San Francisco is rethinking our approach to policing, promoting economic justice, demilitarizing the police, addressing police bias, and strengthening accountability

Today marks one year since George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. His death was a tragedy for his family and friends, but also for our country. And it was a wake-up call for so many people who for far too long had been blind to the brutal treatment and racism that Black people, and Black men in particular, face all too often in this country.

George Floyd’s death spurred cities to take a hard look at…

The arts are such an important part of our city’s economy and soul. They draw people to San Francisco — whether that’s to live here, to visit our city, or to explore and learn about the communities that make San Francisco the special place that it is.

Here in San Francisco, we are fortunate to have vibrant and diverse arts and cultural organizations, and a strong community of artists. From performers and muralists, sculptors and singers, to world-class museums, performance venues, cultural centers, and vibrant cultural districts, San Francisco has a lot to offer.

“If we help the arts recover…

One of the most important questions we have to answer as we finally start to put the pandemic behind us is how we’re going to bring our city’s transportation system back to life. Muni service is building back from over a year of reduced service, and as people return to work and start to once again enjoy everything that San Francisco has to offer, they need safe, easy ways to get around town.

While we must accommodate all modes of transportation, the answer cannot just be cars. We saw the crushing gridlock that existed before the pandemic when our economy…

San Francisco can’t recover from the devastating effects of COVID-19 on our economy without our small businesses. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy — making up more than nine out of ten San Francisco businesses, employing more than half of the city’s workforce, and generating tens of billions of dollars in economic activity each year — most of which remains in our city.

After more than a year of this pandemic, and despite our best efforts to help along the way, businesses are still suffering — with many still at risk of permanently closing. …

While the last year has forced us to confront a public health crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen in our lifetime, COVID-19 is not the only public health challenge facing San Francisco. Homelessness, addiction, and unhealthy street behaviors have been a challenge for years, and while we’ve implemented a number of solutions and made progress during the pandemic, we still have a lot of work to do.

Last year we had to severely limit capacity in our homeless shelters and Navigation Centers and, not surprisingly, we saw a big spike in unsheltered homelessness and people living in tents…

It’s no secret that the pandemic has decimated our transportation network. Pre-pandemic, Muni averaged roughly 750,000 boardings per day. Now that number is closer to 200,000. As a result, revenue has declined dramatically and caused large budget gaps. The American Rescue Plan thankfully provides much needed support to help close those budget gaps, but we still have a lot of work to do to identify more funding to return service to where it was.

But we know that our transportation system is more than just Muni — more and more San Franciscans are getting around the City on bikes, scooters…

The pandemic fundamentally changed almost every aspect of our daily lives. It forced us to respond quickly, and here in San Francisco it also forced our local government to make quick decisions and implement them, instead of relying on the seemingly endless process of bureaucracy and appeals. Finally, we learned what we can do for the people of the City when we move fast.

Our Shared Spaces program is a perfect example of this. San Francisco kicked off its parklet program in 2010. Businesses could apply for a permit and it would typically take around a year for design, funding…

San Francisco has led the nation in our public health response to COVID-19, but the impact of the pandemic on our economy and our City’s budget has been significant, just as it has been for cities and counties across the nation.

As we plan our City’s upcoming two-year budget that goes into effect in July 2021, we have projected that we will need to close a deficit totaling $653 million. This comes after the $1.5 billion deficit we already closed last year. I’m really proud that in closing that previous deficit we were able to avoid laying off any City…