what candidate for sf mayor vows to clean up city?
SAN FRANCISCO —
When San Francisco Mayor London Breed arrived at UC Davis for her freshman year, she saw her new classmates surrounded by family. Except for the friend who dropped her off — her holding in two modest numberless — she came lonely.
Brood would often make her way back to the notoriously unsafe housing projection in the metropolis'south Western Addition where she was raised past her grandmother. She came not just to visit only ofttimes considering of tragedy.
"When I was coming home, it was for the funeral of somebody I grew upwardly with," Brood said in an interview in San Francisco's ornate Beaux-Arts Metropolis Hall. "And I just thought, what if he was hither with me? I just imagined them walking around campus, and this could be their life. And that'southward what got me involved in public service."
Breed, 47, is a rising star in California politics because of her stewardship of San Francisco during the pandemic, every bit well equally her efforts to tackle crime, homelessness, habit and education in a city that is famously — if non always accurately — known for its liberal, alive-and-let-live ethos.
Cornel Due west, left, and Mayor London Breed at a commemoration of the Dream Keeper Initiative, which reinvests $120 meg from law enforcement into San Francisco's Black community.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Up for reelection in 2023, Brood received national attention when she didn't mince words every bit she declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin commune, aggress by overdose deaths, open up-air drug dealing, violence and homeless encampments.
"It'south fourth dimension that the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an finish. And it comes to an finish when nosotros take the steps to exist more aggressive with law enforcement. More ambitious with the changes in our policies. And less tolerant of all the bull— that has destroyed our metropolis," she said in December.
In a pause with liberals who have called for defunding police enforcement, Breed's emergency declaration allowed her to apace increment police budgets and featherbed metropolis hierarchy to ramp up services to addicts and mentally ill people who are living on the streets. (About one out of every 100 residents of the city is homeless, according to data from the federal government.) The annunciation merely expired, and some question whether it had a tangible touch.
A homeless encampment in San Francisco's Tenderloin commune.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Regardless, Breed's approach drew praise at a pivotal moment for San Francisco, which was already struggling with gaping inequality between tech millionaires and working grade residents before the pandemic exacerbated the split up and also destroyed tourism in a urban center that is dependent on visitors from around the globe.
"I can't help but take risks in social club to transform lives so that the experiences that I had growing up doesn't happen to the next generation."
— London Breed, mayor of San Francisco
After a series of nail-and-catch robberies tardily last year at luxury stores in San Francisco and other cities in California, law presence in Union Foursquare noticeably increased. An armed baby-sit stands sentry at the entrance of a Louis Vuitton store that was looted, and Macy's glass storefront remains partly covered with plywood.
"She'due south giving voice to something happening in a lot of progressive cities correct at present," said Sean Clegg, a Democratic strategist who lived in San Francisco for much of the last three decades and is working on businessman Rick Caruso'due south mayoral campaign in Los Angeles. "She's capturing the mood of the moment."
But Breed's efforts take also been faulted by some Democrats who argue she is falling back on failed policies that place the interests of the well-continued above those of the marginalized.
Kaylah Williams, the immediate by president of the metropolis's Harvey Milk LGBTQ Autonomous Club, pointed to Breed's opposition to several ballot measures, including a successful 2018 proposition that raised taxes on the metropolis's largest companies to fund more services for homeless people.
London Breed congratulates newly sworn officers at a San Francisco Police force Section graduation ceremony in February.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
"We come across fourth dimension and fourth dimension again, a lot of corporations and corporate interests put ahead of the interests of working-course San Franciscans," said Williams, who was the campaign manager for city Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin.
Brood has repeatedly said that she is "unapologetic" and has rebuked white progressives such as Boudin — who is facing a June recall — as not understanding what it is like to exist poor and a minority in San Francisco.
"I can't help simply have risks in order to transform lives so that the experiences that I had growing up doesn't happen to the next generation," Brood said recently, speaking at a celebration of a $120-one thousand thousand two-year campaign she created that transferred money from law enforcement budgets to programs aimed at bolstering the metropolis'due south Black residents.
Afterward that day, Brood waved a wand at the reopening of the "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" play at the historic Curran Theater, which had been shuttered for nigh two years because of COVID.
The crowd shows its excitement at the reopening of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Kid" in San Francisco, which was attended by Mayor London Breed.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
"This is really icing on the cake as nosotros start to reopen our urban center and recover from this pandemic," she told costumed Harry Potter fans, before cannons shot confetti in the air and celebrants clinked bottles of Butter Beer.
Such moments — including a cameo in a "Matrix" motion picture that was shot in the city and write-ups in Vogue — were unthinkable when she was younger.
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Breed said her experiences as a child and immature woman ground her approach to governance.
She was raised in a roach-infested housing project and then dangerous information technology was called "Outta Command Projects" — or OC.
She never knew her begetter and her mother was largely absent. A younger sister died of a drug overdose; a blood brother is imprisoned. A cousin was shot and killed past law. She witnessed her starting time homicide when she was 12. The men in her family were pimps, hustlers and drug dealers, Breed said.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, shown holding a movie honoring Lunar New Year, prompts praise and protests as she leads 1 of the nation'south largest and almost complex cities.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
"I just know that we were poor, and it was difficult. And there were times where I wanted to get out there and sell drugs and practice illegal things in order to have money, and fortunately I didn't," Breed said in her office, surrounded by pictures of herself with Democratic luminaries, awards and a desk plaque that reads "What Would Beyonce Exercise?"
"And I'k glad I didn't and I'yard glad that I'm in a place that could help empower other people so that they don't feel that they have to choose a path of doing something that can country them dead or in jail or on drugs."
She and her neighbors were too agape to speak to police after witnessing officers shell suspects and commit other crimes. But she likewise remembers the compassion officers showed her aunt, who was developmentally disabled and acted out — experiences that shaped her view of law enforcement as both necessary and needing reform.
"Information technology'due south a real balance of making sure that people in communities like I grew upward in also feel prophylactic and able to communicate and work with police," Breed said.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
She attributes her success largely to the women in her life — her grandmother and members of the community who guided her, helping her write college application essays and providing an outlet that led her to stay out of trouble. "It was simply so many people, and information technology was constant," Breed said.
As part of a city summertime programme for low-income youth, Breed worked at the Family School starting at historic period 14. Some employees didn't want to work with Breed because she was "rambunctious," so and so-administrative banana Minyon McGriff had the teen assist her in the office.
"She was always a bright, funny, smart kid. She just grew up difficult considering she grew upward in the projects. She was rough around the edges," said McGriff, 60. "Uncomplicated stuff — how to dress, appropriate beliefs, basic etiquette — those are a lot of the things she got from us."
Brood's feel at the Family School prompted her to create a program in 2018 that offers a paid summertime internship to whatever working-historic period student in San Francisco who wants one.
London Brood, correct, mayor of San Francisco, with a bandage member from "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child."
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Such relationships, as well equally her sorrow that friends she grew up with could not experience what she did at UC Davis, prompted Breed's get-go foray into public service — registering voters for the NAACP while in college. After she graduated, she worked on Willie Dark-brown's 1999 mayoral entrada and served equally executive director of the African American Fine art & Culture Circuitous and on several other city entities before winning a seat in 2012 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
She has been dogged by claims that she was a puppet of the machine run by Brown — a legendary force in the city and state'southward politics — every bit well equally business leaders, wealthy donors and other power brokers who have long controlled San Francisco politics.
She has repeatedly lashed out at such allegations.
"So why do women have to exist a pawn for somebody?" Breed told the Fog Metropolis Journal during her 2012 campaign. "Willie Brown didn't wipe my ass when I was a baby — my grandmother took care of me."
Brownish declined an interview request.
Even some who disagree with Breed's policies don't believe she is making decisions based on who supports her.
A homeless encampment in San Francisco's Civic Eye Plaza.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
"She does truly beloved San Francisco and she is genuinely committed to a vision of a safer city," said Jane Kim, who served with Breed on the Board of Supervisors and unsuccessfully ran against her for mayor in 2018. "It's but that her assay lands her on the same side with developers and downtown interests."
Breed was president of the Board of Supervisors when Mayor Ed Lee died in 2017, briefly making her the city's acting mayor.
She won the special ballot in 2018 to fill Lee's term, condign the city's first Black female mayor. She promised to prioritize quality-of-life problems and, foreshadowing some of the struggles that would come, she pledged to fight a condition quo that she argued had paralyzed the metropolis.
"The politics of 'no' has plagued our city for far also long — 'not on my cake, not in my backyard,'" she said.
People move their belongings as San Francisco city workers clean a street in the Tenderloin district.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Political observers say Brood'south tenure got off to an uneven start equally she sought to navigate the dissever that has typically bedeviled the relationship between the metropolis'southward moderate mayors and the more liberal Board of Supervisors.
In one case the pandemic striking, Breed was lauded by friends and foes alike for her leadership. San Francisco, with a population of about 874,000, was amid the starting time cities to lock down, and had the everyman per capita death rate of the nation'due south largest cities as of December. Three city school board members were recently recalled — ousters Brood backed — for prioritizing the renaming of schools over the reopening of in-person classes and an attempt to stop merit-based admissions at a prestigious high schoolhouse.
Breed has made missteps. She was fined for using her title as she urged and so-Gov. Jerry Brown to commute her blood brother's prison house sentence, for accepting $5,600 in car repairs from the caput of San Francisco'southward public works department (a former boyfriend) who has since pleaded guilty in a federal corruption case, and for soliciting and accepting donations that exceeded campaign finance limits to assistance fund a float in the city's Pride parade.
Like other elected officials, Brood has also received flack for repeatedly existence pictured not wearing a mask. When caught dining with several people at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant, she initially acknowledged that she needed to set a better example. Only she as well blames social media and the press for obsessing over moments she did non habiliment a mask while eating, drinking or taking a picture.
Breed has been accused of viewing the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches of government as obstructionism.
"It's her constant lack of respect for the of import role that the Board of Supervisors plays in the life of San Francisco residents, our constituents and their viewpoints that is oftentimes disturbing," said Supervisor Aaron Peskin.
The infighting and lack of trust betwixt the mayor and the board — a perennial of San Francisco politics — have stymied major progress on some of the city's well-nigh intractable issues, but San Francisco State Academy political science professor Jason McDaniel said voters do not appear to exist blaming Brood.
"Historically when we expect at mayors, they are the ones held responsible past voters for the cost of housing, the condition of schools, the upshot of crime. So far, she has managed non to be the focus of voters' attention," he said. "Whether that changes over time is a key question going forward."
Jim Ross, a veteran San Francisco Democratic strategist, argued that moves that separate Breed from the more liberal elements of the city could exist smart politics for an ambitious elected official in a city that served as a springboard for Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Vice President Kamala Harris.
San Francisco has been described as "47 square miles surrounded past reality," Ross said. "The real question is how does her image project in the reality that'southward outside of San Francisco?"
Brood demurs when asked whether she plans to seek for higher office.
"I would never dominion that out," she said. "Because I didn't think I would run for mayor and here I am."
Source: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-03-22/san-francisco-mayor-london-breed
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