Sponsored link
Thursday, April 24, 2025

Sponsored link

ElectionsCampaign TrailBreed, Farrell duck questions about corruption at the latest mayoral debate

Breed, Farrell duck questions about corruption at the latest mayoral debate

Mayor blames city worker 'challenges' for ongoing scandals in her administration.

-

The first thing I noticed about the latest mayoral debate was how unhappy Mayor London Breed looked. She didn’t want to be there.

The second thing I noticed was how angry Mark Farrell looked (“he doesn’t like San Francisco,” one person who watched the debate told me).

The third thing: The moderators spent so much time going back and forth with Breed, Farrell, and Daniel Lurie attacking each other that Sup. Aaron Peskin got very little airtime. By my count, Breed was in front of the camera for 15 minutes, Peskin about five.

Breed appeared unhappy and defensive when asked about corruption in her administration.

Marisa Lagos started things off quickly, asking Breed, Farrell, and Sup. Asha Safai about political corruption. That seemed like a significant new twist in the race: If public integrity and corruption become the focus of the race, that helps Peskin and Lurie.

Safai simply ducked, talking about his history as an immigrant and basically ignoring the question about his connections to a developer charged in a bribery scandal. Farrell said that all of his campaign money issues don’t matter because his lawyer says it’s all fine. “That doesn’t make it legal,” Lagos said, as the audience laughed.

Breed made a rather stunning, remarkable statement: When Lagos noted that two of her senior staff were now in prison, and others facing serious charges, and the head of the Human Rights Commission just had to resign, Breed said that the city has 34,000 employees, “and sometimes we have issues with some of them.”

Wow: The people in prison, facing prison, and resigning in trouble are not low-level clerks. They are department heads who reported directly to Breed, and in some cases, were her close friends.

Lagos raised another interesting question: Lurie claims he’s the outsider, and above all the corruption. But he’s part of the city’s economic oligarchy; could he stand up to his powerful friends? “How would you push back on the economic interests that dominate San Francisco?”

Lurie, again, gave an astonishing answer: “We challenged the status quo when we started Tipping Point,” he said. “Nobody thought it would work.”

Um, that’s not taking on the economic elite.

For much of the debate, policy issues were pushed to the side as Breed, Farrell, and Lurie attacked each other. Peskin tried to get to the point, to talk about things like affordable housing; Scott Shafer, from KQED, just asked about the very old, tired issue of Peskin’s former drinking problem.

If voters were tuned in, here’s what they saw: Three candidates, all of them looking unhappy, telling you that the other two were awful, and one candidate, Peskin, more or less sitting on the sidelines.

Seems to me he may have had the best of the night.

Full disclosure: Both of my kids work for the Aaron Peskin for Mayor campaign.

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 FacebookTwitter, and Instagram

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.
Sponsored link
Sponsored link

Featured

The budget battle begins as labor and CBOs push back against brutal Lurie cuts

Why does a city with 85 billionaires and big tech companies that want tax breaks have to settle for austerity?

From a Pedro Pascal prompt, ‘The Last of the Love Letters’

Ngozi Anyanwu's play at Z Below was written in a fervor after the actor prodded her with a playbill and a lack of 'insane' roles.

Drama Masks: ‘Two Trains Running’ is an electrifying triumph

August Wilson's dialog drives an epic critique of Black capitalism at ACT. Plus: Hilarious heathens of Killing My Lobster go all in for sin.

More by this author

The budget battle begins as labor and CBOs push back against brutal Lurie cuts

Why does a city with 85 billionaires and big tech companies that want tax breaks have to settle for austerity?

Supes approve public notice for neighborhood zoning changes

Dorsey, Melgar, say the city should not 'alarm' people by telling them what's about to happen to their communities.

‘A Greek Tragedy’ reveals the painful story of the human crisis of migration

One day, one shipwreck, one small island, hundreds dead—and multiple big lessons for society
Sponsored link

You might also likeRELATED