Daniel Lurie

• Office: Mayor

• Election Date: November 5, 2024

• Candidate: Daniel Lurie

• Due Date: May 31, 2024

• Printable Version

Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 5, 2024 election! GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city delivered via common sense solutions and effective government. Our work includes running public opinion polls to understand what voters want, advocating for those changes, and ensuring that the SF government represents the people.

The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco.

This questionnaire will be published on growsf.org, and so we hope that you use this opportunity to communicate with voters.

Please complete this questionnaire by May 31, 2024 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.

Table of Contents

• Your Goals
• Executive experience
• The Issues
  • Public Safety
  • Drugs
  • Mental Health
  • Education
  • Housing
  • Small Business
  • Transit Infrastructure
  • Budget
• Personal
• Thank you

Your Goals

We’d like to get some details about your high-level goals and how you intend to use your elected office to achieve them.

Why are you running for Mayor?

I’m running for Mayor of my hometown because I love this city and I believe our best days are ahead of us. Unfortunately, today, the crisis of leadership at City Hall is visible on street corners across San Francisco. People at the top of our local government resort to petty political infighting and feed the dysfunction that has enabled the tragedy on our streets. Workers, families, and neighborhoods caught in the middle shoulder the burden of their failed policies.

I’ve worked with City Hall for years to get big things done for our city but I am not a creature of their failed bureaucracy. I founded Tipping Point Community in 2005 to identify, support and hold-accountable the most promising poverty fighting solutions. Under my direction as CEO, Tipping Point has raised over half a billion dollars to help house, employ, educate and support hundreds of thousands of Bay Area families. Since 2015 alone, Tipping Point has helped house over 38,000 people, a figure that doesn’t include the number we helped prevent from becoming homeless.

Leading TPC and projects like building 145 units of 100% affordable housing at 833 Bryant, I saw exactly where the bureaucracy at the top of City Hall stood in the way. San Francisco needs someone with executive experience outside of City Hall to change the system and the culture that has impeded progress on our biggest challenges. My opponents have collectively spent almost 70 years inside City Hall and have helped create the system they are now proposing to change. The people who got us into this situation are simply not equipped to get us out of it, while I have a track record of getting big things done for our community when others have said they’re impossible.

What is your #1 policy goal?

Since the day I launched my campaign I made clear that public safety is my top priority. Clean and safe neighborhoods are the foundation that all other policies are built upon. We can’t bring businesses, tourism and the tax revenue they generate back to San Francisco until our streets are safe and clean.

How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal?

Public safety and clean streets are not divisive issues. It's an issue that unites San Franciscans of all ages and political persuasions. It's the politicians who have fallen far out of touch with every day San Franciscans. For too long San Francisco’s leaders have been more focused on explaining why problems can’t be solved, instead of changing the system that created them in the first place—a broken, corrupt and ineffective bureaucracy. To make progress on public safety, San Francisco needs a mayor who exhibits consistent,
accountable leadership. I spent the bulk of my professional life building coalitions to tackle the deepest challenges of systemic poverty. I’m uniquely qualified to build support for my policy goals both inside and outside City Hall because while I understand how the status quo operates - I am not beholden to it or limited by its narrow mindset.

Will the power of the office of Mayor be enough to achieve this goal?

While San Francisco does need significant charter reform, the Mayor already has extensive powers if they're used effectively. There is rampant dysfunction within City Hall and the structure of our government contributes greatly, but the cause is a lack of leadership, will, and courage by city hall insiders to change it. As the only integrated city and county in the state with a nearly $15 billion budget and over 33,000 employees, San Francisco should have unparalleled levels of coordinated service delivery and collaboration. Yet time and again, residents are baffled by a City Hall that just can’t seem to get out of its own way. Layers of bureaucracy and a culture of departments operating as individual fiefdoms drive up staff costs and create an incomprehensibly complex maze that frustrates San Franciscans every day. We need bold reforms to shake up the status quo, stop the excuse making and finger pointing, and end a culture of legalized corruption. For specific details on how I plan to address the foundational issues that stop us from making progress on crime, homelessness and housing, see my City Hall Accountability Plan. We can’t expect that the same people who got us into this mess will be able to solve it. It’s time to turn the page.

What are your #2 and #3 policy goals?

Very much related to my first goal, my additional top priorities are to reform the city’s broken and corrupt contracting process and get more housing built affordably and quickly, both of which are outlined in my City Hall Accountability Plan. My biggest concern in this campaign is that those trained by the City Hall system are only able to think in terms that nibble around the edges rather than attack the root cause.

Will the power of the office of Mayor be enough to achieve these goals?

Between the huge structural powers given to the Mayor, the power of the bully pulpit, and urgency of the moment, the Office of the Mayor has the ability to get these done in the hands of a bold leader. These problems will not be solved by the same people that have been inside city hall for nearly a decade or longer and allowed these problems to fester and grow. Right now, we have a crisis of leadership not a crisis of resources.

What is the top single policy you would like to reform in 2025?

A mayor’s single most important policy statement is their budget. My budget will reflect my top priorities: meeting our minimum police staffing needs to improve 911 response times and have neighborhood beat and walking officers. For too long the budget process has been driven by political allegiances instead of measurable results. In order to get this done quickly, I will bring a culture of accountability on day one and end the practice of departments operating as independent fiefdoms.
Is there an "out there" change you would make to state/local government policy, if you could? (For example: adding at-large supervisors, changing how elections work, creating a Bay Area regional government, etc.)

We must centralize the City’s contract management and oversight in a streamlined unit of contract experts to rip away the unaccountable contracting powers from individual departments and instead write contracts with standard measurements, clear deliverables, and strong outcomes. We will implement penalties and consequences for missing targets.

The status quo views this as an “out there” idea, but I think it’s crucial. This solution will shrink the overall size of the bureaucracy and increase effectiveness. Simply calling for better monitoring and auditing of contracts without requirements does not go far enough. We need to claw back the ability of individual departments to unilaterally take a bad contract to the Board of Supervisors for a rubber stamp approval.

The city spends over $5.2 billion per year in contracts to over 10,000 businesses and nonprofit organizations. While layers of bureaucracy mask overspending, poor performance, and mismanagement from public scrutiny, San Franciscans see the results of a broken system on our streets every day.

The city currently has a decentralized, inconsistent, and disorganized contract process in which individual departments are able to bring almost any contract they want to the Board of Supervisors. At the same time, the service providers and nonprofits who are trying to do good work face a mountain of hurdles to becoming a vendor and then are often not paid until months after their contracts are approved.

Tell us one thing you think needs to change in SF that the average voter wouldn't know about.

The city sends $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out the door each year to about 600 nonprofits, 50% of which have contracts with multiple departments without meaningful coordination or accountability. Nonprofit executives don’t have to register as lobbyists even though they perform essentially the same function as any private sector lobbyist. I will make nonprofit executives that pursue city contracts register as lobbyists. This is common sense.

Executive experience

Please describe your experience running large organizations, managing executive teams (including hiring, firing, and performance management), driving cultural change and clear communication throughout all levels, effective financial management (budgets, reporting, audit, etc.), and any other experience relevant to running a city with a $14B+ budget and tens of thousands of employees.

San Francisco needs someone with executive experience outside of City Hall to change the system. My opponents have collectively spent almost 70 years inside City Hall and have helped create the system they are now proposing to change. I have a track record of getting big things done for our community when others have said they’re impossible.

I'm the only candidate in this race who's been a CEO, had to make a sizable payroll, and manage to a budget each and every year. I started Tipping Point Community in 2005 and grew it to the largest anti-poverty organization west of the Mississippi River without taking a penny of government money. Former Mayor Ed Lee named me to lead the San Francisco Bay Area Super Bowl Bid Committee that involved complex coordination across sectors and partners. After putting together a winning bid, I was the Chair of Super Bowl 50 which brought over $240 million in economic activity to the Bay Area while making sure that 25% ($13 million) of what we raised to put on the event was designated to local charities to fight poverty.

When I led the construction of 145 units of 100% affordable housing at 833 Bryant, I saw exactly where the bureaucracy at the top of City Hall stood in the way. I delivered 833 Bryant on time, under budget, and with good paying jobs. A UC Berkeley analysis of this project found that it was completed 30 percent faster and at 25 percent less cost per unit than projects that relied on similar construction methods, and even faster and more cost effectively compared to traditional housing construction.

Please describe a time when you had an underperforming subordinate and how you handled the situation, including (and especially) how you were able to increase their performance.

Note: Please remember that this questionnaire will be public, so do not include any personally identifiable information.

At Tipping Point Community, I lead a national movement in philanthropy to shift giving to center on real outcomes, but work collaboratively with nonprofits to ensure they were on track and if not, identify a plan of action. I’d like to share a story of working with an (anonymized) nonprofit grantee in answer to your question.

After doing due diligence, TPC made an investment in a grantee and co-designed 3 top level outcomes we wanted to see. Not "outputs" like how many job fairs did you throw, but "outcomes" like how many people actually got jobs. We regularly monitored contracts closely with quarterly reporting. Things started to fall off track with this particular grantee. So I called a meeting with their staff, my evaluation director, program officer, and budget analyst.

I shared our concerns about their lack of progress and we would like to make a plan to get you back on track but that if that didn’t work, we would be pulling the remainder of our funding and shifting it somewhere else. We were able to co-design a strategy that identified where they were falling short and address it. This nonprofit ended up exceeding our outcome goals for them and continues to be a leader in the space.

Unfortunately, for every high performing nonprofit, there are too many low performing ones. San Francisco needs a Mayor that has experience holding service providers accountable to outcomes and is not afraid to cut funding when it’s needed.

Please describe a time when your organization faced an extreme challenge and how you got the organization through it.

When I led the construction of 833 Bryant’s 145 units of affordable housing and 33 Gough’s 78 units of interim bridge housing, many people told me it was insane to try to build anything in San Francisco. But I knew it was critical to provide the city with a model for fast, cost-efficient modular construction that could be scaled to yield real results. We were able to provide a model that delivered on time, under budget, with good paying union labor but the bureaucracy and petty politics of City Hall failed to recognize the opportunity to replicate these strategies.

The Board of Supervisors may not be aligned with your goals. In that case, how will you be able to execute with an adversarial Board?

The constant finger pointing and excuse making needs to stop. No one said governing is supposed to be easy! When I am Mayor, I will take full accountability for what happens. A mayor has more power and influence than many voters have been led to believe by the rhetoric coming out of the current office. I know everyone on the board of supervisors and I know that at the end of the day, they need to deliver for their constituents. I have always been a coalition builder who brings people together to find common ground and get big things done. Where that’s not possible, a good leader is willing to be bold and spend political and social capital on what matters most to them. San Franciscans all feel passionately about the urgent need to turn things around but we will never get there by demonizing each other on every issue. The petty fights that define today’s City Hall have done nothing to make progress on public safety, the drug crisis, homelessness and housing. This election we have a chance to move in a completely new direction.

The Issues

Next, we will cover the issues that voters tell us they care about. We hope to gain a better understanding of your policy positions, and we hope that you use this opportunity to communicate with voters.

Public Safety

What is your plan to increase SFPD staffing?

Public safety is my top priority every day, not just in an election year. We are currently 500 officers below where we need to be. This impacts dangerously slow 911 response times as we have fewer officers in patrol cars, and pulls neighborhood beat officers off their patrols which play a big role in deterring crime. I will commit the resources needed to source, train, and retain a force of at least 2,000 SFPD officers. However, traditional signing bonuses and our already highest in the nation salaries have proven insufficient. We have to build workforce housing for first responders and offer rent and
childcare subsidies so officers can live in the communities where they work. That will not only help build back our ranks, it will help build trust. We also need diversity in our ranks so our officers look like the communities they serve.

We also need to make sure we’re not asking officers to be our social workers and mental health professionals—a reality which impacts morale and impacts the allure of joining the SFPD. Shifting to a co-responder model—as outlined in my behavioral health plan—will benefit morale and shift existing police resources back to patrol and foot beats. Not every call requires a response from someone with a badge and a gun.

Finally, I've spoken with dozens of officers - current, former, and prospective - and the reality that leaders in City Hall haven’t consistently supported the police department is a driver of the morale crisis, serving as a primary barrier to growing the department. I will consistently support public safety and ensure we have an effective, accountable police department that reflects the community it serves.

Traffic enforcement has been declining since 2014, and fell off a cliff in 2020. It is now near zero. Why do you think this crash in enforcement happened and what is your plan to ensure SFPD actually performs their jobs?

The lawlessness on our roads and disregard for basic safety and the law are flagrant. The impacts of San Francisco’s law enforcement staffing shortage extend far and wide including on traffic enforcement. Our officers, already spread thin on traffic enforcement with just 22 officers on motorcycles focused on traffic enforcement, are often further pulled from road safety activities to respond to other incidents. Until City Hall re-commits to fully staffing our police and sheriff’s departments, the department will continue to face these tradeoffs. One way to ease the impact of the staffing shortage is to invest more in technology to assist in traffic enforcement like red light cameras and speeding ticket cameras, particularly in dangerous intersections.

What is the #1 public safety issue today?

Crime and the pervasive feeling that lawlessness is an acceptable part of life here. That ends on day one of my administration. Our crime rates are unacceptable and that’s compounded by the fact that people do not feel safe walking on the streets of San Francisco. Businesses close early so their employees don’t have to close up in the dark. Parents have to walk their children to school past needles and people in active addiction. A city that can’t provide safety is a failing city.

What will you change about how SFPD operates?

On day 1, I will make sure they know they have a mayor who has their back every day, not just during an election year or when a big conference is in town. We have to stop asking our police officers - and teachers, firefighters, nurses, etc. - to double as social workers. I’ll launch co-responder teams of SFPD paired with a behavioral health specialist, so police can focus on safety instead of triaging the mental health and drug crises on our streets.

What will you change about how the Police Commission operates?

After spending more than five years as mayor blaming everyone but herself for the city’s public safety crisis, the Mayor is pointing fingers at a commission and police department that she already controls. The Mayor could have appointed commissioners that would have pursued these policies six years ago when she became Mayor, let alone in the six years before that when she was on the Board of Supervisors. San Francisco needs a Mayor that takes action to improve safety more than once every four years when they’re up for re-election.

From the Chief of Police to the Mayor herself, we continue to hear that departments aren’t working together and that is a reflection of the crisis of leadership this city is facing. And it’s not just coordination. It’s about collaboration. I’m sick of this insider obsession with moderates vs progressives in the city. It’s getting us nowhere. I’m not naive to the difficulties of running a large and complex city but I also know for a fact that it’s even harder when you treat the job as a constant state of war.

Some have argued that Police Chief Scott should be fired and replaced. Regardless of your position on Chief Scott, how will you ensure the Chief of Police is effective? If that position includes firing the Chief, please explain why you will fire him, and how you will hire a good replacement given the fact that the Police Commission picks the set of candidates.

Every department head needs to justify why they deserve to stay in the job. Promising to fire a department head - including the chief of police - is headline chasing, it’s not a solution.

Ensuring any chief of police is effective starts with turning around morale within the SFPD. From being “obstructionist” on officer pay and retention to calling for defunding the police, respectively, the current and former mayors I’m running against have taken positions that have been detrimental to morale and staffing. Police do not feel supported. We also need to make sure we’re not asking officers to be our social workers and mental health professionals—a reality which impacts morale and impacts the allure of joining the SFPD. Shifting to a co-responder model—as outlined in my behavioral health plan—will benefit morale and shift existing police resources back to patrol and foot beats. Not every call requires a response from someone with a badge and a gun.

Do you support the policies referred to as "defund the police"? Why or why not?

I do not support defunding the police.

Please explain why you did or did not support the recall of DA Chesa Boudin. If you were ineligible to vote in that election, please explain how you would have voted. I supported the recall of DA Chesa Boudin. Public safety and rebuilding the ranks and morale of the police force are my primary priorities. San Francisco needed a district attorney willing to hold people accountable for their actions and work with the police department to keep our residents safe. There must be consequences for criminal behavior. We need to send the message that you cannot come to San Francisco to deal drugs or commit crime.

Should San Francisco…	Yes	No
Try to achieve “full staffing” for SFPD? (Defined as about 2,100 officers, according to the City)?	X
Retain the cite-and-release policy for misdemeanors like shoplifting and car break-ins?		X
Arrest and prosecute street-level fentanyl dealers?	X
Prioritize diversion instead of incarceration for fentanyl dealers?		X
Investigate, arrest, and prosecute fentanyl distribution ringleaders (like organized crime and cartel members)?	X
Arrest and prosecute street-level vendors of suspected stolen goods?	X
Investigate, arrest, and prosecute the leaders of theft rings and fencing operations?	X
Arrest and prosecute street food vendors operating without a permit?		X
Fine street food vendors operating without a permit?	X

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Diversion: I would not "prioritize" diversion, but I believe a diversion program is crucial as an option available for first time offenders who are also users. Read more in my "Supply Side" Plan to tackle the drug crisis.

Food Vendors: Arresting and prosecuting individual vendors is not an effective use of police and district attorney resources. We need to pursue alternative effective enforcement and deterrence measures like immediately impounding carts and fines.

Drugs

Today, people are openly dealing drugs, including fentanyl, with little or no consequences. Why is this happening and what will you do to change this?

City Hall has allowed a culture of lawlessness to take hold of our city. I've released a plan praised by law enforcement experts to tackle both the "supply side" and "demand side" of the drug crisis, beginning with declaring a Fentanyl State of Emergency to surge resources and provide flexibility to meet the scale of the crisis.

In general, how should the City handle people who are abusing drugs on City sidewalks?

When I’m mayor, we will remain welcoming to all who want to call this great city home but we will no longer be a beacon for people coming here to abuse drugs and live on the street.

Do you support the creation of safe consumption sites in San Francisco? If so, please detail how they should be run, including how the City should handle people abusing drugs in public, outside of those sites. If not, please explain a viable alternative to reducing overdoses and drug addiction.

I do not support the creation of safe consumption sites in San Francisco. City Hall has focused so much on harm reduction strategies that we have failed to build the drug treatment beds necessary to stem the crisis. I will correct that imbalance and build the beds we need so that the promise of “care on demand” can be truly delivered.

I will declare a Fentanyl State of Emergency to bypass the bureaucracy, surge city resources, and access funds from the state and federal government. The declaration will enable us to hire faster and repurpose existing personnel.

Should fentanyl dealing be penalized differently from dealing other drugs?

Yes. Fentalyl is a more dangerous drug than any other we've seen on our streets before and selling it should come with increased penalties vs. other drugs. We lost a record 810 people to overdoses last year, that is unacceptable.

As Mayor, what directives will you give SFPD and other departments to end fentanyl dealing and clean up drug-dealing hotspots? How will you ensure they do their jobs effectively?

My administration will take an innovative approach to shutting down open air drug markets that’s been praised by experts in law enforcement. I will hold drug dealers accountable, using technology and enforceable consequences. I developed my plan in consultation with law enforcement officials and behavioral health experts.

Today, we seldom monitor or dispatch law enforcement in real-time. Officers aren’t often responding to stay-away order violations or to behavior consistent with narcotics trafficking. My proposal calls for the District Attorney to request that the judiciary order electronic ankle monitoring, a stay away order, and a search condition at arraignment as conditions of release when an individual is arrested for a first time drug dealing.

The Sheriff will monitor these individuals with geolocation technology. If they enter the Tenderloin or SOMA, the Sheriff will report them to BART Police or SFPD. Then, officers will execute the search condition for violations of the stay-away order. If the individual breaks the terms of their pretrial release, they will face arrest and increased consequences.

Law enforcement officials believe this approach will work because police will be incentivized to arrest drug dealers since these offenders get only one chance to correct their behavior. And by targeting the geography of drug dealing, we are simultaneously putting higher level dealers and crime rings out of business. When I'm mayor, we will send a message: San Francisco is not a place you come to sell drugs.

Mental Health

Some have argued that San Francisco should place people who are experiencing mental health crises on the streets into involuntary mental health holds at psychiatric facilities. Do you agree or disagree with this view? Please explain why or why not.

San Francisco is already doing this, but in an ineffective way that helps almost no one at an immense cost to the city. Individuals experiencing mental health crises were put on 5150 involuntary 72-hour holds over 13,000 in a 12-month period. Often they are released without adequate connection to services and they frequently return again and again. About 64% of individuals put on involuntary holds at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital's psychiatric emergency services department had experienced homelessness in the past year.

If you agree with this view, please outline some guardrails and oversight the City must provide to prevent abuse.

Only about one third of these patients are connected to another mental health provider, meaning nearly two-thirds are being released directly back to the streets with no services. Therefore, it's imperative that we designate personnel dedicated solely to ensuring better coordination and handoffs through a new Care Coordinators program proposed in my Behavioral Health Plan.

If you disagree with this view, please outline your preferred alternative solution, possible drawbacks, and the oversight it might need.

Education

What reforms should be made to the way the Board of Education is elected or conducts business?

As a San Francisco native and the father of two school-aged children, I’m running to build a future for our city that they can be proud of. We need to get the politics out of the school board and focus on good governance, strong fiscal stewardship, and most of all, academic outcomes for our students.

Some parents prefer their children attend private religious schools, others prefer public magnet schools for specific skills (like the Ruth Asawa School for the Arts or Lowell), others prefer public or private charter schools with nontraditional curricula, and others prefer homeschooling. Should all of these educational options be available to students in San Francisco? Why or why not?

The importance of education is a deeply ingrained value in myself and my family. And while my wife and I have chosen to send our two children to private school, supporting San Francisco public schools, educators, and students will continue to be a top priority for me as
Mayor. San Francisco families should have the breadth of options that suit their students' requirements as there are considerations beyond academics. What is not acceptable is far too many of our public schools continue to fail our kids.

As Mayor, how will you support SFUSD in its efforts to achieve financial stability and sustainability, especially in regards to school closures?

The most important thing a mayor can do to support SFUSD is to make San Francisco clean and safe so families both stay here and move here. We need to stop the exodus of families from San Francisco and make San Francisco the best city in the world to raise a family in. That’s why I’m running and that’s what underpins every single one of my policy proposals.

Additionally, since the city already provides financial support to SFUSD and its students through various partnerships and grant funding streams, as mayor I would require a focus on achievements in math and literacy as well as audit transparency and better outcomes tracking.

I would also ensure that our city agencies that support families and children provide the necessary resources and rigor to not only support the learning needs of students, but also the expertise, experience and metrics to independently evaluate SFUSD's performance and provide a feedback loop for needed course correction.

Did you support the recall of Board of Education members Collins, López, and Moliga? Please explain why you did or did not support the recall of each member.

Yes, I supported their recall because I believe we need to get politics out of the school board and focus on student outcomes. The recalled BOE commissioners did not prioritize students and did not fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities. Instead, they focused on political issues that actually harmed students.

Should San Francisco…	Yes	No
Offer Algebra in 8th grade to students who want it?	X
Offer Algebra in 7th grade to students who want it?	X
Require schools to improve student performance, and fire teachers who consistently underperform?	X

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

• Community Schools are being funded by the State and are needed in East Side schools. However, the full implementation of such schools has been slow.
• Truancy: Students cannot learn if they do not attend school. There needs to be an organized and concerted effort to get students back to school, and supported to ensure they continue attending.
• Alternative Pathways: Vocational pathways need to be established in high schools for those students who are driven but are not interested in taking the college pathway. The District has not given these students a pathway.

Housing

Do you believe that San Francisco has a shortage of market-rate homes? Why or why not?

Yes I do. While San Francisco exceeded its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) for above-moderate or market rate homes in the previous cycle from 2015-2023, that allocation was artificially low and failed to take many factors into account. So not only did we fail to meet the goal, it wasn’t even an adequate goal to begin with.

Do you believe that housing prices are set by supply and demand constraints? Why or why not?

Yes, supply and demand are fundamental to housing prices.

Under State law, San Francisco must build over 82,000 new homes by 2031. Do you think this is a good goal?

Yes, I believe it’s a good goal because it more accurately reflects the need for new housing than past goals. By changing the way the RHNA allocations are calculated to get to this number, the state’s Housing and Community Development Department placed a greater emphasis on a city’s past underproduction of housing, proximity to jobs for climate considerations, and a city’s overall jobs-to-housing ratio.

It’s also a challenging goal. It will be up to the next Mayor to make enough progress in both building toward those 82,000 units, policy changes, and fixing our broken permitting systems to show that we’ve righted the ship.

Follow-up: Do you believe we’re on track to achieve this goal?

No, I do not.

Follow-up: What will you do to meet the goal?

As the only person in this race who’s actually built housing in this city, I can tell you the dysfunction of city hall that stops housing does not need to be this way.. When I led the construction of 145 units at 833 Bryant Street with Tipping Point, I held everyone on the project accountable to our goals, including myself. That’s what’s missing at City Hall.

Ultimately, we finished 833 Bryant Street on time and under budget with good-paying union labor. Check out the case study from UC Berkeley.

San Francisco’s failure to make progress on housing is resulting in a slow state-takeover of our Planning Department. If San Francisco doesn’t show significant progress in building new housing, we face losing even more local control and will become ineligible for key state housing funds.

Meanwhile, City Hall insiders are debating the politics of housing instead of reforming the bureaucracy they created. This broken system has slowed the construction of 70,000 units, which have already gone through planning and neighborhood approval. Getting these units built starts with reforming a system that takes 523 days on average for a developer to get the initial go-ahead to construct a project, after which it takes another 605 days to issue a building permit. A Lurie Administration will:

• Expedite the 70,000 housing units already in the pipeline.

• End San Francisco’s status as the most expensive place to build housing.

• Increase smart density near jobs and transportation so that at least 36,000 new homes will actually get built

• Streamline permitting of in-law units and duplex conversions.

• Create permitting transparency to hold City Hall publicly accountable.

Should homeless shelters be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?

In my Home Run plan to end unsheltered homelessness by the end of my first term, I identify the need to work with neighborhood councils to identify space for temporary, interim bridge housing that will resolve encampments in a neighborhood once and for all. I believe we should eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles and intend to use a mix of emergency powers and public-private partnerships to get unsheltered people off the streets in concert with neighborhood councils.

As Mayor, will you order the construction of thousands of new homeless shelters across the City, even if neighbors object?

I’ve clearly identified the need to work with neighborhood councils to identify space for temporary, interim bridge housing that will resolve encampments in a neighborhood once and for all. At the end of the day, we are in an emergency and everyone has a part to play in solving it. As mayor, I will hold city departments accountable for maintaining clear streets after encampments are resolved.

Should subsidized affordable housing be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?

Yes, and the State has already mandated that 100% affordable housing projects are permitted by-right or with simple ministerial approval in most cases, and further expanded that to projects with between 10%-50% affordable with SB 423 last year.

Should market-rate housing be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?

I believe we need a complete overhaul to CEQA and am committed to policies that stop CEQA abuse. I support rolling back Discretionary Review and CUPs, which are ridiculously cumbersome in San Francisco. The City Hall Insiders I’m running against have passed over 4,000 changes to the Municipal Code, creating layer upon layer of dysfunction.

Market-rate housing is currently infeasible to build in San Francisco even though it’s being built elsewhere, such as Seattle and Minneapolis. San Francisco’s fees and requirements make building housing much more expensive here, including the requirement that 12-16% of homes must be sold to income-restricted households at below market rates. Do you support lowering this requirement to an economically viable percentage, even if that percentage is 0%?

I am committed to doing everything I can as Mayor to get the 70,000 units of approved housing languishing in the pipeline built, including lowering inclusionary requirements to make projects economically viable. I would advocate for the inclusionary rate reduction to be temporary until certain market recovery conditions are met so crucial affordable housing construction continues.

Should San Francisco retain, loosen, or even abolish existing limits on height, density, and bulk for residential buildings? If so, where and how?

San Francisco has to make room for more housing. Not just because the state is requiring us to, but because we have a duty to tackle our affordability crisis and create more housing. The city estimates they are on track to build 56,000 new units (which I believe is an incorrect assumption) and that we need to zone for 36,000 new units. We need to work with neighborhoods, housing experts, and advocacy groups to take a data-driven approach to find the right balance of height increases that will result in at least 36,000 new units of housing actually getting built across the city.

San Francisco Planning requires that new street-facing windows comply with City-imposed design requirements. Supporters argue that this policy enhances 'neighborhood character' while critics argue that these policies raise the price of window replacements while lowering their thermal and noise insulation. As Mayor, you can direct the Planning Department to maintain or discard these requirements. What will you do?

I would direct the Planning Department to discard these requirements and encourage alternatives that conserve energy. I don’t believe building owners have a desire to install windows that ruin the “character” of their buildings and will choose the option that makes the most sense for their situation.

In general, is it too hard, just right, or too easy to…	Too hard	Just right	Too easy
Expand your home (adding new stories, rooms, decks, etc)?	X
Renovate your home (update bathroom, kitchen, etc)?	X
Demolish your home and redevelop it into multifamily housing?	X
Redevelop things like parking lots and single-story commercial into multifamily housing?	X
Build subsidized housing?	X
Build market-rate housing?	X
Build homeless shelters (including navigation centers and “tiny homes”)?	X

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Small Business

Should all businesses be permitted by-right? If not, which business categories should require special government approval?

The city would benefit if small businesses were permitted by-right. I’ve long been calling to remove the many unnecessary CUP restrictions. I would also ensure that businesses of all sizes are able smoothly move through the Department of Building Inspection quickly through the inspection process through my City Hall Accountability Plan.

For businesses that require government approval or permits, what will you change about the process of new retail business formation in San Francisco?

I have a plan to address the root cause of our problems, which is the outdated, ineffective, and corrupt City Hall system. In order to fix City Hall, I am going to restructure it. That will allow us to finally deliver results on clean and safe streets, shelter beds instead of encampments, ending corruption, supporting small businesses, and more.

• Streamline building permits for projects or tenant improvements over 100 square feet of commercial space by requiring city departments to conduct a Project Review meeting prior to application.

• Create a permit “shot clock” that sets maximum review times based on the Project Review meeting’s timeline. Set KPIs and identify where the bottlenecks are.

• Improve online approvals tracking to create a transparent, user-friendly online approvals tracker to track where permits and entitlements are in the process, whose desk they’re on, and their contact info.

• Publish all requirements and interpretations of relevant municipal codes that will be applied to post-entitlement permits and ensure staff apply them consistently to reduce subjectivity that results in delays, frustration, and cost.

• Conduct a feasibility study of eliminating the Department of Building Inspection and combining all permitting functions into a single department

• Allow for more flexible staffing for plan check and review processes that can be throttled up and down as demand varies.

Some in the small business community have argued that San Francisco should increase the number of available ABC permits (also known as liquor licenses). Currently, some bars and restaurants buy licenses from each other because there aren’t enough licenses available, which increases those establishments’ operating costs and deprives others who don’t participate in trading licenses of revenue opportunities. Others have argued against increasing the number of permits because they don’t want more competition, or have already paid a lot of money for their liquor license. What do you think the City should do?

Our bars and restaurants are the backbone of our commercial corridors, tourism industry, and nightlife. In a Lurie Administration, we will have clean and safe streets that welcome customers back out in droves and increase revenues for existing and new establishments. I’ve long said we need to “Make San Francisco Fun Again.”

Should San Francisco…	Yes	No
Reduce the time to obtain all permits to open a new business to no more than 3 months?	X
Reduce the cost of obtaining permits to open a new business?	X
Reduce the number of activities which must obtain permits, and expand the number of by-right activities?	X
Try to attract businesses of all sizes to the City?	X

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Transit Infrastructure

Some have argued that the cost of fare enforcement exceeds the benefit. Others say not enforcing fare payment starves Muni and BART of revenue, lowers the quality of service, and makes the systems less safe. What is your position?

San Francisco has a problem with brazen lawlessness that permeates nearly every aspect of our city, with Muni fare evasion being a common and visible example. Fare evasion contributes to setting the tone that there won’t be consequences for breaking the rules here.

As Mayor, will you direct SFMTA to build a citywide protected bike lane network? Why or why not? Please also explain how you will hold MTA accountable for this task.

Yes

As Mayor, will you direct SFMTA to install more automated red light cameras and automated speed enforcement cameras?

Yes

Should Market Street remain off-limits to private vehicles and remain a bus/bike/taxi-only street? Why or why not?

I would love to have Market Street be a beautiful European-style promenade with space for arts and recreation but City Hall failed to follow through on that vision and now it’s become a divisive failure rather than a collective aspiration. We need to explore interim measures that satisfy the needs of small business, residents, and hotels on Market like allowing rideshare pickup and dropoff, while quickly deploying the promised amenities that the public can enjoy to bring them back Downtown and gain support for a permanent promenade.

Should San Francisco prioritize buses over car traffic by creating more bus-only lanes and directing traffic enforcement officers to ticket drivers who ignore the restrictions?

While no one should get away with openly flouting our rules, traffic enforcement officers need to be focused on reducing accidents in our most dangerous corridors and intersections so I would encourage the deployment of technology to help crack down on those lower risk instances until we have a fully staffed police department.

As Mayor, how will you increase the frequency and reliability of buses and trains?

San Francisco needs a world-class public transit system, but too often bureaucracy and lack of coordination between departments and agencies gets in the way. I will change that. I will also support additional dedicated bus lanes, signal timing and other technology improvements, advocate to the state and federal government for increased funding, and support recruitment, retention, and training efforts for transit operators to alleviate current and future shortages.

As Mayor, will you order SFMTA and DPW to install more pedestrian safety infrastructure, such as protective barriers, bollards, crosswalks, and lighting?
Yes, and I will do it comprehensively throughout the city, not just in one-off trial projects as it is now. I will implement a comprehensive, robust citywide pedestrian safety plan.

Budget

San Francisco is facing a large budget deficit due to declining tax revenues from our struggling downtown, increasing payroll costs, and inflexible budget set-asides for special programs. What will your approach be to fix this?

City Hall insiders have wasted more than a decade of boom year budgets with exploding revenues, neglecting to invest in the future that San Franciscans deserve. They failed to properly invest in infrastructure, first responder recruitment and retention, and upstream policies that would have stemmed the homelessness crisis before it ever started. Instead, the supervisors and mayor greenlit billions in unaccountable contracts and chased short-term headlines. It continues to this day with the reckless use of one-time funds that promise voters one thing knowing they will fail to deliver as soon as the money dries up.

Every single person running for mayor who's served in city hall owns this because they did nothing to set us on a strong fiscal path when they had the chance. I am running for mayor to change that. I will demand accountability to outcomes and shift funding to departments, service providers, and strategies that show results on the issues that matter most to voters and to the long term health of our city.

Do you think San Francisco spends too little, too much, or just enough on…	Too little	Just enough	Enough, but badly	Too much
Police and public safety	Inefficient
Street cleanliness	Inefficient
Homeless services	Inefficient
Affordable housing	Inefficient
Parks	Inefficient
Roads	Inefficient
Bus, bike, train, and other public transit infrastructure	Inefficient
Schools	Inefficient
Medical facilities	Inefficient
Drug prevention and treatment	Inefficient
Arts	Inefficient

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
San Francisco’s problems are not due to a lack of resources. Our problems are due to an inefficient, bureaucratic distribution of resources. Arguably, we spend too much across the board in comparison to the outcomes we get in return. Dollars don’t actually get to the service level before being eaten up by the bureaucracy.

This is how we end up with the infamous $1.7 million “toilet to nowhere” in Noe Valley that “needed” the sign off six different departments, racking up staff dollars at every step of the way. I will reshape and streamline the bureaucracy to focus on outcomes, accountability, and service delivery so that we end the culture of waste while improving the results on the street.

Personal

Tell us a bit about yourself!

How long have you lived in San Francisco? What brought you here and what keeps you here?

I was born and raised in San Francisco. I love this city and will never leave. As a San Francisco native and the father of two school-aged children, I’m running to build a future for our city that all of our children can be proud of.

What do you love most about San Francisco?

The people. Throughout this campaign I’ve had the privilege of speaking with thousands of San Franciscans in every corner of the city. It’s further confirmed for me what I already knew - our people, our inclusivity, our offbeat spirit, is what I love most about this city. It’s also the most beautiful city in the world, even with the setbacks we’ve had in recent years. I truly believe San Francisco’s best days are ahead of us. As mayor, I don’t want to just bring us back to where we once were, I want San Francisco to leap into an even better future.

What do you dislike the most about San Francisco?

I’m concerned by the growing pessimism that City Hall has instilled in our residents. There is a palpable sense among some that San Francisco can’t get big things done anymore. I don’t believe that’s true and I’m running for mayor to prove it.

Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)

Prior to running for Mayor, I served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of Tipping Point Community after founding and leading the organization as CEO for more than 15 years. After chairing the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee, I continue to serve on board of the Bay Area Host Committee, which is bringing international sporting events like Super Bowl 60, the World Cup, and the NBA All Star Game to the region. All told we are expecting over $1.2 billion in economic activity for our city and region.

Thank you

Thank you for giving us your time and answering our questionnaire. We look forward to reading your answers and considering your candidacy!