Looking for an Alternative to London Breed? You Have Options — Technically
The ugly episode involving mayoral candidate Ellen Lee Zhou’s so-brazenly-racist-you-almost-can’t-believe-anyone-would-ever-think-otherwise billboard in SoMa has brought up a curious question: Is there any viable alternative to Mayor London Breed in the election that is now only 12 days away?
Breed, who took office as acting mayor after the death of Ed Lee and won a 2018 election to finish out his term, is cruising to a full four years in her own right. (In theory, she could be San Francisco’s chief executive until 2029, when she’d be termed out.) But with a mixed record on homelessness — for every genuinely courageous or even noble move, like standing up for the Embarcadero Navigation Center, there is a counterweight, like the gratuitously vicious encampment sweeps — plus iffy decisions like the Suzy Loftus interim-D.A. appointment, progressive San Franciscans may be casting about for alternatives.
Officially, Breed has five challengers: Ellen Lee Zhou, Wilma Pang, Joel Ventresca, Paul Ybarra Robertson, and Robert L. Jordan Jr. None of them is nearly as widely known as former Supervisors Mark Leno and Jane Kim, whose defeats in 2018 likely scared off any major challengers this time.
Brokeassstuart.com has made no endorsement in S.F.’s low-wattage mayoral race. (Neither did the League of Pissed-Off Voters, for that matter.) We’re not going to change that now. And let’s be frank: Breed could probably shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue — in the Inner Richmond, that is — and still win by double digits. But if you’re not a Breed supporter and you’re fishing around for a protest vote, you have options aside from writing in “Deez Nuts” or leaving it blank altogether.
SF Mayoral Candidates 2019:
Ellen Lee Zhou
Even if the horrendous billboard incident weren’t absolutely disqualifying, the Trump-supporting, pro-NRA Republican is probably a poor choice, just as she was last time. (Zhou ran for mayor in 2018, taking fifth place and garnering 3.8 percent of the vote.) A social worker, union rep, Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (N.E.R.T.) member, and Sunday school teacher, she is certain civic-minded, but her Twitter account reads like that of an incel in the Central Time Zone who hates San Francisco even though he’s never been here once. Her biographical submission to Ballotpedia uses troubling language about the city residents being “brainwashed” by the prevailing elite, and Zhou’s core beliefs are fundamentally at odds with the city she wishes to govern.
Fun fact: Zhou is a member of Morse Lodge 257, which meets in that Odd Fellows Hall building at the corner of Market and Seventh streets you’ve probably wondered about.
Wilma Pang
An opera singer and musician who’s run for office several times before, Pang seems to be a rather parochial candidate who’s in it largely for the safety of Chinatown seniors and to increase tourism to revitalize that neighborhood. “I run for everything,” she told KALW, unable to definitively list all her campaigns and going on to mention subsidized housing for families and training more Muni drivers as things S.F. needs. But with such a Chinatown-specific campaign, it seems like Pang might be a more plausible fit for District 3 supervisor. Which she actually ran for, in 2013. But as a performer, she can sing in French, German, and Cantonese.
Fun fact: Pang claims she once got ticketed for singing in Portsmouth Square without a permit.
Joel Ventresca
Here’s someone with some progressive ideas. Using revenue bonds, Ventresca wants to see public transit become free, and make S.F. carbon-neutral in 10 years’ time by opening solar farms on publicly owned land outside the city. (Hey, bashing PG&E in 2019 is like running a pro-motherhood campaign.) Telling KALW that he wants to see guaranteed shelters for the unhoused — some might be tents in parks, though — along with substance-abuse treatment for all who want it, he seems like an empathetic person. But his remarks about “Manhattanization” around Golden Gate Park, however, sound like a rehash of 1980s density panic mixed with a possible dog-whistle to NIMBYs who really, really don’t want that former McDonald’s on Haight to become housing. Showing a dispassionate, wonky side, he calls Donald Trump an “abomination,” noting that the president’s climate-change denialism is probably his worst fault. Oh, and he’s a retired administrative analyst for SFO, and for the Aging Commission before that.
Fun fact: Ventresca wants to convert the Presidio to a second United Nations, this one focused on reversing climate change.
Paul Ybarra Robertson
Finally, someone with a campaign website that looks like a real person made it! Unfortunately, this particular website is filled with all-caps phrases like “NO NEIGHBORHOOD NAVIGATION CENTERS,” and “LET’S TAKE OUR PARKING BACK.” (To be fair, it also has pictures of him as a teenager.) An ex-Marine and ex-mailman with an M.A. in counseling from USF, Ybarra Robertson is also a pro-car, anti-bike lane populist, relating a sort of talk radio-lite appeal to the harried commuter in all of us — sometimes with rather purple prose. On the subject of potholes, he writes, ”Like Jack the Ripper they lurk in the dark to rip the tread from your tire and like a vampire they lie in wait to sink their hardened, sharpened, inches thick, asphalt teeth into your tires.” He even wants to cut $100 million from the homeless budget and reallocate it toward repaving all city streets in four years. Hey, Harvey Milk won a seat on the Board of Supervisors by railing against dog poop, right?
Fun fact: Ybarra Robertson had just arrived in San Francisco when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck. He was in an elevator on the 12th floor at that very moment.
Robert L. Jordan Jr.
Between his comparatively common name and nonexistent online presence, we really struggled to come up with much information on Breed’s fifth challenger. The Chronicle quotes Jordan as a “street minister, [who] describes himself as “a hard worker with no ego. I think this is my year.” In 2010, CBS spoke to a 63-year-old Robert Jordan who filed paperwork for the forthcoming election and said, “My name is Robert Jordan, I sing, I’m running for mayor of San Francisco” and whose resume included “stints as a professional boxer and a security guard, though when he launched his campaign, he was unemployed.” In his candidate statement in the city’s official voter guide, Jordan cites rat removal on the 300 block of Eddy Street as one of his accomplishments, and claims responsibility for the city’s first Asian-American mayor (Lee).
Fun fact: Assuming these Robert Jordans are the same person, he has wanted to run for mayor ever since touring City Hall as a student, in 1958.
Voting Day is Tuesday, November 5th 2019
BAS 2019 Voting Guide Here
