‘We have a broken system at city hall’: Philanthropist Daniel Lurie on plans to unseat SF Mayor Breed

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Several names are emerging as serious challengers in the San Francisco mayoral race. KRON4’s Stephanie Lin sat down with candidate Daniel Lurie, founder of the anti-poverty nonprofit Tipping Point and an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, for a wide-ranging discussion on key issues facing the city.

Below are excerpts from that interview. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

KRON4: In a few words, tell the voters, who is Daniel Lurie?

Lurie: I was born and raised here in San Francisco. My wife and I are raising two young kids. We have a 12-year-old daughter, a nine-year-old son. I’m running because I want them to be as proud of this city as I’ve always been. I’m running because I’ve been able to bring diverse groups of people together to get big things done for our community.

KRON4: Tell us about your childhood here in San Francisco and how things might have changed.

Lurie: My stepfather was part of the Levi Strauss family. People Google that and see that. But what they don’t see is that my mom was always focused on early childhood education because we know that when kids get off to the right start, they do better their entire lives. The San Francisco I grew up in was magical. You know, going to great parks. I loved playing sports as a kid growing up — watching (San Francisco 49ers legends) Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott. I’m excited about this current generation of Niners.

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KRON4: Were you aware as a kid growing up that you came from a life of privilege?

Lurie: I grew up with parents, as I said, that instilled these values in me. That said, you got to be part of lifting people up, that you have it good, and I did. And but there was never a point where my parents didn’t say to me, you have an obligation to your community. You have an obligation to lift others up. So, I don’t think I understood what I had as a kid. You’re a kid, but what I do know now is that those values have driven me my whole life and have committed me to this community, whether it be Tipping Point, or whether it be bringing Super Bowl 50 to the Bay Area.

KRON4:  San Francisco is, as you know, a city of extreme haves and have-nots. Are you relatable to voters?

Lurie: I have committed my life to issues of poverty. I walk the streets all the time. I’m in the Tenderloin once a week. I believe that I understand what is at stake not only in this election but also for the future of San Francisco. I understand that we need to build more affordable housing and that we have to get people job training and employment skills to match the moment.

KRON4: What would you say is the biggest misconception about you?

Lurie: I think people have always underestimated me. Frankly, when I told people I wanted to start Tipping Point, they were like, “oh, okay.” When (then-San Francisco) Mayor (Ed) Lee asked me to run Super Bowl 50, people were like, what are you doing? And even with Mayor Lee, we had a little bet on who could get affordable housing building built first. We got it done in three years for $377,000 a unit using good-paying union labor. So, when I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. This election, people can underestimate me all they want. We’re going to win in November.

KRON4: You’ve never held elected office. What makes you the best person to be mayor of San Francisco?

Lurie: We have a broken system at City Hall. We have an elected class of leaders that have allowed these problems to fester. We have a mayor that has been mayor for five and a half years. Before that, three years as the board president of the supervisors. I’m asking the voters, “do you really believe that someone who has helped create this system, whether it be any one of my opponents, is the right person to change that culture?”

KRON4: San Francisco politics, it’s a tough arena to be in. It’s been described as a knife fight in a phone booth. Why leave the nonprofit sector to go into politics?

Lurie: What I have seen for far too long is that at City Hall, I really believe they think that we’re all here to serve them. My administration will be an administration that serves the people. You talk about the knife fight. People work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, that’s hard work. What I’m doing, in fact, is I’m having a great time. I’m learning this city in a way that you can’t possibly know until you are running.

KRON4: The general national perception of San Francisco, unfortunately, isn’t the best one. Some say San Francisco’s in sort of a doom loop. Do you agree?

Lurie: I’m not buying into that narrative. San Francisco’s best days are ahead of it. We’re running a positive campaign here in the sense that we just have to get back to basics. We have to get our police force back. We have to clean our streets just like we did for APEC.  It’s not a crisis of resources here in San Francisco. It’s a crisis of leadership. But first, you’ve got to make people feel safe. That’s my number one priority.

KRON4: If you are elected mayor, what’s the first issue you’d address?

Lurie: I think you’ve got to go after recruiting and retaining a police force. We were down 700 police officers. It’s going to take us some time — no question about that. But we got to give them the tools to do their job. Then, we’re going to be cleaning our streets. You’re coming off the overpasses, you come down Sixth Street, it’s going to be pristine. The first image of San Francisco when our visitors and our travelers come here, has got to be a city that is clean and safe and vibrant.

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KRON4: We have retailers on Market Street who were choosing to leave because they say that they’re concerned about retail crime. What is your message to those businesses?

Lurie:  We need to make people feel safe again. We need to aggressively recruit new officers and retain those that were at risk of losing to retirement. We need more patrol cars out enforcing traffic violations. We need cops walking the beat in Chinatown and on Mission Street, and we need to get back to supporting those efforts because (police) feel like they’re under attack and no one is listening to them.

KRON4: It’s tough to find qualified applicants for law enforcement right now. Is there a strategy behind that?

Lurie: You need a mayor and a city hall that supports its police in good times and bad. We’re creating a system where these cops are overworked. They’re doing two, three times overtime. It’s wearing them out. And we also need our police officers not to be our frontline social workers. Not every episode on the street should be responded to by a police officer, and so that will change in my administration.

KRON4: San Francisco saw a record number of overdose deaths last year. More than 800 people died on city streets. What sort of strategy needs to go into place to get this problem under control?

Lurie: We haven’t provided enough shelter beds. I will concentrate on building the infrastructure so that there is treatment on demand. We need to compel treatment as well. That’s got to be part of it because some people don’t know how bad it is for themselves. They’re not able to make that decision.

KRON4: The city has a revolving door issue with drug dealers. What needs to change?

Lurie: We work with the DA’s office. We push judges to, after a first-time drug arrest, the fentanyl dealers, as part of their pretrial release, that there would be an electronic monitor on that. We would have SFPD work with BART police, with federal agencies, so we know when someone gets on a BART from the East Bay and they’re coming into town, the warning light goes off. And once they are in one of the corners, like the Tenderloin or in SoMa, they would be subject to a search condition. We need to send a message to everybody that you don’t come here to deal drugs, to do drugs.

KRON4: What is the current ability of the mayor’s office to enforce or request real-time response to drug dealers?

Lurie: You have the power of the budget. This is not something you the mayor, just decree and it happens. And that’s where my background comes in. I know how to bring people together.

KRON4: The city’s homeless numbers are higher than they were a decade ago. How do you plan to address them?

Lurie: We still haven’t built enough shelter beds. If you build enough shelter beds, which you could do in a matter of months, then you offer somebody a shelter bed. If they don’t take it, that’s their right. But it’s not their right then to stay on the street. We cannot have people living on our streets anymore. There is nothing progressive about it. Once again, we have the money to do this. We all know there is a lot of waste and fraud and abuse. Many of our groups are non-profits are not being audited. You do that, we will have the money to do a much better job moving people sustainably.

KRON4: So you are in favor of homeless encampment sweeps, if there are enough beds available?

Lurie: People want to use these word sweeps. I’m in favor of getting people into shelter. I am in favor of our streets not having any tents on them because there’s nothing progressive about tents on our streets. We’ve seen it for years now, so I believe in compassionate care.

KRON4: In San Francisco, there’s a real building vacancy problem. The number of vacant office spaces hit record highs. What would you want to do to encourage innovation to return to San Francisco?

Lurie: It starts with public safety. It starts with cleaning our streets. We’ve got to reimagine and rethink and bring Market Street back. Then we have to get competitive on what we’re trying to do from a tax point of view. We need diversity of businesses. I love this idea of bringing a campus downtown. I told you that I was in downtown New York City on 9/11 and people said they would never come back. Downtown is going to come back. There’s no question in my mind. We just have to make people feel safe.

KRON4:  We saw the board of supervisors pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire overseas. How would you have handled this? Do you agree with this move?

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Lurie: No, I don’t I don’t think passing divisive resolutions is their purview or their job. And so, I was upset with how that was handled. This could have been an opportunity for healing. Instead, it created more divisiveness, more anti-Semitism, more Islamophobia.  Frankly, I was appalled by the treatment of people in the chamber. People being shouted down for speaking about their beliefs is incredibly upsetting to me. It was divisive. I would have made sure to work with those supervisors and the board president, and I would have done whatever it took that we would have passed something that all of us could have agreed on. It was a resolution that, you know, is talking about something happening 6,000 miles away. The supervisors should be focused on what’s going on our streets. Eight hundred six people died here in San Francisco, and nothing is being done about it. That’s upsetting to me.

KRON4: Anything else the voters need to know?

Lurie: You may believe this. You may not. I don’t want to do another political job after this. I’m doing this. I’m running for mayor for eight years and then I’m out. You have to know that this is not about climbing some ladder to go to Sacramento or go to (Washington) D.C. I’m not a career politician. It’s probably gotten me into trouble sometimes. But I’m doing this because I love this city. I want to turn it around and then I want to get out.

KRON4: Okay, we’re going to hold you to it.

Lurie: Yeah, you can.

KRON4: Now a fun one. San Francisco has been described as Gotham City. Are you Batman?

Lurie: I can be Batman, but we need we need everybody to do this together. No one person is going to turn around this city. It’s going to take all of us coming together to fix our issues that we all see in front of us. We’ve got to get back to basics, and we’re going to come roaring back.

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