San Francisco’s well-kept secrets remain well-kept.
But, for many months, there were few more loosely veiled secrets in this city than Board President Aaron Peskin’s eventual declaration for mayor. When political strategists noted in February that the preponderance of center-right mayoral candidates “all but sends an engraved invitation” for a centrist or center-left candidate to join the fray, no one needed to actually engrave an invitation and send it to Peskin’s North Beach abode.
So, yes, that was Peskin jaunting about town earlier this week for professional photographs against the backdrop of San Francisco’s most scenic scenery. People notice stuff like that, too. Peskin couldn’t call up associates and ask for money or endorsements — or wrangle a goodly portion of his 42 former Board of Supervisors colleagues as well as former mayors, state officials, Chinatown leaders, union figures and others to a 10 a.m. Saturday mayoral kickoff rally at Portsmouth Square with speechifying at 11 — and not have the news get out.
It’s out. Will there be a lion dancer? “No,” Peskin says. Another poorly kept secret revealed.
Mayor London Breed and former mayor Mark Farrell paused yesterday afternoon from a session of moderate-on-moderate violence to excoriate their new, more left-leaning competitor as a toxic bully and an anti-housing NIMBY warlord. Breed’s campaign spokesman made dad-joke-like references to Peskin-as-Terminator: “Peskin occupying the Mayor’s Office would mean ‘hasta la vista, baby’ for our local economy, our housing, and our city’s future.”
It warrants mentioning that in “T2,” the film featuring the dialog “Hasta la vista, baby,” the Terminator is actually the good guy. You know, the guy fighting against the tech-fueled apocalypse.
So, perhaps the more fitting analogy would’ve been Peskin-as-Keyser Söze — an elusive and infinitely powerful figure whose dark and unseen influence lurks behind every malign turn. That’s certainly playing to the crowd for Breed and Farrell’s stalwarts (in much the way that, a generation ago, Willie Brown served as the catch-all bogeyman for lefty stalwarts).
But moderates linking arms and dumping invective on Peskin does come with some risks: As the only unalloyed progressive in the race, torrents of abuse from figures progressives don’t like can actually help him. If you don’t care for Farrell or Breed or Garry Tan or any of the others making Churchillian statements about fighting off a Peskin mayoralty at any cost, then their forthcoming torrent of negative material — which really will come at any cost — could solidify Peskin’s place as the last progressive standing, and drive up his name ID.
Or it could overwhelm him. In any event, the shitstorm is coming.
The book on running against Peskin now is pretty much the same as it was back in 2015, when Mayor Ed Lee goaded him back into public life by appointing Julie Christensen as District 3 supervisor:
In an internal memo … a pollster hired by the Christensen campaign highlights voters’ impressions … “Especially damning was [Peskin’s] past behavior towards colleagues, agency heads, and constituents. No one likes a bully.” … “Peskin also took large hits for his obstructionism on popular neighborhood projects and past ethics concerns.”
As Peskin told me back then, “Every single fucking stupid thing I’ve done — and I’ve done a few of them — is going to be all over the place.”
Well, that happened. And it’ll happen again. And, of course, there have been more fucking stupid things, leading up to Peskin’s June 2021 admission that he had a longstanding drinking problem and was entering recovery.
So, that’s new. But this will, counter-intuitively, play a large role in Peskin’s public messaging. “Recovery has been life-changing for me,” he says. “It’s no secret that the city you and I love has been struggling in ways that are real and perceived. And, I don’t mean this to sound corny, but I have a notion that we are a city in need of recovery. Recovery is something I have come to know well. It’s hard work.”
There are allusions at play here. Unsubtle allusions — a man in recovery to lead a city in need of one. Prior to Peskin’s announcement, polling was floating around querying voters about their views on Peskin, recovery and Peskin in recovery. Do voters buy it? Do voters like allusions? Vamos a ver.
San Francisco government’s municipal addiction is, in Peskin’s allusive telling, the intoxicating buzz of extreme negativity and ripping one’s own city for short-term political gain. “It’s the locally generated doom loop,” he says. “Not the external one. It’s not leadership to keep blaming other people … Our leadership keeps finding other people to blame. Blame compassion, blame nonprofits, blame progressives, blame judges. It’s time to stop the blame game. It’s time to take responsibility and say the buck stops with the mayor.”
“Political leaders have fed into a concerted campaign from the inside that has been very divisive and negative,” he continues. “This gets back to the recovery thing. People are beating themselves up. We can reverse that. For most of my life, this has been a place of some amount of joy and discovery and I don’t want to beat up on San Francisco for political gain.”
As to Peskin’s own addictions, former Rep. John Burton was candid with voters about his cocaine problem — and they re-elected him and re-re-elected him, and he is now an elder statesman of the local political scene. Supervisor Matt Dorsey turned the rather awkward position of being a meth addict while serving as the strategic communications director of the police department into one of the keystones of his political resume — and a glowing New York Times profile.
So this is not new ground. It’s also smart — and necessary — politics. While Peskin’s opponents will line up to call him an angry, vengeful drunk, Peskin is rushing to preemptively define himself as, instead, a man in recovery who no longer wants to engage in bellicosity for the sake of bellicosity.
Besides, many of San Francisco’s voters weren’t here during Peskin’s earlier, boozier, not-kinder and gentler years; they haven’t heard this tale. Peskin would prefer to be the one to tell it.
What kind of policy debates have we gotten in the mayor’s race thus far? Longtime consultant Jim Ross jokes that it’s been a contest between “send armed National Guardsmen into the Tenderloin” vs. “Send in Seal Team Six!”
Peskin provides “The mayor’s race San Francisco deserves,” Ross says. He’ll bring a broader spectrum of views and policies into play: “It’ll be a real debate on issues, not just a race to see who can come up with the furthest right-wing idea that’s going to appeal to a specific slice of San Francisco.”
Peskin is quick to point out “at least one billionaire” is backing Breed, Farrell and Lurie — one more than he’s got. But San Francisco voters have repeatedly demonstrated that pointing out that the opposition is funded by shadowy networks of wealthy individuals is not, in and of itself, a winning strategy. Peskin will need to give voters something to vote for, not against.
So, it’s on him to propose solutions for the city’s rampant homelessness and drug-addiction crisis that go beyond sending the troops into the TL. It’s on him to explain how, despite his reputation as the NIMBYs’ chief vampire, that it would be Mayor Aaron Peskin who gets the most housing built via his ability to put people together and get to yes. It’s on him to explain how to revitalize downtown and replenish the police department and clean the streets and keep drivers from blowing stop signs and all the other gripes enumerated by San Francisco voters.
San Francisco voters, it seems, are a frustrated bunch. Whether Peskin’s “message of hope and resilience” is the pitch the people were waiting for — and, even if they are, he’s the preferred messenger — remains to be seen.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through a period where you’re depressed and something happens and you realize that nothing really changed — you’re just seeing the world in a different way. And you’re not depressed,” he says. “We have to change the leadership of San Francisco in order to snap out of it.”
I am a proud YIMBY, but Aaron won me over when he went up against my building’s landlord and successfully negotiated an extension of our below market rate (BMR) units. It felt like a miracle. Here’s an article about the situation, before it was resolved- https://www.ebar.com/story.php?ch=news&id=247019
Is unhinged and toxic Scary Garry Tan really trying to organize a rabid mob to crash Peskin’s campaign kickoff? What exactly is his point for inciting such? How would this serve voters and thoughtful San Franciscans living in a democratic city, state and nation?
Not to worry. In the end it was a small group, maybe 20-30 people, who were pretty much ignored. Nobody would have noticed, except for the awful woman hollering (screeching, really) into an electronically amplified bullhorn. They went silent before he even finished his speech. Overall, kind of a pathetic display, especially when contrasted to the crowd of Peskin supporters who filled the square.
Greeny,
These rich guys are run by just a handful of people who party alone compared to a Matt Gonzalez monthly Office Party or a Chesa Boudin victory party at El Rio.
Matt’s election night Party in 2003 drew 4,000 devotees who produced entire campaign on less than one million dollars and we had 4 stages and bands and made Walter Wong’s huge first floor into an art gallery with two masseurs and 4 of the best cooks anywhere and our party was shut down by cops and FD after midnight cause we were blocking the Freeway access.
Newsom had 3 dozen people to a dry party that shut down by 10pm.
London’s using the same Vendor (Dominion) and their Proprietary Algorithms.
h.
I have not seen fear in the eyes of power like this since the early/mid 2000s.
Fear? Peskin historically has not been seen as a lefty in the sense of the long line from Britt, Ammiano, Daly, Gonzalez, Campos, Avalos and now Preston. And of course none of them became mayor.
Peskin is more of a soft-left committee man. And if he is the best that progressives have right now then that shows how far they have fallen. So what “fear” are you seeing?
It is going to be entertaining to watch GrowSF and others overstep the bounds of decency and lose much of their clout when battling against Peskin. Tan’s threat to protest Peskin’s ceremony tomorrow is already angering many in the Chinese community, a constituency that is needed by any candidate who wants to win. I sure hope Peskin wins.
Peskin is the man who’s been in a powerful political position in city gov’t for over 20 years. Name his accomplishments – please.
Marcos,
As always, I’m the only one fearful of Dominion.
h.
Indeed. Those powerless, bereft owners of multi-million dollar homes who want to prevent any new development near their manses, preserving their views and propping up their property values, are really shaking in their boots.
Campers,
Aaron Peskin is a great guy.
He’s powerful and measured and abhors wasting time.
When we used to drink together (I’m dry now too) we wasted no time.
He tried to teach me to swim in the Bay and I almost drowned few times in two days of trying and in the steam room a wizened retired cop asked me if I watched Seinfeld.
lol
Aaron Peskin will organized this City like no one else could with the powers of Mayor.
I’ll put Lurie second cause I hate to waste ranked-choice vote and he’s a nice guy.
Your allusions are all gold to us readers, joe.
You’re approaching or at Royko and Jimmy Breslin territory.
h.
h. brown – JE’s better than Breslin and way better than Royko, who was also great. And JE even tops Murray Kempton, the best of that generation.
Bobby —
Very kind, but I can’t agree. Royko was a beast.
JE
Bobby,
I’m an avid collector (come to my b’day !) and also have an entire line of Studs Terkel and in my opinion Lincoln Steffens was the best of the lot and is even from SF’s Mission.
h.
Joe,
A feminist called Royko a pig and asked if he’d like to be considered just a piece of meat by all women and he replied:
“Frankly, that’s been my fondest dream since puberty.”
When Chicago was frozen with high winds in a blizzard he wrote:
“This is the best weather to sit in front of a roaring fire with a bottle of bourbon and brood.”
Again, Lincoln Steffens cub reporter and assistant was Walter Lippmann and they tourded the world.
h.
Yes h. and to be honest JE is even better than Breslin, whom I knew and loved.
I lived in Peskin’s District. I filed one complaint about the filth on my sidewalk as a result of Golden Boy’s late night customers. I got a call from Peskin’s office & our sidewalk was pressure washed every morning around 6:15 AM; when I was walking to my car to go to work.
I personally do not think highly of him, but he is effective. Way better than what we’ve had in the Mission.
He has the votes from my household
“So, it’s on him to propose solutions…”
I agree with Joe here. But where are Peskin’s proposals? He’s had two decades in and around SF government to come up with something besides the status quo. Let’s see it now.
DD,
Aaron’s not a Visionary, he’s a Goalkeeper.
It was Aaron who stopped Willie from filling in more of the Bay for landing strips.
His vision is in Preservation Architecture and before he came to the BOS in 2000 he’d already been a regular speaker on the spanking new SFGTV pushing to save beauty.
He’s honest as hell and hardworking and it’s cool for me that he’s an antique building junkie.
So am I.
h.
In other words, he’s done nothing. Does sucking up to Rose Pak and her successors count?
In Peskin’s favor, he’s one of the few politicians in San Francisco who can actually accomplish things.
On the down side, the things he accomplishes aren’t usually good for the city. But he is at least competent. On the SF Board of Supervisors, that’s unusual.
No, thank you! Too bad Peskin is not in recovery from being an a-hole and wannabe petty dictator.
He is another power-hungry career politician who should have retired years ago (yes, I know term limits forced him to take a hiatus from elected office, but he became the local Democratic Party Chair until he could run again).
Thankfully, there are other candidates running for Mayor, and while they may all have their issues, none of them are as thoroughly unpleasant and lustful for raw power as Peskin. I would put my cat as a write-in candidate before I would ever vote for Peskin.
Chris,
You’re light on the facts there, guy.
As in none.
Give me one thing Aaron’s done that you dislike.
Other than breathing.
h.
I don’t mind politicians having big egos, it’s almost a requirement and goes with the territory. But regardless of where his politics lie on the spectrum, I’ve always seen him as a cog in the machine, and SF is a big, complex machine that runs on money.
Most mayors seem to excel at one very specific skill: Keeping the machine running. That means big budgets, big payrolls and thousands of people making use of our $14B+ annual budget, churning billions of dollars a year. SF loses hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue because of downtown vacancies, and the response is…a larger budget than previous one. That’s big city math right there. SF spends more on homelessness than any other major city, but fractions of a percent trickle down to actual, real improvement of the lives of people living on the streets while the other 99% goes to big salaries and big department budgets.
Like I said, I’ve always seen Peskin first and foremost as an adroit part of the SF machine, regardless of his personal politics. I’m ready to be convinced otherwise…
Up until now, the main SF mayoral candidates essentially came across as united on a platform of “preserve the perks of SF economic inequality while ducking responsibility for creating the negative consequences of such inequality (e.g. homelessness, drug abuse, theft).” Peskin’s presence at least means we can talk about how economic inequality has damaged SF instead of acting as if it’s outside human control.
For more information on Peskin’s district, do a Google search for “north beach renaissance”. Then take a walk through North Beach and Chinatown to see what the rest of San Francisco can become.
North Beach and Chinatown are definitely two of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the City. I certainly spend more time in both post-Pandemic than pre-Pandemic.
But can any of their success be attributed to actual policies or actions taken by Peskin as supervisor? I’d really like to know.
Height limits, formula retail restrictions, efforts to control vacancies, designation of historic resources, public support for low-income housing all come to mind. Policies like these have yielded two of the densest neighborhoods in the entire U.S., without the scourge of glass towers and massive plywood boxes darkening the streets.
The political claim these days is that everything that a “progressive” touches turns to crap.
… and where are the 7,500 units of housing going to go in NB/Chinatown? (D3’s portion of the 85,000 needed in the next half dozen years). Lets see if its as attractive after that ()or if its built at all).
**.
We can double the population of Chinatown by continuing with the boring machine that dug the Rose Pak Subway Muni Link at 85 feet under.
Dig to that depth and construct 45′ tall structures blocks long.
Used to talk about if this was feasible with Joe O’Donoghure and he was all for it.
h.
I live in Peskins district. There has not been any renaissance. Far from it. Empty buildings, homeless and boarded up windows. The best we can do is to get dispensaries selling pot. It coukd be sooo much better than it is
Taxi Drivers for Peskin! /s
Peskin is sharp as a tack, agile, competent, and slippery as an eel.
I don’t like his anti-housing tactics. He’s watered down pedestrian and bike safety measures in D3 for years: that blood is on his hands.
Ask anyone in North Beach: he launders his corruption through Telegraph Hill Dwellers. If you want Peskin’s backing for a project, chances are they’ll come knocking for a favor.
Do I think he’s authentic about his love for San Francisco? I do. The man has a heart. But he’s a bit like Robert Moses, who started his political career as a progressive reformer–and used his deep knowledge of the workings of government to amass unprecedented power that was invisible to most people. That power is a drug, and Peskin is still addicted to it.
“[T]he only unalloyed progressive in the race”? I think working to maintain artificially high housing prices for the benefit of a gilded few on Telegraph Hill is the most *reactionary* position a candidate could take.
Wait a minute, I thought all the “gilded few” live in Noe Valley! I doubt if Telegraph Hill can satiate their appetite for 5000 to 8000 square foot single-family homes!
Stephen,
You’re missing his point.
I’ve watched him for 30 years and it’s never been about money for Peskin.
It’s about the view.
‘Save the Bay’ is a slogan for you.
Aaron Peskin did it.
h.
Finally, we have a chance to elect a mayor that we deserve. Aaron is the ONLY lawmaker that I know who actually bothers to read the fine prints of a legislation. And he knows that his job as a lawmaker is to legislate for the benefit of his constituents and not some benighted, neuvo riche billionaire.
100% agreed. Over the years at the BofS hearings when newly elected ideologues (looking at you Dorsey and you Engardio) have been ready to sign off on complex and impactful legislation that they don’t understand as “good enough”……….Peskin is the only policy wonk who swoops in and says “now hold on a second. What about page 37, paragraphs 4 and 5?” Peskin’s combined understanding of public resources, nuanced land use, social equity, local history and complex policy making make him a formidable force in governance.
Greeny,
Props to his eye for top staff too.
David Owen, wazzissname, Noyes was it and then Sunny Aguillar.
And, he has people skills that won’t stop.
Guy could sit between a devil and an angel and get along with both.
Go Niners !!
h.
The only lawmaker who bothers to read the fine print of legislation such as his no more monster homes act draft which got laughed at by the planning commission for inadvertently requiring a conditional use permit for nearly every internal remodel.
I’d forgotten how the hard core true believers hated Willy Brown. I bet if you polled people old enough to remember his mayor era a solid majority wish the City had as good a mayor.
Michael,
I remember Willie well and voted to keep him in Sacramento in the face of their bigots.
As Mayor San Francisco Willie Brown was a lying and greedy power hungry bully for every single day he was in office and I read an interview he did on Examiner last week and he lied about who appointed the SFMTA Board (mayor) .
What he did best and still does is to party hearty with the most beautiful women in the world while dressed better than any man in America.
h.
I’d disagree. Old enough to remember his run.
The last possible person I’d want as a mayor is white, abusive drunk. Jesus, the quality of candidates in San Francisco are so poor – only in this city can a man with every natural advantage in the world (white, male, rich) become a pathetic drunk, bully people, and still be a viable candidate for mayor. Says a lot about progressives in this dump that their two heroes – Peskin and Preston – are just white rich men with anger issues.
Better than Breslin and way better than Royko, who was also great. And JE even tops Murray Kempton, the best of that generation. We’re lucky.
Both of those you named come from backgrounds targeted as nonwhite and frequently slurred as angry hypercompetitive outsiders – even when just firmly advocating for reasonable reforms for everyone’s benefit.
The SF progressive establishment is in dire straights if Aaron Peskin, the cop loving landlord, is the best “progressives” candidate we can drum up.
Picking between Peskin, Breed or Farrell is like picking between Sprite, 7up or Sierra Mist. Sure they are different but are you really gonna notice? What a bummer.
Hey! Sierra Mist is pretty good!
Aaron Peskin is emblematic of a flawed and dysfunctional ideology that’s gotten San Francisco into the mess it’s in right now. Sky high housing prices, out of control homelessness, business flight due to sky high taxes, out of control shoplifting and lawlessness. Peskin has been on the Board of supervisors for over 20 years and the and the last thing we need is more of the same disaster.
Edward,
Every single thing you mentioned is under the control of the Mayor.
It was worse under Willie in 2000 when Aaron came in with Gonzalez and Daly.
The Mayor appointed every single member of every key Agency (he made very department head, ‘Acting’ so’s he could dump em easily) and Commission and Board which led to nothing but rubber stamps and no real Oversight.
The Class of 2000’s Reforms gave minority representation on these bodies to appointees chosen by the President of the BOS (in the beginning it was so loose that Marc Leno as Chair of Rules Committee had the members of that body take turns choosing which candidate they wanted) …
Aaron has stream-lined the Board but the body has never had much power beyond holding committee hearings and Peskin is not a Visionary, he’s a Preservationist.
You can’t legitimately blame the Board President for things controlled by London.
And ultimately, Everything in City Governement is controlled by London Breed.
This will be Aaron’s first shot at Real Power.
Hope he wins.
Unless Gonzo enters.
Fat chance that.
My 80th B’day Party on 4-20 is Pot Luck.
h.
This “article” is like some bizzaroworld, calling London Breed’s policies “right wing” is the height of insanity. There are ZERO candidates for mayor in San Francisco that are anything but on the left and liberal and/or progressive. It’s absolute silliness to claim anything else.
“that it would be Mayor Aaron Peskin who gets the most housing built via his ability to put people together ”
Well, now that we’ve all had a good laugh, when will the progressive nominate an actual, uh, progressive?
At least someone like Preston is reasonably good on transit and policing issues, unlike Peskin, who expanded police surveillance, has kept bike lanes and Muni improvements out of his own district, and basically tried to kill Caltrain during the pandemic.
And then there’s … housing. Uh huh. We already know he’d be setting the citywide height limits at zero if he could.
The Peskin vision will be one where absolutely no new housing (affordable or otherwise) gets built whatsoever while the population continues to grow, any progress on transit infrastructure grinds to a halt, and the culture in the SFPD changes not one iota. Apparently that’s “progressive” around here.