In the past, San Francisco mayors made space for constituents and neighborhood groups through the Office of Neighborhood Services. That office was closed under Mayor London Breed, and with it, a key conduit to City Hall disappeared. There was once a relationship however imperfect between residents and the people elected to serve them. Today, that relationship has all but vanished.
In its place? PACs and nonprofits, groups with money, staff, and insider access. These organizations now dominate the conversation at City Hall, while actual constituents are treated as an afterthought…and this shift has had real consequences. In Hayes Valley, where neighbors and small businesses have organized for years without funding or institutional backing, we’ve watched a troubling pattern unfold … most visibly through the ongoing street closure on Hayes Street. What began as a temporary Shared Space has been unilaterally extended, repeatedly, with virtually no input from the businesses most affected. Residents and merchants have been sidelined while a small group with political connections dictates how our streets are used.
This was one of the first major policy failures to disregard neighborhood representation since our work began in 2020 and we’re still reeling from it. The 2023 Closed Hayes Street permit renewal marked a turning point when even SFMTA signaled an intent to wind down the closure, only to reverse course. Since then, the pattern has only deepened: Instead of meeting with impacted residents or merchants, decision-makers now take meetings with city-funded nonprofits, donor-backed organizations, and politically aligned membership groups. These groups are often described as “representing the community” when in fact, they often represent narrow and unaccountable interests.
We’re now working to reopen Hayes Street by the end of this year.
And here’s what makes the current situation so baffling: If there’s been growing consensus from neighbors, merchants, and even city-led studies like the SFCTA Octavia Plan that the closure is no longer viable or supported, why would City Hall assume that a 20-block expansion plan would be welcomed without question or uproar? This isn’t a minor extension. It’s a sweeping rewrite of how this neighborhood functions, introduced without consent, and it flies in the face of what the community has actually been calling for.
Today, average neighbors those who don’t belong to a PAC or pay dues to a politically connected group are left out entirely. Longtime independent retailers who’ve kept this corridor afloat are consistently excluded from decision-making, while bars, political allies, and now entertainment interests have become the preferred voices City Hall chooses to coordinate with. With the Mayor’s Neighborhood Services program gone, that exclusion is now complete. And the cracks are on full display in the current Hayes Valley Entertainment Zone proposal.
Let’s be real: COVID gave government cover to normalize this shift.
Our group made up entirely of volunteers and neighbors has put in thousands of hours, not for influence or profit, but out of commitment to our community. And yet, we are treated as outsiders, while paid interest groups who align with the City’s agenda are welcomed into decision-making rooms. Today, if you’re not a funded nonprofit or a political contributor, your neighborhood concerns carry little weight; you’re treated not as a stakeholder, but as an unwelcome presence in a process that was never designed for you. The model rewards those who can generate political capital. It marginalizes everyone else including longtime renters, family-owned storefronts, and residents trying to preserve the place they live. The Entertainment Zone designation in Hayes Valley pushed through behind closed doors and over community objections is just the latest symptom of this failure. And the question now is: How many more failures will it take before we acknowledge what’s broken?
And with the passage of the Entertainment Zone ordinance advanced without public notice and against overwhelming opposition we are witnessing the institutionalization of this broken process. This isn’t just about one ordinance. It’s about a broken model of governance. If anything comes from this debacle, let it be a wake-up call one that forces us to confront what’s broken, and who’s being left out.
This breakdown isn’t just about who gets invited to the table — it’s about a failure of fiduciary duty. Elected officials are supposed to act as stewards of public interest not conduits for private agendas. But today, we’re seeing a dangerous shift: where policy is increasingly shaped by PACs, politically aligned nonprofits, and favored associations, with no direct accountability to the people who actually live and work in these neighborhoods. The Mayor’s Office and the Board of Supervisors together are enabling a model that bypasses due process and ignores public input. Without a functioning conduit like the Neighborhood Services Office, there is zero equilibrium of communication or representation outside of PACs and nonprofits. And in its absence, the only voices that reach City Hall are those with organized money or political leverage. We’re now at a stage where the interests of a politically connected nonprofit or PAC can override the will of a neighborhood — and that should alarm everyone, not just those in Hayes Valley. What’s playing out here is a warning: when institutions fail to safeguard against these imbalances, communities get sacrificed for agendas they never consented to.
How did those most impacted by these decisions get so brazenly sidelined? We’ve sent hundreds of emails. We’ve shown up. And let’s talk about that: phones go unanswered, voicemails are full, officials arrive late to meetings and leave early. Then they ask us to follow up by email …only to respond with vague, pacifying replies that dodge the core issues. You know the type: you ask five questions, and maybe get a partial answer to one.
We’d probably have better luck getting help from a chatbot. So before that becomes our only option, we’re saying it plainly: it’s unconscionable that this is what constituent engagement has been reduced to.
From Lake Street to Valencia, the Upper Great Highway, Hayes Street and now the Entertainment Zone …the failures are stacking up. And we’re standing up to say: Enough. We’re calling for change — and we hope you’ll join us.
The Entertainment Zone ordinance in Hayes Valley must be rolled back; let this stand as a cautionary tale…a policy that went unchecked, advanced against broad consensus, and proof of just how far our city governance has eroded. It’s time for San Francisco to restore balance and bring community voice back into City Hall.
Last updated July 1, 2025 at 1pm to reflect the fact that on Friday, June 27, Mayor Daniel Lurie quietly signed the Hayes Valley Entertainment Zone ordinance into law — despite overwhelming public opposition, documented procedural failures, and repeated calls for a veto.