City Hall Digest: Ban Repealed on SF Business With Most States and Updates on the Assault of Former Fire Commissioner

City Hall Digest is TogetherSF Action’s weekly dispatch from San Francisco’s City Hall, broken into bite-sized pieces—because understanding local government is your fundamental right.

Board of Supervisors Repeals Ban on City Business with Most U.S. States

Last week, the Board of Supervisors voted to repeal the ordinance preventing the city from contracting with companies based in Republican-majority states with restrictive LGBTQ+ laws. Between 2016 and the time of repeal, the ban was expanded twice to include states that also had restrictive anti-voting measures and states that restricted women’s rights. The city code also prevented city employees from traveling to those states on public dollars. 

All told, San Francisco could not do business with 60 percent of the country. With hindsight, it’s clear that this was not a practical solution—the spending power of one city alone would never be enough to influence an entire state’s legislative agenda. 

But at the time, the legislation behind these rules was seen as visionary—big cities like San Francisco could unite with similar bans and fight back against states embracing a growing wave of bigoted ideology. 

However, that momentum never materialized, and for years San Francisco has willingly hamstrung itself when it comes to contracting—even the legislation’s original author, State Senator Scott Wiener, has expressed some degree of regret about it, saying that it prohibited the city from getting “the best price for the best product.” 

In October 2022, the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office did an analysis of the impacts of the ban and found that without it, contracts could be up to 20 percent cheaper. Assuming a 10 to 20 percent cost savings, the city potentially paid an estimated $23.5 million to $47 million more on about 13 contracts from 2016 which were subjected to the ban. 

While this isn’t a sweeping, earth-shattering policy that will change the course of the city, it is a necessary nuts-and-bolts type of policy adjustment—and it’s refreshing to see the Board of Supervisors acknowledge when things aren’t working as intended and take action to change them.

Assault of Former Fire Commissioner Allegedly Predicated by Bear Mace Attacks

The unfolding story of former Fire Commissioner Don Carmignani’s beating took a disturbing turn last week as the attorney for assailant, Garrett Doty, dropped a bombshell allegation: Carmignani may have ties to eight police reports of a man spraying homeless people with bear mace around the Marina. 

Video of the alleged bear mace attacks is disturbing: in one instance, a man that appears to match Carmignani’s physical description is seen spraying bear mace in the face of a sleeping homeless person. Reports of attacks matching this similar situation go back as far as November 2021. 

Commentators fell in familiar line following Camignani’s attack, saying that homelessness has spiraled, and San Francisco is a lawless land with unprovoked attacks around every corner. However, these latest allegations make for a more complicated picture of what happened and contextualize the situation.

Taking sides on Twitter threads about this story can distract from the real issue here: we shouldn’t be macing or beating each other in the streets, period. Both the alleged attacks before Carmignani’s assault and the assault itself are completely unacceptable and should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The actions by both Carmignani and Doty are a reminder that our city’s social contract is broken, and it is the job of our elected officials to enact policies that restore it.

Study Shows Existing Therapeutic Recovery Communities in SF Have Been Effective at Treating Drug Users

Last week, a committee of the Board of Supervisors met to discuss the progress and results of the work of the Recovery Summit Working Group, who presented statistics on four drug recovery-related programs that help formerly incarcerated people and their families. The progress reported was encouraging, and the overall tone of the presentation was positive, hopeful, and a reminder that the problem can be solved with wide community buy in.

The supervisors heard from people active in the addiction recovery community, including Steve Adami, the former Head of Adult Probation Department’s Reentry Division; Cedric Akbar, the Director of Forensic Services with Westside Community Services, and Cregg Johnson, Co-Founder of Positive Directions Equals Change. 

The city-funded programs aim to help formerly incarcerated people who struggle with drug addiction to reintegrate with society. Some of the programs that were highlighted included HER House, a drug-free therapeutic teaching community program for women who have exited the carceral system, and their children. The capacity for the program is currently 10 women and four children, and it has served 40 people since its inception in April 2021. Another was the Billie Holiday Center, a transitional living space that is designed to provide a rapid connection to reentry resources to justice-involved adults experiencing homelessness. That program, which can serve 30 people at a time, has served 600 people since its inception in December 2021. 

Supervisor Matt Dorsey said that he appreciated the expansion of solutions options—that is, adding “abstinence-based” (things like 12-step programs) options to the spectrum of recovery in addition to options that offer medication to help people step down from street drugs, for those who have left incarceration. To be clear, these city-funded options are still limited to justice-invovled persons and have not generally been financially supported by the city. Dorsey also said that it was imperative for public health to have the widest variety of options possible. 

Learn how you can help ensure  programs like these become more widely available at our May 10 event, How City Hall Can *Actually* End the Drug Crisis. Sign up here.

TogetherSF Action is making advocating for an end to the drug epidemic in San Francisco a top priority this year. Our first step? Flooding inboxes at City Hall. We need thousands of concerned San Franciscans to send letters to their leaders demanding they end open-air drug markets in 2023. Are you in?