In his first few weeks as mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie has scored some significant legislative victories and public sentiment about how the city is run is improving. Part of that improvement is significantly improved relations between the two sides of the second floor at City Hall — the mayor in Room 200 and the Board of Supervisors across the rotunda in Room 250. However, moves by Lurie’s administration to micromanage press statements by city departments may indicate that the real challenges of his term may be yet to come and that he still has something to learn about the politics of blame in San Francisco.
According to a report by Josh Koehn in the San Francisco Standard, the administration recently advised city department press offices to submit weekly written reports on all press statements and inquiries from media that mention or criticize the mayor, refer to policy changes, or the work of multiple departments or could prompt national media attention. The new policy differs from standard practice since the pandemic when departments have had a regular weekly call with the mayor’s office to discuss issues likely to roll uphill.
The new regime has ruffled the feathers of more than a few department flacks, many more experienced than the press crew now in Room 200. It’s not surprising that aspects of the Standard article seem driven by the entitlement of some sources. “It is not unusual or uncommon for elected leaders or company executives to require that department heads run statements and news releases through the executive office for prior approval,” Sam Singer, the local and national sage of public relations, advised The Voice in an e-mail.
But that doesn’t mean the pushback signified by the Standard article should be ignored.
Welcome to San Francisco politics, where voter attitudes are still governed by negativity bias, and blame travels faster than credit. And sources we’ve talked to, whether in or recently out of City Hall, say Lurie’s new policy if it stands (Lurie’s communications director, Nina Negusse, left the administration within days of the Standard story), will simply accelerate that cycle, and not to Lurie’s advantage.
“Welcome to San Francisco politics, where voter attitudes are still governed by negativity bias, and blame travels faster than credit.”
City departments such as the Police Department, the Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Department of Public Works have their own press offices because events that affect vital services they provide quickly become local news stories. The PIOs (public information officers) in those departments want to swiftly explain what happened and assure the public that the department is on the job resolving the issue. They also want to inform the public about new services without the risk of that more mundane messaging getting lost in an administrative shuffle.
Those PIOs know that if they are prevented from doing so for any length of time, the story starts to write itself, and their role is reduced to blame displacement. When new press rules give them an out by saying, “Sorry, the mayor has not authorized us to comment yet,” they’ll use it, and then, all of a sudden, the manure magically starts rolling uphill.
Meanwhile, Mayor Lurie is moving on to a new challenge — changing the culture inside other city departments instrumental to new policies of abating public drug abuse, open-air drug dealing, and homelessness, like the Departments of Public Health (DPH) and Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) — agencies that have a history of pushing back against elected officials on policy.
Yet, from what we hear, the mayor’s new press rules could now give those historically recalcitrant departments a magic phrase to displace blame for these nagging issues: “Sorry, the mayor has not authorized us to comment yet.”
Does this misstep signal the end of the honeymoon at City Hall? We’ll see. We could find out when Mayor Lurie addresses the Board of Supervisors this afternoon. Buckle up.
