Your District 3 team (Amy, Michelle, Danny, Tita, and Tomio)

 

Happy New Year!

 

This week marks my one year anniversary as your District 3 Supervisor! It’s been an honor to serve our city each and every day.

 

I believe we’ll remember 2025 as a year of rebirth in San Francisco. After a difficult period navigating the pandemic and its wake, we’re finally seeing bright spots. We’re feeling civic pride again, small businesses are seeing some relief, and tourists are returning to our city.

 

On a personal note, it was a year of immense blessings as my wife and I welcomed our daughter into the world in the spring. She’s now a growing, curious, joyful ball of energy at 9 months old!

 

Reflecting on my first year serving District 3, I wanted to share with you some of the work I’ve been most excited to do for our neighborhoods:

 

 

#1 - We Made Major Progress on Public Safety

 

 

Crime is down nearly 40% in District 3, recruitment efforts are working, and new foot beat patrols are on our streets.

 

Crime citywide is down nearly 30%, and nearly 40% within the Central Police District. We’ve made strides by using new tools and technology, beginning to increase staffing for the first time in years, and having elected officials that are finally working collaboratively together.

 

To respond to the proliferation of sideshows and dangerous dirt bike riding, I worked closely with the Mayor and Police Department to increase enforcement which has yielded both arrests and vehicle and bike seizures. I also introduced legislation that passed unanimously to increase fines for this disruptive activity.

 

Alongside community groups, we successfully secured changes to our police district boundaries. These changes will mean better representation and response for our neighborhoods, particularly Polk Street which used to be fragmented in coverage.

 

I was an early partner with Mayor Lurie on his Rebuilding the Ranks initiative which aims to increase recruitment of first responders. This focus is working as the recent Police Academy class was the largest since 2019, and new applications are up over 40%.

 

Finally, we doubled down on our focus on community policing. We successfully advocated for the restoration of foot beat patrols in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood, a new downtown hospitality zone to improve police presence, and the expansion of police ambassadors in Chinatown during the Holiday shopping season.

 

 

#2 - We Cut Red Tape for Small Businesses

 

 

Our small business legislation District 3 Thrives reformed outdated rules and delivered relief for our neighborhood merchants.

 

Small businesses are the heart and soul of our neighborhoods, but we’ve taken them for granted for too long. This year we changed this with the passage of our small business legislation, District 3 Thrives. This package of common-sense reforms will make it easier for small businesses to open and grow in District 3. It allows for faster permit approvals for certain kinds of small businesses, while still maintaining important public comment opportunities. It removes bans you’d be surprised to know exist: such as art galleries being prohibited in Nob Hill or dentist offices not being allowed on Polk Street. It’s a big step towards making District 3 a more welcoming and more fair place to run a small business.

 

And we cut layers and layers of red tape in partnership with Mayor Lurie and the PermitSF program. We passed legislation to ease strict requirements for rollup gates and awnings in Chinatown, saving many small business owners thousands of dollars, and made it easier for ground floor activations in our downtown core.

 

 

#3 - We Led on Housing, Winning for Renters and Affordable Housing

 

 

We unlocked construction of the largest housing project District 3 has seen in over 20 years, passed a historic rezoning effort, strengthened protections for renters, and won funding for senior affordable housing.

 

We broke ground at 1111 Sutter, the largest site of new homes in our district in over 20 years! 303 new homes, including more than 100 affordable, are now on their way. When I took office, the project was 5 years into planning but stuck. We immediately passed legislation to save the project and ensure we could turn a vacant funeral home and parking lot into homes for hundreds of neighbors.

 

We passed the Family Zoning Plan, historic housing legislation that will help end exclusionary zoning that caused housing prices to surge over the last few decades. As part of this plan we won amendments to incentivize more homes for families and protect and preserve small businesses. We also avoided disastrous repercussions that would have taken place otherwise: hundreds of millions of dollars of state funding forfeited, high-rises allowed anywhere, and thousands of new affordable homes being blocked.
 

As we build more housing, we also need to do more to protect renters. I was an early co-sponsor of the Tenant Protections Ordinance to strengthen protection for renters and add new safeguards against demolitions. And we won $2 million dollars in funding for 100% affordable senior housing in Chinatown, a critical community-led project.

 

 

#4 - We Championed Downtown Recovery and A Return of Tourism

 

 

When I took office, downtown was empty and struggling. Now, we’re seeing signs of recovery on every corner.

 

We secured funding for two transformative new public spaces: Embarcadero Plaza to connect the Ferry Building to the Embarcadero Center and Powell Plaza to reenergize an iconic stretch of Union Square. We established new Entertainment Zones like Third Thursday on Ellis, which have boosted foot traffic and supported artists, musicians, and small businesses. Downtown is coming back, which we witnessed firsthand in celebrating a surge of new small business openings, ranging from a bookstore to a toystore, a taqueria to a chocolatier, and even Stephen Curry’s new bar!

 

I was honored to be named Chair of the Downtown Revitalization and Economic Recovery Financing District to spearhead investments downtown as we convert old offices into new homes to support a diverse downtown.

 

 

# 5 - We Delivered Fixes to Improve Neighborhoods Block by Block

 

 

Constituent service is at the center of what our office spends time on. Every week we speak with dozens of neighbors about things that need to be fixed on their block.

 

We listened to neighbors and worked with relevant city departments to respond to hundreds of requests, ranging from repainting crosswalks to adding bike share stations, replacing broken lights, repairing benches and posts, eradicating stinky smells, planting new trees, patching potholes, retrieving stolen street signs, and so much more.

 

If there’s something we can help you with, no matter how small, please reach out to us: SauterStaff@sfgov.org

 

 

#6 - We Stood Up for San Francisco When It Mattered Most

 

 

 

This past year saw significant fear and anxiety in our immigrant communities brought by the administration in Washington. San Francisco is a community built by immigrants and it is precisely what gives us strength and stability.

 

When Washington yanked funding for food, we called an emergency Board of Supervisors meeting and allocated SNAP funding so that no family in our city would go hungry. As ICE terrorized our communities, I visited the Immigration Courts at 630 Sansome and heard firsthand from lawyers who are on the front lines of protecting our neighbors every day. I joined my colleagues on the Board in reaffirming San Francisco’s status as a Sanctuary city. As the National Guard threatened to descend on San Francisco, I was in the streets of Chinatown working with community organizations to prepare. And I co-sponsored legislation to allocate more funding to immigrant legal defense services.

 

 

# 7 - We Fought For Cleaner Streets and Spaces

 

 

In our first year in office, we kicked off more than a dozen initiatives to deliver cleaner streets, sidewalks, and public spaces.

 

During the budget season, we fought for and won a restoration of power washing services in Chinatown. We worked with the City Administrator to save Solve SF, a popular app that makes it easy to report fixes via the 311 API. We worked with neighborhood leaders to prioritize new trash cans and expanded street sweeping. We participated in numerous neighborhood cleanups and brought incredible “cleanup captains” to City Hall to be recognized for their work.

 

I also just introduced the San Francisco Clean Streets Act, a legislative package that will focus resources on enforcement of illegal dumping, modernize public works codes, and expand street sweeping and the use of locked trash cans.

 

 

#8 - We Held Power to Account in Oversight Hearings

 

 

As the Vice-Chair of the city’s Government Audit & Oversight Committee, I spent countless hours in hearings to demand transparency in how our city operates.

 

We dug into nonprofit oversight and monitoring to ensure public dollars are spent wisely. We called for a hearing on shelters in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood. We subpoenaed leadership of the Parks Alliance after a multi-million dollar implosion left neighborhood park groups out to dry.

 

 

# 9 - We Took a New Approach to Homelessness & Street Conditions

 

 

The conditions on our streets have been shameful and deadly for far too long. We made it clear that the status quo cannot continue.

 

Within days of taking office, I joined as an early co-sponsor of the Mayor’s Fentanyl State of Emergency ordinance which unlocked resources to expand treatment and increase shelter capacity. I stood with advocates and the recovery community in supporting a heightened response to drug activity near our playgrounds and schools.

 

When I took office, a half dozen shelters and services had been opened in short order in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood. That left this often-forgotten part of District 3 with one of the highest concentrations of homelessness services in the entire city. We are a generous city and every neighborhood should do its part to aid the recovery of unsheltered neighbors, but no single neighborhood should be asked to do it all. This was the sentiment behind the landmark legislation for geographic equity, the One City Shelter Act, that I was proud to be an early co-sponsor of.

 

The street conditions in many areas of District 3 continue to be unacceptable but the city is finally paying attention. I regularly walk the streets, early in the days and late into the nights, to see firsthand the conditions of homelessness and drug activity. We have brought partners in too, coordinating neighborhood walks with Mayor Lurie, District Attorney Jenkins, Captains Kim and Del Gandio, the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, and the new coordinated Neighborhood Street Teams. 

 

 

#10 - We Won Major Projects For Every District 3 Neighborhood

 

Policy is important, and politics is part of the job. But progress is what we’re after, and we stayed focused on District 3 projects all year long to deliver results.

 

As part of the approval of a new mixed-use downtown development, we secured plans for a new Fire Station No. 13 to serve neighborhoods like Barbary Coast, Financial District, Jackson Square, Chinatown, and Telegraph Hill. 

 

We established free public wi-fi in Chinatown, an overdue effort to begin to fix the digital divide which has impacted residents and small business owners for too long. We also coordinated planning to soon break ground on three transformative projects in the neighborhood: a new Portsmouth Square, a renovated Chinese Public Health Center, and an improved Chinatown Library.

 

We launched Automated Speed Enforcement, a first-in-the-state effort to improve street safety. Our 3 pilot locations in District 3 are working and helping to reduce dangerous speeds near schools, libraries, and playgrounds.

 

We bolstered Fisherman’s Wharf’s tourism recovery by extending a lease for the successful SkyStar Ferris Wheel, pursuing a new Fisherman’s Wharf Entertainment Zone, and supporting the new Fisherman’s Wharf Forward plan to create a beautiful new plaza and open space.

 

We introduced amendments to the city’s fire sprinkler mandate to ensure we can improve safety while being mindful of real concerns of displacement and costly repairs.

 

We showed what was possible when we worked with neighbors to turn a parking lot into a pop-up park in Lower Nob Hill at Cosmo Court, and saw why we must secure a permanent open space for the only neighborhood in our district without any.

 

We introduced legislation that brought back Community Challenge Grants, an important program that will unlock millions of dollars in neighborhood investments. Recent community-proposed winners in District 3 have included tree plantings, murals, and community events.

 

We got neighborhood projects unstuck, including kickstarting construction at the old Lombardi Sports on Polk which will soon be a beautiful new FitnessSF gym. This had been sitting empty for 11 years and had seen 5 separate plans fall through due to political obstruction.

 

And we worked hand-in-hand with Grocery Outlet to bring affordable groceries to District 3, on track for a late summer 2026 opening at the old Safeway in Fisherman’s Wharf!

 

…and much more.

 

I’m proud of the work we’ve started but clear eyed about all the challenges that lay ahead. There are some neighborhood priorities that are more complex and we will continue to push for these in the year ahead.

 

I also know we have serious cracks in our city: from transit funding to our budget deficit and an affordability crisis. As we tackle these challenges, I hope you’ll stay engaged with our office. Keep showing up, bringing your neighbors to community events and town halls, and pushing myself and my colleagues to shape a San Francisco we can afford, be proud of, and one where we can all thrive.

 

See you in the neighborhood,

Supervisor Danny Sauter