THIS WEEK AT THE VOICE FOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2025
To view in browser, get past issues, or subscribe, CLICK HERE
by Susan Dyer Reynolds
Editorial Director, The Voice of San Francisco
District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder has ‘mental health crisis’ day after Voice exposes her as probable source of leaked city attorney memo
In a Feb. 11, 2026, article in The Voice of San Francisco, Editor in Chief Mike Ege exposed that a confidential memorandum from City Attorney David Chiu’s office to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors regarding legal risks of the RESET sobering center had been leaked to Mission Local, which reported on the memo and its contents in a story published the afternoon of Tuesday, Feb. 10, shortly after the board voted to approve the contract by a 9–2 vote, with Supervisors Connie Chan and Jackie Fielder voting against. A spokesperson for the city attorney told The Voice at the time that “no Supervisor is authorized to disclose or discuss the memo, and any city employee who shares the memo is violating the law.”
In our March 26 newsletter, we revealed a tip that Fielder may be “lying low” due to suspicion that she is the source of the leak — according to our source, she was “not returning calls” to her office and had been absent from the March 17 and March 24 Board of Supervisors meetings as well as a mid-March committee meeting. The requests were made without providing a reason.
On March 27, the day after our newsletter ran, The San Francisco Standard reported that Fielder checked herself into the hospital following “major turmoil in her office” and that she planned to resign from the board.
Another update came March 30, when Fielder’s staff released a statement on her social media explaining that the supervisor is “navigating a mental health condition” and “needs time and space to recover” before making any further decisions about her position. Fielder’s hospital stay was short — the next morning, several people reportedly saw Fielder at the high-end Equinox gym.
Anyone who follows San Francisco politics closely would likely suspect Fielder as the source of the leaked memo. She represents the Mission District and has an affable relationship with Mission Local, which has never written a critical word about her. The publication also adds a disclosure to articles about Fielder written by senior editor Joe Rivano Barros stating that he worked with her in 2018 at The Worker Agency, a left-leaning communications firm. Ironically, that relationship has left Fielder’s tenure on the board hanging in the balance.
X user Lee Edwards posted the Feb. 13 memo from the city attorney’s office after receiving it in a public records request in which Chiu writes, “… the person or persons who disclosed the memorandum could be subject to significant penalties, including discipline or termination for an employee and removal from office for an elected official. Given the gravity of this unlawful disclosure, my Office is investigating how the disclosure occurred.”
Check out links to our latest content below, or just bookmark our homepage to see the latest.
Top News
ELECTIONS 2026
Boss tax, Peskin ban dominate small June ballot
Business, labor duke it out over changes to overpaid CEO tax
by Mike Ege
In addition to special elections for supervisors in Districts 2 and 4, San Francisco voters face a small but relatively consequential ballot on June 2. The ballot includes financing for emergency infrastructure, stricter term limits for certain elected officials, and two opposing plans to revise business taxes.
LAW AND ORDER
Local attorney defends Wong Kim Ark decision at U.S. Supreme Court
Birthright citizenship under attack by Trump’s executive order
by John Trasviña
TRANSPORTATION
Clipper 2.0 faces ongoing issues with transition, outages
Outages and ongoing technical issues have slowed the Clipper 2.0 rollout.
by Jerold Chinn
Quote of the week
“I want to be honest: I was skilled at stealing. I was resourceful. I was solving a problem — how to fund an addiction and survive in an expensive city — with the tools I had access to. That doesn’t make it right. But it wasn’t random chaos either. It was logic operating under desperate circumstances.”
— Amber Reid Richmond on theft as survival mode in addiction in “I didn’t stop stealing because I got caught”
Nomi toon
In Case You Missed It
CITY HALL
Fielder may (or may not) resign from Board of Supervisors, possibly over illegal leak
The leak was a report from the city attorney about the RESET sobering center.
by Mike Ege
LAW AND ORDER
‘How did Grandpa Vicha’s killer get away without going to prison?!’
Answers to our questions are in Sacramento, not just the Hall of Justice
by John Trasviña
A&E
Tech gone wild
Artificial intelligence is becoming all-pervasive in our lives, and The AI Doc examines whether it’s a triumph of convenience or a potential trap.
by Michael Snyder
Like what you see? Support us | Subscribe to this newsletter
EVENTS
Out and about April 1–8, 2026
What to do this weekend and beyond.
By Lynette Majer
Managing Editor, The Voice of San Francisco
Moving right along through our welcomed spring showers, here are some suggestions for the next several days, from a lecture about the importance of forests and another about the potential of the exploration of Mars to some Easter festivities, a guaranteed to-make-you-laugh cabaret performance — and more.
Thursday, April 2
Spend the evening with renowned forest ecologist Suzanne Simard, author of When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World, which explores how forest cycles of birth, death, and rebirth are crucial for ecosystem health and can help combat climate change. Simard will be in conversation with Manjula Martin, whose memoir The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. 7 p.m. at the San Francisco County Fair Building. Free admission with a recommended donation of $5–$20 to support the Gardens of Golden Gate Park.
Friday, April 3
Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries opens today. The renowned Japanese artist known for her immense, intricate webs of thread makes her Bay Area debut. Through July 20 at the Asian Art Museum. Tickets from $24.
Saturday, April 4
Enjoy a Spring Fling Rooftop Lawn Party with the Funny Bunny, egg hunts, live music, face painting, crafts, and more. If your little bunny would like to take part in one of the three age-specific egg hunts, you will need to RSVP. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Salesforce Park. Free admission.
Alerting all foodies: Eat Me Artisan Food Fair is the place to be this weekend, featuring artisanal food products from local culinary vendors. The venue is the original William Randolph Hearst print plant built in the 1920s, which houses a historic letterpress printing and a vintage advertising mercantile modeled after a 1850’s country store. (NB: at publication time, this even wasn’t listed on their site, but there’s always something worth checking out here.) Through Sunday at The Box S.F. Free.
Listen to our podcasts
- Mayor Lurie paints a somber picture of the challenges facing San Francisco
- The sale of the Transamerica building, Pfizer is moving, Half Moon Bay housing and more
- Supervisor Fielder takes a leave of absence, Sheryl Davis faces more charges and our right to put questions up for a vote must be preserved
- “No Kings”, Trump threatens San Francisco, praises Mayor Lurie, and also threatens funding cuts to universities!
- Plus more (and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music/Audible or everywhere else you get your favorite podcasts)
Support our newsroom
With the support of readers like you, we provide thoughtful articles and media for a better San Francisco. This is your chance to support credible, community-based, public-service journalism. Please join us!
