Mission Local is publishing a daily campaign dispatch for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: London Breed. Read the rest of the series here.
It was a breezy day in the Garden District, and Mayor London Breed strolled down San Bruno Avenue in her second merchant walk of the week, putting up campaign signs, listening to various bread-and-butter concerns, and at times struggling to keep her hair in place.
“You’ve got my grand mommas out in the cold!” she lightly scolded her campaign staff upon stepping out of her Chevy Tahoe to 30-mile-per-hour winds. A dozen “Chinese grannies” followed the mayor, led by Mrs. Wong, a longtime supporter who, as she had earlier in the week, walked side by side with Breed during the two-hour stroll.
“Get some good photos — my hair is a mess today,” she told this reporter later.
Unlike her previous campaign visit this week through Chinatown — when she emphasized Chinese tourism, flights, and visas in her first public appearance since securing two pandas from the People’s Republic — Breed did not stump a singular message.
Instead, she listened to shopkeepers and residents concerned with crime, loss of parking, bus stops, and potholes, and connected them with the handful of staff members by her side.
“My hope is that by being out here, I can answer questions, I can deal with people’s issues and concerns, I mean even a speed bump that still hasn’t happened,” she explained. “We’ll just have to wait to see what happens in November. I have to campaign, but I still have to run the city.”
Several shopkeepers mentioned declining business and safety. Breed, who has recently touted a reduced crime rate, said the city was turning a new leaf. No matter that she at times perpetuated the doom loop narrative, particularly during the recall of then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin. That was all in the past on Thursday.
“We’re going into the enlightenment period,” she said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
The Portola is likely fertile ground for Breed. The district’s residents are on the conservative side of the city’s electorate, and last time she ran in a competitive race there, in June 2018, the district favored her above Jane Kim or Mark Leno.
But both those candidates ran to the left of Breed, and an electorate in revolt has pulled those seeking the top office rightwards. Breed must now make a play for the same slice of voters as her opponents Mark Farrell and Daniel Lurie.
Longtime neighborhood leaders, for their part, said it was still too early to say anything definitive about the race.
“People have not really been talking about the mayoral election as much as the Board of Supervisors,” said Maggie Weis, the chair of the Portola Neighborhood Association, referring to the District 9 race between Jackie Fielder, Roberto Hernandez, Trevor Chandler, and others.
Weis said Lurie, the CEO of the homelessness nonprofit Tipping Point and a Levi Strauss heir, had visited the neighborhood, but campaigning had not started in earnest. “Here or there, I talk to people a little bit, but it’s not even worth citing.”
Signs were sparse in the Portola — a few for Farrell, and the ones Breed handed out, but little else. Breed discounted the Farrell presence: Most merchants were happy to accept a sign and tape it up, and that willingness indicated little, she said. “That doesn’t really tell me much about this race. It just tells me he’s out in neighborhoods doing exactly what you do when you’re campaigning.”
Yensing Sihapanya, the executive director of the Families Connections Center, a nonprofit educating children in the neighborhood, agreed. Residents, she said, were “willing to listen to everyone” and she did not see the neighborhood swinging heavily in any one direction.
But, she added, “it feels like neighborhoods like the Portola get ignored” — and Breed had visited a handful of times recently. “To her credit, she’s been to the neighborhood a lot.”
Plus, Breed’s administration has funded projects here, and on Thursday she visited the newly-built Families Connections Center and spoke about the Freeway Greenway, a garden that runs alongside the 101 highway and was backed partly by the city.
Her familiarity was clear Thursday. One ramen shop owner pulled out a picture of himself with Breed when she entered the store, showing the two of them side-by-side during a previous year’s campaign stop. She snapped a second picture with him Thursday and took his business card. “I love ramen,” she said.
She occasionally practiced her Cantonese with merchants — “I got a few little phrases here,” she said, “My pronunciations have been known to be very good” — and constantly looked after Mrs. Wong, her steadfast companion during the walk.
At one point, posing for a photo with a boba shop’s staff, Mrs. Wong fiddled with Breed’s collar and ensured it was prim and proper. “She wants me to look good,” Breed said.
Near 4 p.m., ready to return to work, the mayor posed for a photo with her dozen volunteer elders, and urged them to go inside and get a bite to eat. “We gotta get them out of the cold,” she said.
“Let me see your hands,” she told one, taking her palms and rubbing them. “Okay your hands are warm. Oh, your hands are warm too,” she said as she took an elderly man’s hands. “Why are only my hands cold?”
