By Josh Koehn, Gabe Greschler & Jonah Owen Lamb

This week, a horde of Democratic officials, donors, and operatives descend upon San Francisco to nurse their wounds and plot a comeback. American Bridge PAC, a major liberal group, will be holding a three-day conference starting Sunday to lay out some hard truths and figure out a path forward after another election defeat to Donald Trump. But the event isn’t just about self-flagellation — it’s also about convincing Democratic donors from the Bay Area that the party can craft a winning message in time for next year’s mid-term elections.

Power Play obtained an agenda for the event, Democracy Matters 2025, which will take place mainly at the Four Seasons. At the time of this writing, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis — who’s running for governor — and Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, were scheduled to break bread with donors at the swank restaurant Prospect while discussing the global rise of authoritarian strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Other speakers on the docket: Tom Perez, the former U.S. secretary of Labor and Democratic National Committee chair; the always gabby James Carville, who was President Bill Clinton’s campaign manager; Jim Messina, a 2012 campaign manager for President Barack Obama; and David Shor, a hard-partying data scientist who helped the Future Forward PAC raise more than $900 million to support Kamala Harris last year.

Democrats will clearly be doing some soul-searching: Discussions will include “Demographics Are Not Destiny,” “Gender Warfare: What’s Going on With Men?” and “How to Stop Losing the Culture Wars — and Campaigns.” We’ll have more on this in the coming days.

In the pipeline

A man in glasses and a suit stands at a microphone, with an American flag partially visible to the right. His expression is serious, and the background is blurred.

FEMA FALLOUT: San Francisco’s fiscal woes may have just begun. A hefty $267 million stemming from Covid-era Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements may not come through — and officials appear increasingly worried about what that will mean for the city’s budget deficit.

FEMA was shifty on repayments during the Biden administration — and it’s undoubtedly no better under Trump. At a Tuesday gathering organized by ConnectedSF at Harry's Bar on Fillmore Street, Mayor Daniel Lurie alluded to the possibility that the $840 million budget deficit will grow to more than $1 billion.

“We do not have that money,” said Lurie, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by Power Play. “And I am not counting on that money coming.” Lurie told the crowd he had lobbied the Biden administration as mayor-elect, but sources tell us FEMA has been incommunicado about the reimbursements, which are tied to the shelter-in-place hotels for homeless residents the city operated during the pandemic.

FEMA did not respond to a request for comment — but that is no surprise. The agency is in turmoil after its CFO was fired over migrant hotel shelters and subsequently sued the Trump administration.

In a statement, Lurie said the “major budget challenges will only get worse if San Francisco doesn’t receive the federal funding we are owed,” and he has been working “every single day” to secure funding “the city was promised.”

READ THE ROOM? Hundreds of current and former law enforcement officers gathered Wednesday night at the San Francisco War Memorial for a ceremony honoring 50 years of women on patrol. The event was spirited — at one point, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins danced behind a podium to Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us” — but one speaker’s comments reportedly fell flat.

That speaker was Lurie, who praised San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott for “pushing women forward” into leadership positions, according to one incredulous attendee. There are no acting assistant or deputy chiefs who are women. Only two commanders are women, and of the 27 captain's assignments, four are women.

“It was dead silent,” said the attendee, a former officer. “Everyone was like, 'That never happened.'”

In 2019, the Department for the Status of Women found that women in the SFPD were often shunted to desk roles instead of patrol or specialized units. Women in leadership “is still lacking,” said another former SFPD officer who was present. Another attendee, however, framed it as a national problem: “There aren’t enough of us,” she said of women in the force.

In an email, SFPD spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky noted the department outpaces national trends when it comes to advancing women: Just 3% of police leaders nationwide are women, compared to 17% at SFPD. The department has undertaken efforts to recruit and promote more women, he said, including a pledge to have 30% of academy recruit classes be women by 2030.

ALL QUIET ON THE WFH FRONT: Lurie’s mandate that city workers return to the office four times a week has caused a bit of City Hall grumbling. (“Going back to the hellscape” is how one employee described it to Power Play in an email subject line.)

But for the most part, unions have kept publicly mum. What’s going on?

Sources tell Power Play that unions do not want to stir up a fight with the mayor in the current political environment. Financial anxiety is high because of the budget deficit and the possibility of layoffs, and all of that is keeping the peace — at least temporarily.

“I think there are bigger fights to fight right now,” said San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Kim Tavaglione. “Everybody’s very hyper-focused on the [city’s] budget and figuring out worst-case scenarios.”

In a March 3 SEIU Local 1021 email sent to members, the union expressed concerns about the mayor’s overall strategy toward City Hall workers — but also said it’s seeking to work with Room 200. The email described a Feb. 27 meeting between Lurie and the Labor Council’s Public Employee Committee, suggesting members have felt out of the loop about decisions regarding city workers. “We told him that we need to be at the table when decisions are made, not notified after the fact or through the media,” the email reads.

In the meeting, the unions said they were concerned about a cohort of workers who received a final offer from the city but were kept in limbo because of the January hiring slowdown. The mayor apparently agreed that these offers should be honored — and said he would consider lifting the hiring pause for certain workers.

The email states that union officials and the mayor will meet monthly. According to the mayor’s office, between 8,000 and 10,000 employees are subject to Lurie’s back-to-office directive, pending accommodation requests.