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Daniel Lurie, an inheritor to the Levi Strauss clothes fortune, introduced on Tuesday that he would run in opposition to Mayor London Breed of San Francisco subsequent yr, at a time when the town is struggling to beat a variety of crises in its downtown core.
Mr. Lurie, 46, deliberate to launch his marketing campaign Tuesday at a group middle within the metropolis’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, a longtime working-class space now dotted with multimillion-dollar houses and upscale retailers. His entrance within the race indicators that Ms. Breed could also be susceptible in her bid for re-election and will have misplaced the help of some reasonable allies.
Mr. Lurie mentioned in an interview that he meant to marketing campaign on fixing the town’s quality-of-life issues, and that he blames Ms. Breed for doing too little to sort out 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 concerning the scenario, himself included, he mentioned he was troubled that metropolis leaders and residents had apparently grown numb to such scenes.
“Our youngsters have come to a spot the place they’re inured,” he mentioned. “It’s virtually like they settle for it, which isn’t OK.”
Although many San Francisco neighborhoods got here via the pandemic comparatively unscathed, the town’s downtown has suffered. Places of work have been left vacant whereas workers work remotely at residence. Retailers have struggled, whereas homeless encampments, fentanyl overdoses and property crimes have endured as severe issues.
Mr. Lurie mentioned Ms. Breed had completed little, despite the fact that voters accredited increased taxes to finance homeless providers and low-income housing. He mentioned that as mayor, he would add extra psychiatric beds to the town’s hospitals, broaden the shelter system and pay homeless folks to scrub the sidewalks.
He additionally mentioned he would place extra law enforcement officials on the streets and compel extra people who find themselves severely mentally in poor health into remedy, even when they refuse care. San Francisco is considered one of seven counties in California that can start a courtroom program this fall with the authority to pressure 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 attempting to do. The one distinction, she mentioned, was that Mr. Lurie lacked authorities expertise.
“Mayor Breed is working daily to make San Francisco safer and cleaner,” Ms. Muir mentioned. “Why ought to we belief a newbie to perform these items quicker?”
Ms. Breed, 49, and Mr. Lurie are each San Francisco natives and Democrats, however have very totally different backgrounds. Ms. Breed, the primary Black girl to guide the 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 reach as far again within the metropolis as Mr. Lurie’s do. When he was a younger youngster, his mom married Peter Haas, a terrific grand-nephew of Levi Strauss, the German immigrant who opened a dry items store in San Francisco in 1853, when the 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 immediately.
Mr. Lurie’s mom, Mimi Haas, is a billionaire. His father, Rabbi Brian Lurie, was the chief director of the Jewish Neighborhood 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 season; 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 identify 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 metropolis in opposition to critics, few are sticking up for her. In ballot after ballot, metropolis residents have mentioned the town is on the incorrect monitor and that Breed is mishandling the town’s restoration from the pandemic. Her approval rankings hover at about 33 p.c.
Mr. Lurie joins a mayoral subject that to date 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 will maintain one nonpartisan contest for mayor subsequent yr, utilizing a system that enables voters to rank their most well-liked candidates so as. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the ranked order would decide the winner and keep away from a runoff.
San Francisco voters have been in a foul temper. In 2022, they recalled Chesa Boudin, the district lawyer, and three members of the college board. Native political consultants mentioned that Ms. Breed was in danger, however that Mr. Lurie should 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 powerful chief who truly has the know-how and backbone to shake issues up,” mentioned Jim Stearns, a San Francisco political marketing consultant who has labored on previous San Francisco campaigns however just isn’t concerned within the mayoral race.
Mr. Lurie mentioned that he desires to make use of his privilege to assist the town — and that he would make sure that his administration is as ethnically numerous as the 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 identified for his or her pro-business, reasonable politics.
“No matter you consider them, they obtained stuff achieved,” 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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