Greenberg Brief: Mayor London Breed Fights to Remain In Office

Mayoral candidate front-runner Mark Farrel fired the opening salvo at incumbent London Breed, who’s already down in polls and fighting for re-election – amid a dismal track record of mounting city hall scandals, a defunding of our police department, downtown office vacancies and massive budget deficit.

The tone was set; Last Wednesday night’s debate remained tense throughout, and Breed’s four challengers on stage took every opportunity to blast her failures.

There had already been a handful of debates previously, with Breed opting out from several. She may now know why: voters as well as her opposition are simply not having it anymore. Viewers in the debate venue audience and watching the livestream at home should be thankful the other candidates are forcing Breed to recon with her poor performance in leading San Francisco.

On stage and in the hot seat, Breed’s voice was noticeably higher pitched, forceful and came off as angry at times. Clearly, she’s uncomfortable being called out. Even more impressive in attacks on policies were the debate’s three moderators, seasoned journalists from KQED and San Francisco Chronicle. Unlike typical San Francsico candidate forums, which feature soft-ball questions, last night’s debate featured accusative and pointed queries by moderators. It was a pleasure to witness them forcing answers to the latest controversies. Finally, we had a meaningful expose.

Candidate Farrell asserted, “There is no mayor that has overseen a steeper decline in our city’s history than London Breed”. I couldn’t agree more.

It is unfortunate how many of our elected leaders take the stance that it’s okay to lie, to embellish and make up statistics. To claim essentially anything they wish, and worry about clarifying or correcting their claims sometime in the future, if at all.  Breed, in her attempt to defend her record on addressing the city’s crime spike, stated San Francisco is now seeing the “lowest crime in a decade.” This may be true of homicides, but for nearly everything else, especially property crimes. Anyone living, working or visiting San Francisco knows. Breed’s campaign has purposely excluded 2020 stats. Of course! since 2020 was the summer of BLM riots, of persistent mass retail lootings, destruction of businesses enabled by demoralized and defunded SFPD, which she herself was responsible for by her action undertook that same summer. Mark Farrell made sure the audience knows this; and his fellow mayoral challengers seized the opportunity to slam Breed on this as well.

“If you believe those stats [Breed’s], I got a bridge to sell you,” said Farrell, “she has a track record of failure.”

Fellow candidates Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safai concurred, calling Breed’s crime minimizing, “gaslighting.”

Breed retaliated, calling another opponent Daniel Lurie, “one of the most dangerous people on this stage,” due to his lack of city hall experience. This is pure deflection, of course, as she’s at the helm of San Francisco’s doom-loop spiral, not Lurie.

Debate moderators questioned Breed over the latest scandal to rock the city: fiscal impropriety at one of her hallmark pet projects, the $44 million Dreamkeeper Initiative she set up to direct resources specifically to the Black community. Her selection to head that project, Sheryl Davis, was forced to ultimately resign over misuse of funds. Breed indicated the program did a lot of good work to help Black residents buy homes and open businesses. Yet, the moderators simply stopped there, rather than delve into the unconstitutionality of her program in the first place.

If I were on stage as a candidate, and yes I was highly considering doing so, I would have escalated the attack on Dreamkeeper Initiative, on her DEI policies, and ultimately, on her entire obsession with breaking law, with violating the U.S. and California Constitutions, and Supreme Court precedent over grants, awards, and hiring by race. Yes, Breed does have a race problem and a firm willingness to violate the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 as well. She championed Reparations. While the city is headed towards potential insolvency, she instead demands city department make painful spending cuts across the board, yet she increases funding to race-based programs. There is no lack of evidence she flouts law and seemingly is getting away with it.

This is one area the media has failed. Breaking federal and state law should be called out, not ignored, as in Dreamkeeper and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s actions overall. Moreover, Breed’s stances on Reparations, on the city’s retail collapse, on dwindling tourism, on record high office vacancies, the billions of taxpayer dollars handed out to unaccountable nonprofits, the 24 hr. open air drug markets, her plan to open so-called “Safe Injection Sites”, her lackluster opposition to disgraced and recalled DA Chesa Boudin, her unwillingness to quelle the Gaza Ceasefire Resolution circus of hate held in city chambers, her insane $16 billion city budget, her historically failing to meaningfully support both our police and sheriff’s departments, on colleagues of hers arrested for corruption, there’s so much to choose from as disqualify her from serving another 4 years in office.