District 8 candidates mimicking each other
Sheehy moves toward left, Mandelman toward center
The June race to represent San Francisco’s District Eight — a checkerboard of upscale neighborhoods that includes the Castro, Noe Valley and Glen Park — was supposed to pit a low-key, centrist incumbent against a progressive outsider.
But the two candidates have apparently switched places. When moderate Supervisor
Jeff Sheehy and his more liberal challenger, Rafael Mandelman, spoke at separate Chronicle editorial board meetings this week, it was Sheehy who spouted controversial ideas about City Hall and Mandelman who presented a more conventional platform.
In response to questions, Sheehy didn’t have a problem with the idea of cutting supervisors’ salaries to $25,000 a year, making the job more about civic service rather than a career. He also floated the idea of killing off instant runoff voting.
And striking down district elections in favor of supervisors being elected at-large sounded pretty good to him as well.
The supervisor also suggested he’d be just as happy losing the race as winning it.
“I’m an activist, not a politician,” he said, after a Chronicle editor pointed to his revolving carousel of campaign consultants. “So if you asked me if I’m obsessed with getting elected — no,” Sheehy said.
Mandelman — popularly seen as the firebrand — looked measured, by comparison. He said he wants to increase conservatorship of the mentally ill and build housing on the Safeway parking lot at Market and Church streets. He’s even open to hiring more police officers, a stance not normally taken by the city’s progressives. Sheehy also supports beefing up the police force and building housing on parking lots.
“Whatever the progressive-moderate divide is in City Hall seems to be very confused right now,” Mandelman told the editorial board, presenting himself as a peacemaker who would form relationships across party lines.
The way the two candidates are positioning themselves signals a remarkable shift from last year, when Sheehy was appointed by Mayor Ed Lee to fill the seat left vacant when Scott Wiener was elected to the state Senate. Several others were under consideration for the office, but Sheehy was seen as the most mature, the most likely to continue Wiener’s moderate policies and the person with the best odds of beating Mandelman.
Lee and others valued Sheehy’s independent streak, thinking he would show it by standing up to the progressives.
But after Lee’s unexpected death in December, Sheehy broke away from his moderate allies. He became the crucial swing vote in a progressive coup to install Mark Farrell in the mayor’s office, unseating London Breed, who is the moderate pick for mayor in the June 5 race.
Sheehy said he had no choice but to vote for Farrell — he said the supervisors couldn’t let Breed remain acting mayor while still serving as the president of the board of supervisors — a move that led former backers to turn against him and abandon his District Eight campaign.
The supervisor stood by that decision, even if it means he’ll leave City Hall in June. — Rachel Swan
Kim proposal dies: Supervisor Jane Kim’s request for $2.5 million in supplemental funding to clean up San Francisco’s streets was left for dead Thursday morning, after the board’s Budget and Finance Subcommittee continued it.
Kim, who is running for mayor in June, never prioritized street cleaning as a district supervisor. But now she’s made it the centerpiece of her campaign.
She hit resistance from committee chair Malia Cohen and Farrell, who agreed with the need for additional street cleaners but asked that Kim advocate for funding within the normal budget process.
Cohen insisted Thursday that the item isn’t done yet. She’ll bring it back if Farrell doesn’t put any street cleaning money in his budget.
— Rachel Swan