Just when San Franciscans thought President Donald Trump had forgotten about them, he dropped another news bomb. On April 8, he went “Apprentice”-style on all six Biden-appointed board members of the Presidio Trust, the group responsible for overseeing the 1,500-acre federal site and one of San Francisco’s most beloved parks.
While a house cleaning of a federal agency isn’t unusual when an administration changes hands, the timing and nature of Trump’s move on the Presidio have raised fears that one of the city’s crown jewels is under threat.
Confused about what this all means? Scared that the Presidio is going to become a Trump Resort, Hotel, and Golf Club? So are we. Here, we try to answer your burning questions about the future of the Presidio, albeit with a giant asterisk: The only person who knows what’s in Trump’s mind is the president himself.
In February 2025, the president signed an executive order calling for a handful of federal agencies to be “eliminated to the maximum extent” and to “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence.” Among these agencies was the Presidio Trust — a surprise to many, given that the park is financially self-sustaining and generated a $45 million surplus in fiscal 2025.
Trump’s inclusion of it on the chopping block scared the bejesus out of residents and local officials, who feared that the president had designs on shutting down or overhauling the park. Fourteen months after signing the order, Trump fired Presidio Trust Board Chairman Mark Buell, Vice Chair Chuck Collins, and members Lenore “Leni” Eccles, Patsy Ishiyama, Bonnie LePard, and Nicola Miner.
It’s a federal government corporation created through an act of Congress in 1996 with the help of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. It manages the 1,500-acre Presidio with the National Park Service and leases to commercial and residential tenants. About 3,000 people live in the Presidio, and there are 300 businesses there as well. The model is seen as very successful, since the Trust hasn’t taken federal appropriations since 2013. In addition to businesses and residences, the park features extensive forested trails, restaurants, and the 14-acre Tunnel Tops, which opened in 2022.
Six board members are appointed by the president. They oversee the Presidio’s finances. But the primary, day-to-day duties of running the Presidio fall to permanent staff, including the CEO, who serves at the board’s discretion. Jean Fraser announced in February that she’s leaving this year as CEO, a post she has held since 2016. At the time, she said her departure had nothing to do with Trump’s actions.
Honestly, who knows? When Trump signed the executive order last year, it was during a moment when he was going to war with the federal bureaucracy (remember DOGE?), looking to cut almost everything besides the military. But some suspect pettier motives: After all, the Presidio Trust is one of Pelosi’s prized accomplishments, and the president may have seen an opportunity to stick it to his longtime foe.
Around the time of the executive order, ideas were floated to turn the Presidio into a “Freedom City (opens in new tab),” a federally protected district granted “broad autonomy, a vastly improved regulatory environment, and preemption over extreme state and local restrictions on construction and emerging technologies.” A Presidio Freedom City, it was posited, would spur development in the park and make it a business hub focused on biotechnology and biomedical science. Sorry nature lovers!
Hardly. You no doubt remember the president threatening to deploy federal agents to the city last October, a move that was stopped only after private overtures by Mayor Daniel Lurie and a handful of tech scions. Trump’s administration has also sought to turn one of the city’s main tourist attractions, Alcatraz Island, back into a working prison, sell off a federal building named after Pelosi, and rechristen a warship named after former Supervisor Harvey Milk.
It’s hard to know. Bridget Dooling, a professor of law at Ohio State University, told The Standard that Trump could simply not appoint anyone. That would stall the trust on a number of fronts, including the selection of a new CEO, setting the budget, and compiling the yearly report that the trust is required to send to the federal government on its operations. Essentially, it could become a zombie organization.
Trump could also try to do what he did to the U.S. Institute of Peace, which was also established by an act of Congress. The February 2025 executive order named that agency as part of its downsizing calls, and today, the institute has essentially become defunct (opens in new tab) and bears the president’s name outside its headquarters.
Former staff of the institute sued over Trump’s takeover, and the legal challenge is ongoing. An appeals panel has said it will not make a decision on the case until the U.S. Supreme Court decides on Trump’s authority to fire independent government officials — a ruling that’s expected this summer.
That seems unlikely. Both Buell and Hurabiell told The Standard that they don’t think the board can screw up too much. The likelihood of the Presidio being turned into a golf club or MAGA-themed casino is pretty much zero. Supporters say that because it was created by Congress, it is protected from the president’s meddling. Additionally, Dooling said the board could get into legal trouble if it tries to back out of its fiduciary duties to oversee the trust.
The White House told The Standard that the president will make new appointments to the Presidio Trust soon. According to the Presidio Trust Act, board members must “possess extensive knowledge and experience in one or more of the fields of city planning, finance, real estate development, and resource conservation.” One must be a military veteran, and three must reside in the Bay Area.
Trump could turn to run-of-the-mill picks, like political organizer Marie Hurabiell or Lynne Benioff, wife of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, whom he appointed to the trust during his first term but have since left. But if his second term has taught us anything, it’s that Trump is unbound by ordinary rules or conventions. He could tap a crypto billionaire whom he just pardoned … or the person whose AI art inspired his recent Jesus Truth Social post.
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