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.”
San Francisco, CA
Retired San Francisco firefighter dies from lung cancer after Blue Shield denies treatment claims
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The retired San Francisco firefighter at the center of a bitter insurance fight has lost his battle against cancer.
Ken Jones passed away Saturday, 14 months after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
PREVIOUS REPORT: City asked to intervene after SF firefighter’s stage 4 lung cancer treatment denied by Blue Shield
We first told you about Jones in January — when the 17-year veteran and supporters asked the City Commission for help.
The Fire Department’s insurance carrier, Blue Shield, denied coverage for some of his recommended treatments.
Ken Jones was 70 years old.
SF firefighters rally for retiree denied cancer treatment by Blue Shield as more come forward
“After we got some publicity, thank you, a Blue Shield physician reached out to Ken’s physician, and they worked out a different plan that Blue Shield would cover. It’s still an incomplete plan,” said Helen Horvath, Jones’ wife when ABC7 Eyewitness News spoke to her in January, 2026.
Since then, Jones’ story has led to an investigation into other cases, with the city’s mayor vowing to support firefighters.
According to San Francisco’s Health Service Board, about 5,000 city employees and retirees are insured by Blue Shield. Now, city leaders are asking anyone who has been denied cancer treatment to speak up.
Tony Stefani with the Cancer Prevention Foundation said firefighters with a cancer diagnosis have a 14% higher chance of dying than other cancer patients in the general population.
“Current statistics tell us that 65% of the men and women in our profession are going to contract some form of cancer in their lifetime. Some of them will be fatal,” Stefani said.
In a Statement Blue Shield said, in part: “For Medicare members, health plans must follow medical policy established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).”
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Few things are more valuable in the Bay Area than real estate. In San Francisco, the median house price is now over $2 million. Last month, at least seven houses in the city sold for $1 million over the asking price, and buyers regularly offer to pay in cash or waive contingencies to stay competitive. Yet there is one thing that remains even more valuable than a house, and possibly more valuable than money itself: stock in Anthropic or OpenAI.
Last week, 160 Noe Street, an Edwardian home in San Francisco’s desirable Duboce Triangle neighborhood, was listed for sale at $2.9 million—or the equivalent amount in Anthropic or OpenAI shares, as based on those companies’ current valuations. Rachel Swann, the listing agent, says she was inspired to set these unusual terms after meeting several Anthropic employees at an open house for a different property. “These people have a lot of paper wealth, but they don’t always have the liquidity to do things they want,” Swann says. Some of these employees were expecting to come into as much as $50 million from their Anthropic shares, and wondered if they could use that as leverage to buy a house, according to Swann. “This kept coming up over and over again.”
Swann’s listing is unconventional, but not singular. In April, an investment banker named Storm Duncan offered to exchange his Mill Valley home and an adjacent parcel of land for Anthropic shares. And in May, Vijay Chattha, who owns an agency that does PR for tech companies, listed his Healdsburg home for $2.5 million, or $2 million in Anthropic stock. “I want to sell my house, and I want to invest in Anthropic,” Chattha says. “Why not combine the two?
Chattha’s house—a three bed, three bath with a pool and a bocce court in a part of Sonoma County that abuts some of the region’s most famous wineries—also comes with coveted short-term rental status, allowing the owner to list it on platforms like Airbnb. Only a handful of properties in Healdsburg come with that status, and only about a dozen come up for sale in a given year.
Chattha is offering a $500,000 discount to Anthropic employees because he believes the value of Anthropic shares will grow faster than any other investment, and his vacation home in wine country is the best bargaining chip he has to try to access them. “If you look at Anthropic’s growth last year, it’s insane,” he says, noting the $380 billion valuation the company claimed in February. “Now they’re raising at $965 billion. That’s three X in like three months.” He added that he was open to exchanging the house for shares in Anthropic, but not OpenAI, because he prefers using Anthropic’s products.
The real estate listings come at a time when investors are salivating at the record-high valuations of Anthropic and OpenAI, and even those considered wealthy by Bay Area standards are feeling FOMO about the affluence that could come from these companies’ debuts on the stock market. (On Monday, Anthropic submitted paperwork for its initial public offering; OpenAI is also reportedly preparing to file in the coming months.) Despite the unprecedented valuations of these companies, many people believe their stock prices will only go up, and that anyone who gets a piece now could win the jackpot.
People are clamoring to buy equity in OpenAI and Anthropic on the secondary market, leading to a frenzy of transactions that may or may not be legitimate. As a result, Anthropic updated its policy around “unauthorized Anthropic stock sales” this spring, which notes that “if someone purports to sell Anthropic shares without proper board approval, that transaction is invalid.” A spokesperson for Anthropic pointed back to this policy when asked about the possibility of exchanging company shares for real estate.
Welcome to our running tally of Election Night results. Or, as this is California, well beyond tonight, as results continue to trickle in.
The first batch of results should arrive at 8:45 p.m., with three more to follow tonight. The Department of Elections has the breakdown.
San Francisco is voting in three special elections, for District 2 and District 4 supervisors and for a Board of Education member. Both supervisor races are referendums on housing, especially District 2, while the main backdrop of the D4 race is all the hot feelings around the fate of the Sunset Dunes Park (nee Great Highway).
The winners of all three special races will have to compete again in November for their seats.
Keeping it local, SF is also voting on four ballot measures. Prop A is for a bond to pay for an emergency water-system. B is for term limits. C and D are dueling measures related to the “overpaid CEO” tax. (Links go to our reporting on each race or issue; or click here for our Election 2026 page.)
Vote local, think national: Which two candidates will advance to the November election to replace Nancy Pelosi?
Statewide races include the primaries for governor, education superintendent, lieutenant governor, and much more.
Polls close soon. If you haven’t voted yet, find your polling station here.
Tuesday, June 2, 5:40 p.m.
Two and a half hours until our polls close. Before we go down the local rabbit hole, a reminder that other states have primary action today: New Jersey, Iowa, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Montana.
Why does it take so long to get results in California? CalMatters has you covered on that story. We shouldn’t expect a call tonight on the governor’s race.
The last big election was November 5, 2024. (Remember?) Ten days later, there were still races to call in San Francisco.
So if you’re waiting for the pundits (and maybe even us) to tell you What It All Means, you might have to wait a while.
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