{"id":32724,"date":"2024-04-05T13:21:03","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T20:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32724"},"modified":"2024-04-05T13:21:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T20:21:04","slug":"mark-farrell-is-your-new-mayor-and-pandemonium-ensues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/04\/05\/mark-farrell-is-your-new-mayor-and-pandemonium-ensues\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Farrell is your new mayor \u2014 and pandemonium ensues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\" by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> JANUARY 23, 2018, (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Mark Farrell is sworn in as interim mayor by City Attorney Dennis Herrera, as he stands with his wife and children at City Hall after being voted interim mayor by the board of supervisors, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018, in San Francisco, Calif. Photo by Santiago Mejia (Hearst Corporation).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

[dropcap]Moments [\/dropcap] after he provided the sixth and deciding vote to oust London Breed from the position of acting mayor and install Mark Farrell as caretaker, Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, all six-foot-four of him, was sprawled out in a seat in his City Hall office. He looked spent. He was<\/em> spent.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had voiced his \u201cayes\u201d for Farrell in a willowy near-whisper, triggering an extended period of bedlam in the board chambers in which Breed\u2019s largely African American supporters noisily shut down the Tuesday night meeting, accused the board of reviving Jim Crow in 2018 and locked eyes with the District 8 Supe and charged him  \u2014 yes, you, <\/em>Jeff Sheehy \u2014 with wholesale racism. When livid members of the public leaned in, shouted his name, and unloaded vast quantities of vitriol, Sheehy didn\u2019t return their gaze. He seemed to be in a faraway place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, in his office, he offered a wan grin. \u201cWell,\u201d he said after a moment\u2019s thought referring to the tech billionaire who supports Breed, \u201cI guess Ron Conway won\u2019t run an independent expenditure campaign for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One office over, Supervisor Aaron Peskin was in a far more sanguine place. Several days earlier, he had told me he was working out \u201cEntebbe scenarios<\/a>\u201d in his head, referencing the famously audacious 1976 military raid. All in the interest of successfully unseating Breed and installing a caretaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, lo, that came to pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peskin and his progressive cohorts successfully pushed Breed out of her awkward and untenable dual role as mayor and board president on the cusp of June\u2019s mayoral election, providing what progressives would call \u201ca free and fair election\u201d in the forthcoming race between Breed, Jane Kim, Mark Leno and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is the case when landscapes suddenly change, there were earthquakes and fire and rumbling. It was a deeply ugly scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, the left-leaning bloc of the city\u2019s legislative body, at this<\/em> particular moment in American history, chose to unseat a black woman who worked her way from public housing to City Hall and replace her with a well-off white venture capitalist who graduated from St. Ignatius High and lives in the Marina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The optics here are so bad they border on evil. Breed\u2019s incensed supporters shouted down the proceedings for a good 10 minutes; the room was cleared and, after the meeting was subsequently curtailed, the supes were escorted back to their offices by sheriff\u2019s deputies. The deputies offered to escort the legislators back to their cars as well. Peskin, for one, refused. \u201cI am not leaving until I see the mayor sworn in,\u201d he said. \u201cTonight<\/em>.\u201d Waiting any longer would be unacceptable. \u201cShenanigans,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[dropcap]There\u2019s [\/dropcap]a saying in politics that when you\u2019re explaining, you\u2019re losing. Quintuple that when a Caucasian person attempts to explain to Breed\u2019s largely black, largely female \u2014 and extraordinarily fervent \u2014 backers that what happened tonight wasn\u2019t racist and regressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That unenviable task falls to Peskin and his cohorts. \u201cThe more Ron Conway openly became the kingmaker for London, the more people like me who have come to respect her and work with her very well became more and more reticent,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conway, the billionaire tech investor and Ed Lee\u2019s preferred financier, had purportedly begun stumping for Breed while attending Lee\u2019s private funeral<\/a> \u2014 coalescing the powers-that-be around the acting mayor literally over her predecessor\u2019s dead body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brazen act was followed by reports of Conway cajoling<\/a> supervisors into backing Breed \u2014 or else (This would appear to be the financial repercussions Sheehy, who must defend his seat against Rafael Mandelman, was alluding to).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When an unelected billionaire purportedly hijacks a private funeral and refashions it into a campaign rally, then follows up on that by shaking down sitting legislators, politicians must act \u2014 or lose credibility. Conway hovered over Tuesday\u2019s meeting like a white, billionaire Banquo\u2019s ghost. His gauche behavior was not rebuked by those he would favor. So it became fodder for those he would not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the tail end of last night\u2019s marathon meeting, Mission District Supervisor Hillary Ronen launched into a 10-minute stemwinder of a speech. It was one of the rawest and most emotional deliveries your humble narrator has ever seen delivered in board chambers. Ronen praised Breed and her supporters \u2014 \u201cI can hear the love in the room.\u201d Breed appeared circumspect throughout. She was waiting for the \u201cbut.\u201d It was coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have to say it,\u201d Ronen continued, \u201cthere are white, rich men, billionaires, in this city who have steered the policies of the past two mayoral administrations. if not more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, Breed\u2019s most vociferous backers in the chambers began shaking their heads \u2014 no, no, no, no! <\/em>They knew where this was going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey got us into this absolute mess we are in today, where poor people and people of color cannot afford to live in this city,\u201d the supervisor continued. \u201cIt is absolutely ridiculous and outrageous and it weighs on me as a supervisor. I can\u2019t sleep at night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ronen broke into tears while saying this. Others\u2019 tears would come later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hate to say it, I wish it weren\u2019t so, but those white men are so enthusiastically supporting your candidacy, London Breed. And what you haven\u2019t heard because you\u2019re not in this inside world we all inhabit in City Hall is that they\u2019ve been threatening people. They\u2019re all saying if you don\u2019t support London Breed that people\u2019s careers will be ruined. \u2026 It is happening right now in this Board of Supervisors chamber. It happened the morning Ed Lee passed away. That\u2019s how gross these people are. Because they are gross.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When, moments later, progressive supervisor Norman Yee nominated moderate Marina supervisor Farrell for the mayor\u2019s spot, the writing was on the wall (Jane Kim declined her nomination and city administrator Naomi Kelley long ago took herself out of the running). To rebuke white billionaires, Ronen et al. elevated a white millionaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s complicated. Lots of explaining is in order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a long-rumored deal. Peskin smiled and declined to answer just how recently this arrangement had been struck, but few failed to note that Farrell\u2019s wife and three beautiful kids \u2014 dead ringers for the Von Trapp family all \u2014 had time to put on nice suits and dresses for his 9 p.m. press briefing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be a stretch to say Farrell answered questions at that presser. He did, however, say \u201cthis was not about politics,\u201d which didn\u2019t draw outright laughter from the weary crowd. But should have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farrell will name his own successor as District 2 supervisor. Sheehy, who all along has claimed to be an independent and voted for both Breed and Farrell, will be facing a competitive District 8 race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today was an ugly day. Expect many more. And, in six months\u2019 time, we\u2019ll have a new mayor.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI JANUARY 23, 2018, (MissionLocal.org) [dropcap]Moments [\/dropcap] after he provided the sixth and deciding vote to oust London Breed from the position of acting mayor and install Mark Farrell as caretaker, Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, all six-foot-four of him, was sprawled out in a seat in his City Hall office…. Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32725,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32724\/revisions\/32725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}