City governance should be grounded in competency and public accountability. In his first year, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has favored optics and relationships over process, and working-class families are paying the price.
In the span of a month, two crises exposed Lurie’s approach. The first was the sudden collapse of his most consequential political appointment. A few weeks earlier, a federal immigration operation was halted only after a group of billionaires contacted the president.
Together, these events show how a city that relies on impressions and private access struggles under real pressure. They reveal how the absence of strong leadership leaves public institutions sidelined while private wealth fills the vacuum.
A supervisor seat chosen on vibes
The rise and fall of District 4 Supervisor Beya Alcaraz lasted about 200 hours, and it has already become a defining episode of Lurie’s first year.
After Joel Engardio was recalled in September, several potential candidates declined the appointment. Lurie later met Alcaraz at a night market in the Sunset. She had no government experience, had never attended a public meeting, and had no background in community or policy work. She simply made a strong impression at a moment when the administration needed to fill a vacancy. Within weeks, she was sworn in.
Most of what residents learned about her came from reporters. The Standard and Mission Local documented unsanitary conditions at her former pet store, including a freezer with dead animals and years of financial losses. Reporters also uncovered text messages in which Alcaraz discussed paying workers off the books and misreporting expenses. Within a week of her swearing-in, Lurie requested her resignation.
The issue is not how the administration missed these facts. The issue was a failure of judgment: why the mayor was willing to take such a risk in the first place?
Alcaraz’s appointment and its collapse revealed how Lurie approaches governance by making deals: elevating someone on charisma and proximity rather than the hard work of vetting, consulting community leaders or evaluating whether a candidate can actually govern. It was less a political decision than a branding one, and it failed quickly, publicly and avoidably.
A called-off surge that exposes who holds influence
The Alcaraz episode would be easier to dismiss if it did not echo a deeper pattern. A few weeks earlier, more than one hundred Border Patrol officers arrived at Coast Guard Island for a federal immigration surge. Protests formed at the entrance. Tensions rose, and federal agents fired on a U-Haul truck, injuring the driver and a bystander.
The next morning, Lurie announced that the president had called him late at night to say the operation would be stopped. Hours later, Trump confirmed the reversal on Truth Social and credited three of the region’s wealthiest executives: Marc Benioff, Jensen Huang, and Sam Altman.
Later reporting revealed that Lurie and his aides created a list of which tech leaders had the clearest line to the White House and encouraged those figures to intervene. Lurie acknowledged receiving a personal call from Trump, but his office has refused to release records of the conversation, citing attorney client privilege.
At a moment when immigrant families feared a sweeping federal action, the fastest path to the president ran through wealthy individuals who had strong business interests at stake. Images of armed federal agents sweeping the Bay Area are bad for investor confidence, global markets and the reputations of companies that rely on a highly educated workforce.
This outcome was not a coincidence. It was a predictable result of city leadership that has not built the institutional capacity needed to respond to federal threats on its own.
Lurie’s instincts were not entirely wrong. Trump often responds to wealth and influence. But relying on billionaires to manage a civic crisis is a flawed habit. Once again, the mayor focused less on the human consequences of a militarized surge and more on how the situation might affect the interests of the region’s most powerful residents.
Two crises, one pattern
Viewed together, the Alcaraz collapse and the surge reversal tell a single story about how San Francisco is being governed.
When appointments depend on personal impressions, when crises are managed through private go-betweens, and when policy decisions are shaped by insider access instead of public process, power moves upward. It settles in the hands of people who already have it.
San Francisco has dealt with concentrated executive power for many years, but Lurie is accelerating this trend.
Lurie governs more like a chief executive focused on image, relationships and branding than on public service. This approach might suit a tech-era city, but it is not a sustainable model of governance.
Governing through optics does not protect residents. It leaves immigrant families and working-class communities vulnerable to forces they cannot control. And it leaves San Francisco dependent not on the strength of its institutions, but on the willingness of a few executives to pick up the phone.