San Francisco residents band together to shut down reparations fund, claiming it’s ‘dividing’ the city

Richie Greenberg, one of the plaintiffs suing San Francisco over its reparations fund, claimed that the measure is divisive because it solely favors Black residents.

"It is dividing the city rather than trying to unite. So what we really need is to be focusing on how to uplift everybody rather than focusing on one group giving everything to that one group. And then everyone else is then responsible for paying for that one group," Greenberg told Fox News Digital. 

Greenberg formerly identified as a Republican and currently identifies as a centrist-conservative Democrat.

The city was sued over its reparations fund on grounds that its taxpayer money is being "unlawfully" used for a policy that allegedly violates the Equal Protection Clause.

According to the Pacific Legal Foundation, several San Francisco residents and Californians for Equal Rights Foundation sued San Francisco Thursday, challenging an ordinance that establishes a fund for Black residents. 

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The lawsuit alleges that the ordinance is discriminating on the basis of race because it allows taxpayer money to be funneled into the fund. The plaintiffs said a win would protect taxpayers from supporting a government-based racially motivated program and establish boundaries for other cities implementing similar policies.

"Acknowledging past injustice does not give the government license to spend public resources on programs that sort people by race and ancestry today," said Andrew Quinio, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. 

"The Constitution requires the city to address proven harm directly, not through sweeping racial and ancestral classifications. This lawsuit is about ensuring that all Americans are treated as individuals under the law and not forced to subsidize government policies that collectively bind them to history that they did not experience or inflict."

Greenberg led the effort in shutting down the fund when he heard buzz about the fund being revived after it was initially put aside for some time. He ended up creating a website called rejecttheplan.com, calling for residents to band together to stop the approval of the plan. 

However, their efforts were futile.

"The reality is that much of the media – both local, state, and federal, national media outlets – did not pay much attention to this. They didn't think that it would actually go through," Greenberg said.

"It was being pushed through regardless of its legality, so I went ahead and I set up a website," he said.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie signed a measure to create the fund. 

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The ordinance, passed by the Board of Supervisors in December, was signed by Lurie two days before Christmas. It establishes the legal framework for the fund but does not allocate funds or guarantee payments. The fund can be financed with private donations, foundations and other non-city sources. Any taxpayer-funded reparations payouts would require separate legislation, an identified funding source and mayoral approval. 

Lurie told Fox News Digital in December that no taxpayer money would be paid into the potential pot, citing the city's $1 billion budget deficit. 

"I was elected to drive San Francisco’s recovery, and that’s what I’m focused on every day," Lurie said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "We are not allocating money to this fund. With a historic $1 billion budget deficit, we are going to spend our money on making the city safer and cleaner."

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The plaintiffs allege a "misuse of government power" as the city’s Human Rights Commission administers the program.

According to the complaint, "By directing an agency funded almost entirely by taxpayer dollars to administer funding solely dedicated to implement race-exclusive benefits, the city is using public money, public employees, and public authority to carry out an unconstitutional racial spoils system that allocates benefits and opportunities based on race and ancestry."

"Taxpayer funds cannot be used to manage the assets of an unlawful program," Quinio said in a statement to Courthouse News.

"We need to stop this because it is a tremendous, tremendous amount of funding that would, eventually, basically kill the city. It would destroy the city of San Francisco, and it would set up an unworkable situation of who within the city gets preference as opposed to everyone else that would not," Greenberg said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the mayor's office, the reparations committee, and the city attorney for comment, but did not immediately hear back.