Because they can't influence supervisor elections or school board elections as well as they can elections for mayor. The reason why San Francisco mayors are always re-elected is because they're very middle of the road in terms of politics and risk tolerance. Activist policies are usually the product of the Board of Supervisors, the school board, the district attorney, or public initiative, all of which are completely independent of the mayor's office. Sometimes the mayor's office will try to head off policies by offering watered-downed versions as an alternative. This doesn't always work, but it does contribute to the sense that they share some of the more radical policy preferences.
If you don't believe that the mayor's office has been significantly more conservative than the other political centers of San Francisco, just look at the police department. However dysfunctional you think the police department, it's not because the mayor's office has ever appointed a far left, defund-the-police police chief that seemingly every liberal has been demanding for decades. Police chiefs are appointed by the mayor the same way the monied elite choose a mayor--someone who is middle of the road, will keep their head down, and keep things moving along as best they can amidst the fracas. And as you would expect, their performance always falls short because their job isn't to succeed, but to avoid failure.
In general the mayor's office is expected by the old money elite (and increasingly some of the new money elite, like Benioff) to be the caretaker of a city with often times very extreme and contradictory policy demands. They're expected to avoid controversy, blunt the extremists, negotiate (quietly!) among various interests (e.g. unions), and pick up the pieces when things fail.
> The wealthy people who control NYC politics seem less tolerant of such issues.
Maybe. But I tend to think that a more important factor is that NYC still has a larger working class. The upper middle class, which increasingly dominates San Francisco politically, is disconnected from the city. Their politics come from social media and national narratives. They're more focused on avoiding feeling guilty about drug addicts and the homeless than on actual results. That's why the policies keep getting pushed further and further left (far beyond what was ever demanded 10 years earlier) despite the lack of results.
The thing about the rich elite, especially old money, is that in many ways they're far more grounded than the middle classes, especially modern middle classes. If you own buildings or businesses, local politics matters immensely to you. No matter how conservative or liberal you are, what matters above all else is consistency and avoiding surprises. Consistency and security is critical because you're immobile. The same is true for the working classes. No matter how pissed you are at economic inequality, the last thing you need is the ground constantly shifting underneath your feet. Similar to old money, consistency and security is critical because you're immobile.
San Francisco has too few of the latter kinds of people. At the end of an election cycle, its votes that matter, not dollars. The result is that moderates, which are still quite powerful, are always playing defense rather than offense.
You don't really need cabals to explain it. And it's unclear to me what mechanism the cabals supposedly have to choose the mayor; why they'd choose London Breed over say, Angela Alioto (a member of the "old money elite"); why they can choose the mayor but failed to choose their desired DA in the same election cycle; etc.
Where as long as you voted for your constituents' priority issues, you were free to strike deals on everything else.
Sunlight and transparency carry responsibility with them... and I'm not sure what we, the public, have done with the additional information (to wit, being outraged about everything, all the time) has been for the best of the entire system.
We don't look kindly on managers who micromanage their employees' work, and yet we're essentially doing the same thing to our politicians. Especially at the local level.
Government jobs are extremely lucrative, many pay six figures and opportunities to supplement with graft are plentiful. It’s a powerful club to be in and you’re potentially set for life. My spouse is a lifelong resident and remembers rushing to city hall with other hopefuls every time the city opened up applications.
The FBI is still working it’s way through the public works department with noted criminals like Mohammed Nuru and RoDBIgo Santos. I don’t really know what the Getty’s get out of playing kingmaker, but it’s pretty obvious what Willie Brown et all get out of neglecting the city and funneling money as they see fit.
Six figures in SF is literally nothing: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44725026
There are probably at least two dozen families, each of which has a few powerful members. Getting them all to agree on anything besides their own self-interest of maintaining their own wealth and power is quite hard.
But the city government has delivered very well on that one shared interest of theirs. They own a lot of property and property values are way up over the past few decades.
Maybe many of them just aren't pro American. In almost every other country the media/politics carefully try to project some national pride and sense of unity; it's actually the opposite here in the US isn't it?
If you do or are supposed to feel some guilt or sorrow or shame for the bad, then you could feel some pride or happiness or thankfulness for the good.
Here in France we only just now had a president recognizing our role in the Rwanda genocide, which happened 20 years ago.
Overall I'm seeing a lot more people calling for being proud of our nation and moving past inconvenient historical details than self-flagellation.
Macron is an exception in how much he stands for the "duty to memory" thing. Most people are fine believing their country can do nothing wrong.
But they absolutely do love to push the moral and economic burden for such things on to the common person.
And of course people are proud of their country and history and societies because that's normal healthy part of the human condition. This behavior and thought is increasingly shamed and bullied though.
You have Pacific Heights, Presidio/Richmond (especially where Feinsteins, Pelosis, Cockers, Dorseys, etc. live) as well as Marin and Hillsborough, et al.
They can let it happen because they can create their own little bubble world and never interact with "the deplorables".
I grew up in the Bay Area and went to "good schools" with these peoples' children so I've seen them up-close-and-personal. They are not nice people.
New Yorkers in my experience are far more practical and "based" compared to Western large blue cities.
Property taxes have been frozen which basically just throws more money into their throats.