Mission Local is publishing a daily campaign dispatch 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.
At the West Sunset Playground at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, more than 100 people gathered around picnic tables for what looked like a children’s birthday party. There were cookies (white chocolate, chocolate chip, oatmeal). There were bubbles. There were balloons. There was a “spin the wheel” game and a line of children waiting to play — and potentially score a cup of boba tea, a T-shirt, a small toy, or a low-maintenance house plant.
Except it wasn’t a birthday party, but a campaign event. Just about everything — the balloons, the bubbles, the felt tic-tac-toe playset — was decorated with orange “Mark Farrell for Mayor” stickers.
Sunset resident Terry Hong and six other parents organized and paid for the gathering. The group first got involved in local politics during the school-board recall campaign in 2021, Hong explained. Exasperated by what they viewed as career politicians serving on the school board and keeping schools closed, they started campaigning.
Fast-forward almost three years, and Hong and his friends are still engaged in local politics. After attending a number of campaign events and house parties for different candidates, they settled on Farrell. Mayor London Breed has had plenty of time to make things better, Hong said. “I think it’s time for a change.”
Farrell arrived fashionably late to the party in a light-blue polo shirt and beige pants, appropriate attire for an uncharacteristically warm and sunny day in the Sunset. Farrell and his wife Liz and daughter Madison immediately got to work meeting the guests and potential constituents-to-be.
“Hi, sweetie,” Farrell said, kneeling down to hand a toddler an orange balloon. His campaign manager, Jade Tu, stood next to him, talking to a young girl in a pink taekwondo uniform. “We love a woman in taekwondo,” she said to her.
A number of staunch supporters manned the food and drink stalls, offering cups of coffee and juice and plates of noodles, spring rolls and banh mi.
A few minutes after arriving, Farrell took to the microphone to introduce himself. While he covered his usual talking points — public safety, how he would fire the sitting police chief, clearing encampments — Saturday’s speech was a touch more personal than usual.
Farrell spoke about his mother, who died a few months ago. He told her story of growing up in a small rural town in Germany and moving to the United States to work as an au pair after her family’s farm was bombed during World War II. Eventually, she joined an airline based in Alameda. As a flight attendant, she flew with troops back and forth to Vietnam. On an “R and R” trip in Okinawa, Japan, she met Farrell’s father, John, who was in the military.
Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to San Francisco, to a small apartment in the Marina, so that Farrell’s father could begin law school. Fifty-four years later, he still lives in the same apartment.
Farrell also addressed the proposal to close the Great Highway to cars and convert it into an oceanfront park, from Lincoln Avenue down to Sloat Boulevard. He neither supported nor opposed the idea.
“I have more questions than answers,” he said. “You know, I don’t believe we should be doing something without fully understanding the impacts to our neighborhoods.”
“It seems really early, to me, to be putting that issue on the ballot right now,” said Farrell, handing the mic back to Hong and going to help serve some spam musubi.
“I know you’re here for Mark, but we also have some lunch here,” said Hong. “If you commit to vote for Mark, you’ll be first in line.”
Min, a resident of the Outer Richmond, had heard of the event through a friend, one of the organizers. She said she appreciates Farrell’s ideas, but doesn’t understand how he would implement them. “I don’t see their plan,” she said. Regarding those encampments he talked about, she asked, “Where do you put those people?”
Guests left the gathering two hours later with goodie bags: Toys for the children; Mark Farrell tote bags, sunglasses and posters for the adults. Some of the latter were certain that Farrell would be their first pick in November, but others left not quite convinced.
I am so glad Mr. Farrell got to live in his SF apartment 54 years. I cannot feel that glad
however as I was just evicted from my SF apartment after 49 years.
So sorry for you! Was it even a legal eviction?
Funny how Mr. Farrell never speaks on tenant issues. Well, not funny, as he “paid a record fine of $25,000 after his first supervisor campaign was found to have illegally coordinated with a committee funded by real estate magnate Thomas Coates and socialite and philanthropist Dede Wilsey,” according to the SF Standard. And as Mission Local reported, billionaire-backed TogetherSF is “guiding the ship” of his campaign.
Of the candidates, only Aaron Peskin has a track record of fighting for existing tenants–the majority of folks in this town. Farrell would be a disaster.