Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

San Francisco

Politics Reporter at The San Francisco Standard

#SF raised. SF Standard politics journo. Reporting the hell out of my dear, foggy City. [email protected] / DM for Signal info

Articles

In reversal, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie says you can see his texts

1 week ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

By Joe Fitzgerald RodriguezPublished Apr. 15, 2025 • 9:00amSan Franciscans will soon have carte blanche to peek at every “OMG,” “np!” or “:P” from the city’s highest government office. Following inquiries from The Standard, Mayor Daniel Lurie has flipped: He’ll now let you read his text messages. It’s a decision that may have repercussions and become a prominent example of compliance as other public officials statewide flout the California Public Records Act.
Daniel Lurie has started pissing people off — and he's OK with that

1 week ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

By Joe Fitzgerald RodriguezPublished Apr. 14, 2025 • 6:00amCandidates make promises. Mayors have to keep them. That’s the reality facing Mayor Daniel Lurie in his first 100 days in office, a milestone that will officially pass April 18. As a candidate, Lurie lacked definition. He was everything to everyone in a way that garnered praise from across the political spectrum, like pro-housing YIMBYs and anti-development NIMBYs. It was a strategy intended to garner second-place votes, and it worked.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie's 100-day progress report

1 week ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez |David Sjostedt |Jonah Owen Lamb |Kevin Truong

By Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, David Sjostedt, Jonah Owen Lamb, Kevin Truong, and Han LiPublished Apr. 14, 2025 • 6:00amIn politics, 100 days can seem like an eternity — has it really been only three months since Trump took office again? — or a blink. Assessing a mayor’s — or president’s — tenure at the 100-day mark is a convention, but an imperfect one, an exercise in judging beginnings without knowledge of the endings.
This hated fee might help save SF’s budget

1 week ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Small business groups want the healthcare fund scrapped, arguing that it costs them too much and is going unused. Businesses hate it. Restaurant customers are bewildered by it. Employees benefit from it. Now, come budget time, an often-reviled city fee may help save the city. The San Francisco City Option program provides medical reimbursement accounts to help thousands of employees pay for health coverage every year.
Federal threat to SF could be more than $2 billion, Lurie says

2 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

By Joe Fitzgerald RodriguezPublished Apr. 10, 2025 • 6:00amNonprofit funding is evaporating. Local government is contemplating layoffs. Parking meter prices might go up. Hell, even the streets might not be as clean, after the city’s latest budget is decided in June. It could get much, much worse. San Francisco’s budget deficit could more than double, from an estimated $820 million to nearly $2 billion, Mayor Daniel Lurie told The Standard in an interview.
San Francisco trans group faces layoffs after Dream Keeper money rescinded

2 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Collateral damage — that’s how nonprofit leaders are describing the latest fallout of the Dream Keeper scandal. Within the last few weeks, the city wrote letters to more than a dozen organizations informing them they would no longer be awarded a collective $10.6 million promised by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. The cancelation of the grants is already having dire consequences.
Daniel Lurie doesn't want you to read his text messages

3 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

It seems Mayor Daniel Lurie is following in Breed’s footsteps. Late last year, former San Francisco Mayor London Breed drew condemnation for her office’s habit of deleting text messages, a public record that citizens have the right to scrutinize under California and the city’s open government laws. “Boy, that sounds depressingly familiar,” said Karl Olson, a media law attorney whose litigation helped shape access to public records in California.
Lawsuits are blowing a hole in San Francisco’s fiscal recovery

3 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Despite the challenges, the $840 million budget deficit shrunk by about $20 million in the latest projection from City Hall. San Francisco’s budget free fall would have more cushion if it weren’t for mounting legal challenges to the city’s business taxes, according to a report released Monday.
San Francisco Latinx club ditches local Democratic Party

4 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

“The San Francisco Democratic Party has repeatedly failed to prioritize or even acknowledge critical issues facing Latinos,” the club’s leadership wrote in a statement. The San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club announced it would withdraw from the party in a public statement on Wednesday, taking aim at party leadership for allegedly failing to back up the Latino community. For the second time this year, a local Democratic club is turning its back on the San Francisco Democratic Party.
San Francisco is done being soft on drug users

4 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt |Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

A strategy developed during the AIDS crisis has fallen out of favor during the fentanyl epidemic. Its advocates say people will die. “Stop using drugs,” read the usual note that overdose victims were handed as they left the hospital during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Arms covered in track marks. Dragged in against their will. Spoiling for a fight with staff. Almost always on death’s door.