Mark Leno formally filed his nomination papers for mayor this morning, and promised a “fundamentally new direction for City Hall.”
He told a group of supporters and news media that “I believe the voters will have a clear choice in this election between fundamental change and the status quo. I intend to shake things up at City Hall.”
Sup. Jane Kim is set to file her papers tomorrow (Tuesday) morning.
The two candidates – along with City Attorney Dennis Herrera, if he decides to file – are positioning themselves as the progressive alternatives to Board President and Acting Mayor London Breed.
Although Leno never mentioned the names of any other candidate, it’s clear that the allies of the late Mayor Ed Lee are behind Breed, who is most likely to continue the policies that he promoted.
Leno also called on all of the candidates to support a pledge to “denounce, renounce, and reject” all “SuperPAC” independent expenditures, which in recent races have become a defining factor.
Big Tech moguls like Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into attack ads targeting candidates they don’t like.
There are also, in some cases, much smaller independent-expenditures by labor and community-based groups. They are typically dwarfed by the Big Tech and Real Estate money.
There’s nothing anyone can legally do to stop the practice; the US Supreme Court says it’s legal. But candidates can discourage their backers from going ies.
Safe to say that won’t happen with Breed, who is going to benefit from almost unlimited spending by Big Tech.
Housing and homelessness will be a central issue for all the candidates, and Leno started off big: He said the city needs to “build and refurbish at least 50,000 units of affordable housing” in the next ten years. That’s a big project, and will require a large amount of money. But, he said, “we can’t play softball with affordable housing anymore.”
Leno told reporters that he supports the idea of an interim mayor who would not be in the race. “San Francisco deserves a fair and open mayor’s race,” he said. I have not been lobbying members of the board on my behalf.”
Progressives were well represented among those present, with Sups. Aaron Peskin and Sandra Lee Fewer and Community College Board members Tom Temprano, Rafael Mandelman and John Rizzo standing with Leno as he filed his paperwork.
Tomorrow is the final day to file, so by 5pm we will know exactly who is and isn’t in the race.
No shortage of money?!! Hard money – at 10%?!?
50k units will cost $300B to construct (conservatively). The City budget is $10B. The Retirement Board holds $20B. The 2015 GO Housing Bond was for $0.3B, and was estimated to cost $56 per $500k valuation per homeowner (https://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Housing_Bond_Issue,_Proposition_A_(November_2015)#Text_of_measure). You’re talking about a bond that would be 1000x greater! Are you (or any other) homeowner willing to pay $56,000 in extra taxes?
Of course, some of the cost will be mitigated by eventual income from the properties. However, due to the nature of it being subsidized, income will never cover outlay – one might guess that fully 50% or more will need to be subsidized. Do taxpayers want to pay $25,000 so some other sucker can have cheap rent? You’re a generous soul, Tim. As for myself, I’m out after the first $10,000.
At this point, I’m looking at Alioto. At least she knows millions.
I don’t mean to smear Kim, I just think she made a mistake on that one. I’m considering voting for her and I think she has found stronger footing since that time. She’s cool.
Twitter started in SF. I’m proud to be part of a city that has incubated so much amazing technology, but we need to be careful in how we handle these companies as they become multi-billion dollar entities with overnight massive hiring capacity.
In fairness to facts, Jane Kim not only supported the legislation she also sponsored it. Even coming out of the recession I don’t think it was difficult to see how damaging a decision that would become.
Yes.
Jane supported the “Twitter Tax.” Twitter was already in the City. If you are going smear Jane, at least have your facts correct.,
Jesus and the Pope? How about the El Chapo? Like Chapo, without Pak there’s a splintering and a clamoring to fill the void. I think Pak resented the label ‘power broker’ because it insinuated Chinatown was a voting commodity, which people like Latterman and Don seize onto.
I saw the Mirk decision as a legal issue and view it as tarnishing the mods in hindsight. It was a huge blow to Lee’s power, and to his rapport with San Franciscans.
I’ve argued with Playland so often that I didn’t spend any time. I’ll give you 9:1 on that one.
You seem to spend a lot of time here guess about poster identity. I’m a Russian bot myself.
Well how about Zhoosh being Playland .. you can bet on that one if you’d prefer.
You appear to have an odd obsession.
Jibber jabber from a pseudo science verified at 3:1 odds. She and the rest of her robot underlings are all running the same program, so could be a clone.
Plus that constant use of quotes for no apparent reason. What is up with that?
lmao, whatever dude.
Yeah. What would Jesus (Rose Pak) do? I agree. Rose quickly dissed anyone who slighted her in the sligthtest way. And Jane Kim was one of the cabal of politicians who gathered at the airport to meet Rose when she returned from China after her liver transplant to genuflect. I think Jane would have got the nod from Pope Park. Jane supported Ross Mirkarimi, too.
Double-dashes. Lock Kraus up! Lock double-dashers up!
Wow. You are a great sleuth a la Inspector Clouseau.
Any proof? Or is this just more Internet twaddle?
Will Leno and Kim divide the progressive vote?
Which of the 39 genders?
Did a representative sample of her constituents show up at the meeting, then?
You mean they want her to remain as supe, but not interim mayor?
After today at the Board of Supervisors Meeting there is little doubt that Breed’s constituents do not want her to stay in office and remain their supervisor. Most of the public comments support an interim mayor.
Alas, “impressively” wrong — but whatever.
(Also, “Rosh HoshHosh” is proving themselves to anti-LGBTQ by refusing to use my preferred pronouns (them/their), denying me this most basic respect, and insisting that they have the right to continually misgender me.)
Not to mention the calm, easygoing temperament.
Use of the double dash and the semi-colon in the same sentence. Identical phrasing of words. Unique use of ie and ellipsis.
Kraus told me she was a renter in the lexus lanes piece, and has stated to another commenter that she was 35.
wow! Your sleuthing is impressive!!!
Reasonable enough, but the outside punctuations are a common enough practice, though not normative. What else?
Through forensic linguistics. Trauss has many grammatical habits and writing quirks that are unique to her. For instance, at the end of a sentence she will always incorrectly put the punctuation outside of the quotations. I took several of those unique characteristics and matched them to writings I found online authored by Sonja K. Strauss.
Here is the article that gave me the idea: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/why-would-the-president-of-the-united-states-like-tweet-this-way/549890/
How could you verify a poster’s identity? Not saying you’re wrong, just surprised that you can do it.
I have verified that Kraus is the same person who writes on many media platforms as Sonja Trauss. I wouldn’t have made the accusation so directly otherwise.
Is it ethical for Trauss to anonymously deride her critics while she runs for office? In the new media age it is hard to say, but it comes with the risk of being outed.
Haney has pretty wide support, I see, from Ma to Ammiano.
Trauss gets the downtown support, and I wish her as much luck in this D6 race as Chris Dittenhafer and Rob Black had against Chris Daly.
Kim will have a hard time running left of Leno because she ushered in Twitter. This is going to hurt her on both sides because she later voted with the progressives. Leno has a more impressive lefty accomplish sheet.
I can’t help but wonder who Rose Pak would have supported. I’m not convinced Breed would’ve automatically garnered her support.
The same people listed supporting Leno have all come out in favor of Haney. https://www.matthaney.com/endorsements
Trauss hasn’t listed any endorsements but seems to have the backing of big tech and has done well soliciting donations. http://www.sonja2018.org/
Actually it’s just the list of people pictured in the article standing with Leno.
They’re on the list as well .. luck of the ellipsis tonight.
That.
And what will happen in 10 years? How many more people will need affordable housing then? Is 50,000 enough? Is it an ineffective drop in the bucket? If so, then what?
If so, why those in particular? Why not Kim or Ronen?
That’s the hit list — aka politicians who’ve come out in support of Matt Haney.
The same sentence convinces me to consider Leno. Thanks, Tim!
I would think that more progressives joining in will give Breed a better chance of winning. .
I would like to see specifically where the money will come from. It will be possible to build 200,000 more or increase market rate housing by 50%?
What about spending on Education, MUNI, First responders, Parks etc we are a small city. Not all spending can go on housing. The State and Fed need to kick in and we need to move some people out of SF, We can not house everyone who wants housing here. And how do we determine who gets the subsidized housing, I think I deserve a two bedroom and help with food but I apparently no one else thinks so
Anyone can throw out a number like 50,000 units in 10 years. Breed and Kim too. i need to see the actual plan, how that will be accomplished, how the sites are gotten, and where the $’s will come from. and i’ll know if it’s just hype or real stuff. Show me.
“Fundamental Change” is code for a reactionary return to failed so-called “progressive” policies as perfectly represented by the same old crew of Peskin, Fewer, Mandelman, Temprano, Dufty, Rizzo, et al.
These don’t sound like the names of any recent mayors I’ve heard of.
I believe Leno is at heart a centrist. He won’t wave the sword over tech companies, and he won’t push for city income tax, but he’s competent, he won’t let the Conways run the city, and he’ll be a break with the Brown lineage.
The way things are shaping up, I imagine Kim will run to the left of him. It’ll be interesting to see the official positions when they come out.
You just persuaded me not to vote for Leno
Good to know the lines are well-drawn.
There’s no shortage of money if we decide to go for it. The current gross receipts tax is overwhelmingly favorable to a few companies that have lots of money. Developers pay nowhere near the cost of providing the services and infrastructure that they use. A massive GO housing bond would fall mostly on property owners, and as a property owner, I think that’s fine. It’s all about the will to get money from the wealthy and spending it taking housing out of the private sector. Who are you going to vote for for mayor?
““build and refurbish at least 50,000 units of affordable housing” in the next ten years. ”
Wow. That’s a pretty big ask. The trouble is, I’ve always seen Leno as a lying sack of soot, so I guess one should take this statement with a careful parse. Ed Lee already has 64,000 units in the pipeline – with 50,000 of those paying for the 10k of that non-market priced.
SO … how to get to 50,000 subsidized units … ? Well, claim the already ready 10,000. Then … we … ramp up another 200,000 market rate units, that will pay for the additional 40,000. Otherwise, where in the h e l l does he expect to get $50-150B [50,000 units X $100,000] just for the subsidy per unit (and thats a minimum!).
My question would be – where does he get the workers to put up all that new construction.
There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell you will support anyone but Breed in the upcoming mayoral election while you are simultaneously campaigning for District 6 supervisor.
Well to the extent that “backwards” represents a different direction, then I suppose it does.
“Fundamental Change” is code for a reactionary return to failed so-called “progressive” policies as perfectly represented by Peskin, Fewer, Mandelman, Temprano et al.
Accordingly, there is no way in Hades that anyone truly interested in solving the most critical issues of the day, i.e. the housing shortage and homelessness, should vote for Leno.
You don’t think that Aaron Peskin represents a new direction for the city?
“Sups. Aaron Peskin and Sandra Lee Fewer and Community College Board members Tom Temprano, Rafael Mandelman and John Rizzo standing with Leno as he filed his paperwork.”
Nice work, Tim! You just persuaded me not to vote for Leno under any circumstances.