Former San Francisco Mayors Call for Investigation Into Mark Farrell’s Campaign Financing

Updated 1:45 p.m. Monday

Former San Francisco mayors Willie Brown, Art Agnos, Frank Jordan and other retired city officials are calling for an investigation into Mark Farrell’s campaign financing for mayor.

Nine former city officials and attorneys signed the letter submitted to the San Francisco district attorney and state attorney general, outlining ethical lapses that Farrell, a former interim mayor and supervisor, has been accused of in his current bid for mayor.

The letter comes amid escalating tensions and political hits in the race as polling shows no clear front-runner with election day just four weeks away.

“We urge you to investigate and take action now before the election,” the letter reads. “If you fail to act promptly, Mark Farrell will have exploited inaction by ethics officials and law enforcement authorities alike to unlawfully funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign for mayor and perhaps prevail as a result.”

Farrell has faced a series of ethics complaints around his campaign’s finances, most recently around his affiliation with Proposition D, which aims to slash the number of city commissions. The measure was proposed by the moderate political organizing group TogetherSF, which is also endorsing Farrell.

Individual campaign donations to candidates are capped at $500, but those limits don’t apply to ballot measures. Proposition D has raised millions of dollars from tech billionaires like Michael Moritz, and opponents allege that Farrell is using the funding intended for the ballot measure to boost his mayoral campaign by appearing in commercials and mailers for the measure.

The former supervisor has defended his strategies, saying they are legal and were reviewed by his legal team.

“As soon as I became the frontrunner for Mayor, my opponents started attacking me because they know that I have the courage and experience to make the tough choices to turn San Francisco around after six years of failed leadership,” Farrell said in a statement. “I lead both campaigns and make no apologies about it. I have disclosed everything from the beginning. Every penny for our shared expenses has been accounted for and disclosed.”

During his bid for supervisor in 2010, Farrell was hit with the city’s largest ethics fine to date — $191,000 for alleged illegal coordination with an independent expenditure committee. He later settled and paid the city $25,000.

The mayors backing the letter calling for an investigation into Farrell’s mayoral campaign have also all signaled their support for other candidates: Brown is backing incumbent Mayor London Breed, Agnos is backing Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Jordan is backing nonprofit founder Daniel Lurie.

“It is silly season in San Francisco politics and voters should see right through this blatant coordinated attempt by my political opponents,” Farrell said. “Each of these former Mayors has endorsed one of my political opponents in this race, and this is nothing but pure political tactics, and it is shameful.”

Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University, called the letter a “political hit” in the increasingly tense race.

“These are complaints we have been hearing from [Farrell’s] opponents for a couple of months now. The weaponization of ethics charges is a very common thing in San Francisco politics. I’m not saying it’s never called for, but I’ve seen it in about every campaign,” McDaniel said.

“It’s possible that Mark Farrell has opened himself up to this — there has been a slow drip of these stories,” he added. “But this letter is obviously designed to affect the campaign and we need to be careful of what actual ethics processes play out.”

In addition to the mayors, former City Attorney Louise Renne, former Supervisor Angela Alioto, former state Sen. Mark Leno, retired Judge Quentin Kopp, and attorneys John Keker and Randy Knox signed the letter.

“San Francisco won’t see the change it desperately needs by replacing one corrupt City Hall insider with another,” said campaign consultant Tyler Law in a campaign email for Lurie responding to the letter. “They built and exploited a corrupt bureaucracy, and now they’re telling voters they’re the only ones that can fix it. San Franciscans aren’t buying it.”