In an interview with KQED, for example, Lurie said he supported the recall of three San Francisco School Board members in 2022. But when asked whether he supported the recall of ousted District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Lurie pivoted to say he supported Suzy Loftus — Breed’s appointee to the position — whom Boudin narrowly defeated when she faced voters.
Pressed on his position, Lurie said he did vote to recall Boudin, adding that while he supports criminal justice reform “I think how [Boudin] went about [running the D.A’s office] was kind of blowing up the system and not having a plan in place to fill that system.”
On dealing with the city’s large unhoused population, an issue that has vexed San Francisco mayors since the 1980s, Lurie offered few specifics or new ideas, saying it was important to create more shelter beds and hold organizations funded by the city accountable for better results.
Lurie, who is an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune through is mother, Mimi Haas, will have plenty of time to sharpen his positions and ideas — the election is more than a year away — and present himself as someone willing to shake up the status quo.
“I’m going to be able to look at these issues and solutions with a fresh perspective. And I will not be beholden to interests that are holding our city back,” Lurie said.
But Maggie Muir, who is managing Breed’s reelection campaign, says a political outsider like Lurie will have to convince voters he’s up to the challenge of managing a city like San Francisco with its $14 billion budget and byzantine bureaucracy.
“I think the issue with a candidate like Daniel Lurie, who may have great intentions and be a real nice guy, is he essentially has no experience, or the level of experience needed to make progress on the challenges that are facing the city,” Muir said. “He’s never had to address and resolve issues at this level of seriousness and complexity.”
But Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, founder of the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco, noted that Lurie’s Tipping Point foundation was an early supporter of that effort and the Center for Youth Wellness, an organization she started later. Harris said Lurie not only helped fund programs addressing hardships the city faces. but also demanded accountability and results.
Harris said Lurie would be “a fantastic mayor.”