SF's Lee puts Muni at top of to-do list

Mayor Ed Lee accepts congratulations from a well-wisher after delivering his speech. Mayor Ed Lee accepts congratulations from a well-wisher after delivering his speech. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close SF's Lee puts Muni at top of to-do list 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Buoyed by recent success in overhauling San Francisco's business tax and lining up funding for housing programs, Mayor Ed Lee used his first State of the City address Monday to put another intractable problem in his sights: Muni.

The Municipal Transportation Agency - and residents' love-hate relationship with the notoriously late and overcrowded public transit system - has been the bane of many mayors, with current Chronicle columnist and former Mayor Willie Brown once famously saying he would fix Muni in 100 days.

That was in 1995.

Lee is giving himself a little more time, convening a task force to come up with solutions to get the system fixed and capable of handling the population projections of 2030.

"I know that some consider Muni as the third rail of San Francisco politics," Lee said in wide-ranging address that focused in large part on his job-creation efforts and on quality-of-life issues - homelessness, public education and transit.

"Truly great cities have great transportation systems - Paris, New York, London, Tokyo," Lee said. "I say San Francisco is pretty great, too, and deserves one as well."

It was a decidedly upbeat, if lengthy, speech that clocked in at about 1 hour and 10 minutes and was peppered with figures, including the city's unemployment rate, currently at 6.5 percent - a more than three percentage point drop from two years ago. That equates to 31,000 residents back to work, the mayor said.

An improved economy

Lee, with the help of a teleprompter, appeared more confident and smoother than usual as he declared San Francisco "the new gravitational center of Silicon Valley."

He touted the results of his effort to draw businesses to the troubled Mid-Market area with a tax break - an idea he inherited from his predecessor, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom - as "nothing short of astonishing." Ten companies, including Twitter, have moved to the area over the last two years.

"San Francisco is back," Lee said. "You want proof? The 26 cranes across the skyline."

But he tempered that exuberance with a call for fiscal prudence, noting the city still faces a $4.4 billion unfunded health care liability for employee and retiree health care.

And tackling Muni may prove daunting.

Lee is copying his successful approach to lining up dedicated funding for affordable housing and changing the way San Francisco levies its business tax: bringing those on all sides of the issues into the same room to hammer out a compromise. The Muni group, which includes transit advocates, tech figures and the City Controller's Office, will start meeting next month.

Modernize Muni

"We need to modernize our system ... to better match up with 21st century patterns of where people live, work and shop," said Lee, who also wants to explore BART expansion in the city.

Gabriel Metcalf, director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association and a member of the new Muni task force, said the system suffered from a lack of funding and a lack of priority on the streets - with buses, trains and streetcars often stuck in traffic or at a stoplight.

"We'll always be working on this, but I think we can do something meaningful about those two problems," Metcalf said after Lee's speech at the office of College Track, a nonprofit in the Bayview district dedicated to preparing low-income students for college.

Using Laura's Law

Tying to address another seemingly intractable problem, homelessness and unsavory street behavior, Lee announced he will make permanent the city's pilot project of implementing a softer version of the state's controversial Laura's Law.

Under the 2002 California law, counties that choose to participate can compel outpatient treatment for the severely mentally ill who refuse treatment. San Francisco, like the vast majority of California counties, has never opted in, partly over concerns that the law is ineffective because it doesn't allow counties to mandate that patients take medication.

The city's Department of Public Health, however, has been quietly running a pilot version in which patients voluntarily agree to participate once they're already hospitalized. If they agree, they're assigned a public conservator who makes treatment decisions, including administering medication.

The mayor also indicated he wants the city's beleaguered Housing Authority re-envisioned after its executive director, Henry Alvarez, sought a leave of absence Friday.

Alvarez has been stung by a string of Chronicle stories about lawsuits against him, a terrible review by federal inspectors, and allegations that he has steered contracts to friends and allies.

The mayor has put together another task force to implement major changes for that department.

"I am open to every one of their recommendations to reinvent the governance and management of public housing, up to and including replacing the Housing Authority as we know it with a new model," Lee said.

Seizing 'opportunities'

Lee also announced that nearly $50 million in city funds for public schools and $25 million for universal preschool will be included in his upcoming budget, saying, "Like most parents, I view education as an investment, not an expense."

The money is part of the voter mandate from 2004's Proposition H, which allocates a certain percentage of city tax dollars to schools. For the past four years, the city has reduced the amount it turns over by 25 percent because of the tough budget situation. This year, it won't do that. Last year, the city transferred $35.4 million for public schools and $17.7 million for universal preschool.

Lee, with Golden State Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob in the audience, also pledged to see the team succeed in its plan to build an arena at Piers 30-32 just south of the Bay Bridge.

"These kinds of opportunities - attracting an NBA franchise to relocate to our city and privately finance and build a spectacular new facility on the waterfront - come once in a lifetime," Lee said.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Jill Tucker contributed to this report.