Three Bat Friday: SF judge allows accused serial rapist to go to Disneyland; New mayor is on a hiring spree
Accused serial rapist Jon Jacobo goes to Disneyland
Mayor Daniel Lurie’s mixed messages on insiders, shelter beds, and budgets.
by Susan Dyer ReynoldsJanuary 9, 2025
Once the darling of progressive politicians as a community leader and heir apparent to the District 9 supervisor seat, Jon Jacobo’s fall from grace came as a surprise to no one, including those progressive supporters. Rumors persisted for years about his heavy drinking, bullying, threats of “gang connections,” and sexual assaults.
I received a couple of emails during that time from women who saw my criticism of Jacobo on social media and in the Marina Times and wanted to tell their stories. When it came down to going on the record, however, they were too afraid because of Jacobo’s threats and violent reputation. As much as I believed the women were indeed victims, as a journalist I couldn’t write a story with anonymous sources on such serious accusations.
Jacobo was first accused of rape publicly in 2021. Still, progressive leaders stood by him (former Supervisor Jane Kim even took him to a political event after the initial accusation). It took three years and three additional women filing police reports before Jacobo resigned from his executive position at controversial “affordable-housing developer” TODCO (a huge donor to progressive causes and candidates), where president John Elberling brushed off the first rape accusation.
Jacobo was arrested Aug. 5, 2024. Over objections from the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and Jacobo’s victims, the judge in the case, Kenneth Wine, released Jacobo on home detention under what he said were the “strictest conditions he could possibly impose,” and he continued that protocol when Jacobo’s defense attorney asked for more leniency this past November. Jacobo had to surrender his passport and is only allowed to leave home to meet with his lawyer, or for medical appointments involving him or his new baby girl with recalled school board president Gabriela Lopez, who continues to stand by her man. Jacobo also must wear an ankle monitor and can be searched at any time, without cause.
So, imagine my surprise when social media posts of Jacobo hanging out with his buddies at a boxing gym surfaced, and, even more shockingly, Jacobo, Lopez, and their baby at Disneyland less than one week ago. A quick search of court records shows that on Dec. 18, Judge Wine modified Jacobo’s release conditions to allow for the trip to Disneyland. The photos on Jacobo’s social media of a smiling, happy little family without a care in the world make a mockery of the severity of the charges as well as of the victims. Jacobo’s next court date is Jan. 14 in Dept. 20. . .
San Francisco officially has a new mayor in Daniel Lurie, who became one of many heirs to the Levi Strauss fortune when his mother Mimi Lurie married Levi Strauss & Co. CEO Peter Haas.
In reality, Lurie has never held a job in the public or the private sector, but he ran a dirty campaign against his top competitor, former interim Mayor Mark Farrell, and positioned himself as a City Hall outsider, which propelled him to the top of ranked-choice voting.
That narrative, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth: his wife, Becca Prowda, is City Family royalty, spending nearly five years as deputy director of protocol and as “confidential assistant” for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. She took a break to work for Levi Strauss & Co. but returned to Newsom’s side as one of his closest confidants when he became governor of California. In 2019, Prowda became director of protocol for Newsom, where she remains until this day.
Besides selling himself as an outsider, Lurie made big promises, all remaining very light on detail. During campaign house parties, he said he would end homelessness by adding shelter beds, initially “putting up 1,500 in his first six months in office.” Where those beds would be located changed depending on where the house party was held.
For example, in July 2024, he told a group of Mission neighbors that he would distribute the beds equally in every district, including District 2, where his Pacific Heights mansion is located, and if neighbors objected, he would do it by “declaring a state of emergency.” But at an October 2024 meeting in District 2, Lurie fidgeted uncomfortably as residents questioned him on those plans. “I said every part of the city needs to take responsibility; uh, I have not talked about D2,” Lurie stammered.
Lurie also promised to rein in the city’s bloated budget, which includes an estimated shortfall of $867 million over the next two years. The biggest expenses, of course, are city salaries that come with sweet pension plans.
Let’s look at senior psychiatric physicians as just one example: There are currently 72 on San Francisco’s payroll with a total of $25 million in compensation (not including those sweet pensions coming down the road).
Years ago, I remember writing about Mayor Willie Brown’s worker spending spree, sometimes referred to as a “patronage army.” Brown created over 350 mayoral “special assistant” jobs with an annual payroll topping $45 million. Critics, including me, said his model replaced the city’s merit hiring system with a “city family” who owed their futures to Brown, making them vulnerable to corruption.
That turned out to be true beyond what many could have fathomed. Lurie took his cues from the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), which has heavily influenced city policy for decades. In an August report, SPUR recommended expanding the mayor’s authority to hire and fire department heads (along the lines of a measure that failed as Proposition D in the November election) and merging redundant departments. Right now, City Hall is a $15 billion, 35,000-person organization where 56 agencies report to a policy director, who reports to a chief of staff.
In his new administration, Lurie will have four policy chiefs, each responsible for one area: public safety; housing and economic development; public health and well-being; and infrastructure, climate, and mobility. Lurie has an additional staff of 26 people beneath him (for comparison, London Breed ran her office with around 11). Their titles are chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, director of public affairs, chief of protocol (sounds familiar), liaison to the Board of Supervisors, budget director, state and federal legislative affairs advisor, policy advisor, director of appointments, director of community affairs, communications director, deputy communications director, press secretary, senior communications advisor, digital assistant, community liaison, AAPI community, press liaison, housing advisor, LGBTQ, small business advisor, health and human services advisor, transportation advisor, environment advisor … and one that particularly stands out considering Lurie’s tough-on-crime campaign promises — “police alternatives advisor.”
These 26 positions are in addition to the 14 major department heads and eight people rounding out Lurie’s star-studded “transition team.” All he needs is a “confidential assistant,” and he’ll be right up there with his wife’s boss in terms of office underlings.
Mission Local has an excellent live update on who’s coming and going from Lurie’s administration here: https://missionlocal.org/2025/01/live-updates-daniel-luries-administration-whos-in-whos-out/
While salaries and benefits won’t be known for some time, I guesstimate Lurie’s 26 direct reports will cost taxpayers conservatively $5 to $10 million annually. This is in stark contrast to a statement Lurie released right after his election win. “San Franciscans voted for accountability and change from the unsustainable status quo at City Hall,” Lurie said. “The budget deficit is a crisis that we must face head-on, and it will require us to make difficult decisions … We need to stop spending more than we can afford while prioritizing investments that are critical to a full economic recovery and the maintenance of essential services.”
Last time I checked, “climate” wasn’t an essential service in San Francisco but rather a state and national issue. . . .
On the campaign trail, Lurie stressed that the fentanyl epidemic would be his top priority, so I was surprised not to see a “recovery, rehabilitation and reentry advisor” amongst his new hires, perhaps someone like Steve Adami. Formerly addicted and incarcerated, Adami is the prior reentry division director for the San Francisco Adult Probation Department and the current executive director of the Salvation Army San Francisco’s successful recovery-focused homeless initiative, The Way Out. . . .
My first question for Lurie is why he needs 26 people reporting to him at all. As a mayor who will be learning on the job, it is imperative that he interact directly with department heads rather than get his information secondhand and possibly colored by the agendas of his advisors.
So far, Lurie’s only experience has been as the figurehead of the “antipoverty” nonprofit Tipping Point Community (funded by his mother and wealthy friends and associates), where he had a cadre of yes-men and yes-women doing the work while he threw concerts with rock stars like Prince and did speaking engagements. With a staff of around 50, Tipping Point said it would halve chronic homelessness in five years, but a March 2024 study found the effort failed.
Ironically, the homeless-nonprofit-industrial complex has become the bane of San Francisco’s existence, gobbling up funding with myriad six-figure executives surrounding themselves with moats of subordinates to cushion the blow should it ever come. It seems Lurie wants to run City Hall similarly, which doesn’t bode well for the lean, mean machine he promised in Room 200.
Our X of the Week comes from Kane in response to new District 9 supervisor Jackie Fielder posting that she plans to push a report from fellow socialist and former District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston calling for San Francisco to follow “Zurich’s model” on drugs:
“It’s pretty clear @JackieFielder_didn’t read the report she’s talking about, bc a core part of it is ‘sweeping public spaces aggressively, fining people using drugs, and arresting those that don’t pay.”
SPUR is a very interesting.... well, just another SF non-profit but with a billion dollar twist!