Luke Thomas/Fog City Journal

Ed Lee

Mobsters have the Cosa Nostra. Oil producers have OPEC. And San Francisco has its City Family.

The term is much in use lately. Mayor Edwin Lee invoked it in unveiling a pension-reform plan produced after months of working with the city’s unions, elected officials, City Hall executives and the financier Warren Hellman (who is chairman of The Bay Citizen).

Declaring it the plan of “the official City Family,” Lee pronounced himself well satisfied with a proposal that falls far short of the savings he declared critical just three months ago.

Other ideas, notably a measure advanced by Jeff Adachi, the city’s public defender, are, to Lee, unworthy of discussion.

In this one-party town, members of the family may be progressive Democrats or moderate Democrats, gay or straight, teetotalers or potheads. At the end of the day, however, they can be counted on to act with remarkable public cohesiveness.

Of course, the term has a different meaning in times of civic tragedy. A city firefighter was killed Thursday, and another critically injured. No one questions Lee or city officials’ sincere offerings of sympathy.

Yet the charm of the City Family gathering to sing “Kumbaya” in celebration of political compromise can be a glib bit of theater, masking the fact that the needs of a complex, changing community are not being addressed.

The City Family is “a powerful metaphor for conformity,” said Matt Gonzalez, an ally of Adachi and a former president of the Board of Supervisors. “It’s a rhetorical tool, and it’s very powerful.”

As a phrase and as a political force, the City Family is enjoying a renaissance, said Eric Jaye, a veteran political consultant. He traces the term’s origin to the powerful troika of Willie Brown, Representative Phillip Burton and his brother, John Burton, now head of the California Democratic Party, who ruled the city (and played an oversize role in California politics) for decades. The phrase’s return to vogue marks “the return of this organization to political ascendancy,” Jaye said.

In many cities, this would be called a political machine. In San Francisco, gentler language is preferred.

Gabriel Metcalf, who heads the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, or SPUR, a good-government group, was among the City Family folks who appeared at Lee’s announcement of the pension deal (though SPUR has not yet decided which pension measure to endorse). Metcalf has broken ranks with the City Family on a couple of issues in recent years, and he knows the cost.

“In San Francisco, there seems to be a belief in thought crimes,” he said, “meaning that people who speak out, say things they are not supposed to say, will be shunned.”

No one has been shunned more in the last year than Adachi. Since he first introduced a pension-reform measure last year, he has been a pariah to the City Family. When Mayor Lee first met with department heads after taking office in January, he warned Adachi against renewing his divisive efforts. Union leaders refused to take part in any meetings that included Adachi.

Even San Francisco’s watchdog — the city’s Ethics Commission — is a member of the family. Last month, when Dennis Herrera, the city attorney and a mayoral candidate, found himself facing a lobbying scandal involving his campaign manager, he made a public to-do of referring the matter to an outside agency, Oakland’s city attorney. Alex Katz, communications director for that office, initially told The Bay Citizen that he was not aware of the case. Upon checking, he said that the investigation has since been handed over to — the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

Who appointed one of the five commissioners? Herrera. Who appointed the other four? The mayor, the district attorney, the assessor and the Board of Supervisors — all elected officials whose ethics the commission is supposed to police.

Chris Daly, the outré supervisor who termed out of office in January, has almost nothing in common with Adachi. But Daly, too, is an untouchable as far as the City Family is concerned — perhaps one reason his post-elective life features a broom and a bar towel.

“Social institutions need to recreate and reinforce” San Francisco’s economic and political status quo, Daly said from the bar he now operates blocks from City Hall. “The City Family, they are the caretakers of that order. As long as you stay in line, it’s all good.”

This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.