San Francisco mayoral debate has crime, public safety at top of agenda
Candidates for Mayor of San Francisco met Wednesday evening for the latest in a series of debates, once again without the incumbent in attendance, with crime and public safety at the top of the agenda.
Wednesday's at the Julia Morgan Ballroom, co-hosted by CBS News Bay Area, KCBS All News radio and the San Francisco Examiner, was initially scheduled to include all five people in the mayoral race, but on Tuesday current San Francisco Mayor London Breed bowed out after initially saying she would be in attendance.
Breed's spokesman said the mayor has already participated in four debates and noted Breed does plan on attending another mayoral debate on Sept. 19.
The candidates who were there Wednesday night, former interim mayor Mark Farrell, non-profit executive Daniel Lurie, supervisor Aaron Peskin, and supervisor Ahsha Safaí, were asked at the outset how they would deter and lower property crime in San Francisco.
Lurie said public safety has been his number one priority since he began his candidacy and committed to fully funding the San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Sheriff's Office along with recruiting police officers and 911 dispatchers. Safaí has also pledged to fully fund law enforcement, using money currently being paid for overtime salaries, and pointed to his proposed ballot initiative that would provide $25,000 toward student loan forgiveness as an incentive for police recruits.
Both Lurie and Safaí criticized Breed for not fully funding police, with Safaí adding "It's not theory for me like Daniel Lurie, this is something I'm on the ground doing every day."
Regarding police staffing, Peskin said, "There are a lot of candidates on stage who talk tough, but in my experience ... the tough talkers often don't get the job done." The progressive supervisor said he agreed with Safaí on loan forgiveness for new San Francisco workers, and said as president of the Board of Supervisors he has presided over a budget increase of over $100 million.
Farrell began his remarks with a rebuttal to Peskin's citing of police statistics showing crime was higher during Farrell's brief stint as mayor compared with the same period this year. "I find it hilarious that Supervisor Peskin is here lecturing me about public safety when he is the one on the Board of Supervisors, who also presided over the Board of Supervisors over the last few years, when we've seen a record decrease in police staffing, did not object when Mayor Breed defunded the police department three years ago," said Farrell.
Farrell added he is proud to have the endorsement of most first-responder unions, pledged to give back the funding to the police department, and seek a new police chief who would inspire the rank-and-file and fight for more budget dollars.
Farrell, Lurie and Breed are polling high but don't yet have the majority ranked-choice voting requires, where voters rank their candidates in order of preference on the ballot.
"Who wins the ranked-choice voting game, apart from the elections, apart from who takes positions on housing, fentanyl, policing, violence, all of those issues will be debated, but it's going to come down to who has the best ranked-choice voting game," said University of San Francisco political science professor James Taylor.
"So far, the polling suggests that Mayor Breed is at least out of all else being equal, is in a good position, depending upon how the ranked-choice alignments go and the politics of ranked choice," Taylor explained. "I think whoever has the most innovative and thoughtful person around ranked-choice strategies, apart from what everybody thinks in terms of the politics of now it's going to come down to voting and electoral tactics and strategies and methods."
New data shared exclusively with CBS News Bay Area and conducted by David Binder Research shows Lurie with 23% of second-ranked votes. That is followed by Farrell at 13%, Breed at 12%, Ahsha Safí at 11%, and Peskin at 8%. The poll was commissioned by the Lurie campaign.
Experts say a lead even in the second-ranked spot could work to that candidate's advantage.
"[Breed has] got some strong challengers, and that ranked-choice voting system does help her, at least on the initial ballot, but it's the second and third ballots, the secondary and tertiary ballots, where things get mighty interesting, mighty fast in San Francisco politics, that'll be something to watch," said Sonoma State political science professor David McCuan.
Taylor says the debate stage presents an opportunity for candidates to align, at least for the sake of politics.
"And that means finding friends or partners or mutual allies, allied against a mutual enemy, that my enemy's enemy is my, you know, my friend," he said. "The question is, who has the biggest brain in San Francisco who can manipulate the ranked-choice voting game? Because that's what it's going to come down to."
CBS News Bay Area anchor and reporter Ryan Yamamoto, KCBS All News political reporter Doug Sovern, and San Francisco Examiner political reporter Adam Shanks served as the moderators for the event.
Learn more about the main candidates in reporter Lauren Toms' "Beyond the Ballot" series of profiles:
London Breed ∙ Mark Farrell ∙ Daniel Lurie ∙ Aaron Peskin ∙ Ahsha Safaí
