NEW COLUMN! San Francisco Priorities, Part One

Here I am in front of San Francisco City Hall. Keep reading / scroll for the video!

Welcome to a new column called San Francisco Priorities where I explore what San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has deemed the “Priorities of San Francisco” after six months in office. This is set against the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passing the FY 2025-2026 budget, which includes significant cuts to the social safety net while increasing the budget for San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Sheriff’s Department and increasing costs of living for everyday San Franciscans. 

According to Mayor Lurie's presentation to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors at their meeting on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, San Francisco’s priorities are: 

1. Public Safety,

2. Clean Streets, and 

3. Economic Recovery.

Over the next year, I will be exploring these three priorities and offering my own perspectives / experiences / stories / inquiries that offer another view from that of San Francisco’s Mayor and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. While the above are the Three Priorities as outlined in WORDS, I believe there are more insidious and corrupting priorities as outlined by San Francisco City Hall’s (the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and City Departments) actions. I believe San Francisco City Hall’s Priorities are: 

1. Surveillance and Suppression,

2. Privatizing Public Assets and Goods

3. Increasing Cost of Living 

Please know that I am approaching this inquiry as a white gender/queer working class cismale (identity), an artist (labor), a neighbor (relation), and a comrade (politics). I do not have a college degree, and therefore I am NOT an academician. Nor am I a journalist. I arrive at my understanding through co-creating my being with my self / being / consciousness, my relations (human and more-than-human), and the Cosmic Mysteries, including collective bodies of knowledge, wisdom, and revelation. I remain open to the biases / contradictions / mistruths within my experiences / words / expressions / creations, and I seek to disrupt / correct / heal my beliefs / behaviors / movements when there are harmful / harming contradictions between my understandings / perceptions / actions and the way my relatives experience those understandings / perceptions / actions.

I also believe: 

• Power seeks Power, and therefore the TYPE of Power (e.g. above, within, betwixt, reciprocal) being yielded indicates Power’s destination (e.g. subjugation, insight, collectivity, harmony, etc.)  

• Man, yes Man, created The System under which We All (humans and more-than-humans) (thanks Tyson Yunkaporta for this language / perspective / Indigenous Knowledge) live, create, and die, and The Man-Made System can (and must) be undone / unmade / abolished / razed. 

• We, humans, are only a speck upon a speck upon a speck upon a speck upon a speck upon a…within All Things, yet even a speck can become a spark that can change All Things. So we, humans, should remain curious and practice humility for there is so much we do not (nor ever can) know and what we do not know may burn us to ash.

• There is no such thing as Universal Truth, and there is Cosmic / Pluralistic Truth revealed when multiple truths from multiple positions / perspectives / intersections are given Space-Time to be / exist / breathe. This can only occur when Power is not wielded by Man.      

I welcome questions, contradictions, clarifications, corrections, nuances in ways that move Us-All towards the Cosmic / Pluralistic Truth above. Please share them in the comments, via email, or when / if you see me in the physical (or virtual) world. I will leave the original post intact, and I will add an addendum correcting what I wrote / shared when information / knowledge / insight is provided that changes / challenges my understanding.

This first post contains two videos. Video One I made and posted on Instagram before heading into the Board of Supervisors meeting on July 8, 2025. Video Two I made after I attended the meeting, gave public comment, and  had some time to reflect upon it all. I posted it to Instagram as well, and I received a comment clarifying which Supervisors got to submit questions to the Mayor. (It was Supervisorial Districts 1-4, including Supervisors Chan, Sauter, Sherrill, and Engardio.) This nuance does not change the main inquiry: Why didn’t any Supervisor submit any questions to the Mayor ahead of his appearance? 

The videos have captions embedded within them, and I have included the transcripts of them below each video.  

I am currently working on a post (or maybe a series of posts) addressing the First Priority: Public Safety. My desire is to post monthly, though given the current state of this country (and subsequently my material existence) there may be things that get in the way of my desire. Regardless, expect me (Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex) to remain active within my communities and post more regularly on The QC the incredible art, conversations, and inquiries happening all the time. 

Thank you for being a dedicated reader, neighbor, comrade! The world is a much better place when you’re in it being your fagulously queer self. And yes, that can go for you straight folks as well. 😉

---

Transcript

Hey there Queers and Comrades. Jason Wyman aka Queerly Complex on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. That's right. San Francisco City Hall right there. I'm coming to you with two quick announcements and updates. 

The first one is a call for art, a free call for art, for trans and queer artists that are tenants or tenant organizers or have faced displacement, gentrification and colonization.

We have a call for art for. As part of the Queer Housing Summit that is happening in August in Fresno, California. This is for any trans and queer artist anywhere in the world. It is free to submit, and work does not have to be related to housing or housing justice. It can actually be absolutely anything, anything at all.

It is 100% free to submit and you only get to submit one thing and it should be nothing new. Meaning find that poem that you wrote, find a documentation photo, upload your score. Requirements are 8.5” by 11” at 300 dpi. We're going to do all the printing ourselves, and we're going to turn it into a catalog.

Submissions close next Monday. That's right. Next Monday, July 14th, 2025. Please, please, please go check it out at queerlycomplex.com. That's queerly complex.com. 

The second thing that I want you to know is why I'm on the steps of City Hall. San Francisco is in budget season. A while ago, we passed something, the voters passed something called Proposition C, which allocated tax funding specifically for affordable housing.

Our illustrious Mayor wants to raid those funds specifically for temporary shelter. Temporary shelter is not affordable housing. In order to do so, the Mayor actually has to change the laws here in San Francisco and move away from a supermajority vote for the budget to a simple majority vote for budgets at the Board of Supervisors meeting today. We have advocates here really trying to ensure that that doesn't happen because we don't want that budget raided.

As we know, within this particular budget season, San Francisco is facing incredible budget cuts while also seeing increases in our police and sheriff department budgets. Sound familiar? Sound like someone maybe at the federal level gutting social safety net programs in order to fund more police surveillance and suppression? I wonder who that could be?

Yes. Even here in “liberal San Francisco” we have Trumpian politics. So please, stay tuned for more information here on the Queerly Complex channel. I'll give out more updates. I'll share in my stories more about what's going on. 

And don't forget to submit to the Call for Art for the Queer Housing Summit in Fresno, California, in August of this year.

That's all I got to tell y'all. Check out QueerlyComplex.com and have a fabulous day!

---

Transcript

Hi there Queers and Comrades, it is Jason Wyman aka Queerky Complex coming to you with another video / life / update thing. Well, you know the drill at this point.

I am home after giving public comment at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting today. I was there to give comment specifically on San Francisco's budget and some shenanigans that are going on.

When I arrived, I found out that our Mayor was actually going to be giving a speech or talking to the Board of Supervisors at the outset of the meeting. Now, the Board of Supervisors are allowed to submit questions to the Mayor ahead of him giving his speech. And it is suggested, highly suggested, that the Mayor answer the Board of Supervisors questions.

But none of our Board of Supervisors submitted any questions to the Mayor. I'm just going to let that sink in for one second. During a budget season in which the San Francisco Mayor is cutting social services and increasing police funding, none. None of our supervisors submitted questions to Mayor Lurie ahead of him showing up. What this meant is that Mayor Lurie had complete control and authority to just share and spew whatever he wanted at the outset of the Board of Supervisors meeting today.

And he did just that, and he focused his comments specifically on the top three priorities that he sees for San Francisco. The first priority is public safety. The second priority is clean streets, and the third priority is economic recovery. That is what he said over and again. Now again, I was there to give testimony on the San Francisco budget, or at least that's what I was thought I was there to do.

And what I found out is, before we were given the opportunity to give public comment, we were actually told that we could not speak explicitly to the San Francisco budget. And in fact, we were told that that comment process had already transpired in June and that therefore, there was no more public comment on the San Francisco budget. That was a surprise to me.

So what I decided to do instead was focus in and hone in on the Mayor's top three priorities. Again, those priorities are public safety, clean streets, and economic recovery. When I got to the microphone today, it seemed to me that San Francisco's priorities are not those three priorities. In fact, it seems to me that San Francisco's priorities are one reneging on commitments that it has already made. I'll give examples of that in just a second. Two, privatizing as much things as you can and making as much as you can unaffordable to people. I'll give a couple of concrete examples of that as well. And the last one is surveillance and suppression of its citizens, not public safety. I'm going to give concrete examples of this. 

The first one is reneging on its commitments. San Francisco voters passed something called Proposition C. Proposition C, I believe it was in 2022 or 2023, was specifically a tax that is levied in order to generate a fund for affordable housing. Now, our previous Mayor didn't spend that money. And so the money, it's just been accruing in a fund. Our current Mayor, Mayor Lurie, wants to raid those funds not for affordable housing, but for temporary shelter.

Yes, we need solutions for our unhoused neighbors here in San Francisco. But in my estimation, long term stable housing is better than temporary shelter, which is why the San Francisco citizens passed Prop C. In this current budget, they want to raid those funds for temporary shelter, and in order to do so, they need to actually change the law about voting. Meaning, currently, a supermajority is necessary, or eight of our 11 supervisors are needed, in order to make any budgetary changes to Proposition C. They want to change that to a simple majority, meaning six out of 11 to be able to change the budget.

Now, this procedural rule change will not just affect Proposition C, but will most likely affect everything else as well. Just keep that in mind. So again, this is about reneging on a commitment, a commitment voted on by San Francisco voters. 

Another example of San Francisco reneging on its commitments is the San Francisco Dream Keeper Initiative. In 2020, in the wake of George Floyd being murdered by Derek Chauvin, Minneapolis Police Department police member, San Francisco had a wake up call and a reckoning here within our city. And our Mayor at the time, Mayor Breed, set aside $60 million over two years to invest in the Black community in San Francisco. It took a while for those monies to be dispersed, but the commitment was there. 60 million over two years. That's 30 million a year in our current budget. That fund is being cut by 30%. In fact, it is one of the biggest budget cuts percentage wise that we were seeing here in the city.

And it is absolutely asinine that San Francisco is reneging on a commitment to its Black neighbors, citizens, voters and residents. This is just egregious. It's completely egregious. So San Francisco's priorities seem to just be reneging on commitments that it once made in order to just do whatever it wants or not, just do what It ever wants, but to do whatever the Mayor wants.

The second thing is privatizing everything or making things more expensive. One of the budget items that's up for approval, and it's definitely being approved, is to put in paid parking in Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco. Now, let me be clear. I'm almost 50. I've never owned a car. I have really no teeth in this game about paid parking at all. Zero. Like zero. It's never going to happen for me. I take a bus to Golden Gate Park.

That said, Golden Gate Park is a public and free asset that is available to everyone, not just to San Franciscans. It's even available for free to the people that visit San Francisco. That is one of the beautiful things about San Francisco: that we have these beautiful public assets that we offer not just to our own residents but to the world itself. It's beautiful thing to behold. I love, I love that about my city. 

To put paid parking into Golden Gate Park is to introduce a fee structure into the free public resource. Now, I know we might be in a budget crisis, but why are we putting ostensibly a tax or a fee on the people who are already getting priced out of absolutely everything? Why are we making it more expensive? 

Another example of privatizing absolutely everything is something called Kezar Stadium. Kezar Stadium is a place in San Francisco, also in Golden Gate Park, that soccer is played. Soccer is a big sport here in San Francisco, and we have a league called San Francisco Football Club. The San Francisco Football Club is a volunteer run club that has volunteer players. And it is an Amateur League that has been practicing and holding games in Kezar Stadium. And not just practicing and holding games there, but paying the rent for Kezar Stadium. 

Again, our illustrious Mayor has decided that there is a new team in town, Golden Gate Football Club. That's right, Golden Gate Football Club, and Golden Gate Football Club was able to pay $10 million for exclusive use of our stadium. That's right. To use our stadium. It's now under the exclusive usage thanks to $10 million from a buddy of our Mayors. Seems to me that we are again, privatizing everything and pricing San Franciscans out of San Francisco. 

The last thing I want to share is specifically about surveillance and suppression. Surveillance and suppression is here in San Francisco. It's been here. A wonderful gentleman by the name, a wonderful billionaire, a gentleman by the name of Michael Moritz donated $9 million, I believe it was, to the San Francisco Police Department. Part of that was for brand new headquarters in downtown. And another part of that was to release surveillance drones across the entire city of San Francisco.

Anyway, my story about surveillance and suppression actually occurred on Friday, July the 4th. I have lived at the same spot for over 20 years. And while I don't love fireworks (in fact I kind of loathe fireworks,) I have come to appreciate the way in which the community at my intersection comes together in order to celebrate and affirm life through a free celebration of fireworks. Absolutely. Every single year. 

Now, every single year, it gets a little bit out of control. And every single year the police show up and have to make some sort of show in order to disperse the crowd. That's just the game we play living here and doing things in our neighborhoods. That's just what you have to do. But this year was completely different. It was 180 degrees different than anything that I have seen ever in my entire life in San Francisco, which is over 27 years.

Coming down the streets this way were police in tactical line up with their batons at the ready. So coming down this street, this way, were the police. Imagine right here is where all the fireworks are going on. So police are coming from this direction. Police are also coming from this direction. So three out of the four ways police are marching down my street in tactical formation with their batons at the ready. They declared an unlawful assembly and they even threatened, violence to anyone that touched their cars. That was around 11 p.m. on Friday night, right here outside of my home.

If you followed my stories, you would have seen a photo of those police in formation. This is not about safety. In no way, shape or form is this about public safety. If it was about public safety, it would have happened the same way it's happened every year previously, which is the police show up, they talk to people. They're going to talk to the folks that are actually lighting the fireworks and all of that kind of stuff. That was not how this was done. 

This was a show of force. This is especially egregious from San Francisco Police Department because right now we have ICA in San Francisco. That's right. ICE is here in San Francisco, and it's showing up at immigration courts. And it is terrorizing and intimidating my neighbors to have our police march in formation through our streets with batons at the ready. [Marching] through a predominantly and historically Latinx community is not about safety. It's just not and never will be and never has been. It isn’t. It's not safe. It is terror. It is surveillance, and it is practice for I think, what they believe is coming next, which is social unrest, because they keep cutting the social safety net, not just at the federal level, but at the state level, and even at the city level right here in San Francisco. See, priority number one, reneging on commitments. 

So that is a little bit about what went down today. I know that this is a very long video, and I appreciate anyone who reaches the end because it means that you're interested in learning a little bit more. I will be back at City Hall tomorrow for another action. I can't remember exactly what it is.

I will have to brush up on it in the morning, but right now, it's really important that whatever we can do in order to sway and pressure our own representatives, our own elected leaders, in whatever way we can, we need to. We need to protect our citizens, our neighbors, our friends or relatives, other trans and queer and immigrant and Black and Indigenous folks.

We just need to. It is not the time to shrink and hide, and it's time to be loud, to take up space and to demand our rights. That's all I got for now. Ciao y’all.