Mayor’s key to getting job done? ‘Harassment’

With her first full year anniversary as mayor just days away, London Breed sat in her San Francisco City Hall office and summed up her management style in a word — “harassment.”

“I harass the department heads and staff constantly. I harass daily, even hourly sometimes,” Breed said with a laugh.

“I see a pothole or a mess on the sidewalk or in a park or something on the street, like a mattress, and I’m on the phone right away to a department head saying, ‘Can you get someone here?’ And then I end the call by saying, ‘I’ll be waiting,’ or I’ll say ‘I’ll be passing back this way later.’

“It makes a difference when people know

“Even having worked for the city, it was a horrible experience.”

Tyra Fennell, executive director of Imprint.City

perwork. Little did she know that — in an ironic twist of fate — her attempt to convene a community celebration would lead her into a maze of city bureaucracy.

“Even having worked for the city, it was a horrible experience,” Fennell said. “And that says a lot.” And horrible experiences like hers have prompted Mayor London Breed to take a look at the problem and figure out some solutions.

On top of thousands of dollars in fees, throwing a street fair, block party or parade can require permits from a halfdozen or more city agencies, most of which have their own complex permitting procedures and deadlines.

Producing even a modest neighborhood gathering can require spending weeks getting approvals from the city’s Entertainment Commission, Fire Department, Police Department, Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency — just for starters. The handbook meant to help guide producers through the permitting process is 65 pages long.

“I can figure these things out,” Fennell said. “But imagine if someone wants to do a small activation at a storefront. People don’t have the time or energy to navigate those things. It’s expensive. You have no idea where to go. You’re dealing with five different agencies. It’s all over the place.”

Experiences like Fennell’s and those of hundreds of other event organizers were the inspiration behind a new executive order from Breed that will compel the city to rethink the way it approves permits for special events. The order, which Breed is expected to announce Monday, will create a special events steering committee that will spend the next six months, beginning this summer, figuring out ways to make the permitting process faster, centralized and less expensive.

“Our iconic street fairs, concerts, cultural events and neighborhood block parties help us to celebrate our community and make our city more vibrant,” Breed said in a statement. “We need to make it easier to put these events on, not force people to spend countless hours applying for permits.”

There’s more at stake than finding a way to cut down on the blizzard of paperwork facing event producers. The complexity and the costs of the city’s eventpermitting system can be especially daunting for smaller producers, said Maggie Weiland, executive director of the Entertainment Commission.

“I think that’s the sad thing. I’d like to think of us as the department of fun, and we want to promote fun and entertainment and culture in our neighborhoods,” Weiland said. “But I can’t tell you how often it is that we have folks call us ... and when they hear about how complex it is, sometimes they’ll say, ‘Well, never mind I’m not going to do it.’ Or they say, ‘Never mind,’ and have the event without the permits, or they take it to another city altogether.

“We have a lot of concern around these events getting displaced or going bankrupt, or not being able to survive in this climate anymore, so we’re trying to be proactive here,” she said.

The committee will be looking at ways to create a online hub that can help event producers and city departments coordinate better. They’ll also examine how to contain permit fees, which rise almost every year, Weiland said. Communication among city departments — and the acute lack thereof — is a big part of the city’s permitting problem, said Patrick Finger, executive director of Folsom Street Events, which puts on the Folsom Street Fair, a famous annual celebration of leather culture in San Francisco.

“There is no higherlevel communication between the various city agencies right now. You’ve got MTA issuing permits and then Public Works issues permits, and they don’t bother to interact with each other. It creates a lot of conflict,” he said.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ dominicfracassa

PHIL MATIER