The Weekly Digest (April 27, 2025)

Happy Sunday, Brionies! 

Here’s what you need to know about local politics this week and beyond:

San Francisco City Hall 

• Monday, April 28 at 1:30pm: Regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee (agenda here):

• Item 1: Ordinance to create a Special Use District for the Alexandria Theater on Geary and 18th Avenue that will allow development of a residential project at the site. The once-glamorous Alexandria Theater was designed by the Reid brothers, who also designed the Cliff House and the Spreckels Temple of Music in Golden Gate Park. The Alexandria operated continuously as a movie theater from its opening in 1923 until 2004. Since then, the shuttered theater has remained a graffiti-covered eyesore. Supervisor Connie Chan, who sponsors this new ordinance, has allowed the situation to fester for years. Marjan Philhour, who unsuccessfully sought to replace Chan in the November election, pointed to the Alexandria Theatre as proof of Chan’s “deteriorating leadership in this neighborhood over the past 20 years.” 

• Tuesday, April 29 at 1:30pm: Regular meeting of the Budget & Finance Committee (agenda here):

• Item 12: Resolution retroactively authorizing the Planning Department to accept and expend a grant award of $7 million from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing grant program.

• Items 16-17: Resolutions authorizing two contracts for three years of insurance coverage, totaling $115 million. Does anyone know what Denver or Portland pay for their insurance? We might want to see some comps, because $115 million is  … a lot.

• Wednesday, April 30 at 10am: Regular meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee (agenda here):

• Item 5: Resolution approving an agreement between the City and Homebridge, Inc. to provide four years of in-home supportive services, for a total not to exceed $158,400,000.

• Item 9: Resolution approving amendment to an agreement between the City and Community Forward SF to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment services, to extend the term by three years and to increase the contract amount by $19,754,516, for a new total not to exceed amount of $42,052,558.

• Item 10: Resolution approving amendment to an agreement between the City and HealthRight 360 to provide substance abuse and mental health services, to extend the term by three years and to increase the amount by $141,427,165 for a total not to exceed amount of $305,358,044.

Happenings around town

• Briones Society events

• Briones Conversations: Freedom, Technology, and the Future of K-12 Education

• Tuesday, April 29, 6-8pm; location upon RSVP

• Bill Jackson, co-founder of the Briones Society and founder of GreatSchools.org, will moderate a conversation with Gus Mattammal of Advantage Testing and Lance Christensen of the California Policy Center. A recent candidate for congress and state assembly in San Mateo County, Mattammal is a K-12 tutor and entrepreneur with a front row seat to what students are and aren’t learning in California schools today. A former candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Christensen is a passionate advocate for academic excellence and school choice with deep knowledge of the California education system.

• Other events of interest

• The State of … SFMTA

• Tuesday, April 29, 6-7pm, Manny’s

• SFPD Community Meeting

• Tenderloin Station, Tuesday, April 29, 6-7pm

• How Foreign Speech Restrictions Affect American Free Expression

• Wednesday, April 30, 10-11am, the Hoover Institution

What we’re reading

• Mayor Lurie made a concession this week regarding his return-to-office directive for public workers. The Mayor had originally ordered employees back to the office by April 28, but after pushback from two major unions representing 24,000 employees, the date was pushed back to August, i.e. five and a half years after the Covid lockdowns. The situation highlights the inherent problem with public sector unions, as explained by Philip K. Howard in this Brionie-favorite beach read: “The general indifference to inefficiency in public bargaining impacts not only the cost of government but also the delivery of public services. Most unionized businesses, by contrast, would never accept deliberate inefficiencies and rigidities. They could not long stay in business by delivering mediocre products and services at a high price.”

• Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, whose district includes the beleaguered Tenderloin, has proposed legislation that would spread the burden of homelessness by requiring every district to host at least one homeless shelter or behavioral health facility, a concept that some are calling “shelter equity.”

Call to action

• Consider joining our pals ConnectedSF in their campaign to encourage Mayor Lurie to right-size San Francisco’s budget and our state leaders to stop coming up with new taxes. 

Quick hits

• Day 48 of the 16th St. Plaza Crackdown: shop workers see slight change, but only at the plazas

• San Francisco is a military town

• Ninth Circuit reinstates S.F. sheriff program that allows warrantless searches

• One big myth is being disproven by school choice’s victories this year 

• Washington Dem gov signs bill giving racial preference in forgivable housing loans

• The road to campus serfdom 

• Canada’s free drug experiment hasn’t panned out

• DEI’s beleaguered true believers, in their own words

This week in San Francisco history

• On May 1, 1850, San Francisco officially became a chartered city, and John W. Geary was inaugurated as its first mayor, as San Francisco transitioned from Mexican governance to becoming part of the new United States state of California.