San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
As city emerges from COVID, Breed must work with supes
Under the vast emergency powers granted to her during the pandemic, Mayor London Breed could swiftly and nimbly create new programs and policies that might have otherwise taken months — or even years — if they were approved at all.
After Breed and the local health officer ordered a state of emergency in February 2020, she did a lot with the stroke of a pen: issuing commercial and residential eviction moratoriums, expediting the hiring of nurses and speeding up permits for outdoor dining and live music, among other directives.
“Had we not had the ability to move
quickly, we would still be in the midst of the process even a year later,” Breed said of her various executive orders. In many ways, the pandemic and the emergency powers gave Breed a unique opportunity during her second year in office to act largely on her own, unencumbered by the Board of Supervisors.
Now, as the city emerges from the public health crisis, Breed is facing several challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, including staggering homelessness, a housing shortage and a drug crisis. She’s also contending with the Board of Supervisors, with which she has publicly clashed over the past few months.
The fraught relationship between the two branches is nothing new — “sometimes, things don’t always play themselves out in public in the best way,” Breed said — but the stakes are even higher as the public looks toward City Hall to help San Francisco recover from a catastrophic year.
Breed said the pandemic has taught her that “if we need to act quickly, there is some possibility to do so.” She also pointed to the successful negotiations over San Francisco’s massive $13.2 billion budget as a sign that a more cordial and collaborative relationship may be ahead.
“I could care less if we liked each other,” she said of the board. “As long as we’re figuring out a way to get to the type of results that are going to change our city for the better.”
James Taylor, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco, said while Breed “gets an A” for her pandemic leadership, “the next steps that she makes will be vital to her legacy.”
And to be most successful, he said, she will need to work smoothly with the city’s legislative branch.
“She went from leadership of a crisis, and now she has to go back to the governance of a city,” he said. “And those are very different types of skills.”
“She went from leadership of a crisis, and now she has to go back to the governance of a city.” James Taylor, political science professor at University of San Francisco
Once Breed and the local health officer declared a state of emergency, the City Charter gave her extraordinary powers. She could suddenly redirect every departments’ employees and funding, and also “do whatever else the mayor may deem necessary to meet the emergency.”
That shifted the power dynamics of City Hall, where the Board of Supervisors has enjoyed a progressive majority over the more moderate mayor.
While the mayor largely didn’t need the board on a daytoday basis, they still came together on certain issues during the height of the pandemic. For example, she worked with Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Ahsha
Safaí on capping delivery fees for restaurants, and she and Supervisor Hillary Ronen created a fund for lowincome workers who needed to quarantine.
The board also passed its own emergency ordinances — which took at least a week to enact — but the mayor was more powerful, able to immediately create temporary policies without buyin from supervisors.
“The mayor’s power during the pandemic was unprecedented in its consolidation, so the things we might normally be able to influence and the mechanisms at our disposal were limited,” said Supervisor Matt Haney, a frequent critic of the mayor.
There were certainly issues that the mayor’s office could have dealt with “better and quicker,” Haney said. But, overall, the board largely deferred to her as a show of unity during the crisis.
“In many areas she did a great job, and the results speak for themselves,” he said.
So far, Breed has issued nearly 50 emergency orders, none of which was publicly challenged by the board. The mayor’s office said she will probably hang onto the emergency powers for a few more months because several COVID19 measures — like testing and vaccination sites and the expedited business permits — are dependent on the order.
If she ends the emergency declaration, many of those changes will eventually cease, unless the Board of Supervisors makes them permanent.
The board’s debate over one of her emergency orders — the city’s Shared Spaces program, which allows businesses to create outdoor dining parklets — offered a window into tension between Breed and some supervisors.
While several board members agree that the parklets have been a major asset, Supervisors Peskin and Dean Preston — who sit on the land use committee — say several amendments to Shared Spaces are crucial for the safety of residents and the program’s longterm viability.
At the same meeting, the committee also said it needed more time to review the mayor’s Small Business Recovery Act, which includes a quick way for businesses to host live music and other cultural events.
The mayor’s office said some of the proposed changes to the parklets ordinance would make the program untenable. They have since been working out a compromise, but the delays initially frustrated the mayor so much that she criticized the supervisors at a news conference last month.
“The board has messed with the wrong mayor,” she fumed, and then threatened to bring both measures to the ballot. The same day, in an unrelated move, her office told The Chronicle she would veto the board’s legislation for a free Muni pilot program.
Peskin called her comments regarding the parklets and small business legislation “pretty silly” and said that the mayor’s office had an attitude of “my way or the highway” when it comes to the programs.
And then came the personal differences a few weeks later, which flared up when Breed accused several board members of bullying and mistreating her staff. One board member was Peskin, who apologized for his behavior and said he is seeking alcohol treatment.
Breed also slammed President Shamann Walton, who she said “should manage this board appropriately and not be someone who’s also inflicting harm on city staff.”
In response, Walton said: “This is the pot calling the kettle black.”
Looking ahead, if Breed is going succeed politically, City Hall is going to need to help those caught in the middle of these tensions — residents like Desi Danganan.
The small business owner benefited from last year’s executive orders for small businesses. But, at the same time, he’s also struggling with the city’s longrunning qualityoflife issues. Danganan transformed a previously bleak parking lot near Fifth and Mission streets into a bright and colorful community space called Kapwa Gardens. He received both the Shared Spaces permit and the live music permit under the mayor’s directive.
But since he opened in April, the city’s other urgent problems — crime and untreated mental illness among them — have hurt business. He said the community space was broken into twice and a staff member was accosted by someone who appeared to be struggling with a mental illness.
Because of high security costs, Kapwa Gardens is now open only a few days a week during special events, and the lot is closed off to the public the rest of the time.
“Although the city is coming up with new solutions, I don’t know if we’re moving fast enough and if we’re addressing all the core issues that we’re having,” Danganan said. “We can’t just repeat what we were doing in the past . ... It negates the progress.”
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, one of Breed’s allies, said that before the pandemic, San Francisco was often “stuck” when it came to tackling the city’s most pressing issues.
Coming out of the pandemic, he hopes things will change. But if the old dynamics return in City Hall, it’s unclear how much they will.
“As we ... confront the same old problems that we had before, can she — and we — act with as much effectiveness on issues like homelessness, behavioral health, crime and safety?” Mandelman asked. “The jury is out.”