District 4 vote could sway SF comeback
PLUS: Juvenile Hall still running—and pricier—7 years after Supervisors voted to close it
What You Need To Know
Here’s what happened around the city for the week of March 8, 2026:
- District 4 vote could sway SF comeback
- Juvenile Hall still running—and pricier—7 years after Supervisors voted to close it
- Wong launches ‘dumb laws’ contest
- Labor’s Power Brokers
- Judge holds SF public defender in contempt
- Great Highway senior housing paused over funding
District 4 vote could sway SF comeback
Published March 13, 2026
The Facts
Economist, former Bloomberg writer, and popular columnist Noah Smith penned a widely read post explaining why he made his first major political donation to GrowSF.
The other day I did something I’ve never done before: I made a major political donation. I gave $10,000 to GrowSF, a political advocacy organization that focuses on local elections in San Francisco. They’re going to use the money to support Alan Wong in the upcoming special election for District 4 supervisor.
Smith’s core point drives home the stakes this June with the Board of Supervisors closely divided, one west-side seat can determine whether Mayor Daniel Lurie’s reform agenda keeps advancing, or grinds to a halt. The loss of a single seat could flip the 6-5 pro-growth majority into a 6-5 anti-change, anti-growth majority who will sabotage Lurie’s goals, return to holding back homebuilding, and sink Lurie’s signature charter reforms in November.
The Context
The Board is San Francisco’s legislature — but it’s unusually powerful because the Charter gives it major choke points over the executive, especially through the budget and appropriation ordinances.
Lurie’s first year has paired a public-order push with early governance reforms. SFPD reports a 25% overall crime drop in 2025, while City Hall has moved major packages like Family Zoning, the permit reforms branded PermitSF, an office-to-housing conversion deal, expanded recovery and treatment beds, and a balanced budget proposal.
The GrowSF Take
District 4 isn’t just a neighborhood race — it’s a referendum on whether San Francisco will keep making progress on public safety, education, and housing.
If we want cleaner streets, faster housing approvals, and fewer veto points for families and small businesses, we need a Board majority that will vote “yes” on reforms and then follow through. We hope you’ll join Noah in donating to support Alan Wong!
Juvenile Hall still running—and pricier—7 years after Supervisors voted to close it
Published March 13, 2026
The Facts
In 2019, the Board of Supervisors voted to close Juvenile Hall by Dec. 31, 2021.
Seven years later, it’s still operating. Jesse Alejandro Cottrell at the San Francisco Standard reports that in 2025 it cost $543,015 per youth per year, with an average daily population of just 31.
The city can’t simply “divert everyone”: the Juvenile Probation Department says 71% of 2023 admissions were mandatory under state law in its Annual Data Report 2023.
The Context
In 2020, California passed SB 823 to wind down the state youth prison system and shift DJJ-eligible youth to counties; CDCR says the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) ceased operations on June 30, 2023.
San Francisco’s DJJ realignment plan states the obvious: far from being shut down, Juvenile Hall is SF’s legally required interim Secure Youth Treatment Facility for the most serious cases.
The GrowSF Take
This is a prime example of the kind of do-nothing resolutions that San Francisco has left behind in its political realignment. The progressive supermajority on the Board of Supervisors in 2019 voted to close a crucial piece of justice infrastructure, with no plan on how to adequately handle the youth that get arrested for crimes every year, no guardrails or accountability for actually accomplishing it, and just months before the state required counties to pick up the mantle of juvenile justice.
Rather than closing juvenile hall, San Francisco must right-size it and be compliant with state law. So it’s good that the realignment process is active, but repeatedly making plans without following through is hardly more than a rhetorical exercise.
SF’s 2025 county plan describes how the DJJ Realignment Subcommittee has continued meeting, and it notes $500,000 for a facilities consultant and a conceptual redesign estimate of $100 million, which was deemed cost-prohibitive.
Meeting isn’t the same as doing. The subcommittee’s Sept. 30, 2025 update points to another plan update in Spring 2026 with program descriptions and expenditures. We hope something has changed and there are actually adults in the room this time.
Wong launches ‘dumb laws’ contest
Published March 12, 2026
The Facts
Supervisor Alan Wong is launching a citywide “dumb laws” contest to identify San Francisco rules and permit requirements that residents and small businesses think are unnecessary or outdated, according to Carlos E. Castañeda at CBS Bay Area. People can send examples through an online form. Submissions are due March 30, 2026, with winners announced in April.
The Context
San Francisco’s rulebook is huge: the City Attorney’s office has said the Municipal Code plus Board resolutions total nearly 16 million words. A contest can help surface what’s most painful day-to-day—but it only matters if City Hall turns submissions into actual code changes.
The GrowSF Take
If you want ideas to submit, here are a few “dumb law” categories we think deserve scrutiny:
The city’s formula retail controls that force extra hoops for businesses with 11+ locations—rules GrowSF has argued can worsen storefront vacancy.
Planning Code requirements for ground-floor commercial uses that can leave space stranded when the retail market is weak (a key driver in our retail vacancy research).
Rules that punish normal behavior, like past restrictions on parking in residential driveways/front setbacks—now the subject of a reform ordinance, File 250887.
Now the follow-through: Wong and the Board should publish a short repeal package, vote on it, and track implementation—so this becomes less red tape, not just more noise.
Labor’s Power Brokers
Published March 13, 2026
The Facts
In a detailed San Francisco Standard feature, Gabe Greschler and Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez profiled 37 labor leaders who wield outsized influence through endorsements, campaign spending, bargaining, and strike threats — even though most residents couldn’t name them. The piece flags looming fights over City Hall’s budget, a union-backed “Overpaid CEO” tax measure, and potential charter reforms.
Also it has a cool 90s video game aesthetic (props to the art department!).
The Context
San Francisco sits in a uniquely union-dense region: the SF–Oakland–Fremont metro had 329,473 union‑represented workers in 2024 (12.4% of the workforce). At the same time, the city is staring at a projected two‑year General Fund gap of about $876M, which makes labor negotiations and service cuts inseparable.
The GrowSF Take
This is the kind of reporting San Francisco needs: shining a bright light on a powerful political machine that’s real, consequential, and mostly invisible to everyday voters.
Democracy works better when residents know who’s pulling which levers — especially in a year dominated by budget cuts, contract fights, and ballot measures. We’re glad to see investigative reporting like this still happening, and we want more of it — because accountability starts with transparency.
Judge holds SF public defender in contempt
Published March 13, 2026
The Facts
A San Francisco Superior Court judge found Public Defender Mano Raju in contempt on March 10, 2026 for continuing to refuse some new appointments despite a prior court order, according to David Hernandez at the San Francisco Chronicle. Raju says his office began limiting intake in May 2025 due to staffing shortages and unmanageable caseloads, and that he plans to keep refusing some cases while he appeals, as KQED reported.
The Chronicle reports the judge may consider monetary sanctions at a later date. The court’s legal representation dashboard shows hundreds of appointments have been declined in recent months.
The Context
GrowSF flagged this standoff earlier, when a judge first threatened contempt over the same refusal policy.
California’s State Public Defender-backed workload study argues that without enforceable caseload limits and adequate investigators/support staff, defenders can’t reliably meet constitutional duties.
When the Public Defender can’t take a case, San Francisco often relies on court-appointed private counsel through the Bar Association’s Indigent Defense Administration, which was designed for conflicts—not as a permanent overflow valve.
The GrowSF Take
We sympathize with the Public Defender’s Office: if caseloads are truly unmanageable, that’s a problem the city needs to solve.
But defendants have a constitutional right to counsel, and refusing appointments in defiance of a court order can’t be the way SF runs its courts.
Great Highway senior housing paused over funding
Published March 13, 2026
The Facts
A fully subsidized senior housing project proposed for the former Motel 6 at 1234 Great Highway is paused, despite the developer pursuing “fast-track” approvals. The plan is for two eight-story buildings with 199 homes plus an on-site care center; half the units would be reserved for seniors who were previously homeless.
Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation says shifting federal conditions—especially uncertainty around HUD’s Restore-Rebuild rental-subsidy tool—plus not being awarded a major state grant have pushed them to pause.
The Context
Fully subsidized projects typically require a patchwork of money: the City’s direct contribution is typically only about a third of total development costs—the rest has to come from a fragile mix of state, federal, and private dollars.
The GrowSF Take
San Francisco needs to rethink how it funds subsidized housing, because the old system is breaking down.
We’re encouraged to see Supervisor Myrna Melgar and Supervisor Stephen Sherrill advancing a tax-increment financing proposal to modernize how SF pays for affordable housing. We’d like to see the rest of the Board move it forward faster—because when outside funding gets shaky, SF still needs a plan to keep projects like 1234 Great Highway moving.