When Mayor London Breed declined to appear in a televised debate last week, her team told KPIX-TV and the Examiner that she was too busy running the city and had other demands on her time:
Fair enough. Serving as mayor of San Francisco is a huge job, and she has lots of responsibilities.
But I filed a public records request for her schedule for Sept. 11, and she was not doing any public business after 5 pm. Her last event of the day:
4:30 PM – 5:00 PM San Francisco Bay Sox Baseball National Championship Celebration — City Hall, Rotunda
After that, her public schedule goes blank, meaning, according to her office, that she was not involved in any city business.
The debate started at 6pm.
Breed also said she wanted to “talk directly to the voters,” according to her campaign, which means she wants to be in controlled situations where the media and her opponents can’t challenge her.
That’s typical of candidates who see themselves as front-runners—but it comes with potential problems. The candidates who did show up at the debate spent a lot of time criticizing Breed, and she wasn’t there to defend herself.
My guess: Either she ducked the debate to avoid facing scrutiny—or she had something else more important to do, and it had nothing to do with city business. Maybe campaign fundraising calls.
At any rate, she is still scheduled to appear at Thursday’s debate, where she will face scrutiny over the recent administration scandals. That one’s on KQED and starts at 7.
