “compounding gridlock,” observed the San Francisco Standard—leading the Alphabet-owned robotaxi operator to suspend service throughout the city. (It resumed Sunday evening.)
In a statement, Waymo said that its vehicles are “designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops” but “the sheer scale of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual.”
As locals worked through the outage, a moderate debate about the robotaxi fleet continued online. Was it so wrong to expect Waymo’s vehicles to play it safe when infrastructure stopped working? After all, aren’t human drivers predictably chaotic when things go sideways? What exactly should robotaxis optimize for: traffic flow or citizen safety?
And: Just how safe is stopping if you prompt traffic to go around you?
Waymo resumed service Sunday evening, no doubt grappling with these questions (and what city officials might have to say about them). “We are already learning and improving from this event,” it said. —AN
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SAN FRANCISCO – About 21,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco were still without power Sunday morning, a day after a massive outage darkened much of the city during one of the busiest shopping weekends before Christmas, according to PG&E.
What we know:
The utility said the outage began shortly after noon Saturday in the western part of the city before spreading to several neighborhoods, including most of downtown.
At one point, PG&E estimated that roughly one-third of all San Francisco customers were without electricity.
Investigators are now working to determine whether the outage is connected to a fire Saturday at a PG&E substation near Eighth and Mission streets.
What they’re saying:
“We do not know exactly which happened first, meaning if the fire caused the outage or not,” said San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Mariano Elias. “It’s too early to tell at this time, but in order for us to work there in a safe operation, we need the power off.”
The outage created widespread transportation disruptions throughout the city. With traffic signals dark at major intersections, drivers faced significant congestion in multiple neighborhoods. BART also temporarily closed its Powell Street and Civic Center stations due to the power failure.
The blackout also affected autonomous vehicle service in San Francisco. Waymo temporarily suspended its robotaxi operations, citing safety concerns. Video recorded during the outage showed several of the company’s vehicles stalled in intersections, at times blocking traffic and nearly causing collisions.
In a statement, Waymo said it was “focused on keeping our riders safe and ensuring emergency personnel have the clear access they need to do their work,” adding that it plans to resume service in San Francisco “soon” but did not give a specific time.
The Source: Original reporting by Allie Rasmus of KTVU
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco power outage left 130,000 in the dark as self-driving cars stalled in middle of streets
San Francisco plunged into darkness when nearly 30 percent of the city was struck by a massive power outage on Saturday night.
Over 130,000 houses and businesses were left in the dark, largely in the northwest part of San Francisco, including the Richmond, Sunset, Presidio, and Golden Gate Park sections, officials said on Saturday.
As of early Sunday morning, just over 36,000 people were still without power.
The “citywide” outages forced Waymo to halt its driverless car service, stranding the autonomous vehicles in the middle of the streets, SF Gate reported.
“We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services given the broad power outage in San Francisco,” a Waymo spokesperson told the outlet. “We are focused on keeping our riders safe and ensuring emergency personnel have the clear access they need to do their work.”
The company shut down its operation at around 8 p.m. because the cars were unable to operate without traffic signals. Residents shared footage of the Waymo vehicles parked with their hazards flashing
At least four Waymo vehicles were parked in the middle of an intersection with their hazards on, creating a large traffic jam at the busy intersection in the North Beach neighborhood, according to video posted to X.
One passenger was left stranded inside one of the self-driving vehicles during the outage, footage obtained by the outlet showed.
A portion of the outages was blamed on a fire that broke out at a Pacific Gas and Electric substation at 8th and Mission streets in downtown San Francisco Saturday afternoon.
The outages began as early as 9:40 a.m. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was aware of the outages and said crews were working to restore power.
Power was restored to approximately 90,000 customers just after 10 p.m. local time, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced on X.
Crews were continuing to work on the remaining 36,000 customers on early Sunday.
“For those of you that do not have power, we want you to make sure you stay safe,” Lurie said.
The 48-year-old Democrat advised residents to check on neighbors but to remember to blow out all candles they may have been using before going to bed.
“I know there’s a lot going on out there, but people really stepped up tonight and will overnight as well,” Lurie said.
Police officer presence was ramped up in the areas without power to “ensure the safety of those still on the road,” he added.
PG&E says the grid has been stabilized, and the company is not expecting any more customers to be affected.
Rail lines and traffic signals were shut down by the outage, with city officials urging residents not to travel for the remainder of the night.
City buses had their routes changed, bypassing certain stops that were affected by the outages.
“Significant transit disruptions” were reported by the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management across the city.
With Post wires
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