Good Morning, San Francisco

It's a gray one out there — overcast, 60 degrees, the kind of flat June sky that makes the whole city look like it's buffering. High of 62, so don't bother with the sunglasses. And speaking of things that look bigger than they are: the city thinks it's about to win the lottery off two AI IPOs. Let's talk about why the check might bounce.

The $10 Billion SF Is Already Spending in Its Head

City economist Ted Egan went on TV this week and floated a number that made every department head's eyes turn into slot machines: the OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs could deliver more than $10 billion to San Francisco. "More than 10 times bigger than anything we've seen before," he said. Cue the spending wish lists.

Here's the part that didn't make the highlight reel: the city can't actually tax any of it. Not the stock gains, not the income, not the paper-wealth fortunes minted overnight in Hayes Valley walk-ups. California claims income tax; San Francisco doesn't get a cut of a single vested share. The city's only real hook is the real estate transfer tax — the bite it takes when newly rich engineers sell one mansion to buy a bigger one. The windfall isn't a windfall. It's a hope that enough people move house.

And it gets shakier. Sellers are already sitting on their hands, holding properties to dodge the very transfer tax the city is counting on, waiting out rate changes and timing the market. The "more than $10 billion" headline is a projection stacked on a behavior that's actively working against it. That's not revenue. That's a vibe.

This is the part where we'd normally warn City Hall not to spend money it doesn't have — except that's exactly the trap. A speculative, market-dependent, one-time-ish jackpot is the worst possible thing to bolt onto recurring budget commitments. Pensions and payrolls don't care that the IPO market was hot in the summer of 2026. If San Francisco treats a transfer-tax sugar high as a permanent baseline, the hangover writes itself. Bank the windfall, don't budget it. The AI boom is real and it's good for this city — but the smart move is to let it pay down what we owe, not fund a brand-new wing of obligations we'll be stuck with when the IPO window slams shut.

The Rundown

City Hall & Politics

Willie Brown endorsed both frontrunners in the District 10 race to replace Supervisor Shamann Walton — first the progressive, then the moderate — which is either political genius or a man who'd like to be on the winning side no matter what. Ten candidates have qualified to represent Bayview-Hunters Point, Newsom is reportedly hovering, and the Bayview seat has quietly become the cleanest test yet of whether SF's progressive bloc or its tech-moderate coalition has the stronger hand. Watch this one — it tells you where the whole city is heading in November.

Public Safety

Waymo recalled 3,871 robotaxis — basically its entire fifth-gen Jaguar fleet — after 13 documented incidents of the cars driving into active freeway construction zones at speed, here and in Phoenix. No injuries, freeway operations are suspended, and the software fix has "no timeline." Credit where due: a voluntary recall and a transparent NHTSA filing is exactly the accountability we'd demand of any company. But "the autonomous car drove itself into a construction zone" is a sentence that needs to stop happening before these things go back on the 101.

San Jose hit a wall — literally. An estimated 30,000 fans flooded San Pedro Square for Mexico's World Cup win Thursday, blowing past the 25,000 the city planned for and forcing a halftime lockdown of the main plaza. Fans climbed onto parking-garage roofs to watch. Organizers are now eyeing closing more blocks for future matches — a reminder that "we prepared for a big crowd" and "we prepared for this crowd" are very different sentences.

Tech & Startups

The Chronicle is out of 901 Mission after a century at Fifth and Mission. Hearst's move to 450 Sansome is temporary for the paper, but the SoMa building's future is a total mystery — Hearst hasn't said a word about what becomes of the corner. Another big quiet box downtown is the last thing that block needed. Somebody with a plan should grab it.

Housing & Transit

The Bay Area is now a split-screen housing market. Redfin data out this week has San Francisco leading every major US metro in year-over-year price gains while San Jose leads every metro in losses — two cities, one region, opposite directions. The AI money insulating SF is the same money that hasn't shown up to rescue San Jose. Proof that "the Bay Area housing market" was never one thing.

Free bike valet at Levi's Stadium for the four remaining World Cup matches through July 1, run by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. Gate C only — Gate A is closed — no app, no fee, no reservation. Snap a photo of your paper claim ticket and don't lock your bike to the racks. This is what a small nonprofit doing one useful thing well looks like. More of this.

Culture & Food

Willow on the Green, the Inner Sunset's British cheese shop, closed after nearly five years. A pandemic-era bet on grounded-flight Anglophiles undone by a UCSF center closing, the JFK Drive shutdown, cheap UK flights, and rising import costs. Four of the conditions that created it reversed, and the math quit. No villain here — just a small business reading the room and walking away clean.

Oasis bought its own building. The SoMa drag institution was days from closing for good when philanthropists Mary and Mark Stevens stepped in; Oasis Arts bought 298 11th Street outright for $3.5 million and reopens July 17 as a nonprofit. Private dollars saving a cultural landmark without a cent of public money — that's the model.

The A's are Vegas favorites at home against an ace, which our capper is fading on principle, and Tiffany Hayes un-retired to become the Golden State Valkyries' first big signing at 36, anchoring what's now the most valuable franchise in women's sports. The Bay's expansion bet is paying off.

One More Thing

Starting Saturday, 49 searchlights — one for each square mile of our 7-by-7 city — shoot up from Civic Center through July 4, going rainbow for Pride and red-white-and-blue for the Fourth. Free, citywide, and impossible to miss. Look up.