Mayor Edwin Lee outlines economic, transit and neighborhood priorities in formal policy session

Mayor Edwin Lee used a scheduled formal policy discussion with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to outline economic development strategies, priorities for the city’s transit agency and neighborhood-level workforce and facade programs.

Lee told the board that city economic development will “continue to focus on sector based strategies” to attract industries including biotech and clean tech, and highlighted international recruitment efforts and payroll tax incentives. “With the passage of the central market payroll tax exclusion, we have focused an effort on promoting opportunities in central market,” Lee said.

The mayor also told supervisors he supports expanding neighborhood programs such as the Neighborhood Marketplace Initiative, the Revolving Loan Program and the San Francisco Shines façade-improvement program. He said funding for SF Shines was “slightly increased in the upcoming fiscal year,” enabling about 10 smaller façade projects plus three to five larger projects to upgrade vacant properties.

On transit, Lee reviewed what he called priorities for the next director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA). He said the director must “focus on improving transit service, reliability, convenience and safety,” implement the labor agreement with TWU Local 250A and raise Muni’s on-time performance. “Muni is only there when you expect it 71% of the time,” Lee said. “This needs to increase to the voter mandate of 85% on time performance.” He also urged the new director to collaborate with other agencies on street-level issues and to advance capital projects including the Central Subway and bus rapid transit on Van Ness and Geary.

Lee detailed commitments to youth employment and prevention programs in response to questions from supervisors. He said the board and mayor’s office “prioritized over $5,600,000 for youth programs at the Department of Children, Youth and Family” to support after‑school services, workforce development and leadership programs. He cited the Camp Mater summer program and a DPW workforce program, La Tierra, as examples and said the Office of Economic and Workforce Development negotiated a first-source hiring agreement with Fresh & Easy for a new Bayview store that required 50% of hires come from the 94124 ZIP code.

Lee also described progress in Bayview’s Third Street corridor redevelopment tied to the city’s redevelopment agency: he said 16 façade projects have been completed, one project (Auntie April’s Chicken and Waffles) was under construction and 10 more were in design or construction. He said redevelopment funding “will assist another three to seven businesses in the coming fiscal year.”

Why it matters: the mayor’s priorities lay out the administration’s near-term agenda on jobs, transit reliability and neighborhood revitalization. The comments provide policy direction the board can use in upcoming budget and ordinance debates.

Looking ahead: several supervisors raised follow-up questions during the session. The mayor repeatedly pledged to work with board members on staffing, contracting and program details as the city develops implementation steps and budget proposals.