In a matter of minutes Wednesday morning, San Francisco bought a brand new mayor — and a brand new emergency declaration plan meant to fight the fentanyl scourge that has killed 1000’s within the metropolis over the previous 5 years and remodeled some neighborhoods into sidewalk drug markets. .
Daniel Luriea Democrat, took the oath of workplace in entrance of gold-domed Metropolis Corridor and commenced detailing his marketing campaign guarantees about tackling the town’s drug disaster, which has claimed extra lives within the metropolis since 2020 than the Covid-19, automobile accidents and homicides mixed. . Mr. Lurie stated he had requested his police and sheriff’s departments to reorient their workers — transferring from a brief, sporadic effort to dismantle drug markets to a everlasting, 24-hour, 7 days per week.
He promised that by this spring, law enforcement officials would have a brand new place to take folks arrested for drug use or erratic habits in public — not only a jail or hospital emergency room. A disaster middle within the Tenderloin neighborhood shall be staffed with well being staff who can information those that want therapy.
“Widespread drug dealing, public drug use and always seeing folks in disaster have robbed us of our sense of decency and security,” Mr. Lurie stated from an outside stage underneath sunny blue skies. “I refuse to consider that’s what we’re.”
Its emergency declaration concerning fentanyl, that he promised after profitable the hotly contested mayoral race in November, consists of a set of ordinances that may rapidly go to the town council-like Board of Supervisors on Tuesday for what is anticipated to be fast approval.
The declaration would streamline the hiring of latest metropolis staff and the development of homeless and drug therapy services. A brand new ordinance may also permit the town to just accept non-public donations to assist fund the 1,500 new shelter beds Mr. Lurie promised inside six months.
Mr. Lurie, inheritor to the Levi Strauss fortune and founding father of an anti-poverty nonprofit, stated that fixing the town’s drug issues can be the one method to make sure that San Francisco itself makes a full restoration. That, he argued, can be key to attracting back-office staff to downtown, vacationers to resorts and small enterprise house owners to vacant shops.
“Restoration is feasible, nevertheless it have to be greater than a risk in San Francisco,” he stated. “This have to be our mission.”
Lots of the proposals are acquainted, and the group gathered on the inauguration was stuffed with former mayors and different metropolis officers unable to deliver related concepts to fruition. Not in a metropolis with a police division that metropolis leaders say wants a whole lot extra officers; with a notorious bureaucracy that bogs down many urban projects; and with a drop in tax revenues leading to a finances deficit approaching $1 billion over the subsequent two years.
After which there may be Mr. Lurie’s full lack of expertise in authorities. The place of mayor is his first elected place.
Nonetheless, there was an aura of hope, because the who’s who of San Francisco crammed the place. Paul Pelosi walked slowly to his seat utilizing a purple cane, greater than two years after being bludgeoned with a hammer by an intruder on the lookout for his spouse, Nancy Pelosi, the previous Speaker of the Home.
California’s first woman, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was additionally in attendance, though her husband, Governor Gavin Newsom, was unable to attend as a result of wildfires ravaging Los Angeles.
Mr. Lurie, who will settle for an annual wage of solely $1, owns a $15.5 million trip house in Malibu, a seashore city west of Los Angeles that suffered in depth harm throughout fires. When requested Wednesday morning if his home was nonetheless standing, a advisor took him away. His spouse, Becca Prowda, an aide to Gov. Newsom, stated the couple didn’t but know the destiny of the home.
Mr. Lurie’s mom, billionaire Mimi Haas, who gave $1 million to her son’s marketing campaign and knocked on voters’ doorways on his behalf, stated she was “very excited” and assured that he was going to straighten out the town. She married the late Peter Haas, Levi’s longtime chief government, when Mr. Lurie was a toddler.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr addressed the group, likening Mr. Lurie to a coach who can solely succeed with the assistance of top-notch gamers.
“We have been by quite a bit over the previous few years and our metropolis has taken some arduous hits, however we’re bouncing again,” Mr. Kerr informed the group. “Identical to the Warriors, we should use our particular person abilities to enhance the entire.”
If Mr. Lurie is the coach, it is not clear who Metropolis Corridor’s Steph Curry shall be. Mr. Lurie has thus far employed largely outsiders from the enterprise world to assist him run the mayor’s workplace. On Wednesday, he stated that on the subject of division heads, “you may all see a variety of modifications.”
