Agnos & Brown Give Some Advice for Would-be Mayors

Willie Brown, Art Agnos, Lurie & Peskin Talk Experience

We talked to several living former mayors and two 2024 candidates about what it takes to be mayor of San Francisco.

It’s a recurring dream. You’re sitting in a chair behind a desk and the papers tower in front of you, words like ISCOTT and Charter Section 8A.102 swimming by. The good people of San Francisco have elected you mayor, and it turns out it’s a little more involved than wearing a top hat and sash and barking at your department heads to do their jobs.

For most of us, this will remain a nightmare. But for four candidates for mayor in 2024, this might turn into reality. We’re nearing the end, kids. Election Day is flying toward us and so is our next mayor, whose silhouette is still unclear. But this isn’t the intro to a Pokémon episode. There’s corruption, infighting, misogynoir, betrayal, and allegations. 

Outsiders

And then there’s a candidate who claims to be from the outside: Daniel Lurie. While he has an M.P.P. from Cal, he’s never held a political office. He was tapped to lead a Super Bowl (football thing) committee. But Lurie hasn’t passed any resolutions. He hasn’t won his spurs on the Board of Supervisors. He’s never even been a legislative aide. 

Daniel Lurie has so little on public record that until recently even his birthday was unknown. It was finally added to his Wikipedia on August 29th, 2024. At least now we know his star sign! He’s an Aquarius. Slay!

It’s time to examine what it takes to be mayor. Before we begin: BrokeAssStuart.com is helmed by the honorable Stuart Schuffman, who ran a wildly successful (in our opinion) mayoral campaign in 2015 and ultimately lost to Mayor Ed Lee. He was unavailable for comment for this piece.

What it Takes to be Mayor

Experience, relationship-building, the dance with the Board of Supervisors. Which candidates are prepared and which will have their work cut out for them? The job requires sundry duties (ha! We said duties.) 

The City Charter is a little boring. But one thing is abundantly clear from it: Whoever becomes Mayor needs to be the kind of sick fuck who likes reading a dense charter. And hopefully they should understand it too. 

Jokes aside, the Mayor has a serious job. When we talked with housing policy experts earlier this fall, they said the mayor was the one most important votes if you care about affordable housing. They also said Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin was the only one who could slog through the process on behalf of the city and get us to meet our state mandated goals, but that’s a story for another time. 

The mayor also needs to be able to speak to constituents. All of the varieties of constituents. They should be able to appoint staff to key positions. And they should be capable of and willing to speak to members of the press, including BrokeAssStuart.com. 

For this piece, we reached out to every living former mayor and all the major candidates for mayor. Only two candidates responded (BoS President Aaron Peskin and nonprofit executive Daniel Lurie). Da Mayor and Arthur Christ Agnos (aka Art Agnos, the one with the prettiest signature known to mankind) have some advice, which we’ll stick at the end.

Lurie

Here’s the full statement from Lurie’s campaign:

“The definition of insanity is electing the same people over and over again and expecting a different result. I have dedicated my career to fighting poverty and tackling our city’s biggest issues. In doing so, I’ve helped house over 40,000 people, built shelter and housing at a fraction of the city’s cost and time, attracted events that generated hundreds of millions for the local economy, and made major investments in proven crime-reduction programs. 

As mayor, I will prioritize making San Francisco more affordable so that individuals, families, and creatives can live, work, and thrive here. I’m committed to bringing new and accountable ideas to tackle our city’s biggest challenges.” 

Peskin

Supervisor Peskin gave BrokeAssStuart.com readers a full interview. 

Bunny McFadden: Name and title for the record?

Aaron Peskin: “My name is Aaron Peskin, and my title is ‘friendly person.’ 

BM: What experiences have you had which have prepared you for this job?

AP: “In many ways my entire life prepared me for this job…” 

[Peskin provides an incredibly in-depth list of his experiences, including nonprofit negotiator who found real estate for more public parks, long serving member of the Board of Supervisors, California Coastal Commission and Bay Conservation and Development Commission, Golden Gate Bridge Board….] “I guess I missed one thing, Bunny, which is [that I’m] eternally curious about how things work and always trying to be a problem-solver about how to fix things and make them better. 

Politics is a combination of public policy and negotiation to get the best result.”

BM: For those who have never worked in City Hall: What are the unwritten rules of where you work?

AP: “There are all sorts of unwritten traditional understandings and practices. I don’t know where to begin but I can sum them up by saying that they’re all a function of common sense. 

There is an unwritten rule that when there’s something going on in a supervisor’s district, not a city-wide issue, that the practice is for the other supervisors to defer to the wishes of the district supervisor on the theory that they are held directly accountable by the voters in that district, and that we should give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a district-specific issue. It’s not written anywhere but it’s common sense. It’s about respect.”

BM: You seem to like the boring part of politics, things that would put others to sleep. Have you ever fallen asleep at work? How do you stay connected with your work when it gets tedious?

AP: “A lot of running a city and being good is about attention to minute details. Most of this job is not glamorous. It’s just a ton of hard, boring work that you just have to chip away at. I have a couch in my office that I’ve been known to take a catnap on from time to time, but you’ve got to have a lot of stamina. You work long hours. 

Some people (including some elected officials) think that being a supervisor or mayor is all about getting your picture taken and going to ribbon cuttings. That does not make for a good mayor or supervisor. Yeah, you have to give respect to communities and show up. But the lion’s share, if you’re gonna do a good job, a lot of it is just working.”

BM: As mayor, what would you do in a zombie apocalypse?

AP: “I would immediately watch a rerun of Invasion of the Body Snatchers for instructions.”

BM: If you aren’t elected mayor what do you plan to do with your free time?

AP: “I have for most of my adult life worked with Native American Indian tribes to help them repatriate their land and water rights. I would be back at that full time.”

BM: There’s a joke about NYC. The rats run the city. Who or what runs the city here in San Francisco?

AP: “I will tell you the rats in San Francisco are a handful of rightwing billionaires who don’t give a rat’s ass about democracy or inclusion. [They’re] pushing The City in the wrong direction, and the names of those rats are Michael Moritz, Bill Oberndorf, Garry Tan, and Elon Musk.”

BM: The other day you reported a crime from your Prius and people on twitter got mad that you were driving. Why do you have such dedicated haters? What’s the funniest thing they’ve hated on you for?

AP: “I don’t know. You’d have to ask the haters. I kind of like my 2005 Toyota Prius that has 159,618 miles on it. We are a two person, one car family. I mostly walk and take the bus, but when you’re running for mayor and bouncing around from Stonestown to the Bayview to the Marina. 

The haters are gonna hate. I actually find that most San Franciscans don’t want to tear this city down. They want to take things that are good and build on them and make them better. But the aforementioned rats have poisoned minds. Let the haters hate. My job is to spread the love and make The City better.”

BM: Sources say Breed has lost control of her departments, and the infighting and low morale is having a huge impact on how the city functions. The same sources say you would do a good job but you won’t win. Do you think you’ll win? And how will you get everyone back on the same page?

AP: “Number one, I think that we are gonna surprise some people. We have rank choice voting. If people think that I’m the best candidate, they should vote for me first. That’s exactly why we have rank choice voting. You can vote for the person you think is best, first. Even if you don’t think that person will win. And if everyone votes for me first, I’ll win. 

The second answer is there’s a lot of work to do, but the most important work is to change the tone at City Hall from a petty and vindictive, divisive tone, to really harness the smarts and expertise and potential of 33,000 city employees and a population that loves this city and turn that into positive energy under some serious adult, mature supervision and that’s what I’m offering.

Apropos of nothing, I think that the politics of hate, division, and fear that have been normalized by Donald Trump and the wacko right wing in America has in many ways precipitated down to San Francisco and aided and abetted by some self-interested billionaires and the movements they represent that are largely the very powerful landlord and real estate industries. 

We have to reject that narrative and embrace San Francisco’s history and future as a diverse, equitable, and affordable city and tell billionaires to get packing.” 

It’s too bad we didn’t hear from the other candidates! Mark Farrell was mayor for a whole 169 days and probably has a ton of advice and insight from his lengthy tenure. Mayor Breed also didn’t respond, but she’s probably a bit busy. 

Brown

The esteemed Mayor Willie Brown granted BrokeAssStuart.com an interview. 

Bunny McFadden: What was the most important experience you had on your resume when you entered office as mayor? 

Mayor Willie Brown: “I really don’t know. I don’t think I could tell you exactly. When I became the mayor, I’d already been running an operation for the State of California for 14 and a half years. I was already 60 years old, so I was pretty far down the line in terms of life experiences. There’s no particular one that I would say.” 

BM: Anything that wasn’t on your resume that helped?

WB: “I think that the sum total of my education, my experience as a lawyer, my experience in the legislature, and my heading that body for 14.5 years equipped me to do what needs to be done for The City and make the decisions for The City.”

BM: Did any other former mayors give you advice? What was it? 

WB: “No, not really. I did not seek any advice from any former mayors. There’s been two or three that supported my candidacy and gave me encouragement to run in the hope that I’d be able to do the job that they expected me to do based on their observations of me in my other capacities, electorally speaking.” 

BM: What does a prospective mayor need to know from day one?

WB: “I think anyone who seeks the job of mayor needs to know how to interact with people from all walks of life with all kinds of views. [They] need to have a grasp on how to run a major firm, i.e. The City.”

BM: In your opinion, does someone who hasn’t held a political office stand a chance beyond Election Day in the day-to-day aspects of the job? 

WB: “I do believe that people who are trained as I was trained, educationally, at SF State, and then at UC Law School, and then represent[ing] people who had all kinds of claims against each other, businesses, and organizations – the sum total of all of that I think, equipped me to get elected to public office and then to hold public office. But above all else, I was a constant listener. I listened to everything everybody said or recommended. I digested it. And I did what I needed to do if it was helpful in decision-making.” 

BM: Any advice for whoever wins this election?

WB: “Above all else, you’ve got to listen. You’ve got to be totally candid with reverence to everybody at every level.” 

Agnos

Mayor Art Agnos was a little more blunt in his emailed response:

Bunny McFadden: What was the most important experience you had on your resume when you entered office as mayor? Anything that wasn’t on your resume that helped?

Mayor Art Agnos: Resume: My experience in government as a California State Assemblyperson. Not on resume:  25 years of engagement with SF neighborhoods.  

BM: Did any other former mayors give you advice? What was it?   

AA: Do not listen to pundits and polls.

BM: What does a prospective mayor need to know from day one?

AA: How to manage and motivate a bureaucracy [built] around a thousand citizen commissions and citizen bodies and 30,000 civil servants in the bureaucracy.

BM: In your opinion, does someone who hasn’t held a political office stand a chance beyond Election Day in the day-to-day aspects of the job?  

AA: No, but they will try to fake it until they make it.

On that note, good luck to the top four candidates. May the most prepared person win.