Mission Local is publishing campaign dispatches for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: Mark Farrell. Read earlier dispatches here.
This week is a good one for the Mark Farrell for Mayor campaign: On Thursday, Farrell formally received the sole endorsement of the union representing San Francisco’s firefighters.
Earlier this month members of the San Francisco Local 798 “overwhelmingly” decided to endorse Farrell, said Floyd Rollins, the union’s president, during a press conference at the union’s meeting hall in the Bayview on Thursday morning.
Rollins added that the breakdown of the vote will not be released by the union, though Mission Local has learned that Farrell racked up a sizable majority of the votes in a crowded field. In November, voters will have the option to rank up to 10 candidates.
“I have always had our firefighters’ backs, our first responders’ backs in City Hall, and I always will,” said Farrell, to a standing audience of three members of the press, a handful of staffers, and his youngest son, Kane. “I grew up in a working class union family here in San Francisco that instilled the values of community, of solidarity, and collective strength in me at a young age.”
Farrell’s gain is Mayor London Breed’s loss: In the 2018 election, Breed had the firefighters’ sole endorsement, plus vast financial support and a battalion of SFFD volunteers. Both Breed and Farrell have ties with firefighters that go back a long way: Breed has a strong relationship with the workers at “Station Five” in the Fillmore, who used to take care of her aunt, who was developmentally disabled; Farrell has five childhood friends from his graduating class at St. Ignatius who became firefighters.
But this year’s endorsement may not be as valuable as it has been in years past. In the last contested mayoral election in 2018, the firefighters union helmed a pro-Breed independent expenditure campaign that received more than $1 million in donations.
This year, the firefighters will not be setting up such a committee, confirmed Rollins. Instead, the firefighters are funneling their financial support into their ballot measure on pensions. Farrell doesn’t have a PAC backing him, but his campaign does have a ballot measure committee that can receive unlimited contributions.
Last month, the top five candidates for mayor — Breed, Farrell, Daniel Lurie, Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safaí — participated in a debate in the same Bayview union hall, and spoke about top concerns among the firefighters, including their pension measure, reinstating workers who have not abided by the city’s vaccine mandate, and the homeless encampments that often require firefighter and paramedic intervention.
The firefighters’ measure, Proposition H, would reduce the age at which firefighters can retire and receive a full pension, from 58 to 55. This change would also be applied retroactively to any member hired after January 7, 2012, affecting more than 1,500 firefighters. Farrell supports the measure, while Breed does not.
During the debate, Breed and Farrell also tried to one-up each other on who could crack down harder on public drug users and homeless encampments — and, evidently, Farrell’s message prevailed with the firefighters.
“Our members work on the streets every day dealing with homelessness, small outside fires, businesses that have been vandalized and just trying to keep up with and stabilize the situations going on in our streets,” said Rollins. “And so, that certainly became a paramount topic as we drew closer to the decision that we made to endorse a mayoral candidate.”
Farrell’s campaign has placed great emphasis on decrying the current state of the city, at times disregarding statistics that show crime is declining. Thursday morning was no exception: “Homelessness is on the rise. Tenant encampments have never been worse in San Francisco. A record number of people are dying from drug overdose deaths on our streets every single day in our city, and our economy is completely stuck in cement,” Farrell said.
Firefighters, more so than other city workers who toil in arcane jobs, give tickets or arrest people, are popular. Soon, the firefighters will begin campaigning across the city on Farrell’s behalf. One red truck outside the hall had already been adorned in Farrell posters of the same color.
This is the latest endorsement from labor Farrell has received, including backing from San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council and Local 38.
Ugh. Farrell is the worst. How they can endorse someone who has had multiple ethics complaints and violations and is clearly tied to TogetherSF is a bummer.