Within minutes, San Francisco had a new mayor Wednesday morning, aiming to combat the fentanyl epidemic that has killed thousands of people in the city over the past five years and turned some neighborhoods into sidewalk drug markets. A new plan for declaring a state of emergency has been drawn up. .
Democrat Daniel Lurie takes the oath of office in front of the gold-domed City Hall to fight the drug crisis that has killed more people in the city than COVID-19, car crashes and car crashes since 2020. He began talking about the details of his campaign promise. A combination of murders. Lurie said he has directed the police and sheriff's departments to redeploy personnel and move from temporary, sporadic efforts to dismantle drug markets to a permanent, 24/7 operation. .
By this spring, he said, police officers will be able to house people arrested for drug use or erratic behavior in public in new locations, not just jails and hospital emergency rooms. I swore. The crisis center in the Tenderloin will be staffed with health care workers who can guide people who need treatment.
“The proliferation of drug trafficking, the use of drugs in public, and the constant presence of people in crisis are robbing us of our sense of decency and security,” Lurie said outside under a sunny blue sky. He spoke on stage. “I don't want to believe this is us.”
The fentanyl emergency declaration, which he promised after winning a tight mayoral race in November, consists of a series of ordinances that are being fast-tracked to a City Council-like oversight committee on Tuesday. Please approve it immediately.
The declaration would streamline the hiring of new city employees and the construction of homeless and drug treatment facilities. The new ordinance also allows the city to accept donations from individuals to help fund 1,500 new shelter beds within six months, as promised by Lurie.
Mr. Lurie, heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and founder of an anti-poverty nonprofit, believes that the only way to ensure that the city of San Francisco fully heals itself is to solve the city's drug problem. He said it was the right thing to do. Doing so, he argued, would be a focal point for drawing back-office workers to downtown, tourists to hotels and small business owners to empty storefronts.
“Recovery is possible, but it needs to be more than a possibility in San Francisco,” he said. “That must be our mission.”
Many of the proposals were well known, and the packed audience at the inauguration was filled with former mayors and other city officials who had failed to implement similar ideas. It's not a city with a police department, where city leaders say they need hundreds more officers. the notorious bureaucracy that stalls many city projects; And the decline in tax revenue will push the budget deficit closer to $1 billion over the next two years.
And Mr. Lurie lacks any experience in government. The mayor's job is his first elected office.
Still, there was an aura of hope as San Francisco celebrities filled the plaza. Paul Pelosi slowly walked to his seat with the help of a purple cane, more than two years after he was beaten with a hammer by an intruder searching for his wife, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
California First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom also attended, but her husband, Gov. Gavin Newsom, was unable to attend due to wildfires ravaging Los Angeles.
Lurie, who will receive only a $1 annual salary, owns a $15.5 million vacation home in Malibu, a beach town west of Los Angeles that was badly damaged by the fire. A consultant took him away Wednesday morning when he was asked if his home was still there. His wife, Becca Pravda, an aide to Gov. Newsom, said the couple does not yet know the fate of the home.
Lurie's mother, billionaire Mimi Haas, who donated $1 million to her son's campaign and knocked on voters' doors on his behalf, said she was “very excited.” He said he was confident he would turn the city around. She married the late Peter Haas, the longtime CEO of Levi's, when Lurie was a child.
Golden State Warriors manager Steve Kerr told the crowd that Lurie was a coach who can only succeed with the help of top players.
“We've been through some tough times over the last few years, and our city has taken some hits, but we're getting back on our feet,” Carr told the crowd. “Like the Warriors, we have to leverage our individual talents with the idea of making us better as a whole.”
It's unclear who City Hall's Stephen Curry will be if Lurie becomes coach. Mr. Lurie has so far hired mostly outsiders from the business world to help run the mayor's office. “You're going to see big changes” in department heads, he said Wednesday.
