“Public safety and homelessness are the two issues I’ve heard the most about and spent the most time on as a supervisor, and without a doubt they will remain two areas of focus for me as mayor. In terms of public safety, the property crime epidemic, whether it’s car break-ins or burglaries, is out of control.”
— Mayor Mark Farrell in an interview with the Marina Times, March 2018
A new poll released yesterday by the Mark Farrell for Mayor campaign shows Farrell having the most first-choice votes among major candidates, and that after allocating votes to simulate the ranked-choice voting process, Farrell comes out on top against incumbent London Breed 57 percent to 43 percent. The poll is based on the results of a live phone and text-to-web survey conducted by Impact Research from June 1–6, 2024, in San Francisco among 500 likely 2024 general election voters. (The margin of error for the full sample is +4.5 percent.)
According to the poll, Farrell leads all candidates at 23 percent with Breed at 21 percent, Levi’s heir and Tipping Point founder Daniel Lurie at 20 percent, and termed-out District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin at 17 percent. Termed-out District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí comes in at 4 percent, behind “someone else” at 5 percent and 11 percent undecided.
While 61 percent of those polled have unfavorable views of Breed, Peskin and Safaí are also disliked, with Peskin coming in at 50 percent and Safaí at 36 percent unfavorable ratings. Farrell and Lurie have 36 percent and 39 percent favorability ratings respectively. In an “open-ended question,” respondents described Farrell as experienced and moderate, while Lurie was seen as “wealthy” and “inexperienced.”
Granted, the poll is small and was commissioned by Farrell’s team — something his critics were quick to point out — but the company that conducted it, Impact Research, has a long record of electing Democrats and beating incumbents. In fact, they’ve flipped more Republican-held congressional seats over the past 10 years than any other polling firm in the country (their win-loss rate on ballot initiatives is also impressive with 92 wins and just 10 losses). It would also be difficult for “progressives” to quibble with their messaging, which helped lead to major victories on marriage equality, access to contraception, paid sick day legislation, and environmental protection. Their clients include Americans for Responsible Solutions; the Human Rights Campaign; Planned Parenthood; AFL-CIO; EMILY’s List; the Anti-Defamation League; the Ford, Rockefeller, and Joyce Foundations; and NextGen Climate.
What’s happening here?
So why is Farrell resonating with San Franciscans? Perhaps another question from the poll holds at least part of the answer: fewer than one in five voters said things in the city are headed in the right direction (16 percent “right direction,” 46 percent “wrong direction,” 34 percent “mixed”); 56 percent agree that things are going poorly and that a drastic change in leadership is needed to get back on track.
Full disclosure: I’ve known Farrell since the 2010 campaign to elect a new District 2 supervisor who would represent the Marina District, when, as co-owner and editor in chief of the Marina Times newspaper, I invited all three candidates to my house for interviews. The reason was a personal one: My pit bull, Jazzy, was recovering from cancer surgery, and I couldn’t leave her alone. Kat Anderson, Janet Reilly, and Mark Farrell all graciously accepted, and I hosted each of them separately at my San Francisco home over the course of a weekend.
I’m a fan of the old adage “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t like dogs,” and all three candidates passed the test with flying colors. Reilly even knelt on the floor in a very expensive suit and allowed Jazzy to give her a big kiss. Farrell did that too, but he took it to the next level — he brought dog biscuits. It was that extra bit of thoughtfulness, along with a refreshing naïveté free of political baggage, that made me think, “This Farrell guy has a promising future.”
A City Hall unknown, Farrell was a native San Franciscan raised in the Marina District. Tall, confident, and handsome, his résumé included working as an attorney as well as a venture capitalist. He had two adorable children (now three) and a lovely wife, Liz, who was an accomplished journalist. She still pens a column called Momsense, about raising children in an urban setting, for the Marina Times, which my business partner Earl Adkins and I sold to the parent company of L.A. Weekly in 2021. (Earl is now co-founder, CEO, and publisher of The Voice of San Francisco.)
Farrell’s supervisor campaign in 2010 was grassroots — his parents went door-to-door passing out flyers and stumped for him in grocery store parking lots. The hard work paid off, and he won the election. Nearly two terms later, he became the 44th mayor of San Francisco, voted in by his peers on the Board of Supervisors to serve until voters elected someone to fill the rest of the late Ed Lee’s second term (that ended up being current mayor London Breed).
The first time we met after he was elected, Farrell seemed a bit like a deer in the headlights as we walked down Chestnut Street and people congratulated him, asked to shake his hand, or take a picture with him. As we dined at Dragon Well (which, in my opinion, has the best wonton soup in San Francisco), Farrell waxed poetic about all the things he wanted to accomplish when he officially took office in January. At that point, I felt already wise beyond my years, a grizzled veteran of attending Board of Supervisors meetings that turned into three-ring circuses and little was accomplished. “It’s so much harder than it looks,” I remember telling Farrell — and he learned that quickly.
Ahead of the corruption game
As arguably the most moderate, sensible member of the Board, Farrell was often criticized or even ignored by his left-leaning colleagues. In a 2016 column for the Marina Times, he called for a federal investigation from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development into the Tenants Owners and Development Corporation (TODCO) and Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium (YBNC), both owned and operated by John Elberling.
“Profiting from taxpayer subsidy and funneling those profits into local political campaigns is reprehensible,” Farrell said. “I am calling for an immediate investigation to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that public resources were not used for political purposes.”
In 2013, John Elberling incorporated two organizations on the same day, and used the same address for both organization, TODCO Group LLC and Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium LLC. As Farrell pointed out, YBNC appeared to exist only to funnel dark money into local ballot measure committees. YBNC was listed as the major donor in support of Propositions C, M, and X and opposing Propositions P and U. Propositions C and M were authored by left-of-progressive and infamous NIMBY, then (and current) District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, while Proposition X was authored by left-leaning supervisor Jane Kim, who represented District 6 at that time.
YBNC had also donated tens of thousands of dollars to Propositions D, H, and L. John Elberling admitted in the San Francisco Chronicle that he gained millions in profits from refinancing his group’s properties that were initially built and financed with a mix of federal, state, and local funds. “YBNC’s activity and spending clearly does not pass the smell test,” Farrell said. “Instead of reinvesting profits gained from public subsidy to affordable housing needs and tenant improvements, YBNC is acting as a shell entity to bankroll their pet political campaigns.” The California Fair Political Practices Commission opened an investigation into the activity of YBNC after an official complaint alleged that YBNC broke eight state and two San Francisco campaign finance laws. But try as he might, Farrell could not get any of his colleagues (including his current mayoral opponents Peskin and Breed) to join his calls for an investigation into TODCO, YBNC, and Elberling. Why? Perhaps because they were getting money for their causes, campaigns, and ballot measures and didn’t want to kill the golden goose.
In March of 2023, Catherine Stefani — whom Farrell appointed to replace him as District 2 supervisor when he became mayor, and who has continued in the role since as an elected official — called for hearings on Elberling and his empire, saying she had “serious concerns” that the nonprofit had ramped up spending on political campaigns while neglecting care of its buildings and tenants. In 2021, TODCO successfully lobbied the Board of Supervisors to reject a project that would have converted the now-closed Nordstrom’s valet parking lot into a 495-unit tower off Market Street. TODCO’s spending on lobbying increased from $5,000 in 2013 — just three years prior to Farrell calling for an investigation — to $473,000 in 2021.
Homeless encampments and the nonprofit grifters
As mayor in 2018, Farrell cleared all large tent encampments in six months, much to the chagrin of left-leaning supervisors and San Francisco’s infamous homeless industrial complex. I was one of the only newspaper editors to urge a strong “no” on Proposition C, meant to raise millions for homeless services by increasing taxes on large businesses. Farrell — along with fellow supervisors Ahsha Safaí, Malia Cohen, Katie Tang, and London Breed — was also against it. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff helped Jennifer Friedenbach (who critics allege illegally lobbied full time for the measure as executive director of the nonprofit Coalition on Homelessness), and her cohort, Christin Evans, the daughter of an aluminum magnate, who runs hobby businesses in the Haight-Ashbury District, push Prop. C to a razor-thin win. So how did that work out?
A new poll commissioned by the Farrell campaign shows him beating London Breed 57 percent to 43 percent in final ranked choice voting
The Our City, Our Home Oversight Committee (OCOH) was set up to ensure Proposition C funds are “effectively and transparently used,” but Proposition C’s biggest lobbyist, Friedenbach, was appointed to the committee by the Board of Supervisors. In May 2023, the Homeless Oversight Commission was launched to oversee the incompetent Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and “receive advice and recommendations from OCOH on the administration of Proposition C funds.” Guess who the Board of Supervisors appointed as one of its commissioners? Christin Evans.
How’s the money being spent? Hard to say, because there’s a complete lack of transparency.
According to the OCOH page on the city’s website, during the 2022–23 fiscal year, it spent $94 million on acquisition of new buildings for use as permanent supportive housing and $57 million for “housing operations.” Overall, the city funded 2,909 units of housing capacity across “several types of housing,” including “783 net units of capacity added in FY22–23.” You read that correctly: a net 783 units of housing after spending nearly $100 million.
Back in 2018, it wasn’t popular to criticize Friedenbach, who had been lionized by progressive legislators for years as an expert on how to solve homelessness. I got emails from people accusing me of “hating the homeless” because I thought Friedenbach was a fraud. One of the only officials who agreed that Friedenbach shouldn’t hold such a lauded role at City Hall was Supervisor Mark Farrell. And it turns out, we were on the right side of history. When Farrell launched his mayoral campaign, I asked if he would consider shutting down the Our City Our Home committee and look for ways to move funds out of Friedenbach’s control. “Both,” Farrell answered. “Coalition on Homelessness and all the nonprofits have controlled the narrative for the past five and a half years — it’s time to take our city back. We need to get people the help they need, and I don’t believe those decisions should lie with the Coalition on Homelessness.” Farrell also said he would audit every homeless nonprofit receiving city funding. In the past seven years since Prop. C passed, residents and visitors alike have seen homelessness increase, mostly out-of-town drug tourists who know nonprofits like the Coalition on Homelessness are fighting to keep them in tents on the streets and are even willing to sue the city to do it.
‘The Law-and-order guy’
Back when “moderate” was a dirty word in San Francisco, critics sometimes referred to Farrell as “the law-and-order guy.” As supervisor, he was head of the Budget Committee for four years, where he was sometimes a lone voice on prioritizing public safety. While in 2024 many politicians say they didn’t support the 2020 “defund the police” movement, their social media feeds, videotaped hearings, and legislative priorities say otherwise. During his short tenure as mayor, Farrell averaged five new police academy classes a year with an average of over 50 recruits per class.
In 2021, while Farrell was a private citizen, Mayor Breed and District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton announced the creation of The Dream Keeper Initiative, a citywide plan for “reinvesting” $120 million in San Francisco’s African American community over the next two years. A press release claimed the Dream Keeper Initiative followed “months of community engagement and outreach led by the Human Rights Commission,” and an “extensive community and stakeholder engagement process” to become part of “Mayor Breed’s roadmap for reforming public safety and addressing structural inequities in San Francisco.” And where is that $120 million coming from? The press release addressed that, too: “In June 2020, following the killing of George Floyd, Mayor Breed and Supervisor Walton announced a plan to prioritize the redirection of resources from law enforcement to support the African American community.… As part of the budget process, Mayor Breed redirected $120 million from law enforcement for investments in the African American community for Fiscal Years 2020–21 and 2021–22.”
Breed and Walton weren’t alone: In a 2020 interview with The Frisc, fellow mayoral candidate Peskin said, “We’re facing a tremendous opportunity to radically rethink law enforcement in our community. I’m supportive of the efforts of Reinvesting.us, DefundSFPDNow, Black Lives Matter leaders, and the Office of Racial Equity staff to demilitarize our police force. I’ve also pushed to modify the POA contract that binds the city in many ways to achieve reforms advocates have been asking for. We’ve also engaged with other groups . . . to identify alternatives to a militarization [of the] police force that still creates community-led public safety alternatives. The $120 million is a reasonable first step.”
While these ideas might have gained favor in 2020, mostly with activists who already wanted to defund and/or abolish the police, they don’t ring true for most voters in 2024. Maybe the reason Farrell’s message is resonating today is that, while his priorities haven’t changed since his seven years at City Hall and short stint as mayor, voter priorities have, and they look a lot more like Farrell’s than those of his former colleagues, Peskin and Breed: Grift is bad, balance is good, extremes don’t work, it’s OK to go against the grain for what you believe in, and common sense — well, it just makes sense in these crazy San Francisco times.
