View the San Francisco for Thursday, May 15, 2025
SOMA West Community Benefit District Executive Director Alex Ludlum, right, seen with board Chair Ryan Dick: “All properties receive our regular services — graffiti removal, trash removal.”San Francisco says the state of California is delinquent on millions of dollars in property assessments owed to four community-benefit districts that perform tasks such as street cleaning around state-owned properties next to and underneath freeways running through The City.
The long-simmering dispute over whether the state should pay the assessments ratcheted up in December when the San Francisco Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector filed four notices of property liens against the California Department of Transportation for $2.2 million due Nov. 1 for what it said are delinquent special assessments, fees and penalties. “We take seriously our obligation to collect all taxes and fees owed to the City and County,” said Amanda Fried, chief of policy for the Treasurer & Tax Collector’s Office, via email. The liens were filed in San Francisco and also Los Angeles, she said. “These are valid charges for unpaid special assessments that Caltrans owes for services to its parcels located within the boundaries of Community Benefit Districts,” Fried’s statement said. “These districts provide targeted services — including hazardous waste pick-up, sidewalk sweeping, pressure washing, and general public realm maintenance — that deliver direct benefits to parcels, including those owned by Caltrans.” A community-benefit district is created through a vote of property owners in a specific area to provide various neighborhood-improvement services, for which owners pay an assessment. Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office website shows the California Highway Patrol has $691,071.86 in delinquent assessments related to a property used for a California Highway PatrolAsked about the assessment dispute, a Caltrans spokesperson initially said via email, “Caltrans does not comment on partners negotiations.” A subsequent inquiry to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office about the assessments was directed to the California State Transportation Agency, which directed the matter back to Caltrans. The latter agency had not provided any further information as of publication time. Of the liens that The City filed against Caltrans, the biggest chunk of money — more than $1.8 million — concerns assessments for the SOMA West Community Benefit District, which contains the largest amount of freeway infrastructure.Yerba Buena Partnership From left, Ryan Dick is chair of the board of trustees at SOMA West Community Benefit District, and Alex Ludlum is the organization’s executive director.The SOMA West district covers a large swath of the South of Market area. It includes Caltrans properties connected to Interstate 80 and Highway 101 south of Market Street and east of Harrison Street, including a large interchange complex between the two freeways around 9th and Division streets, as well as numerous access ramps. SOMA West is a nonprofit that was approved by a majority of voters in the area and launched in 2020. Covering about 107 blocks, it has a budget of nearly $5 million and 43 employees, most of whom directly provide neighborhood cleaning services that in April included collecting 79,000 pounds of trash. “They’ve never paid at this point,” Alex Ludlum, SOMA West’s interim executive director, said of Caltrans. “All their properties receive our regular services — graffiti removal, trash removal,” Ludlum said. “On certain occasions, because no one ever maintains their properties, we’ve sent special landscaping crews in to beautify their neglected parcels, particularly on the highway offramps.” In 2023, the district unilaterally paid thousands of dollars to place boulders on a parcel of Caltrans property next to a sidewalk by Interstate 80 to deter encampments across Harrison Street from the Bessie Carmichael School PreK-8 Filipino Education Center, Ludlum said. The district also formally adopted an access ramp at 7th Street to perform cleaning and minor landscaping work. SOMA West representatives have tried unsuccessfully at various points for years to convince Caltrans officials to pay the assessment bills that are sent to them annually by the San Francisco tax collector’s office. Officials from several city agencies have also tried. “It never goes anywhere,” Ludlum said. “I am encouraged by the recent efforts of the City Attorney’s Office. They seem to be bringing more firepower than we’ve been able to muster on our own in the past.” Alex Ludlum , Executive Director and Ryan Dick , Chair of Board of Trustees SOMA West Community Benefit District, next to boulders they placed on Harrison Street behind the Hall of Justice to deter homeless encampments in San Francisco on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. The City Attorney’s Office provided a statement saying that the assessments levied by The City were “to fund CBD services that specially benefit property owners including Caltrans, and Caltrans should pay its fair share. We hope for Caltrans’ cooperation in the near future.” The Office of Economic and Workforce Development similarly provided a statement saying it “is in discussion with Caltrans regarding the unpaid special assessments that Caltrans owes for services to parcels located within the boundaries of our Community Benefit Districts.” City and community-benefit district officials said the state constitution specifically does not exempt state agencies from having to pay assessments. Caltrans officials have repeatedly questioned whether their agency’s freeway-related pro1perties receive special benefits from the community-benefit districts to justify assessments. Community-benefit district officials counter that, among other things, they perform extensive cleaning around access ramps and underpasses, including street cleaning under elevated structures where birds roost, garbage pickup, encampment cleanups and graffiti abatement. “It’s frustrating,” said Ryan Dick, a software engineer who lives in SOMA West’s zone and is president of the district’s board. “A lot of the issues in the neighborhood are due to the fact we have these big freeways and arteries coming through.” Dick said there’s a big effect on the neighborhood from Caltrans transit operations, “and they don’t seem to spend a lot of time attending to the surrounding area. They don’t seem to think that’s part of their purview.”Advocates for a recall of Supervisor Joel Engardio are principally upset about his leadership of a 2024 ballot measure that permanently closed Great Highway to cars.An abrupt, last-minute change in leadership has brought an unexpected twist to the campaign to recall San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio.have until May 22 to collect about 10,000 signatures. But with just days left before that deadline, campaign organizer Vin Budhai resigned, he confirmed in a text message to The Examiner., Budhai said he continues to support the recall but cited “ongoing creative and strategic differences regarding the direction and execution of the effort.”— which was first reported by The San Francisco Standard — might not be the deciding factor in whether or not the recall makes the ballot. If sufficient signatures are verified by The City’s Department of Elections, a recall election will be scheduled. However, a change in leadership would presumably have significant consequences for the political strategy of a full recall campaign — should there be one. Advocates for the recall are principally upset with Engardio, who represents the Sunset District, for his leadership of a 2024 ballot measure that permanently closed Great Highway to cars between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard. Supervisor Joel Engardio’s anti-recall campaign has alleged that signature gatherers are lying to voters by telling them that signing the petition could lead to Great Highway reopening to cars.opposed the Great Highway closure. The numbers were similar in the Richmond district, the residents of which are actually more likely to rely on Great Highway for car commutes. But voters there wouldn’t get a say in whether or not Engardio deserves to be recalled. The recall’s success will hinge largely on the question of whether the majority of Sunset District voters who disagreed with Engardio’s stance on last year’s Proposition K believe that difference of opinion warrants his removal from office. Engardio has not sat idly by while his critics have gathered signatures. Instead, he has launched a full-throated and well-resourced self-defense campaign. Not only did the first-term supervisor tout his post-election efforts to mitigate potential adverse traffic effects of the closure, he has also attempted to highlight his other work in the district, such as advocating for increased policing. “I think reasonable people can see the difference and know that one issue is not a recallable offense and that we can still have a lot to do together on many other issues,” Engardio told The Examiner shortly after his anti-recall campaign kicked off.A mother running while pushing her child in a jogging stroller on Great Highway at Noriega Street in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.He has also argued that the recall is a waste of time and energy. If successful in signature gathering, the recall election would be held not long before Engardio would be up for election anyway — assuming he would seek a second term — in November 2026. To date, the recall campaign had already raised $105,880 and spent $121,048 from Jan. 1 through the end of April, according to records submitted to the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Engardio’s opposition has financially dwarfed the recall effort, raising $399,783 and spending $337,158 through April. Contributors to the anti-recall committee included prominent Proposition K supporters such as Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. Engardio’s strategy is informed, in part, by his experience participating in two successful recalls — one involving three school board members, the other targeting former District Attorney Chesa Boudin — prior to his election to office in 2022. The supervisor has contended that the proposal to recall him is different from either of the recalls he supported because the former is based on a single issue, while the latter were based on the accumulation of voters’ frustrations over many issues.Engardio’s campaign, in response, has alleged that signature gatherers are lying to voters by telling them that signing the petition could lead to Great Highway reopening to cars.of proposing a ballot measure that would reopen the Great Highway — now known as Sunset Dunes Park — to cars. If she could win the support of five other supervisors, Chan’s ballot measure would theoretically be simultaneous with the Engardio recall vote. Editor's note: This story was corrected to reflect that Supervisor Connie Chan would require the support of a majority of the Board of Supervisors to hold a citywide vote on reopening the Great Highway.House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, seen in November: “I will keep fighting for the Administration to fully reimburse our City as promised for the lawful expenses incurred during the pandemic.”U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced Wednesday that San Francisco will receive nearly $10 million in federal emergency funding for its COVID-19 response — an amount far less than local officials say they believe they’re owed. The City, like others throughout California, rapidly accumulated costs during the pandemic. From San Francisco’s vantage point, the $9.7 million announced Wednesday is just a portion of the nearly $500 million officials say the Federal Emergency Management Agency owes for pandemic-response efforts. Pelosi, who represents The City in the U.S. House of Representatives, and other California officials have repeatedly advocated for release of FEMA funds tied to COVID-related programs. The reimbursement announced Wednesday is for “management costs as a result of” the pandemic, according to Pelosi’s office. “This funding is welcome news and a small step in the right direction toward the federal government paying what is due to San Francisco,” Pelosi said in a statement. “In partnership with Mayor Lurie, I will keep fighting for the Administration to fully reimburse our City as promised for the lawful expenses incurred during the pandemic.”“As our administration makes the tough decisions to tackle the historic budget deficit we inherited, FEMA still owes San Francisco hundreds of millions of dollars, and I will continue to advocate relentlessly with our federal partners until we receive every single dollar,” Lurie said in a statement. In December, numerous California officials signed a letter urging FEMA to release $4.2 billion in COVID-related reimbursements that they said were rightfully due to the state and cities. “This has created budget gaps and cash flow challenges for state and local governments in the current and future fiscal years,” stated the letter, the signatories of which included both U.S. senators from California. “Additionally, FEMA’s imminent deadlines to close out COVID-19 programs, especially for those programs that have received initial obligations only recently from FEMA, threaten the ability of governments to receive reimbursements for projects that have been approved.”As the workers who once filled downtown offices sheltered at home, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a fundamental change in The City, massively disrupting a downtown economy that once served as a dependable source of revenue for The City budget. Despite a host of efforts to revitalize downtown, office vacancy ratesThe City has $485 million in outstanding submissions for FEMA reimbursement of COVID-related costs, according to the San Francisco Controller’s Office, about $267 million of which is related to theAbout $190 million in unreimbursed costs is specifically tied to The City’s work to quickly place homeless people in hotels to provide them with safe shelter following the onset of the pandemic.incurred during the second year of the hotel shelter-in-place program, known as Project Roomkey, would be reimbursed. That belief withered when FEMA released updated guidelines that it would not pay for hotel stays longer than 20 days during the second year of the program. In a statement to The Examiner last year, FEMA denied changing the requirements “in order to reduce costs.” “FEMA under its Public Assistance Program works closely with State, Tribal, Territorial and Local governments to provide all eligible and available funding for reimbursement, and will continue to do so for those impacted during the pandemic,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email to The Examiner in April 2024.Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. When you're happy with your selection, click the checkmark icon next to the clipping area to continue.This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!Create a password that only you will remember. 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