San Francisco’s first black woman mayor is in a costly fight for a second term

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – When London Breed was elected because the first black mayor of San Francisco, it was a moment of shame for a poor girl from public housing whose ascension to office showed that in a progressive, compassionate and fair city, no dream is unimaginable.

However, the honeymoon was short-lived resulting from Covid-19 the pandemic closed stores and tech staff retreated to home offices. The variety of tent camps has increased, as has drug use in public places.

Breed is now engaged in an expensive campaign searching for a second term.

The moderate Democrat faces 4 primary challengers on the Nov. 5 ballot – all fellow Democrats who say Breed wasted her six years in office. They say she let San Francisco fall into chaos and blamed others for their inability to stop the homelessness and erratic behavior street behaviorand all of the hacked corporations were begging for help.

Her closest competitors seem like Mark Farrell, a former interim mayor and enterprise capitalist, who is probably the most conservative of the group, and Daniel Lurie, the founding father of an anti-poverty nonprofit and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, who pumped a minimum of $6 million of his own money into his first mayoral bid.

The other two are Aaron Peskin, president of the Board of Supervisors, probably the most liberal of the candidates, and Ahsha Safaí, a city supervisor and former union organizer.

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The streets became cleaner and homeless tents are much harder to search outBut daytime shooting in September 49ers rookie Ricky Pearsall’s rally in a popular downtown shopping district has reignited the difficulty of public safety.

“Even though San Francisco is seen as something of an icon of West Coast liberalism, the city has experienced a series of episodes that challenge that thesis and leave voters in a sensitive mood,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.

McCuan added that he thinks Breed still has the sting, but “there are just issues around her.”

The Nov. 5 vote in a presidential election yr comes amid a nationwide debate over public safety and a statewide vote on a tough-on-crime proposition which, if approved, would reclassify certain misdemeanors, thefts and drug offenses as felonies.

Voters concerned about crime removed a progressive San Francisco prosecutor Chesa Boudin on a rare recall in 2022 and across the bay this yr, Oakland’s mayor faces a recall election over crime concerns.

In an interview, Breed, 50, said San Francisco is changing quickly – because of her labor – and the voters she meets are optimistic.

She led a few successful ones voting measures ensuring public safety in the March primary elections to expand police powers and force some people into drug treatment. She ordered A crackdown on the homeless tent campsites after a United States Supreme Court a decision stating that outdoor sleeping bans are permitted. Reported crime has dropped.

“We have laid the groundwork and now people are benefiting from our infrastructure projects, the capacity we have built and the technology we are using to fight crime,” Breed said, adding that voters “know that somebody is in charge and making it occur “

Farrell disputed that claim during a meeting with voters at a noisy gastropub on a recent evening, arguing that Breed had failed to take care of the streets he cleared of tents when he was interim mayor in 2018. Farrell, 50, was a city supervisor who served he served in that capability for six months after Mayor Ed Lee’s death.

He imagines a San Francisco where police feel respected and elderly residents haven’t got to rent private security when town has a $15 billion annual budget.

“The Franciscans of San Francisco, given the current state of our city, want not only a change in leadership, but also a sense of direction for the city,” Farrell said in an interview this week.

Lurie, 47, says voters deserve a real public official and that as a political outsider he has the experience needed to alter corrupt government bureaucracies.

Voters are “desperate, desperate for someone to come in and be accountable,” Lurie said.

He says that because the founding father of the nonprofit Tipping Point Community, he built tiny house shelters and everlasting housing subsidies at a fraction of the fee and time it will take City Hall.

Breed, Farrell and Lurie have strong ties to wealthy business donors.

Luri is driving in fundraising has donated greater than $13 million, including $1 million from his mother, businesswoman Miriam Haas, to an outdoor committee supporting his candidacy. Breed raised greater than $4.6 million, including $1.2 million from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Farrell raised $3.5 million.

All three candidates also carry baggage.

Race is entangled in a developing scandal over financial mismanagement of the Dream Keeper Initiative, its flagship racial equity program for the Black community. The mayor says this system is working well.

Farrell was accused by opponents bypassing campaign contribution limits combining staff and office costs with a campaign he launched for a ballot measure that would accept unlimited donations. Farrell says he is following the law.

And Lurie’s critics say that affordable housing project Its nonprofit design couldn’t be replicated across town since it used a construction method opposed by local labor unions and required massive private investment. Lurie says the naive will likely be against it.

San Francisco elects its mayor using Ranked voting system this may occasionally give the winner who actually receives probably the most votes first place. It also can encourage unusual alliances between rival candidates, and indeed this week Farrell and Safaí agreed to ask their supporters to decide on the opposite candidate.

The breed won the election as Mayor in June 2018 serve until the tip of Lee’s term and did so re-elected in 2019 for a full term that lasted five years as a substitute of the everyday 4 after voters modified the electoral calendar to align with the presidential contests.