Daniel Lurie was sworn in as San Francisco’s 46th mayor a little more than a year ago, promising a “new era of accountability and change.” Since then, Lurie’s administration has been riddled with scandals, large and small. The mistakes, all too predictable given his political inexperience, can no longer be disguised by a nearly half-million dollar public relations campaign. Slick videos posted on Instagram, celebrating San Francisco, cannot disguise the ineptitude.

Recently, what may have been another Lurie photo op went awry when the Mayor appeared to instigate a fight with an unhoused Tenderloin man. The San Francisco Chronicle, a reliable Lurie cheerleader, was forced to report on the altercation and its aftermath. The man, Tony Sheravaughn Phillips, arrested for assaulting a member of the Mayor’s security team, was released by Superior Court Judge Sylvia Husing pending a hearing.

After reviewing a video submitted as evidence, Judge Husing concluded that Phillips had been “violently assaulted” by one of the Mayor’s bodyguards. Other news organizations went further, charging Lurie with causing the fight by ordering Phillips to clear the street. A stray unhoused man, one of many who share that plight, would have challenged the Mayor’s relentless proclamation that San Francisco is a city “on the rise.”

That hasn’t been the Mayor’s only recent misstep. Days earlier, fired Department of Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem voiced what many had feared, that Lurie was cooperating with federal law enforcement, enabling the kidnapping and deportation of San Francisco residents. The Mayor has been notably silent as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have harassed members of the city’s Latino community in the last year as well as those who have bravely tried to protect them. During a question-and-answer session after a recent speech, Noem praised Lurie’s cooperation with federal authorities, noting that the two spoke “quite often.” Her statement is remarkable given San Francisco’s longstanding status as a sanctuary city.

Despite public records requests, the Mayor has stubbornly refused to produce any evidence that he has in any way stood up to the Trump regime. Lurie has steadfastly refused to release a transcript of a Oct. 22, 2025 phone conversation with President Donald Trump discussing a National Guard deployment. Lurie has claimed that he persuaded Trump to hold off on a deployment — without offering concessions. The city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force had called Lurie’s failure to release documents related to the call illegal.

October also saw the Lurie Administration beset by troubling questions surrounding a lucrative contract awarded to a software developer. The Mayor’s policy chief, Ned Segal, overruled city staff to grant $5.9 million to OpenGov to overhaul the city’s permitting system.

Those who had reviewed OpenGov’s product warned that it “had gaps so significant” that it “shouldn’t be considered.” It was also far more expensive than a competing produce deemed more suitable for the city’s needs.

OpenGov had strong ties to Lurie and his philanthropic organization, Tipping Point. Katherine August-deWilde, a member of OpenGov’s advisory board, and her husband donated $60,000 to a pro-Lurie political action committee. She donated another $100,000 to his inauguration. OpenGov also has ties to two Trump backers, billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, an early funder who sits on its board, and billionaire Joe Lonsdale, the company’s cofounder. 

So much for “a new era of accountability.”

With more months in office came more blunders. Last November, Lurie bungled a major appointment, a replacement for recalled District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio. He tapped a fellow political novice, former pet store owner Beya Alcarez, a 29-year-old with a similarly razor-thin resume. Within days came reports of Alcarez’s mismanagement of her shop included mistreating animals and evading taxes, forcing her to resign a week after being sworn in. An attempt to replace Alcarez was almost equally mishandled. On Lurie’s well-publicized short list was Wannong “Tiffany” Deng who had failed to vote in the last nine elections.

In February, he further angered Westside voters when he insisted that power be restored at the War Memorial Opera House while his daughter performed in “The Nutcracker.” Meanwhile, the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. outage left a third of the city in the dark.

That same month, he displayed “shockingly poor judgment” by accusing local protestors of anti-Semitism after an emotionally disturbed passerby shouted, “Tax the Jews,” during a Lurie press conference to announce a corporate tax break. Lurie’s charge was taken up by national media, who used it to discredit San Francisco, undermining the Mayor’s sunny social media campaign.

As for “a new era of change,” Lurie’s year-plus in office has seen rents rise and evictions increase and there is little change in the city’s homelessness crisis. The Mayor’s new housing plan, a boon to real estate developers, will do little to ease the pain. Drug use in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, despite the Mayor’s declaration of a state of emergency and a program of criminalization, remains constant. Lurie, scion to the multi-billion-dollar Levi Strauss fortune, has enough money to pay an army of public relations consultants. Even the best spin masters won’t be able to rescue a mayor drowning in errors of his own making. San Franciscans know when they’ve been had.