Sponsored link
Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Sponsored link

London Breed easily elected board president

London Breed takes the gavel from Katy Tang
London Breed takes the gavel from Katy Tang

By Tim Redmond

JANUARY 8, 2014 – By the time the supervisors gathered for the ceremony of swearing in the new board, it was pretty clear how the vote for president was going to come out.

Once Supervisors Katy Tang and Mark Farrell were out of the running, Sup. London Breed was the only person who could get six votes.

There were maybe 10 speakers who supported Breed, three who supported Campos, but the deal was done. Campos got three votes (himself, Sup. John Avalos, and Sup. Jane Kim). The rest went to Breed, including Sup. Eric Mar, who generally votes with the progressives.

Breed has opposed the mayor on public power (and recently, on the Fire Department) but on housing, development, and economic issues she’s a centrist who generally supports Lee’s agenda.

There may be a difference between Breed and former Board President David Chiu: Chiu won his first term with progressive support, then after pissing off the people who put him in that office, won his second term as president by cutting deals with the conservative side of the board, and his committee assignments reflected that. I asked him, after the progressives got shafted in assignments, what had happened, and he told me that he wished it had come down differently – on other words, he wished that the left had supported him so he didn’t have to cut deals with the right.

Breed was going to win this anyway. Farrell was a potential challenger, but with the ethics issues he’s faced, progressives would have had a hard time lining up behind him. And nobody, I’m told, was cutting any deals with the folks on the left.

So if you want to see what the era of Board President London Breed is going to look like, check out who she puts on the Land use and Economic Development Committee and who is on the Budget Committee. That will be a pretty good sign.

On an upbeat note: I’ve watched the Board of Supervisors for many years, and I think Sup. Scott Wiener made a nice point before the vote: San Francisco has come a long way when one of the two candidates for board president is an African American woman who grew up in the housing projects of the Western Addition and the other is a gay man who arrived as an undocumented immigrant at age 14.

On the other hand, policy matters – and on a policy level, the two are very different. It’s going to be an interesting year.

Tim Redmond
Tim Redmond
Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Sponsored link

Sponsored link
Sponsored link

Latest

Good Taste: Legendary House of Nanking releases first cookbook

Kathy and Peter Fang share the secrets of their family’s celebrated, 37-year-old Chinatown restaurant.

See a show for free at the awesome Lost Church this month

From indie and Americana concerts to sketch comedy and performance art, there's something for everyone. But act fast!

Trump wants to censor US history at national parks

The truth about Tule Lake, Alcatraz, Sutro Baths and hundreds of other sites could be erased under an executive order

Demolish rent-controlled housing? New Wiener bill could wipe out restrictions

Plus: Politics and Pride. That's The Agenda for June 19-July 6

You might also likeRELATED