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Lurie’s SF Fentanyl Emergency Ordinance Sails Through Its 1st Test

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San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during a press conference with elected and public safety officials and labor leaders in front of City Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. San Francisco supervisors advanced Mayor Lurie’s fentanyl ordinance on Wednesday, even though they acknowledged they would sacrifice some oversight powers under it. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s fentanyl ordinance sailed through its first legislative test on Wednesday, gaining approval from all three members of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee to go before the full board.

The ordinance — labeled “Fentanyl State of Emergency” but not technically an emergency proclamation — represents Lurie’s first major legislative push. It would give the mayor’s office and certain city departments permission to sidestep the Board of Supervisors’ approval on some city contracts and allow for soliciting private donations to support efforts to combat the fentanyl epidemic.

The board’s legislative analyst warned that the changes would come with “significant risks,” but Lurie, supervisors and members of the recovery community said the ordinance is necessary as the city faces an unprecedented drug and homelessness crisis.

“People in San Francisco are suffering,” Lurie said during a rally ahead of the committee hearing. “Every day that we don’t act is another day of life lost to addiction, to overdose and to despair. Our response must be just as urgent as the crisis that we are facing.”

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If passed, Lurie’s proposed policy changes would allow his office to bypass the competitive contract bidding process as well as board approval for new contracts related to certain “core initiatives,” including homelessness, drug overdose and abuse, mental health, and public safety hiring.

The ordinance could speed up permitting to build about 1,500 new shelter beds, which Lurie promised to deliver within his first six months in office, and a new 24-hour drop-off center on Geary Street where police officers would be able to take people in distress who don’t need to go to the emergency room or be taken to jail.

A harm reduction program representative speaks with people on a popular alleyway in the Tenderloin neighborhood to hand out Narcan, fentanyl detection packets and tinfoil to those who need them as a part of drug addiction outreach in San Francisco. (Nick Otto/Washington Post via Getty Images)

Lurie has expressed that he first wants to extend the nighttime hours of the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, which streamlines efforts by local law enforcement and other city departments to shut down open-air drug dealing in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. Lurie has tasked Police Chief Bill Scott with creating a permanent budget for the operation and expanding it to the Sixth Street corridor, which has been a center of the city’s open drug use in recent months.

The legislative analyst’s office said that the policy changes aimed at efficiency would have trade-offs — including the potential to increase costs by eliminating competitive contract bidding and infringing on the Board of Supervisors’ legislative authority.

“The proposed changes would result in an extraordinary diminishment of Board of Supervisors Authority,” the report reads.

It recommended lowering the maximum cost of contracts eligible for expedited approval, removing the competitive solicitations waiver, requesting more information about Lurie’s plan to solicit donations from private groups and limiting the scope of services eligible for streamlined contracting, “such as just for opioid treatment or shelter services.”

The committee approved some amendments, including lowering the dollar amount of contracts that can be entered into or amended without the Board of Supervisors’ approval from $50 million to $25 million and capping private donations at $10 million.

Still, the supervisors on the committee seemed prepared to sacrifice some oversight in the “unprecedented times” of the fentanyl crisis and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“At first, I was trying to figure out how to react to this legislation because so much of it is to suspend a significant portion of the legislative process, which is really the function of the legislative branch,” Supervisor Connie Chan, who heads the budget committee, said during the hearing. “And yet, with the recognition of how difficult [of a] situation that we’re in, [there are] things that a brand new administration must do to tackle that.”

Committee members unanimously agreed to forward the package to the full Board of Supervisors with a positive recommendation.

“We’re giving up a lot in terms of oversights, not just from the board to the executive branch, but I think, generally speaking, really from the public process,” Chan said. “I would assume that Mayor Lurie and [his budget team] clearly understand that and will … continue to make sure that you have community outreach and public noticing for the things that you’re doing.”

The ordinance is scheduled to go before the full board next Tuesday.

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