Daniel Lurie, an inheritor to the Levi Strauss clothes fortune, introduced on Tuesday that he would run towards Mayor London Breed of San Francisco subsequent yr, at a time when town is struggling to beat quite a few crises in its downtown core.
Mr. Lurie, 46, deliberate to launch his marketing campaign Tuesday at a group heart within the metropolis’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, a longtime working-class space now dotted with multimillion-dollar houses and upscale outlets. His entrance within the race alerts that Ms. Breed could also be susceptible in her bid for re-election and should have misplaced the help of some reasonable allies.
Mr. Lurie mentioned in an interview that he supposed to marketing campaign on fixing town’s quality-of-life issues, and that he blames Ms. Breed for doing too little to deal with them.
Mr. Lurie is the founding father of Tipping Level, an anti-poverty nonprofit. He mentioned that he determined to run for mayor when he was strolling his 9-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter to highschool, they usually noticed a person stumbling down the road, bare and screaming.
Noting that no one did something in regards to the scenario, himself included, he mentioned he was troubled that metropolis leaders and residents had apparently grown numb to such scenes.
“Our children have come to a spot the place they’re inured,” he mentioned. “It’s nearly like they settle for it, which isn’t OK.”
Although many San Francisco neighborhoods came through the pandemic comparatively unscathed, town’s downtown has suffered. Workplaces have been left vacant whereas workers work remotely at house. Retailers have struggled, whereas homeless encampments, fentanyl overdoses and property crimes have endured as critical issues.
Mr. Lurie mentioned Ms. Breed had achieved little, despite the fact that voters accredited larger taxes to finance homeless providers and low-income housing. He mentioned that as mayor, he would add extra psychiatric beds to town’s hospitals, increase the shelter system and pay homeless folks to wash the sidewalks.
He additionally mentioned he would place extra law enforcement officials on the streets and compel extra people who find themselves severely mentally sick into remedy, even when they refuse care. San Francisco is certainly one of seven counties in California that can start a courtroom program this fall with the authority to drive folks with extreme psychological sickness to be hospitalized in the event that they refuse remedy.
Maggie Muir, a spokeswoman for Ms. Breed’s marketing campaign, mentioned Mr. Lurie’s platform didn’t depart from what the mayor was already making an attempt to do. The one distinction, she mentioned, was that Mr. Lurie lacked authorities expertise.
“Mayor Breed is working on daily basis to make San Francisco safer and cleaner,” Ms. Muir mentioned. “Why ought to we belief a newbie to perform these items sooner?”
Ms. Breed, 49, and Mr. Lurie are each San Francisco natives and Democrats, however have very completely different backgrounds. Ms. Breed, the primary Black lady to steer town, was raised by her grandmother in public housing close to Metropolis Corridor, and now rents an condo within the Decrease Haight, a vigorous neighborhood fashionable amongst younger tenants for its eating places, nightclubs and colourful Victorian houses.
Few San Francisco residents have household ties — or riches — that stretch as far again within the metropolis as Mr. Lurie’s do. When he was a younger youngster, his mom married Peter Haas, a descendant of Levi Strauss, the German immigrant who opened a dry items store in San Francisco in 1853, when town was bustling with new arrivals searching for gold within the Sierra Nevada foothills. Mr. Strauss discovered his personal fortune by making sturdy denim pants for miners, and his firm remains to be synonymous with bluejeans right this moment.
Mr. Lurie’s mom, Mimi Haas, is a billionaire. His father, Rabbi Brian Lurie, was the chief director of the Jewish Group Federation of San Francisco. Daniel Lurie resides in Potrero Hill briefly whereas his home in Pacific Heights, the rich residential space the place he grew up, is being renovated.
Defeating an incumbent mayor in San Francisco is rarer than a fog-free day in summer time; it final occurred 28 years in the past, when Willie Brown beat Frank Jordan, a former police chief. Not like Mr. Lurie, Mr. Brown entered that race with extraordinary title recognition, having served as speaker of the California State Meeting for almost 15 years.
Even so, Mayor Breed seems susceptible because the November 2024 election approaches. Whereas San Francisco residents fiercely defend their city towards critics, few are sticking up for her. In ballot after ballot, metropolis residents have mentioned town is on the fallacious monitor and that Breed is mishandling town’s restoration from the pandemic. Her approval rankings hover at about 33 %.
Mr. Lurie joins a mayoral discipline that to this point has only one different challenger: Ahsha Safaí, a San Francisco supervisor and a Democrat, who has centered his marketing campaign on addressing retail theft and increasing the variety of law enforcement officials.
San Francisco voters have been in a foul temper. In 2022, they recalled Chesa Boudin, the district lawyer, and three members of the varsity board. Native political consultants mentioned that Ms. Breed was in danger, however that Mr. Lurie must overcome progressive voters’ skepticism towards a rich candidate, in addition to a scarcity of expertise.
“He hasn’t gained traction with even the enterprise group as a robust chief who truly has the know-how and backbone to shake issues up,” mentioned Jim Stearns, a San Francisco political guide who has labored on previous San Francisco campaigns however shouldn’t be concerned within the mayoral race.
Mr. Lurie mentioned that he desires to make use of his privilege to assist town — and that he would be sure that his administration is as ethnically numerous as town itself.
Requested to call the mayor he most admires, Mr. Lurie pointed to Mr. Brown of San Francisco and to Michael Bloomberg of New York Metropolis, each recognized for his or her pro-business, reasonable politics.
“No matter you consider them, they received stuff completed,” Mr. Lurie mentioned. “I’m bullish on San Francisco, and I’m trying ahead to serving to put this metropolis again heading in the right direction.”
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