Most people remember COVID as a time of fear, isolation, and uncertainty. What’s easier to forget is how the breakdown of everyday civic life accelerated power shifts that were already underway. In Hayes Valley, the pandemic didn’t create civic dysfunction. It exposed and intensified it.
The cracks were already there
Well before 2020, many neighbors were already raising concerns about the direction of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association. Contentious tree removals. Residents removed from meetings. Decisions were increasingly made before public discussion ever occurred — or without it at all. By 2019, trust had begun to fray. Participation narrowed. The perception that HVNA spoke for the neighborhood — rather than with it — was already being questioned. COVID did not invent this dynamic. It froze it in place.
When civic safeguards disappeared
In early 2020, the remaining checks on informal power collapsed almost overnight. In-person meetings stopped. Decisions moved into small Zoom rooms, informal email chains, and private conversations that most residents and small businesses never saw. Public oversight weakened. In that vacuum, HVNA assumed an expanded role — often framed as temporary stewardship during an emergency. But temporary authority, once assumed, is rarely surrendered voluntarily.
From assumption to entrenchment
As months turned into years, what began as emergency coordination hardened into control. Access narrowed. Dissent was reframed as disruption. Challenges were treated as threats rather than participation. Crucially, when normal life resumed, governance did not reset. There was no restoration of open process. No rebalancing of authority. No acknowledgment that legitimacy requires consent not endurance. What emerged instead was a default: decisions flowing through a small, self-reinforcing circle, insulated from meaningful challenge.
The consequences we recognize today
The street closure.
The Entertainment Zone.
The sidelining of independent retailers and long term community members.
The erosion of trust.
The sense that outcomes are predetermined.
These are not isolated disputes. They are the downstream effects of a governance structure that prioritized control over consent — and continuity over accountability.
Where this stands now
This story isn’t about a community that lost its voice. It’s about a community that was excluded — and is now pushing back.
The quiet coup only works if it goes unchallenged. It isn’t.