Billionaire Republicans Buying San Francisco Elections

Fundraising for Next Mayor Has Reached $34.3 Million

TogetherSF Action’s Project 2024—2028 Alarming Plot;
It’s Next Step Is Eliminating District Elections for City Supervisors.

Editor’s Note:The Westside Observer does not endorse candidates or issues; opinions of its authors and reporters are their own, not the Westside Observer.

by Patrick Monette-Shaw

• • • • • • • • • • October 2024 • • • • • • • • • •

Beyond the race to become San Francisco’s next mayor on November 5, TogetherSF Action’s ugly four-year Project 2024–2028 scheme starts with handing Mark Farrell a mayor’s race victory on November 5, along with passing its Prop. D heist of democratic citizen oversight of our City’s Boards and Commissions. That’s their opening gambit. From there, Project 2024–2028 seeks to eliminate district-centric elections to the Board of Supervisors, among other nefarious things, hoping to enshrine an even stronger, strong mayor. Can we let TogetherSF succeed?

Where’s a Billionaire Like Mark Cuban When We Need Him?

Campaign finance disclosure reports posted on the Ethics Commission’s website reveal that aspirants to become San Francisco’s next mayor and their various supporting committees have raised a staggering $34.3 million and spent a whopping $31.4 million — just through October 19, 2024 — to install a strong mayor system of government in City Hall for the next four years. Another round of campaign finance disclosure reports is due on Friday, November 1, just four days before the November 5 municipal election. The frantic spending will spiral upwards.

Of the $34.3 million raised by October 19, fully $22.6 million was raised by supplicants Mark Farrell and Daniel Lurie and their independent expenditure committees. They’re billionaires and venture capitalist millionaires hoping to buy themselves the Mayor’s Office in Room 200 at City Hall. This job paid Major London Breed $373,058 in total pay in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024 (excluding fringe benefits).

Who would spend that kind of money to buy themselves a new job that pays a relatively low annual salary, except perhaps sycophants? Unless they’re not making as much in their current gigs.

Voters may elect Daniel Lurie or Mark Farrell to kick Breed out of office. Between the two men, their candidate-controlled plus independent primarily formed candidate committees have raised $22.6 million and spent $20.1 million through October 19, 2024. Both men are hell-bent on buying themselves political office.

Alternatively, suppose Breed somehow hangs on to her job, and Kamala Harris somehow manages to defeat Donald Trump. In that case, voters may soon find Breed won’t last long as San Francisco’s mayor.

That’s because there is credible speculation Harris may tap Breed for a cushy appointment, like a cabinet position or senior administrative position, in a Harris–Walz administration.

And were that to happen, we’d be right back in search of electing a new mayor for San Francisco in 120 to 180 days and face a special election per our current City Charter to replace Breed all over again.

If Breed survives re-election but is cherry-picked for a Harris administration gig, then San Franciscans would wind up with another interim mayor via a temporary appointment of whoever is then the president of the Board of Supervisors, depending on which of the odd-numbered District candidates might prevail in their elections on November 5, plus the other five even-numbered District Supervisors who don’t face re-election until November 2026.

Will we see current D-4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, D-6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, or D-8 Supervisor Rafael Mandleman elected as the next Board of Supervisors president to replace current Board president Aaron Peskin? Any of those three men may ascend to the interim mayor as Board president to replace Breed’s potential ascension to Washington, D.C., and national politics.

And, should current D-2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani win her election to State Assembly District 17, we face replacement of the D-2 Supervisor seat to an interim appointee by our next mayor-elect, whoever wins the November’s mayor’s race. Former Supervisor Michaela Alioto-Pier is already registered to run for the D-2 Supervisor gig in 2025.

It’s unclear whether incumbent D-10 Supervisor Shamann Walton could prevail in internal re-election as Board President by the new crop of six incoming District supervisors and the current crop of even-numbered District supervisors.

Our November Candidates for Mayor Options

Campaign finance disclosure reports filed by the top five mayoral contenders and independent committees supporting them reveal information voters may want to consider before casting their ballots on November 5. Below are considerations regarding each candidate that voters may not know.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin

this reporter has received just three campaign mailers supporting Peskin for mayor as of Saturday, October 26. All three were paid for by his candidate-controlled Aaron Peskin for Mayor 2024committee.

His campaign finance disclosure reports show he had received $1.97 million in campaign contributions and had spent $1.43 million through October 19.

However, on October 24, KQED reported that Peskin’s campaign arsenal had reached $2.36 million, including direct contributions to his official campaign, political action committees (PACs) supporting his candidacy, and public financing matching contributions from the City.

Peskin supports expanding rent control to another 89,000 rental units and strongly supports stronger citizen oversight, advocating for both Prop. C on the November ballot to create an Inspector General position in San Francisco government to combat public corruption and Prop. E, to preserve desperately needed citizen oversight of the City’s boards and commissions system, Prop D seeks to eviscerate. Prop. D includes removing the Health Commission that oversees San Francisco General Hospital and Laguna Honda Hospital, which TogetherSF’s CEO, Kanishka Cheng, wants to eliminate.

Recommendation: Because one recent poll showed Peskin tied in polling with candidate Daniel Lurie, and London Breed and Mark Farrell were polling in distant third and fourth place, I recommend you rank Mr. Peskin as your first-place vote. And then stop for the many good reasons outlined below. Do not rank Breed, Ahsha Safai, Mark Farrell, or Daniel Lurie in any ranked choice positions, as explained below. Leave all four of them off of your ballot.

Mayor London Breed

I’ve received just two campaign mailers supporting Breed for mayor as of Saturday, October 25. Her candidate-controlled Re-Elect Mayor London Breed 2024 committee paid for both mailers.

Finance disclosure reports show her primary candidate campaign had received $2.27 million in campaign contributions and had spent $2.16 million through October 19.

Also, on October 24, KQED reported that Breed’s campaign war chest had reached $4.88 million, including direct contributions to her official campaign, Political Action Committees (PACs) supporting her primary campaign, and public financing matching contributions from the City.

A campaign e-mail blast from Breed’s Re-Elect Mayor London Breed 2024 official campaign on October 28 claiming she’s a battle-tested, proven leader whose work is creating a city on the rise,” ostensibly deserving re-election. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, there’s scant evidence San Francisco is on the rise again four years later, from her six-year battle-tested leadership tenure.

City residents may be exhausted from the battles over City Hall corruption that have tested nerves more than anything.

Previously, Mayor Breed agreed on August 2, 2021, to settle a San Francisco Ethics Commission fine of $22,792 related to three ethics violations while in office, the first time a sitting mayor in the City had settled such an Ethics fine. The three violations included asking then-Governor Jerry Brown in 2018 to commute the prison sentence of her older brother — improperly using her mayoral letterhead for a personal matter; accepting a gift from disgraced Department of Public Works director Mohammed Nuru for repairs to her car; and improperly asking two restaurateurs to each pay $1,250 directly to the float manufacturer for her float in the City’s Pride parade — contributions that were not appropriately recorded in campaign finance disclosures and exceeded the $500 limit per person restriction for City candidates. She was fined for failing to disclose the contributions and accepting money over the legal limit.

Another independent expenditure committee PAC run by Vince Courtney named Progress San Francisco,” supporting Breed’s 2018 campaign for mayor, also agreed to pay a separate $29,300 fine — among the largest demanded by the Ethics Commission in recent years.

Breed’s Ethics Commission fines led partly to the arrest and imprisonment of Nuru and restaurateur Nick Bovis in 2020, setting off the FBI’s expansive six-year investigation of the city government corruption scandal that engulfed City Hall and ensnared more than a dozen individuals. Don’t forget that the corruption scandal started in 2020 with a federal indictment of former Public Works director Mohammed Nuru, eventually also ensnared Public Utilities Commission General Manager Harlan Kelly, also accused of taking bribes, who received a four-year prison sentence, which was a bit shorter than Nuru’s seven-year federal prison sentence — all under Breed’s watch.

Given an e-mail blast I received from the Re-Elect Breed for Mayor committee on October 25, Breed is recommending voters vote No on Prop. D sponsored by “TogetherSF’s” Kanishka Cheng that would abolish Health Commission oversight of SFGH and Laguna Honda Hospital. But Breed waffled and recommended voting No on Prop. E, designed to reform the City’s boards and commissions structure more thoughtfully. Although there are reports Breed has her own proposal to reform the City’s boards and commissions, that plan isn’t on the ballot. She can’t have it both ways and keep the status quo.

Breed’s predecessor, Mayor Ed Lee, who died in 2018, increased the City’s budget by $3.2 billion during his six years as mayor — from $6.8 billion in his first budget submission to $10 billion after he succeeded former mayor Gavin Newsom. Then, between Lee’s last budget submission and Breed’s budget submission for the current fiscal year of $15.9 billion, over the past six years, Breed has increased the City’s budget by an additional $5.9 billion while mayor, apparently not to be outspent by Lee.

That’s a $9.1 billion increase across a mere dozen years — a whopping 133.8% change increase. During her tenure, Breed has been responsible for a 59% increase in the City’s budget over the past six years alone.

Recommendation: Given Breed’s proximity to the corruption scandals described above, resulting in her Ethics fine, and her extravagant increases to the City’s budget, I recommend that you not rank her in any ranked choice ballot position. Leave her off ranked choice voting completely.

Daniel Lurie

I’ve received a shocking six campaign mailers supporting Lurie for mayor as of Saturday, October 25. None of the six mailers were from Lurie’s candidate-controlled Daniel Lurie for Mayor 2024 committee. Lurie donated $8 million of his personal fortune to fund his official campaign but has failed to send any mailers to District 3 voters? Who mounts a campaign for the top elected job in San Francisco and mails no campaign mailers?

Finance disclosure reports show Lurie received $8.93 million in campaign contributions — most of it self-funded via his enormous fortune rather than grassroots support — and had spent $8.49 million through October 19.

Of note, all six mailers supporting Lurie were paid for by an independent committee primarily formed to back a specific candidate, named the Believe in SF, Lurie for Mayor 2024 committee. The Believe in SF committee has separately received $6.4 million in campaign contributions and spent $5.46 million to date, Lurie’s candidate-controlled committee and the Believe in SF independent committee have received a staggering $15.33 million in contributions and had spent $13.95 million through October 19, according to Ethics Commission campaign finance disclosures. That’s undoubtedly the highest amount spent by any candidate for mayor in San Francisco’s history. And in these last 10 days before the November 5 election, Lurie will undoubtedly spend more of his family’s fortune trying to buy himself office.

KQED also reported on October 24 that Lurie’s campaign war chest had reached $15.72 million, including direct contributions to his official campaign and PACs supporting his campaign. He’s not eligible for public financing matching contributions from the City.

Lurie has no job experience working in government. Like Donald Trump, Lurie seems to believe that running a government should be like running a corporation or a nonprofit. That’s ludicrous, of course. Is Lurie a Republican in sheep’s clothing as a Democrat?

Recommendation: We don’t need a billionaire like Lurie buying himself the mayor’s office! Don’t cast any ranked choice for Lurie! Leave him off of your ballot.

Mark Farrell

I have also received zero campaign mailers from Farrell’s official Mark Farrell for Mayor 2024 campaign committee prior to this article on October 28. Who does that? Again, who runs for mayor without their primary candidate-controlled committee sending out mailers paid for by their official campaign committee?

Ethics Commission campaign finance disclosure reports report Farrell’s official committee had received $2.25 million in campaign contributions and had spent $1.95 million through October 19.

But I did receive a whopping 14 mailers as of October 25 — all paid for by the Mayor Mark Farrell for Yes on D committee noting a major $500,000 in funding from billionaire Michael Moritz, claiming Prop. D is the change needed at City Hall. The mailer ignores the inherent irony — one of the mailers claims Prop. D is necessary because of the scandal-ridden Human Rights Commission. Farrell ignores his scandals.

Ethics Commission campaign finance disclosure reports also show Farrell’s Prop. D committee had separately received $2.35 million in campaign contributions and had spent $2.14 million through October 19.

All 14 of the mailers purport only to be begging voters to pass Prop. D on November 5 — but are coupled with a tacit implication voters should also vote for Farrell for mayor at the same time. Farrell is shamelessly abusing his Prop. D mailers to advance his run for mayor.

The 14 mailers were paid for by an officeholder or candidate-controlled (by Farrell) recipient committee primarily formed to back a specific ballot measure — Prop. D — named the Mark Farrell for Mayor Yes on D committee. Finance disclosure reports show that the committee had received $2.35 million in campaign contributions and had spent $2.34 million through October 19.

Farrell is ignoring his own scandal-ridden corruption allegations. First, voters should not forget former Supervisor Mark Farrell was hit with a $191,000 Ethics Commission fine levied against him in 2014 for improper campaign activities related to his 2010 run for the District 2 seat on the Board of Supervisors.

The fine arose from an allegation that the Ethics Commission sustained, asserting Farrell and his campaign consultant, Chris Lee, had illegally coordinated with an independent expenditure committee that spent $191,000 in the final weeks of the race to defeat Janet Reilly in the District 2 Supervisors election in 2010. Farrell beat Reily by just 258 votes, perhaps due to the improper $191,000 in spending by the independent expenditure committee Common Sense Voters — which had received just two donations: $141,000 from real estate magnate Thomas Coates and $50,000 from prominent socialite Dede Wilsey.

After Farrell sued in April 2016, the fine was negotiated down and settled by Farrell for $25,000.

Of interest, the same Thomas Coates and his wife Linda Coates have each donated $250,000 to Farrell’s new candidate-controlled committee named Mark Farrell for Mayor Yes on D,” the TogetherSF ballot measure that would cap the number of city commissions at 65 and expand mayoral powers, as previously reported in the Westside Observer.

Farrell is facing new allegations of campaign finance violations. As the Westside Observer reported on October 15, three former San Francisco mayors requested that a criminal investigation on October 7 be expedited before the November 5 election in an undated formal letter signed by former Mayors Art Agnos, Willie Brown, and Frank Jordan and also California Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. Former City Attorney Louise Renne, former Supervisor Angela Alioto, former State Senator Mark Leno, Former Superior Court Judge and former Ethics Commissioner Quentin Kopp, and founding partner John Keker of the Keker, Van Nest, and Peters, LLP law firm also co-signed the letter requesting an investigation.

The letter alleges a prima facie case against Farrell involving funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Mayor Mark Farrell for Yes on Prop D committee into his separate campaign for mayor, asserting so-called shared expenses between the two committees. That criminal investigation might prove Farrell was the head of a plot as a candidate for mayor.

The legal rule: a candidate for elected office is not allowed to open a ballot measure committee and use that second committee as a slush fund to support their election to office.

Political consultant experts have warned us: When a candidate who’s been busted for ethics violations starts playing fast and loose with campaign finance laws again, watch out.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported on August 16:

While donors can give a maximum of $500 to a candidate’s [principal] campaign, they can make unlimited contributions to ballot measure committees. By pooling the two pots of funds, Farrell has invited accusations from his political opponents that he’s laundering money — effectively using the ballot measure committee to circumvent contribution limits and funnel money into his mayoral campaign, which would be illegal.

Even mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie asserts San Francisco needs more robust safeguards to prevent candidates from laundering money from their ballot measure account into their official candidate account.

No wonder there’s been a call for Mark Farrell’s campaign violation investigation.

According to a September 12 Mission Local article, Farrell’s campaign to become San Francisco’s next mayor benefits not only from his Mayor Mark Farrell Yes on D candidate-controlled ballot measure committee but also from a new PAC committee, Safer San Francisco for Mark Farrell for Mayor 2024 stood up on July 25 by Angus McCarthy, a local developer and former president of the Building Inspection Commission who was accused of violating City permitting requirements.

The new PAC’s ultra-wealthy backers include major funding by the erstwhile aforementioned millionaire Thomas Coates ($500,000), Republican billionaire William Oberndorf ($450,000), and venture capitalist Kamran Moghtaderi ($250,000).

Ethics Commission campaign finance disclosure reports show the Safer San Francisco for Mark Farrell committee has received $2.675 million in campaign contributions and has spent $2.1 million through October 19.

Separate from the 14 mailers I’ve received from the Mayor Market Farrell Yes on D campaign committee, I’ve also received two mailers (so far) from the Safer San Francisco for Mark Farrell for Mayor 2024 committee. Those mailers didn’t support Farrell’s primary campaign committee or support Farrell’s Yes on Prop. D committee. Instead, they were attack-ad mailers opposing Daniel Lurie’s campaign. How rich: Billionaires opposing other billionaires!

The mailers claim Farrell cleaned up tent encampments in San Francisco while he served as the City’s interim mayor and D-2 Supervisor.

Between Farrell’s official campaign committee, the Mayor Mark Farell for Prop. D committee, and the new Safer San Francisco for Mark Farrell committee, Ethics Commission campaign finance disclosure reports show the three committees have raised a combined $7.27 million in campaign contributions and have spent $6.19 million through October 19 — just half of Lurie’s war chest.

The real scandal is that Farrell himself is accused of misusing the Mark Farrell for Yes on D committee, claiming so-called shared expenses to advance his campaign to become San Francisco’s mayor.

KQED reported on October 24 that Farrell’s war chest reached $4.43 million, including direct contributions to his official campaign, public financing from the City, and PACs supporting his campaign. However, given the Ethics Commission’s data about the various committees and PACs supporting Farrell, that figure is probably more like $7.27 million, including the Mayor Mark Farrell Yes on D committee contributions.

On October 3, Farrell and Ahsha Safai announced their unholy alliance to have their respective first-place voters rank each other in second or another, ranked place, hoping to undercut Lurie, Peskin, and Breed. Was it done deliberately to keep their second-place ranked-choice votes from going to London Breed or Aaron Peskin?

The timing was interesting. A mailer I received on October 16 from Farrell’s Yes on Prop. D campaign committee featured a single union endorsement featuring the San Francisco Firefighters union logo. But just six days after Farrell and Safai formed their ranked-choice voting alliance, the next mailer I received on October 22 from Farrell’s Yes on Prop. D committee included the logo of the Building and Construction Trade Council, a labor union that Safai may have snagged into supporting Farrell’s run for mayor.

In another Mission Local article published on October 27, long-time political consultant Jim Ross said forming alliances is often a sign of desperation and not necessarily an effective campaign tool. Ross told Mission Local that the alliance is meaningless for Safai and Farrell.

From recent polling, Farrell and Safai both know that neither of them stands a chance of becoming mayor, even with ranked-choice voting.
That’s because, in part, a San Francisco Chronicle poll conducted between October 15 and 16, published on October 21, shows Safai’s single-digit 6% share of first-place votes (as many had anticipated) will force his elimination in Round 2 of ranked-choice ballot counting. The Chronicle’s poll shows that Farrell’s fourth-place votes (16%) are likely first-place votes, leading to Farrell’s elimination from contention in Round 3. The Chronicle poll reported a tie between Breed and Lurie, at 27% each, followed by Peskin in third place at 21%.

An October 28 e-mail blast from Farrell’s official campaign falsely asserted, With less than 8 days to go, the most recent independent polling shows us in a dead heat. It contained at least two problematic assertions. First, the most recent polling revealed a dead heat. Following a link in the e-mail blast, Farrell referred to a poll conducted between October 9 and October 19 by Drew Lieberman at LDI Research in an analysis released on October 20. That wasn’t the most recent poll. The Chronicle poll published on October 21 was more recent.

Farrell’s second falsehood about the dead heat neglected to indicate that the Lieberman poll reported a functional three-way tie for second place — with Farell and Lurie tied at 21% and Peskin at 20% (which, given the margin of polling error, made it a functional three-way tie). Being tied in second place does not make a dead heat. Lieberman ranked Breed at 25% and Safai at just 7%.

But as noted above, the Chronicle’s poll released the day after the Lieberman poll reported a different functional tie between Breed and Lurie at 27% each, Peskin at 21%, and Farrell in fourth place at just 16% — five percentage points lower than the Lieberman poll.

Recommendation: We don’t need billionaires like Moritz and Oberndorf trying to buy the election. Given Farrell’s ethics fine and potential ongoing campaign finance Ethics violations, don’t cast any ranked choice for him! Leave him off of your ballot completely.

Asha Safai

Back on July 14, 2016, the 48 Hills media outlet published an article about the stories Ahsha Safai didn’t tell in his then-campaign for D-11’s City Supervisor. 48 Hills noted, “He’s a real-estate speculator, house flipper, and gets almost half of his money from the real estate industry. 48 Hills also reported much about Safai’s record, which hasn’t received much attention, including how he made a big chunk of cash buying a house that was in foreclosure and flipping it. The chunk of cash Safai made from flipping the house within a year of purchase may have netted him approximately $365,000. In a lawsuit involving the house he purchased with his wife, Safai denied all the allegations.

In 2016, Safai described himself as the political director for SEIU Local 87, the janitor’s union, but 48 Hills reported economic interest statements for 2012 and 2013 he filed with the City show he earned less than $10,000 as political director for Local 87, but more than $100,000 as the principal in Kitchen Cabinet Public Affairs, a political consulting company.

In practice, Safai is primarily a shill for labor unions. Period.

As recently as mid-October 2024, Safai, as the D-11 Supervisor, sought to delay Supervisor Peskin’s legislation to expand rent control if the repeal of Costa Hawkins passes by November’s Prop. 33 ballot measure. Safai raised a last-minute delay to force Peskin to create a new committee to advise City Hall on rent control matters by creating a seat for the San Francisco Building and Constructions Trade Council that represents multiple unions on a new committee. Safai, whose District 11 constituents are 65% renters, to curry favor with labor unions. Peskin didn’t accept Safai’s delaying tactic, and no new committee was created. Safai eventually voted with the 10 Board of Supervisors members present, and Peskin’s rent control legislation passed unanimously.

In an October 11 article about the Safai–Farrell ranked-choice voting alliance, the Mission Local asked, But what’s in it for Safai?” Mission Local’s article continued, “‘A job,’ one source speculated. ‘Maybe the head of some labor union’.” Safai can easily get a cushy union job with San Francisco’s Building and Construction Trades Council without needing an alliance with Farrell.

Safai has been a D-11 supervisor for eight years and is now termed out; perhaps that is why he ran for mayor.

Safai’s City salary as Supervisor ending June 30, 2024, was $163,449 in total pay, excluding fringe benefits. Running for mayor, Safai’s next gig would be a pay boost to Breed’s current salary of $373,058. That would have handed him a raise of almost $200,000 over his current salary.

By forming his alliance with Farrell, Safai may have wanted to become the next Chief of Staff to a Mayor Mark Farrell, replacing former District 7 Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who, as Breed’s current Chief of Staff, earned $253,040. A nice $90,000 raise over his current salary. Who wants a union job when there’s the possibility of staying close to the levers of political power, front and center at City Hall as the Chief of Staff? Who knows?

After all, other observers have noted elsewhere the Safai–Farrell alliance is nothing more than insiders protecting insiders as desperation sets in. Protectors of the failed status quo fear the change that Daniel[Lurie] is going to bring to City Hall,” Lurie campaign consultant Tyler Law has said.

If Ahsha goes public with an endorsement of Farrell, he will lose what few votes he already has right now,” Jim Stearns, a consultant for Peskin’s campaign, said.

The Mission Local also reported on October 27 that on Thursday, October 24, Safai — assumed a staffer-like role to introduce Farrell to business owners in the Excelsior. He escorted his alliance pal Farrell through District 11. Mission Local reported that Safai told more than one shop owner, My name is Ahsha. I’m running for mayor. This is mia amgio (my friend) Mark. He’s also running for mayor. We are running as a team.

Mission Local reported the introduction left most voters surprised, if not confused. Many weren’t familiar with the ranked-choice voting system. The two candidates campaigning together reportedly flummoxed some business owners (many of whom may have contributed to Safai’s campaign and were potentially shocked to see what their donations had earned them).

When Safai registered to run for mayor in early 2023, he may have done so intentionally, intending to run as a spoiler candidate, potentially to deliberately hold on to several hundreds of thousands of dollars ($450,000 ?) in unspent campaign funds, and spoil Breed’s mayoral re-election chances.

Recommendation: Don’t cast a ranked choice for Safai, either! He is now trying to tilt the election to Farrell rather than the other mayoral contenders. Leave him off of your ballot completely. Since the Chroniclereliably predicts he’s likely to be eliminated in Round 2 of ballot counting, a vote for Safai is simply a wasted vote.

Warning About TogetherSF Action’s Project 2024–2028

A September 17 Mission Local article uncovered TogetherSF’s 49-page, July 2023 plan showing the big-money group’s plot through 2028 with a $22 million four-year budget and reliance on billionaire Michael Moritz to transform San Francisco’s democracy completely. The presentation details a four-stage plan for growing an engaged (and enraged) community. Apparently, its plans involve growing community outrage. What?

TogetherSF’s extreme CEO, Kanishka Cheng, and her husband, Jay Cheng, have stated that TogetherSF’s mission is to grow and sustain [a] movement of community dissatisfaction,” using rancor directed at local government.

Wow! Why do TogetherSF’s plans for its Project 2024–2028 sound so eerily reminiscent of, and mirror, fascist Donald Trump’s creepy Project 2025? Through actively fostering political unrest to help them win office by fomenting and capitalizing on voters’ anger, promising change?

Kanishka Cheng, Moritz, and Farrell (whose wife Liz sits on TogetherSF’s board alongside Moritz) seem unfazed.

Does Kanishka hope that rancor and community unrest will achieve her twisted view of running municipal government?

In addition to the first step of passing Prop. D on November 5, TogetherSF has set its eyes on running two more ballot measures in future elections. Those will apparently reform the City’s nonprofit contracting system and reinstate at-large supervisorial elections to replace District-centric supervisorial elections. If they pass, you can kiss goodbye to District Supervisors primarily focused on advocating for their own District’s constituencies and neighborhoods.

TogetherSF contends its Project 2024–2028 accomplishments include the 2022 elections of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio and District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, ousting progressive candidates. Next on its list is ousting District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston in the November 5, 2024 election.

You can be sure that so-called at-large politicians seeking to win a citywide election seat on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors would have to have campaign financing war chests as large as Daniel Lurie’or Mark Farrell’s to have any hope whatsoever of winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors. Enter billionaires, Moritz and Oberndorf, stage left. You can almost hear these billionaires already knocking on potential candidates for supervisors’ doors.

To haltTogetherSF dead in its tracks, voters must act now. We have to start somewhere.

Monette-Shaw is a columnist for San Francisco’s WestsideObserver newspaper and a member of the California First Amendment Coalition (FAC) and the ACLU. He has been a Childless (and catless) Cat Daddy and voter for 50 years. He operates stopLHHdownsize.com. Contact him at monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.

October 2024