![\"Man](\"https:\/\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/cropped-Joe-Rivano-Barros_avatar_1680539311-scaled-1.jpg\"){kind=avatar}
by\u00a0JOE RIVANO BARROS<\/a><\/strong> JULY 8, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_3683-2-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C809&ssl=1\")
A ballot measure committee mayoral candidate Mark Farrell spun up in March disclosed<\/a> on Friday evening that it had received another $570,340 in donations in just a two-week period from a handful of wealthy donors. Notably, that list includes Thomas Coates, a millionaire real-estate investor and one of the major longstanding opponents of rent control across California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The measure<\/a> Coates et al. are donating to caps the number of city commissions and increases mayoral power. Farrell did not start the effort; it was initiated by TogetherSF<\/a>, the big-money group that shares extensive ties<\/a> with the Farrell campaign. TogetherSF is led by a former Farrell aide, and three members of his campaign team are former or current TogetherSF staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On March 18, Farrell established a committee, called \u201cMayor Mark Farrell for the Cut the Dysfunctional Bureaucracy<\/a> Initiative,\u201d to help pass the TogetherSF measure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A candidate forming a committee to raise funds for a ballot measure while simultaneously running for office is a time-honored practice. San Francisco caps contributions to candidates at $500, and bars corporations from giving to them altogether. Ballot measures, however, can accept unlimited individual and corporate funds, even when they are being run by a candidate for office, like Farrell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Stay informed on local elections \u2014 sign up for Mission Local’s free daily newsletter<\/strong> today!Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n So candidates create committees to back a measure, and wealthy donors who want to fund those candidates but are hamstrung by donation limits have a clear avenue: Pour money into the ballot committee instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2002, for example, then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom set up his \u201cCare Not Cash\u201d committee to pass a measure reducing welfare checks and putting the savings into homeless housing and services. By the end of the election, Newsom\u2019s committee had raked in more than $960,000<\/a>; he would successfully run for mayor in 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, in January, Daniel Lurie appropriated a measure<\/a> put on the March 2024 ballot by Mayor London Breed (Proposition E) and created his own committee to help pass it. Lurie\u2019s committee raised almost $700,000 and bought ads on national networks like CNN<\/a> and MSNBC<\/a>. He then used those ads to push for Prop. E, but also to introduce himself to millions of viewers, advertise his \u201ccareer fighting poverty,\u201d and appear on screen talking to voters and walking with his children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Farrell will likely do the same. As long as the ballot measure\u2019s ads do not mention his mayoral campaign, they can feature Farrell as often as he likes. His ballot measure campaign and his mayoral campaign can also commingle resources \u2014 like staff and consultants, office space, and legal expenses \u2014 as long as the two committees reimburse one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though common, the extent of Farrell\u2019s shared spending is unusual: About 70 percent of the total spending by the ballot measure committee so far has been in payments to Farrell\u2019s mayoral campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty longstanding way for rich people to support candidates,\u201d said Jim Ross, a Bay Area campaign strategist on Newsom\u2019s Care Not Cash initiative and subsequent mayoral run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ross, who now generally works with labor-backed and progressive candidates, called out the \u201cshell game\u201d whereby donors can fund such third-party groups, and said the spend \u201craises questions about Coates\u2019 influence on [Farrell\u2019s] campaign and his mayoralty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farrell\u2019s campaign declined to comment. The recent donations brought his ballot-measure committee\u2019s total fundraising to almost $1 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vast majority of the newly reported influx to Farrell\u2019s ballot measure committee \u2014 half a million dollars \u2014 came from the same source: The Coates family. Thomas Coates, the chairman of Jackson Square Properties<\/a>, which says it owns 19,000 units across the country, gave nearly $1 million to an unsuccessful 2008 effort to repeal rent control<\/a> across the state. He also donated six figures to pass then-Supervisor Mark Farrell\u2019s Prop. Q in 2016,<\/a> outlawing tents on sidewalks in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thomas and his wife Linda gave $250,000 each to the committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s a mega landlord, he\u2019s been trying to get rid of rent control for, like, 15 years,\u201d said Shanti Singh, the communications and legislative director at Tenants Together, a statewide renters advocacy group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a city like San Francisco, Singh said, it is \u201creally consequential\u201d when deep-pocketed donors like Coates support a mayoral candidate, and she worried about what his donation might mean for renters\u2019 rights if Farrell were elected. In April, Farrell called San Francisco\u2019s rent-control laws \u201conerous.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not the first time the Coates family has helped Farrell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Coates have given at least $161,500 to support Farrell since 2010, when he first ran for office as District 2 supervisor, according to local filings<\/a>; they either donated to the candidate directly, or to independent expenditure committees supporting him. The family lives in the Marina, Farrell\u2019s district, and owns multiple properties across San Francisco, according to property records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of Coates\u2019 giving led to a 2015 fine, at the time the city\u2019s largest<\/a>, when Farrell was threatened with a $191,000 penalty for allegedly coordinating with an independent committee to keep voters from choosing his opponent. Farrell won that 2010 race by just 258 votes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ethics Commission later reduced the fine to $25,000<\/a>. It said it agreed with a state finding that Farrell was \u201cnot aware of [his campaign manager\u2019s] actions,\u201d but the commission vote was 3-2, and one of the commission members subsequently resigned<\/a>, saying the body was ineffectual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coates could not be reached for comment. The husband-wife pair have given at least $2,136,499 to San Francisco races since 1998, according to local filings<\/a>, including to business-friendly PACs and groups supporting District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani. Nationally, the two have given at least $892,502, according to federal filings<\/a>; 85 percent of that, $758,802, has gone towards Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June, Farrell raised eyebrows<\/a> when his mayoral campaign received $57,415 from Farrell\u2019s ballot measure committee. His team said it was reimbursement for office space and canvassers; rival campaigns said Farrell\u2019s ballot committee was subsidizing his mayoral race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farrell has no shortage of potential big donors with which to potentially continue this arrangement: He has in his corner one of the top-spending groups in San Francisco politics, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco<\/a>. The group, formed in 2020, is a collection of moderate- and right-leaning donors<\/a> who have, in quick order, funded a slate of moderate candidates and bankrolled the 2022 recall of then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In April, the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that Neighbors\u2019 executive director,\u00a0Jay Cheng<\/a>, positioned himself as a decision-maker in the choice to hire a campaign strategist for Farrell; the campaign said it was not working with Neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the group said it is officially staying out of the mayor\u2019s race, its donors aren\u2019t. In June, the group endorsed<\/a> Farrell and Daniel Lurie for mayor, signaling to deep-pocketed San Franciscans where they should put their money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019ve obliged. Already, at least eight Neighbors donors (or their spouses) have given more than $730,590 to Farrell\u2019s ballot-measure committee. That includes Coates and his wife, the Republican mega-donor and Neighbors president William Oberndorf (who gave $45,000 through his company), and billionaire investor John Pritzker (who gave $100,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s even more questionable than just ballot measure ads,\u201d Ross said of the two committees sharing campaign infrastructure. How could a press secretary accurately log their time between both committees, he asked, or a field director? The two committees, Ross said, are \u201cone in the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n joe.rivanobarros@missionlocal.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight. He attended Stanford University for political science and worked at Mission Local as a reporter after graduating. He then spent time in advocacy as a partner for the strategic communications firm The Worker Agency. He rejoined Mission Local as an editor in 2023.More by Joe Rivano Barros<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: https:\/\/missionlocal.org\/2024\/07\/farrell-thomas-coates-sf-ballot-measure-rent-control-neighbors\/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Mission+Local&utm_campaign=44ad9a0ea2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_07_08_05_09&utm_term=0_-44ad9a0ea2-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coates family\u2019s big give indirectly funnels half a million dollars to candidate, and donation to independent committee eludes contribution limits by\u00a0JOE RIVANO BARROS JULY 8, 2024 (MissionLocal.org) A ballot measure committee mayoral candidate Mark Farrell spun up in March disclosed on Friday evening that it had received another $570,340 in donations in… Continue reading ![\"Mission](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mission-local-logo-300x300.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\"){kind=logo}
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMajority of spending by ballot committee is shared with Farrell\u2019s mayoral campaign<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Rent-control opponent a longtime supporter of Farrell<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Farrell close to big-money group Neighbors for a Better San Francisco<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
MORE ELECTION 2024 COVERAGE<\/mark><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSee how they run: Mayor Breed defends public-safety record during law-and-order debate<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"See](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_1852.jpg?resize=800%2C600&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSee how they run: Hillary Ronen tells Aaron Peskin to stop talking<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nDistrict 7 candidates: How should the city address the RV situation?<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
JOE RIVANO BARROSSENIOR EDITOR<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n