San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Tuesday’s election results sent a message: focus on results, not politics.
Just 16 months into the job, Lurie has presided over a surge in optimism in the once-ridiculed liberal city alongside a drop in petty crime, a decrease in large homeless encampments and glimmers of life in a downtown district hollowed out by Covid-19.
“I think the mood is one of hope and optimism, one where [voters] want the supervisors and the mayor to work together, around common sense solutions to the issues we have,” Lurie told The Post in an interview Friday at City Hall.
Sixty-four percent of San Franciscans believe the city is on the right track, according to a Chamber of Commerce poll — a striking turnaround from 2024, when locals were overwhelmingly sour on the city’s leadership.
Public drug use, rampant theft and embarrassing corruption scandals tainted the city’s reputation for years before a moderate voter revolt, financed largely by tech bosses such as Ripple chairman Chris Larsen and venture capitalist Michael Moritz, ousted progressive elected officials.
Lurie, 48-year-old heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, unseated former mayor London Breed in 2024 on a promise to upend the status quo.
The newbie mayor has sought to balance the city’s shaky multibillion-dollar budget while approving raises for cops and fighters, partly by trimming back the city’s hefty nonprofit contracts that have totaled more than $1 billion annually.
While Lurie noted he’s still relatively new to the job, he offered one suggestion to fellow elected officials: Focus on results.
“That’s the only advice I would share with anybody in any elected position — focus on where you are governing,” he said.
“The city of San Francisco, the people deserve a mayor and a board of supervisors that are focused on getting results and delivering common sense, reasonable policies,” Lurie added.
On Tuesday, San Francisco voters easily reelected two moderate supervisors — Stephen Sherrill and Alan Wong, both endorsed by Lurie — and appeared to reject Proposition D, a so-called “Overpaid CEO tax” that would have slapped extra levies on companies with large pay disparities between top execs and the median local worker.
Six years ago, San Francisco voters approved a similar measure by huge margins — but times have changed, according to the mayor.
While results aren’t final for union-backed prop Prop. D, Lurie said San Franciscans are fatigued with union and business interests waging war at the ballot box.
“It’s just not a way to govern a city,” he said.
Two other propositions, an earthquake safety bond and a measure adding lifetime term limits for local elected officials, were leading as of Friday.
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