SF Board Of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin Announces Run For Mayor

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin announced on Wednesday night that he would officially be running in the 2024 San Francisco Mayoral race, facing off against longtime political rival Mayor London Breed and former fellow supervisor Mark Farrell, as well as Levi Strauss heir and non-profit CEO David Lurie, and Supervisor Ahsha Safai.

Peskin, a UC Santa Cruz graduate, began his political career after graduating college in the 1980s as an environmental activist and water-rights negotiator. In addition, Peskin also gained fame during this time as a neighborhood and building preservationist, helping stop several building conversions and projects from taking hold in the city. In 2000, Peskin was first elected to the Board of Supervisors, starting his first term in 2001 under the Mayorship of Willie Brown. Peskin followed this up with reelection in 2005, and becoming the Board President under new Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Peskin’s reputation as a neighborhood preservationist permeated his Supervisor career, even helping implement eminent domain on land parcels to keep areas from being developed and repurposed for city usage, such as for parks and public buildings. He also became notorious for stopping condominium projects at a time when San Francisco needed housing, halting conversion of hotel rooms and stopping other projects. Despite being a huge progressive, he also wavered against affordable housing, offending both liberals and conservatives in the city. This included stopping an effort to build hundreds of affordable housing units in the Tenderloin. In addition, Peskin became infamous for calling city and government officials late at night with harassing phone calls. Then-Mayor Newsom even told reporters that everyone in City Hall was fed up with him by the time he left.

By the time he was first term-limited out in 2009, Peskin had received several derogatory nicknames, including “the Napoleon of North Beach” and “the Ayatollah of North Beach.” Between terms, Peskin stayed active, becoming Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee for several years and nearly becoming Mayor in 2011 following Newsom’s resignation to become Lt. Governor.

Peskin was reelected in 2015, and continued to introduce measures against citizen approval. While popular with tenants unions and associations, Peskin blocked homeless shelters, tried to stop needed airport expansion, cancelled popular events for petty reasons, and drunkenly shouted at firefighters during St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. After winning reelection, Peskin managed to become Board President yet again in January 2023 despite not even being an initial candidate for the job, managing to put himself forward as a compromise candidate at the last minute. Since then he has only continued leading the charge in controversial areas, such as becoming more wishy-washy on new housing in the city and not backing public safety issues during a time in the city when most residents want that, and unusual stances on housing measures. Recently he also backed Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) for the U.S. Senate election this year over two more progressive candidates.

For months, Peskin has been constantly mentioned as a candidate, with many progressives in the city begging him to join the race because of a lack of any far-left candidate on the ballot, and every major candidate being in favor of more ‘tougher-on-crime’ laws. Last month, numerous sources had even said that Peskin was “close” to officially running. This all led to Wednesday night when Peskin confirmed that he would be running for Mayor this year, becoming the latest major candidate to join the race.

He’s running. The President of the #SanFrancisco Board of Supervisors @AaronPeskin announces he is entering the mayoral race. pic.twitter.com/8WELDHDZvg

— Lyanne Melendez (@LyanneMelendez) April 3, 2024

“I have decided that I’m running, but we haven’t formally declared yet or taken out the appropriate papers,” said Peskin on Wednesday. “It’s not that I want to run against London Breed, but I do want to run for the neighborhoods of San Francisco. The politics of today are marked by blame and not taking responsibility. The buck stops with the mayor. And it’s time to inject a mature, collaborative discourse that’s befitting of San Francisco.

“It’s still a progressive town,” Peskin added. “I have, in recent weeks, come to the conclusion that the city I love is struggling and needs to recover. And I think I know a little bit about recovery.”

Peskin’s entrance into the race was celebrated by progressives in the city on Wednesday and Thursday, happy to have a left candidate with a long history of experience who isn’t Mayor Breed.

“We’ve been disappointed with Breed, and when we saw people like Lurie and Farrell enter, it didn’t leave a good taste in our mouths,” added Dorothy Wu, a housing advocate in San Francisco. “But with Peskin? He’s someone who aligns to the values of this city. He’s the only real one with compassion running.”

However, many others went after Peskin’s entrance into the race because of his past in San Francisco politics.

“Peskin’s name is synonymous with City Hall intimidation, obstruction and dysfunction,” said Breed campaign manager Joe Arellano. “He’s the Terminator. Aaron Peskin occupying the Mayor’s Office would mean ‘hasta la vista, baby’ for our local economy, our housing and our city’s future.”

Frank Ma, a former law enforcement official who now works as a security advisor for businesses in San Francisco and cities in the Peninsula, added, “Peskin is the one Supervisor you can point to for being in favor of all the policies that went wrong for the city in the past decade. Breed, she’s at least trying to reverse things in a way now. Farrell and Lurie and the others? They’re strong on crime too. Peskin would mean more of the same.”

“I’ve had to install bars on windows, and one of my best customers said that he called them the ‘Peskin special’ because of how badly he needed them. That’s how much he and his policies have been disliked. He’ll get that really left crowd, but everyone else really knows him for the jerk he is. From what he does, a lot of people don’t even thinks he likes this city.”

Peskin’s official announcement for running is to take place on Saturday at the city’s Chinatown.