While co-hosted by several neighborhood groups in San Francisco's LGBTQ Castro district, there were no LGBTQ-related questions at the September 5 District 8 mayoral forum between four of the five major candidates in the race. Instead, candidates discussed housing, homelessness, community policing, and commission reform proposals.
Former interim mayor Mark Farrell; Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin; District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí; and nonprofit executive and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie discussed those issues and more at the forum, which was hosted by 11 sponsoring community groups, including the Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association and the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association, at the Randall Museum adjacent to Corona Heights Park.
"We invited all the top five candidates based on polling to be a part of this forum," said Matt Hicks, who was on the volunteer steering committee for the event. "Mayor London Breed declined. I personally got involved in this because, like so many of you, I love San Francisco and I believe the city is at a crossroads. I don't remember a more consequential race for mayor."
Noting that the winner will possibly be decided "through multiple rounds of ranked-choice voting," Hicks advised attendees to "please remember not only to think about your top choice but how you would rank all of the candidates."
The debate was moderated by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, currently with the San Francisco Standard. The veteran news reporter kept the answers more focused on substance and on District 8 in general. In addition to the Castro, the supervisorial district in the heart of the city also contains the neighborhoods of Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, Glen Park, and part of Cole Valley.
Despite the district being home to many LGBTQ voters, there were no LGBTQ-specific questions posed to the candidates.
In a question about the city's housing crisis, Rodriguez asked if the candidates would specifically support upzoning in the district, which could lead to taller buildings, for example.
Peskin used the opportunity to try to change the perception he is against building new housing.
"We need to reject the narrative of the developers and real estate speculators," Peskin said. "They'll tell you I'm the worst, but I'm really the best to build the affordable housing San Francisco needs. ... I am the only candidate in this race that supports expanding rent control. Unlike some of my opponents, I have never — not once — voted against affordable housing."
Peskin said he voted for over 100,000 new housing units in his time on the Board of Supervisors. (Between 2005 and 2021, 56,226 units were produced in San Francisco County, according to the California Metropolitan Transportation Commission.)
"We can build the affordable housing San Francisco needs without turning Ocean Beach into Miami Beach," Peskin said.
Safaí and Farrell articulated similar positions, trying to steer a middle course that centered on affordability, while conceding to some upzoning.
"I agree 100% not to have a one-size-fits-all solution, but I do believe in density," Safaí said. Janitors and other blue-collar people are unable to buy a $2 million house in his traditionally working-class district, he said.
"Listen, folks, we have a housing crisis in our city," he said. "We have to build more housing for lower- and middle-income families."
But there are places that need more development, he added.
"No tenants will be displaced; I don't believe in displacing any tenants," Safaí said. "When we have an empty lot on Market, an empty lot on 18th [Street] ... we have to look at creating housing and those opportunities."
Farrell said "the massive upzoning this mayor has proposed would crush the citizens of San Francisco," though he proposed upzoning in every neighborhood, but by the transit corridors.
"I've been incredibly pro-housing my entire career," said Farrell, who served on the Board of Supervisors before becoming mayor for six months in 2018 after the death of then-mayor Ed Lee. "We kickstarted in District 2 [the Marina and Cow Hollow neighborhoods] three of the biggest housing projects northern San Francisco will ever see."
Farrell chided the absent Breed, saying, "we are supposed to be building 10,000 units a year, built 2,000 last year, and this year we're on slate to build 400 units."
Lurie admonished all the candidates.
"We all know we have a crisis of affordability," Lurie said. "The White House just smacked our city down last week, saying it takes longer to get through permitting in San Francisco than any other city in the country — 33 months. The City Hall insiders I'm running against have created this broken, ineffective and corrupt system where you need to hire a permit expediter to get housing built."
The White House's statement came as the Biden-Harris administration ratchets up a pro-development message ahead of the November elections amid a national housing deficit, with several prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, making the pitch at the party's convention last month.
Similarly, on commercial spaces and public safety, Safaí said police walking foot beats would help corridors in the Castro and Noe Valley. He introduced legislation to that effect last year, pushing to require the police department to establish community policing plans in each district.
"Get officers out of their cars, walking the beat and proactive in community policing," Safaí said. "For District 8, you have to have it cleaned, you have to have it safe, you have to have people want to come back to the storefronts."
Safaí told the B.A.R. after the forum that the legislation had passed and went into effect this year.
"It went into effect January 1, 2024, but the chief and the department have not implemented the foot and bike patrols and community policing plan," he stated.
Evan Sernoffsky, director of strategic communications for the SFPD, told the B.A.R. September 6 that it's been implemented to the extent that staffing allows.
"Our foot and bike patrols were imp at the beginning of the year and we use them as staffing allows," Sernoffsky said in a phone interview. "For instance we have foot patrols in neighborhoods like Chinatown, the Castro — we have four cops on foot patrol in the Castro — Union Square — one of our foot patrol officers responded to the [Ricky] Pearsall shooting."
Pearsall, a rookie for the San Francisco 49ers, was shot in an attempted robbery August 31. A 17-year-old was charged with attempted murder in juvenile court earlier this week.
"We're short 500 officers, so we have a major project of adequately staffing and adding resources to the city to maximize public safety," Sernoffsky said. "Where staffing allows we absolutely put in bicycle patrols. I understand the supervisor wants more; so do we. We need more cops. Fortunately, we had a new academy last night with the most officers since 2019."
Sernoffsky said that there were 12 officers in the academy class.
Candidates wrangle on homelessness, commission reform efforts
A political novice, Lurie's message that his nonprofit experience in founding and running Tipping Point Community showed he could do things that electeds couldn't was met with some pushback.
"What Mr. Lurie did at Tipping Point was to raise $100 million to curtail chronic homelessness — and it rose," Farrell said. "He funded the Coalition on Homelessness."
The Coalition on Homelessness was funded to the tune of $12,500 by Tipping Point Community between 2020 and 2022, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. It sued the city for citing and arresting homeless people for sleeping in public, and for destroying their belongings.
Lurie said that the goal was to reduce chronic homelessness by 50%, and that during the timeframe of 2015 and 2022, it was reduced by 13%. The Lurie campaign claims he housed 40,000 people in that period of time.
"We didn't hit our mark but we had successes," he said (joking the turn-of-phrase wasn't a dig at Farrell). "We got housing built, on time and under budget. We got shelter built.
"I don't think we should let any of these City Hall insiders tell us they solved our homelessness crisis," he added wryly at Farrell, who touted his record compared to Breed's.
Farrell expressed he was OK with destroying tents — one of the issues the coalition sued over.
"After three, four times people start going into shelter, or they decide it's not convenient to stay in San Francisco and they decide to leave," the former mayor said.
Peskin and Lurie said they were opposed to sweeps.
"Sweeps don't solve the problem," Peskin said. "They just move homelessness from one neighborhood to another."
The longtime supervisor for North Beach, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, and the Financial District said, "I have never gotten so many complaints" as in the past weeks, as Breed has ratcheted up sweeps following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson. The court held that local government ordinances with civil and criminal penalties for camping on public land do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment of homeless people.
Said Peskin, "Frankly, Mr. Farrell, you're just doubling down on her failed strategies."
And as for Lurie, Peskin said, "You frankly don't have the experience to wrangle nine city departments and 248 nonprofit providers."
Lurie said he has a plan to build 1,500 shelter beds in six months and create 2,500 units of shelter, all while ratcheting up Homeward Bound — initially an initiative from when now-Governor Gavin Newsom was mayor whereby the city pays for unhoused people to return from whence they came. Breed recently rebranded the program Journey Home.
"We've been doing sweeps for years with these City Hall insiders and it doesn't work," Lurie said. "You have to have safe and dignified shelter to move people into, bus tickets home. People are going from the Tenderloin and SOMA [South of Market] out to the Avenues."
Safaí said that he agreed with the Journey Home program and suggested its revitalization under Breed hasn't been as successful as it should be.
"When it was successful we were sending people home to loved ones and checking in day 30, day 60, day 90," he said.
Safaí also added that "we literally have never begun to audit the money thrown at the homelessness crisis in this city, and I authored that legislation two years ago." Auditors had to alert the FBI, he said, referring to an incident where "access to housing was illegally sold to some residents" at at least one service provider, according to City Attorney David Chiu and former San Francisco controller Ben Rosenfield.
The web of nonprofits and commissions involved in day-to-day governance of the city was another topic of contention. Peskin argued he could manage it effectively; Farrell and Lurie argued that Proposition D, on the November ballot, should pass so that advisory bodies could be paired down. Prop D would limit the number of city commissions to 65, about half the current number. It would make commissions advisory in nature and give the mayor the sole authority to appoint and remove department heads.
Farrell is a big backer of Prop D, raising over a million dollars for an independent political expenditure committee on its behalf.
"Prop D actually takes action," he said. "We don't need 130 commissions to run the San Francisco city government."
Lurie said he, too, wanted to "streamline our bureaucracy, cut the red tape, and snuff out the corruption."
He added that "every single person on this stage has voted for a new commission every single year they're been in office. When you have a commission that exists overseeing a department that no longer exists, you have a problem."
Peskin said, "Prop D, supported by Mr. Farrell and some billionaires, will not only take San Francisco backward, it will actually produce more corruption because it concentrates so much power in the office of the mayor." Peskin is supporting an alternative measure, Proposition E, which would create a task force to examine what commissions to eliminate or combine.
Safaí agreed that the mayor's office has enough power as is, saying "contrary to popular belief and misinformation, we have the strongest mayor system in the country."
Mayor Breed's response
The B.A.R. asked Breed's campaign why she decided to skip the forum and for its response to what the other candidates said about her record.
Joe Arellano, the campaign's spokesperson, went on the attack against the other top-polling candidates, Farrell and Lurie, stating, "Unlike Daniel Lurie and Mark Farrell, Mayor Breed has a job."
"Mayor Breed has already participated in four debates and still has the upcoming SF Chronicle/KQED debate and numerous candidate forums on her schedule, between now and Election Day," he stated. "She has to balance the demands of running the city, while also running a campaign."
Arellano framed her absence as a difference in approach to the voters.
"She has a limited amount of time and she wants to speak directly with voters as much as possible," he stated. "She wants to escape the bubble of city insiders and go straight to the people, meeting them as they live their daily lives."
Arellano concluded that Farrell and Lurie "want more debates so they can stand on the stage repeating the same toothless talking points over and over again."
In addition to EVNA and DTNA, the forum was also sponsored by Bernal Cut Neighborhood Alliance, the Buena Vista Neighborhood Association, the Cole Valley Improvement Association, the Corbett Heights Neighbors, the Dolores Heights Improvement Club, Friends of Noe Valley, the Glen Park Association, the Mount Olympus Neighbors Association and Upper Noe Neighbors.
Updated, 9/6/24: This article has been updated with comments from the SFPD.
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