Power washing initiative targets dirty San Francisco sidewalks
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — With hopes of transforming San Francisco into a 'cleaner, more welcoming environment,' Mayor Daniel Lurie launched an initiative pledging to power wash more city sidewalks along busy commercial corridors, city leaders announced.
The new power-washing program will cover the Mission, Sunset, Tenderloin, Richmond, Chinatown, North Beach, and Fillmore neighborhoods, city leaders said.
Lurie said Thursday, 'Clean streets are key to our comeback. When our streets are cared for and vibrant, people come out and spend time in their neighborhoods. Investment in street cleanliness will help us continue to breathe life into our commercial corridors.'
The anti-grime initiative was backed by $3 million in funding from Avenue Greenlight and developed with San Francisco Public Works.
The mayor's office wrote, 'Each neighborhood will receive a tailored cleaning plan implemented by Civic Method, including deep steam sanitation, recurring maintenance, and real-time community reporting. The new power washing program will add coverage during critical afternoon and early evening hours, which is consistently requested by local merchants.'
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San Francisco Supervisor Danny Sauter said entrepreneurs and small business owners work hard to take care of their stores, restaurants, and offices.
'They deserve that same level of care on the sidewalks and streets that surround them. This program from Avenue Greenlight will be transformative in making our neighborhoods sparkle and creating clean, welcoming corridors for businesses to thrive and shoppers to enjoy,' Sauter wrote.
Currently, the city's public works department operates several other street cleaning programs. They include CleanCorridorsSF, a weekly deep-cleaning operation that dispatches cleanings crews to commercial corridors across the city to power wash sidewalks, remove graffiti, flush roadways, and engage with local businesses to promote ongoing cleanliness.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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San Francisco Chronicle
10 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Mayor Lurie made ‘painful' cuts in his S.F. budget proposal. The hurt is far from over
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said he made 'painful decisions' when assembling his recent budget proposal that would slash nonprofit contracts and shrink the City Hall workforce. But the hurt is far from over. Lurie recently told the Chronicle that he is still eyeing a more ambitious overhaul next year as he tries to erase a deficit that's projected to reach as much as $700 million in the 2028 fiscal year. Complicating Lurie's plans to rein in city spending is the fact that the Trump administration has already moved to claw back federal funds from San Francisco and could try to take more money away. And a Tuesday report from the city controller's office warned that proposed Medicaid cuts advanced by Congressional Republicans could further hurt city revenue — as could a potential recession. Lurie's city spending plan would eliminate about $185 million in grants and contracts over two years and cut about 100 filled jobs from the government payroll. The proposal would help Lurie close a massive budget shortfall, but unions and nonprofits quickly decried what they view as an unwarranted assault on community groups that provide crucial services to residents and businesses. Despite the early resistance, however, Lurie's inaugural budget blueprint does not represent a massive reorganization of the San Francisco bureaucracy, nor does it compare to the layoffs the city last experienced during the Great Recession. Next year could be a different story. In an interview with the Chronicle last week, Lurie indicated that he sees the current budget negotiations as a prelude to his plans for 2026. This year, his budget proposal was all about 'right-sizing,' he said. For next year, he has a different word in mind: 'restructuring.' 'This was a really focused budget on delivering core services (and) right-sizing our government,' Lurie said. 'And it does not mean the work is over. It was never going to be that way. … We have a lot of work to do ahead of us.' It's not yet clear what Lurie's promised restructuring will look like. The mayor's budget plan this year already proposed combining two city departments beset by scandals into one agency. And a February executive directive that Lurie issued on permitting reform said the city should explore how it might merge 'key permitting functions' into one department. Just how difficult Lurie's budget calculus will be in the coming year depends heavily on what happens at the national level. San Francisco's nearly $16 billion budget relies on more than $2 billion in operating revenue from the federal government, the vast majority of which comes in the form of Medicaid reimbursements. Funding changes under consideration in Congress could hurt the city, but it's how much it might lose. The controller's Tuesday report said the proposed federal budget bill 'represents the biggest set of cuts to Medicaid since inception and could result in thousands of San Francisco residents disenrolling from the Medi-Cal program and reduced funding for the Department of Public Health.' Lurie has proposed setting up a $400 million reserve that the city could tap into to offset any major funding cuts from President Trump or Congress. The controller found that the reserve amount was 'commensurate to risk.' Another unknown is the extent to which any national economic downturn could harm San Francisco's budget, and Lurie's ability to bring city spending in line with revenue. The controller's report noted that, while unemployment in the city is stable and office attendance has risen, technology and hospitality companies continue to lay people off. Trump's tariffs and immigration crackdowns could further strain the economy. Regardless of what happens nationally, Lurie has said he is already trying to end 'the era of soaring city budgets' and wants city officials to 'start living within our means.' His proposed cuts represent a reckoning for nonprofits after years of flush city budgets that saw millions flow to third parties in exchange for providing crucial social services. Now, many of those organizations are reeling from deep cuts that could force layoffs and the shuttering of programs. Some San Francisco legal aid organizations are facing deep cuts that they say could lead to more homelessness and less access to legal services for the needy. One legal aid organization's director is going on a hunger strike to protest the cuts. The Latino Task Force, Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, the Chinatown Community Development Center and dozens of others are facing cuts that will impact services. The People's Budget, a coalition of city advocacy groups that every year proposes changes to the mayor's budget, has a 'walkthrough' of all the groups they have heard from that are losing funding. Anya Worley-Ziegmann, lead coordinator for the San Francisco People's Budget Coalition that advocates for nonprofits facing cuts, said in a statement that Lurie's budget proposal threatens 'essential services for food security, workforce development, legal aid, and children and families facing homelessness.' 'We cannot balance the budget on the backs of working class and marginalized communities while at the same time claiming to be a city that cares for all its residents,' Worley-Ziegmann said. Lurie also is being slammed by fiscal conservatives who believe he should have made deeper cuts to the city's 33,000-person workforce and take on the city's 'nonprofit industrial complex,' a moniker critics have given to the large contractors that do work on behalf of the city. A previous Chronicle analysis found that San Francisco has an unusually high amount of public sector workers per capita, especially among public health and library employees. Marie Hurabiell, founder of the neighborhood advocacy group Connected SF, praised Lurie for taking on the city's nonprofits and contractors as well as his effort to 'right-size' the budget after years of what she said was 'overspending' related to the pandemic. But she said those changes will only get San Francisco to the level of spending it had before COVID, and there are many more cuts to be made to downsize the government so it better reflects the city's relatively small population. One way to do that is by doubling down on accountability, she said. 'For years there's been a lot of money flowing and our services have not been great,' she said. '(Lurie) is probably trying to be very thoughtful and methodical (about future cuts), but I'm hoping he will be more impactful.' The existing job cuts in Lurie's proposed budget also drew some criticism from the executive committee of the San Francisco Democratic Party, which is controlled by moderates who generally share Lurie's politics. Committee members said in a statement that Lurie's budget overall 'demonstrates bold leadership during a time of unprecedented fiscal challenge.' But party leaders said they were 'very concerned about the proposed reduction of city jobs currently held by San Francisco employees.' 'Cutting these roles not only disrupts lives and livelihoods but also risks weakening the long-term capacity of government to meet the needs of its residents,' the statement read. Party chair Nancy Tung said the committee doesn't have a position on where budget cuts should come from if those 100 jobs were preserved. But she said the committee hoped Lurie and supervisors would be able to find a way to prevent any city employees from being laid off. She also acknowledged that the city's financial condition had put Lurie in a tough spot and praised him for issuing a hiring slowdown on his first day in office. 'I don't envy where the mayor is in terms of having to do this,' Tung said. 'I also know that this is very hard for him, too. He is trying to do it as humanely as possible.' Tom Li contributed reporting.


San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Exclusive: Trump administration may hit S.F. with a $140 million bill. Here's why
The Trump administration could claw back about $140 million in federal funding that San Francisco already received to cover costs the city incurred during the pandemic, the Chronicle has learned. San Francisco spent well over $400 million to shelter vulnerable homeless people in hotels to protect them from COVID-19 after the virus began spreading five years ago. After the city applied for reimbursement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency under former President Joe Biden sent $148 million — and the city was expecting even more money. But this week, San Francisco officials learned that FEMA has indicated it now believes the city is entitled to be reimbursed for just $7 million of the total amount spent on the shelter-in-place hotels. While FEMA hasn't officially requested any money back, city officials believe that determination lays the groundwork for the agency to seek a $141 million refund from the amount it already paid the city. There's a big problem: San Francisco already spent the money. And the city is in a dire financial situation, with Mayor Daniel Lurie working to close a roughly $800 million shortfall in his inaugural budget proposal expected to be announced Friday. San Francisco's government costs are rising faster than its tax revenue, which is being hampered by one of the nation's slowest economic recoveries from the pandemic. It's not clear how FEMA arrived at its determination. The Chronicle has reached out to the agency for comment. FEMA's decision, which San Francisco is expected to appeal, represents one of the largest direct hits the Trump administration has tried to take against the city this year. Lurie and other local officials are bracing for more: The mayor plans to propose a $400 million reserve to help the city defend itself against the uncertainty caused by threatened cuts to federal funding. Lurie said in a statement to the Chronicle that San Francisco endeavored to keep its citizens safe during the pandemic 'with a commitment from the federal government to cover those costs.' 'As our administration makes the tough decisions to tackle the historic budget deficit we inherited, we are navigating tremendous uncertainty at the federal and state levels and preparing for challenges that may lie ahead,' Lurie said. 'But right now, FEMA still owes San Francisco hundreds of millions of dollars, and I will continue to advocate relentlessly with our federal partners until we receive every single dollar.' Supervisor Connie Chan, who chairs the Board of Supervisors' budget committee, said the $400 million reserve being planned by city officials is intended largely as 'a guardrail' against possible federal cuts to Medicaid and housing subsidies — not to pay back pandemic reimbursements already sent by FEMA. 'San Francisco must fight Trump, not only against potentially upcoming draconian cuts, but also for this illegal clawback of the money that San Francisco has already delivered,' Chan said. If San Francisco is unsuccessful in its appeal of the FEMA decision, Chan believes a lawsuit is likely called for, saying she is looking to City Attorney David Chiu 'and his capable team to stand firm and have a strategic approach to protect San Francisco's resources.' Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for Chiu, said in a statement that her office is 'working with our clients and evaluating next steps to ensure San Francisco gets the resources it is entitled to.' In remarks to reporters after he introduced his $15.9 billion city budget proposal Friday, Lurie said San Francisco would 'fight for every dollar that our city is owed.' He confirmed that the city would appeal the FEMA funding decision and said it would take 'probably a number of months for us to find out.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Waymo suspends service in parts of San Francisco amid recent ICE protests
(KRON) — Waymo suspended service in parts of San Francisco on Monday, according to a company spokesperson. Service for the driverless taxi service was halted amid recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests in the city that became violent. The Waymo spokesperson did not specify where in San Francisco service will be suspended. The autonomous vehicle company says it is aware of the potential protests in the city. As a precaution, Waymo is not providing service in those areas. Waymo is in contact with local authorities in San Francisco to determine where it may need to halt service in the city. Another protest against ICE is set to take place in San Francisco Monday evening at the 24th and Mission BART Plaza. On Sunday evening, hundreds gathered outside the ICE building on Sansome Street in the Financial District. More than 150 arrests were made as the rally turned violent, with vandalism committed across the area. Multiple Waymos were vandalized in San Francisco, including one that was spray-painted (see photo below). BART station shuts down, Muni diverted due to SF ICE rally Protests against ICE are at a much larger scale in downtown Los Angeles where Waymo has suspended service in that portion of the city. Waymo received guidance from the Los Angeles Police Department to halt service amid multiple driverless taxis being set on fire and vandalized. One Waymo driverless car is between an estimated $150,000 and $200,000 each, according to a 2024 report by the Wall Street Journal. KRON4 reached out to the Mountain View-headquartered Waymo for information about the suspension of service. We did not hear back in time for this report. KTLA's Iman Palm contributed to this story. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.