Mark Farrell launches mayoral campaign from a batting cage - lobs high heat at Mayor Breed

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://missionlocal.org/2024/02/mark-farrell-launches-mayoral-campaign-
from-a-batting-cage-lobs-high-heat-at-mayor-breed/

Mark Farrell, standing in a batting cage at the San Francisco Baseball
Academy surrounded by some 100 supporters, had his first official campaign
event on Tuesday, digging in and taking a big swing against Mayor London
Breed.

“Our city has never been immune from challenging street conditions, but
there is no mayor in history that has overseen a steeper decline,” said
Farrell. Again and again, the challenger tied the city’s myriad woes to
“failed leadership in City Hall.”

During a 17-minute speech, Farrell made it clear that he wants out with
the current leadership and in with new policies — or, at least, different
policies — to address San Francisco’s most pressing issues: public safety,
the homelessness and drug crises, rebooting the local economy, housing
affordability and “restoring our sense of civic pride once again.”

“We can’t afford another four years under Mayor Breed,” he said. And, in
an unsubtle swipe at contender Daniel Lurie, he said, “we do not have the
luxury to allow someone to learn on the job.”

Farrell is a venture capitalist who was formerly District 2 supervisor,
representing the affluent Marina and Pacific Heights neighborhoods. In
2018, he was appointed interim mayor after Mayor Ed Lee’s death,
supplanting Breed — an emotionally charged gambit by the Board of
Supervisors to prevent Breed from benefiting from incumbency to win the
subsequent mayoral election (she won anyway).

Farrell joins Lurie, a nonprofit founder and the heir to the Levi-Strauss
fortune, and District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí as serious mayoral
contenders.

Farrell’s bid to retake City Hall Room 200 was no surprise, and on Tuesday
morning he mounted a full-court press in the city’s media outlets, giving
interviews to any and all comers outlining his policy proposals. His
number one commitment? Public safety, which, in his mind, means ousting
Police Chief Bill Scott, increasing police staffing and growing the
department’s budget.

On homelessness, Farrell said he would pursue a “shelter-first” — rather
than “housing-first” — approach, rapidly increasing access to emergency
shelter by directing unspent and unallocated funds for permanent housing.

“We are, literally, now being compared to Detroit and Oakland. That is not
the conversation where San Francisco belongs,” he said.

To restore San Francisco as a “vibrant local economy,” Farrell said he
would institute a sales tax to generate revenue downtown (and keep it
there), a business tax exemption for small businesses making less than $5
million a year and incentives for businesses to hire workers and
incentivize them to the financial core.

Plus, he said, “we will open Market Street back up again to cars,” to
bring traffic and commerce downtown. The crowd gave a round of applause.

The 44th mayor of San Francisco — and potentially the 46th — stood
alongside his wife, Liz Farrell, his father, Joe Farrell, and his in-laws.

Jess Montejano, the campaign’s spokesperson, said Farrell chose the San
Francisco Baseball Academy as his launch venue because it is housed in the
former Bridge Theater, which Farrell, as supervisor, helped convert into a
sports facility.

Standing around the baseball batting cage, many of Farrell’s friends, who
largely know him from outside the political arena, had positive words to
describe the candidate: Honest, practical, capable.

“I know him to be a super-smart, authentic guy,” said Sterling Mace, whose
children went to school with Farrell’s. Farrell was always involved in the
school, she said, even coaching the baseball team.

When asked what qualities she admired about him most, she said “his
honesty.”

“He’s practical,” her husband, David Mace, added. “He’s been there, he
knows how things work. He can say, ‘Here’s how we can trim the fat and get
back on track.’”

Bill Hudson, whose children also went to school with Farrell’s, said the
candidate is also willing to have tough conversations with neighborhoods
on opening them up to more housing development. “They’re hard messages for
us, too,” he said. “We’ve got to be open to that.”

Farrell, near the end of the event, repeated that his candidacy is a
sweeping rejection of Breed’s tenure and the last six years of city
politics.

“I’m not here as a vanity project. I’m not here simply because I wanted a
different career. I am only doing this to make change in San Francisco,”
he said. “We will challenge the status quo on every single level.”


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