This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
TogetherSF has a new name, new outlook, and a new face. The centrist political group made a big splash in San Francisco’s last big election season with projects like the provocative “Fentalife” campaign urging action against the city’s fentanyl abuse epidemic. It then suffered setbacks with their commission reform ballot measures, and when their choice for mayor, Mark Farrell, failed to get elected.
Blueprint for a Better San Francisco, a new initiative of the allied group Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, premiered on June 18 with an announcement featuring appearances by moderate leaders, including state Senator Scott Wiener and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. They promise a focus on “educating and mobilizing residents to advance pragmatic solutions to challenges like public safety, homelessness, the fentanyl crisis, and downtown and economic recovery,” according to their press release.
Blueprint’s mission will be driven by Director and former District 5 supervisorial candidate Scotty Jacobs, along with Neighbors’ Executive Director Jay Cheng. The Voice spoke to Jacobs and Cheng on June 26, 2025.
The Voice [to Jacobs]: So, tell us about yourself and your background.
Scotty Jacobs: I’m a fourth-generation resident of San Francisco and live in NoPa. I’m a renter with my younger brother. I spent the majority of my career in the private sector, in the consumer package goods industry. I was responsible for businesses ranging from startups trying to cross the $10 million annual revenue line to a quarter-billion-dollar line.
As someone who cares about San Francisco [and] has long family ties and connections [here], I felt the city was going down a dangerous path, particularly in District 5. We had a democratic socialist as our supervisor, whose misguided policies became emblematic of many of our city’s woes through the pandemic. When I examined the dynamics of the race, there was an opportunity for a strong ranked-choice strategy.
Anyone who followed my campaign knew that Bilal Mahmood and I ran an effective ranked-choice strategy that ultimately delivered Bilal the votes, as well as a 6–5 majority on the Board of Supervisors. That has been a key factor in enabling Mayor Lurie to achieve his legislative priorities. I was proud of the election’s outcome, and I got to know not just Jay, but also Kanishka [Cheng] all the folks at TogetherSF. So, after the election and following the merger of Neighbors and TogetherSF, we began having conversations about what a future group could look like. And that is Blueprint, which we’re excited about.
How do you think Bilal is doing? He has positioned himself as part of a new middle of the board.
Jacobs: I think he’s doing a good job. I’m happy that we’ve been able to continue building our working relationship after the campaign ended.
What’s your verdict on this year’s budget? It seems the mayor and the supervisors are negotiating concessions on both sides, but it doesn’t appear that much has happened ….
Cheng: We’re disappointed about what happened [at the budget meeting]. We need more fiscal restraint from City Hall. The Trump cuts are going to come down on us. That’s not even fully calculated yet.
We have to be pragmatic about the fact that the right thing to do for the future of San Francisco is to rein in our spending … we are borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today. That’s reckless leadership.
— Scotty Jacobs
Elected officials need to exercise considerable fiscal restraint. We shouldn’t be drawing down our reserves. We should be building up our reserves because a lot of pain is coming. For so many cuts to be essentially rolled back, the entire process becomes meaningless. It’s disappointing.
A significant amount of political theater was played out over a limited number of positions and only a slight degree of leeway regarding the use of Proposition C funds.
Cheng: That’s true — 19 million out of a budget of 15.9 billion? Let’s think about the scale here: a budget deficit of over $800 million and … the quibbles over 40 jobs?
Jacobs: San Francisco spends more than double the next biggest city [Los Angeles], and we spend more than the state of California on a per capita basis. The vast majority of where there is room to cut is in the city workforce. And that’s not to denigrate the work that city employees do. They are part of what makes our city a great place to live, but we must acknowledge that there is a tremendous amount of bureaucratic bloat in this city. We have to be pragmatic about the fact that the right thing to do for the future of San Francisco is to rein in our spending. To see our elected officials cutting deals to kick this can further down the road, we are borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today. That’s reckless leadership.
Meanwhile, the progressive side of the board is exploring new revenue sources. There appears to be a stealth media campaign in support of extending the storefront vacancy tax to downtown, and they just passed a resolution requesting the authority to enact a municipal income tax.
Cheng: But we don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. We have a revenue stream in San Francisco that exceeds that of eight other states. We are the size of Rhode Island budget-wise. We spend twice as much as the state of California per capita. It’s an incredible statistic, no matter how you look at it. You’re feeding a monster here.
Jacobs: To levy additional taxes, you have to have a healthy tax base. On the other side of the local political spectrum, the solution to everything is to tax more simply. However, the problem is that if you look at downtown right now, we still have a long way to go in restoring the tax base, the economic engine of our city. So, the solution right now cannot be raising taxes, because there is nowhere left to go down that avenue. We need to address our bottom-line problem.
We’re seeing headlines saying, you want to help Mayor Lurie in his endeavors. However, we’re also seeing that somebody is spreading the message that he doesn’t want to work with you. How will you get his attention?
Cheng: We’re here to help. We’ve been helpful. We’re [going to] continue to support. That’s our stance; that’s what we will continue to do.
Part 2 on Thursday: We discuss the political landscape and hint at upcoming plans.