Warning to NY: Don't make the mistake we did in San Francisco by electing Zohran Mamdani
Take heed, New Yorkers, and learn from San Francisco's mistakes: The City by the Bay has discovered to its sorrow that charismatic leaders like Zohran Mamdani can dazzle — but their decisions can be disastrous.
Just a few years ago San Franciscans, too, supported magnetic populists, then watched as their neighborhoods fell off a livability cliff.
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Regrets, we have more than a few — and many we want to mention.
In 2017 London Breed, a brash and captivating city supervisor from the projects, became acting mayor when the mild-mannered Mayor Ed Lee died.
With big promises of housing creation, downtown revitalization and racial equity — as well as her hard-partying charm — she whipped up the crowds, winning the mayoralty outright in a special election.
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But during her tenure, San Francisco went from thriving to diving.
Massive tent encampments took over large swaths of the city thanks to her lax policies, and the financial district and retail centers hollowed out.
'I am the mayor, but I'm a black woman first,' she shouted in a 2020 speech, as violence spiraled nationwide after the death of George Floyd. 'I am angry.'
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That same day, looters and vandals were running roughshod over Union Square stores and small businesses in Chinatown.
Far-left public defender Chesa Boudin one-upped Breed's progressive leanings when he joined her in city government.
Boudin thrilled local social-justice activists when he ran for district attorney in 2019, as opposition to President Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement gained steam.
He quickly eliminated cash bail, reduced incarceration and put pressure on law enforcement instead of on criminals.
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Soon Honduran cartels and dealers flooded Fog City with fentanyl, and drug tourists arrived from all over the country to overstay their welcome on our permissive streets.
Overdoses spiked, and property crimes like shoplifting, looting and car smash-and-grabs became the norm.
Jennifer Friedenbach, the firebrand executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, spearheaded the push to pass a 2018 'tax-the-rich' ballot proposition that promised to raise hundreds of millions for affordable housing.
Her influence was enough to persuade Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to back the measure.
Prop C passed but did nothing to solve the exploding homelessness problem.
Instead, high net-worth companies like Stripe and PayPal, which contributed heavily to the city's tax revenues and provided vital jobs, simply packed up and left.
Life in San Francisco got ugly, fast.
The police force shrank from nearly 2,000 officers in 2020 to under 1,500 in 2024. Businesses fled and tourism dwindled.
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An online 'poop map' made our filthy streets a national punch line.
A city that was once so vibrant and full of civic pride became an embarrassing warning to the rest of the country: Do not do what we they are doing.
Now, San Francisco is in intense repair mode. Voters ousted Boudin in 2022, and his replacement, Brooke Jenkins, has focused on increasing arrests and convictions.
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In 2024, the calm and measured political outsider Daniel Lurie defeated the bombastic Breed in her bid for a second term.
His 100-day progress report heralded a drop in crime, the removal of tent cities and an uptick in visitors.
As for Friedenbach, her coalition's sway is sagging. Calls for her dismissal from the oversight committee that controls the Prop C funds are intensifying.
San Franciscans are allowing themselves to feel cautious optimism about their future: 43% of residents now believe the city is on the right track, nearly double what it was a year ago.
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Pessimism persists, and it's warranted, but green shoots of hope are taking root.
That's why so many San Franciscans watched New York City's Democratic primary election with both fascination and despair.
They know too well that electing compelling characters like Mamdani can have dire consequences.
Our merry band of socialists here are celebrating Mamdani's win, but the majority of San Francisco residents, workers and business owners send this warning: The politics and policies he espouses can turn a flawed but marvelous city into one that is unrecognizably horrifying.
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So be careful, New York. It's easy to fall for simple-sounding solutions delivered by a smooth talker in seductive speeches.
But once that person takes the reins, and the pie-in-the-sky promises become dangerous reality, the process to remove him is long and arduous — and fixing the wreckage is even harder.
Erica Sandberg is a freelance journalist and host of the San Francisco Beat.
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New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Zohran Mamdani's ‘tax whites more' is pure racism
The devil's in the details — and so is the racism. Zohran Mamdani shows New York where his priorities really are in his position papers, where he promises to 'fix' the city's property tax system. His solution: Punish whitey! He'd 'shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods,' his campaign platform says. How will he do this? Well, once elected, he would 'push . . . assessment percentages down for everyone,' which, like most of what Mamdani proposes, is highly unlikely. But never mind that! Next, King Mamdani would 'adjust rates up' — based on the racial makeup of a neighborhood. The plan would 'effectively lower tax payments for homeowners in neighborhoods like Jamaica and Brownsville while raising the amount paid in the most expensive Brooklyn brownstones,' his website says. So what percentage of paleness classifies a neighborhood as white? A plurality? Fifty percent? Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Guess that means Williamsburg, which is 57% white, will have to pay, but not Astoria, where Mamdani lives, because it's 48%. Maybe he'll go door-to-door to root out those nefarious Caucasians and make sure they pay the white tax. Mamdani could have proposed property tax fixes that focused exclusively on valuation, but that's not what his campaign is really about. It's about identity politics and a 'hierarchy of oppression.' Did the rich white liberals who helped him win the Democratic primary know he would turn on them so quickly? Sorry, Zohran — we need a mayor for all New Yorkers.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Socialist NYC mayoral contender Zohran Mamdani wants to hike property taxes for ‘richer and whiter neighborhoods'
Socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to hike property taxes for 'richer and whiter neighborhoods' in an eyebrow-raising proposal that aims to ease the burden on homeowners in the outer boroughs. The soak-the-rich proposal is buried in Mamdani's campaign platform that calls to fix the city's notoriously skewed property tax system, in which ritzy brownstones are hit at lower rates than homes and rentals in lower-income neighborhoods. 'Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods,' the proposal reads. Advertisement 3 Democratic nominee for New York City Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, plans to hike property taxes has drawn some concern that it will tax 'richer and whiter neighborhoods.' Democrats and many Republicans have long pushed to fix the out-of-whack system that ends up hitting poorer, often largely black and brown neighborhoods, with higher property taxes than their neighbors in swanky areas that tend to be majority Caucasian. But Mamdani's specific mention of 'whiter,' wealthier neighborhoods drew outrage from some observers. Many right-wing commentators accused Mamdani, who would be the city's first mayor of South Asian descent if elected, of targeting white New Yorkers, with one labeling him a 'RACIST.' Advertisement City Councilman David Carr (R-Staten Island), who's part of the bipartisan push to reform the property tax system, said Mamdani should tone down the 'rhetoric' if he's going to help tackle a very real imbalance. 'The objective of our reforms is to make our property tax system fairer and more transparent and to ensure that middle- and working-class homeowners aren't subsidizing lower taxes for wealthy property owners,' Carr said. 'It's not about blaming people based on race or class or political affiliation, and if Zohran Mamdani wants to come on board, then he should drop the divisive rhetoric.' Mamdani, 33, a two-term Queens assemblyman, pulled off a stunning upset in Tuesday's ranked-choice Democratic mayoral primary, trouncing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in first-pick votes after running an unabashedly socialist campaign focused on affordability. Advertisement The city's tangled property tax rules are the result of a 50-year-old court decision, a subsequent state law setting assessment caps to prevent middle-class owners from being taxed out of their homes and a complicated set of overlapping rules. 3 The proposal is a part of Mamdani's campaign platform in a call to fix the tax system currently in place in the Big Apple. The result is a system where 'small homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens can pay a higher tax rate than owners of luxury co-ops on 5th Avenue in Manhattan,' the pro-reform group Tax Equity Now points out. Tax Equity Now New York filed a still-ongoing lawsuit against the city in 2017 that argued the process unfairly taxes renters and homeowners in lower-income neighborhoods compared to wealthier areas. Advertisement Predominantly black neighborhoods such as Canarsie and East New York face higher effective tax rates than others that are largely white, a recent study by the Community Service Society found. 'There is no good reason why homeowners in Cambria Heights, a residential community that is 90% Black, should pay an effective tax rate that is double those paid by homeowners in Park Slope or East Village, which are 62% and 50% White, respectively,' the study states. The meat of Mamdani's proposal calls to remove artificial caps on assessments — a solution pushed by advocates and lawmakers across the political spectrum. 3 The proposal states, 'Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.' 'The Mayor can fix this by pushing class assessment percentages down for everyone and adjusting rates up, effectively lowering tax payments for homeowners in neighborhoods like Jamaica and Brownsville while raising the amount paid in the most expensive Brooklyn brownstones,' the proposal states. Mamdani's campaign didn't respond to The Post's requests for comment. But many New Yorkers in affluent neighborhoods weren't happy about their property taxes potentially going up. Advertisement Ron Centola, a 73-year old retiree, has rented on the Upper East Side for 30 years, but still opposes redistributing wealth. 'Here's the thing, I'm wealthy, I don't want my wealth redistributed,' he told The Post Friday. 'I work for my money, why should I give it away?' Another Upper East Sider — Shanice Gilbert, 33, a college assistant — noted not everyone in her hifalutin neighborhood is rich. Advertisement 'Not everybody here is wealthy, how is that going to work?' she said. 'It's a mixed environment, it's a very diverse environment. How are you going to do that?' Cam Macdonald, general counsel for the Empire Center, said as mayor, Mamdani could adjust the percentages, if he's elected in November. Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters But Macdonald argued Mamdani's campaign needs to show their math for how it will affect the city's revenue — of which more than 30% is derived from property taxes. Advertisement The proposal, he noted, also 'does nothing to fix the structural issues under state law that have led to the disparities.' Other planks of Mamdani's proposal — including 'circuit breakers' to make sure low- and moderate-income homeowners aren't burdened, and to stop treating co-ops and condos as if they were rentals — concede that the state legislature would need to make those changes, not the mayor. Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association representing rent-stabilized apartment owners, has been an outspoken critic of Mamdani's promise to freeze rents on those dwellings. Advertisement But he said the issue of property taxes might be an area of common ground for his group and Mamdani. 'A reform of property taxes would be absolutely instrumental in saving this housing,' he said of rent-stabilized homes. 'On property taxes, I think he would have some strange bedfellows here. I think there are many many outer-borough elected officials who have this issue and have found not enough support to actually make meaningful change.' One Park Slope woman, who lives in a $3 million brownstone, told The Post she agrees with Mamdani even if her 'modest' $5,000-a-year taxes rise. 'Private homeowners have a real deal,' she said. 'I think people in co-ops and condos get hammered. I'm all for it. People got to share.' — Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnaya, Georgett Roberts and Mikella Schuettler
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Bloomberg Wall Street Week: Critical Thinking
This week, how will the United States' involvement in the Iran-Israel war affect markets and hopes for cooperation in the Middle East? And, an interview with the Director of the Congressional Budget Office on the agency's role in predicting the fiscal impact of the "Big Beautiful Bill." Plus, will President Trump's "Gold Card" attract foreign investment to the US? Later, how Zohran Mamdani's success in the New York City mayoral primary election tells the story of the shift within the Democratic party and what it means for business in the city.
