After years of unfavourable headlines and post-pandemic financial battle, San Francisco has picked a rich Democratic outsider with no authorities expertise to function town’s new mayor.
Daniel Lurie, 47, is likely one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss denims firm fortune, and beforehand spent 15 years as the chief of a San Francisco non-profit he based. He defeated a number of Democratic challengers, together with the present mayor, London Breed, in an election that was anticipated to interrupt native marketing campaign spending data.
“I’m deeply grateful to my unbelievable household, marketing campaign group and each San Franciscan who voted for accountability, service and alter,” Lurie stated in an announcement. “Regardless of who you supported on this election, we stand united within the struggle for San Francisco’s future and a safer and extra reasonably priced metropolis for all.”
Lurie poured greater than $8m of his personal cash into his marketing campaign, whereas his billionaire mom, Mimi Haas, backed him with one other $1m. He would be the first San Francisco mayor since 1911 to win workplace with out beforehand serving in authorities, making him town’s “least skilled mayor in a very long time”, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
However the Chronicle additionally ended up endorsing Lurie, praising the “stability of compassion and toughness” in his deliberate strategy to coping with the folks in San Francisco combating homelessness, and saying town wanted a change in management, making Lurie’s inexperience doubtlessly well worth the danger.
Lurie had touted his expertise funding and constructing reasonably priced housing on the Tipping Level Basis as proof that he could lead on San Francisco in the precise course.
San Francisco is dominated by Democrats, and so the selection was successfully between moderates and progressives, with voters specializing in pragmatic centrists. Lurie beat and can substitute Breed, town’s first Black feminine mayor, who has led town since 2018.
Breed, who was raised by her grandmother in public housing, conceded the race on Thursday when it grew to become clear she couldn’t overcome deep voter discontent and was trailing Lurie, a philanthropist and anti-poverty non-profit founder.
“On the finish of the day, this job is greater than anyone individual and what issues is that we preserve shifting this metropolis ahead,” Breed stated, including that she had referred to as Lurie to congratulate him. “I do know we’re each dedicated to enhancing this metropolis we love.”
The northern California metropolis has come to signify the challenges confronted by many giant US cities which have struggled with an uneven financial restoration and rising value of residing for the reason that Covid-19 pandemic. Standout points throughout all candidates’ campaigns have been housing and crime, even with crime down 32%.
San Francisco has the best median family revenue amongst main US cities, however homelessness stays intractable. Since a June supreme courtroom ruling, Breed’s administration has been actively sweeping unhoused encampments.
Her critics identified that sweeps are short-term fixes and town has not completed sufficient to supply shelter to its unhoused inhabitants.
In an interview with Reuters, Lurie stated sweeps have been a instrument for town to fight homelessness and promised to face up 1,500 emergency shelter beds in his first six months in workplace.
Lurie is an inheritor to the Levi Strauss & Co fortune by means of his mom, Mimi, who wed Peter Haas when Lurie was a baby. Peter Haas, a great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, was a longtime CEO of the enduring clothes firm who died in 2005.
Each the Levi’s title and Haas household philanthropic foundations are deeply embedded in San Francisco’s historical past and identification.
Lurie’s father, Brian Lurie, is a rabbi and longtime former govt director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Group Federation.
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