Mayor Lurie won a huge expansion of his powers to combat fentanyl markets and homelessness, as the Board of Supervisors approved his so-called “emergency ordinance,” which now involves a pop-up police station at the long-debated SoMa Nordstrom parking lot.
New San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has been in office only 28 days, but on Tuesday, scored his first major legislative victory. And that victory hands Daniel Lurie a ton of power his predecessors did not have. The SF Board of Supervisors passed Lurie’s promised fentanyl state of emergency ordinance by a 10-1 vote according to the Examiner, an ordinance he hopes will eliminate street drug markets, reduce homelessness, and clamp down on the street chaos in South of Market and the Tenderloin.
“As a candidate for mayor, I promised San Franciscans that I would work in partnership with the Board of Supervisors to take action on the critical issues facing our city. As mayor, I am proud to be delivering on that promise today,” Lurie said in a statement after the vote. “The Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance gives us the tools to treat this crisis with the urgency it demands. And with our partners on the board, that’s exactly what we will do.”
Lurie’s measure eliminates competitive bidding and oversight on the awarding of contracts to nonprofits and service groups, claims it will add 1,500 shelter beds in six months, and allows private donations of up to $10 million per donor to fund Lurie’s efforts. (Are there people out there who’d pony up $10 million to help Lurie’s so-called crackdown?)
Most notably, it creates a 24-hour drop-off center at the infamous Nordstrom parking lot that’s spawned years of political battles over attempts to build it into a luxury apartment high-rise. But that location, for now, will be something quite different — an unprecedented facility that would serve as an outdoor arrest center, treatment center, and “Greyhound bus your ass out of own” center that may prove to be the most controversial aspect of Lurie’s plans.
His measure passed by a 10-1 vote, with only Supervisor Shamann Walton voting against it. We knew Lurie’s measure would pass last week when Supervisor Connie Chan voted for it in committee, which guaranteed the necessary six votes to pass. Chan gave her support because she said Lurie was “working so collaboratively” on what she referred to as “compromise legislation.”
But even the board’s newest progressive supervisors Jackie Fielder and Chyanne Chen voted for Lurie’s measure too.
After the vote, Fielder said in a statement that “This ordinance is an unprecedented transfer of power, and a significant transition of responsibility to Mayor Lurie to transform street conditions over the next 10 months. With my vote today, I am putting a great deal of faith in Mayor Lurie’s Administration to utilize these extraordinary powers to carry out the will of the voters, and provide housing, shelter, and treatment to our most vulnerable, and to do so without repeating the corrupt practices that have tainted the public’s trust in city government for years.”
About those extraordinary powers. Per the Chronicle, supervisors would have 45 days to consider contracts of up to $25 million that are awarded to nonprofits, and some of these would be awarded to the recipient of Lurie’s choosing, without competition. And the Examiner adds that “if legislators don’t act, Lurie would be able to move forward without them.”
The Chronicle quotes city budget and legislative analyst Nicolas Menard telling supervisors at a committee meeting last week, “I need to be very clear that you’re giving up a lot here.”
And after the meeting, Mission Local had the scoop that the notorious former Nordstom parking lot at 469 Stevenson Street would be used as what that publication calls a “one-stop shop for arrests, drug treatment and homeless busing." SFPD explained at a Tuesday night meeting after the vote that the site would allow police to make arrests on the spot without going to the Hall of Justice at Seventh and Bryant streets, so presumably there would be paddy wagons to haul people to County Jail. The city's bus-the-homeless-out-of-town program would also operate from the site.
Though putting aside that this just creates more County Jail overcrowding and staffing issues with an anticipated influx of new arrests, the parking lot has absolutely no infrastructure, electricity, or plumbing. (Mission Local reports SFPD Assistant Police Chief David Lazar said the department might “put up some temporary little pop tents with the four legs, that you see at, like, a street fair.”) And mind you, this operation would be happening during the rainy season.
There are going to be obvious controversies with a not-very-transparent nonprofit bidding process, which seems certain to favor Lurie’s friends in that sector, and has plenty of potential for Mohammed Nuru-style malfeasance. And we imagine there will be some outrage over whatever this parking lot-based arrest and treatment center is.
But the bottom line on whether Lurie’s fentanyl crackdown sinks or swims will be whether people actually, you know, notice things getting better. London Breed had plenty of numbers saying fentanyl arrests were up and crime was going down. That did not save her politically, and Lurie cannot expect statistics alone to bolster him politically either.
Image: @DanielLurie via Twitter
