In his first time presiding over such a ceremony, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie administered the oath of office to the city's treasurer-tax collector, José Cisneros, two days after taking his own oath. An admittedly nervous Lurie flubbed the start by stating Cisneros' name instead of prompting the gay elected leader to say his own name before quickly correcting himself.
"I, Jose Cisneros. No, I (state your name)," said Lurie.
Afterward, an amused Cisneros complimented Lurie, telling him, "You did that well for the first time," and noting, "he is more nervous than I am."
Likely it was due to the fact that it was Cisneros' sixth time being sworn in to a new term in his citywide municipal elected position. First appointed in 2004 by then-mayor Gavin Newsom to fill a vacancy, Cisneros won a competitive race for a full four-year term in 2005.
He has run unopposed ever since though his name still appears on city ballots, as it did in last November's election. As the Bay Area Reporter has reported, Cisneros is the longest-serving gay Latino and out person of color elected official in the U.S.
In 2019, 15 years into his tenure, Cisneros took the record for being San Francisco's longest-serving openly gay official in the same elected position. Gay former supervisors Tom Ammiano and the late Harry Britt both served on the board for 14 years.
Come 2026, Cisneros will have matched the current record-holder for the Bay Area region, gay former Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who served for 22 years in his position before opting not to seek reelection in 2018. Thus, should he serve out his latest term through 2028, Cisneros will lay claim to being the Bay Area's longest-serving LGBTQ elected official in the same position.
And he could extend his time in office through 2032, as Cisneros told the B.A.R. last year that he is considering seeking a seventh term.
"I have been at City Hall for a long time," Cisneros noted at his swearing-in ceremony, held January 10 on the balcony outside of the mayor's office on the second floor of City Hall.
He first moved to the city in 1993 from Massachusetts, where he earned his B.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management and had worked as an assistant vice president at Bank of Boston. In 1998, then-mayor Willie Brown appointed Cisneros to the city commission overseeing parking and traffic issues, and two years later Cisneros was appointed to the newly named San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors.
By 2002, Cisneros had been hired as the deputy manager for capital planning at the city's transit agency. He stepped down two years later when Newsom tapped him to succeed former treasurer Susan Leal, a Latina and the first lesbian to hold a citywide elected position.
Lurie noted his being asked by Cisneros to swear him in was a "full circle moment" for the two city leaders, as they first got to know each other during the Newsom mayoral administration due to Cisneros working with Lurie's wife, Becca Prowda, who was an aide to Newsom. Now the state's governor, Newsom named Prowda his chief of protocol.
In his introductory remarks, Lurie praised Cisneros for using his job not to just collect the city's taxes and manage its money but also for using his office's financial data to address seemingly "intractable" problems and fix them in a collaborative manner. As an example, he pointed to Cisneros' launching a program to provide people with bank accounts so they could avoid paying exorbitant fees at check-cashing businesses, which has been replicated across the country.
"You led, José," said Lurie.
Proactive approach
His taking a proactive approach to his job partly explains why Cisneros has not faced an opponent in so many years surmised gay Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who represents District 8.
"He has been doing a great job for many, many years. That is what it is," said Mandelman, adding that he also "stays out of the politics" and "is innovative and collaborative with everyone in city government no matter their partisan position."
In introducing her uncle, Michaela Dudley noted several times that Cisneros had faced "no opposition" when he had to stand for reelection.
"See a theme, trend here?" she rhetorically asked the attendees.
The daughter of one of Cisneros' sisters, Dudley and her husband moved from Boston to San Francisco in 2018 partly because they knew, in doing so, they would have family in the area living nearby — Cisneros and his husband, San Francisco Human Rights Commissioner Mark Kelleher. Asked by the B.A.R. what she thought contributed to her uncle not facing contested elections, Dudley chalked it up to his focus on doing the work and eschewing the public spotlight for it.
"I think he is good at the job, so it is an easy sell for letting him continue to do it," said Dudley, a consultant who now lives in Mill Valley. "I always feel it takes a lot of personality and showmanship to be a politician, but he does it without being too strong or gregarious about it. He just does the job. He gets good results and is a good person."
Cisneros recalled when Newsom swore him into his first term in the position, he did so with a mandate that Cisneros raise a significant sum from philanthropic sources to help launch a tax credit for low-income families that Newsom had budgeted city funds toward. And he wanted it done within four months, a deadline that Cisneros went on to meet.
"It opened my eyes to how to harness the power of the treasurer and tax collector's office to improve the everyday lives of San Franciscans," recalled Cisneros, who said he has "one of the best jobs in the building."
He joked with Lurie that sometime during his term, they "can compare notes" and see, "Mr. Mayor, how you feel about yours."
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