Episode 1: Welcome To The As Mayor Podcast

Introduction: On Episode 1, Richie Greenberg gives insight and background to  San Francisco's office of the mayor, London Breed, and relates the experiences he personally faced since moving to the city in 2001. Why a need for this podcast in the first place? He explains why, and how this year, 2024, eyes will be firmly on the mayor's race culminating in a November Election Day defeat for London Breed.

Send your questions, comments and concerns to: comments@asmayor.com

Transcript

Welcome to the first episode of What Would Richie Greenberg Do As Mayor? Podcast, introducing me, yours truly, my background and why undertake producing this podcast in the first place?

 Eyes have been on San Francisco for many years, and as our city slowly slips into criminal chaos, fiscal grifting and mismanagement, and a doom-loop scenario, scrutiny of our mayor London Breed has been getting harsher, and condemnation of her has been getting stronger. And it’s well deserved.

This year, 2024, is a mayoral election year. The last election with a wide-open seat for mayor was in 2018, when previous mayor Ed Lee was in office and he suddenly died late one night, setting off a widely covered competition of eight candidates, including yours truly. London Breed won, and with thought there was another election the year after, she handily won with little media attention. There were no serious candidates opposing her.

We should've had a mayoral election last November, November 2023, but due to a ballot measure in 2022 which voters approved, last year's election was delayed to this year, coming up this November 2024.

Since mayor Breed's 2018 victory, the city of San Francisco has been slipping further and further, accelerated by how she handled the Covid pandemic and lockdowns in 2020, the Black Lives Matter riots in the summer of 2020, the defunding of our police department, the continued looting of our retail shops even til today and so much more. Confidence in her ability to lead San Francisco has fallen sharply, numerous scandals of associates of hers with corruption, trials and jail time adds to the environment Mayor Breed is in deep trouble and has lost control of the narrative and the city. The mayor is supposed to be in charge and have oversight of city hall. And that's why challengers have now emerged, some credible and serious, to oppose her re-election later this year. And that's why media is paying attention to the leading challengers this time. Public sentiment says, London Breed has got to go.

A little about my background:

I moved to San Francisco at the height of the dot com bubble's burst, late 2001, coming up here from Los Angeles.

At first, I was a business consultant and worked independently out of a small office on California Street in the downtown Financial District. I had first-hand experience with clients who loved the city but regretted the economic downturn resulting from that round of tech companies going bust. Were you here in San Francisco back then as well?  Remember those days of restaurants closing for a private party?  Twenty-something kids driving Lamborghinis purchased by investors’ funds based on mere startup ideas. 

Well, that all came to a crashing halt as VC investors realized a cool idea alone wasn’t a good return on investment and so they shut off funding in a cascading effect. 

The city came back fairly quickly though, and returned to the bustle of offices, night clubs, and apartment rents along with office occupancy rates were nearing its highs once again. There was a nationwide housing boom. But hiding in the shadows was a looming meltdown, the subprime mortgage crisis which led to a market crash, bank failures, eventually the great recession starting 2007 through the early 2010's . 

San Francisco was hit hard. Businesses which relied on finance saw an exodus from the city, we had vacancies of apartments and storefronts. But once again, we slowly came back.

Technology was on the forefront of economic recovery. But many of today's tech giants were already leaving San Francisco by then, due to unfavorable taxes, In response, then-mayor Ed Lee brokered a "Twitter Tax", a tax break for startups to assist them come to or, or stay, in the city. The results were mixed, and in hindsight, the Twitter Tax deal clearly kept many in city hall busy looking for ways to recoup business taxes in other ways.

Personally, my business stayed the course, and my consulting was specialized enough to survive the rollercoaster ride. But by 2015, I began to pay attention to our city’s policies and politics as conditions on the streets worsened again.

Before 2015, I was too tied up with enjoying life, travelling, friends, family and working to give any thought to how city hall was functioning and governing San Francisco. But that year was a turning point for me, spending so much time in the downtown Financial District. I saw as more homeless were on the streets, graffiti on newly vacant storefronts appeared with regularity, crime was on the upswing, and local papers reported on the trials and tribulations San Franciscans were facing, pressing officials for solutions.

I began to take note, learning more about the city’s mayor and city council, which we call the Board of Supervisors. I learned more about the police chief, the district attorney, what ballot measures were being floated for the next election day and who was running for office. 

It was overwhelming, as I hadn’t paid attention before.  

But seeing my hard-earned money being taxed yet things were slowing going downhill just didn’t seem right to me. 

So, in 2018, I ran for mayor. The spotlight on the final eight candidates for office was an experience few people have gone through. I was up for the challenge and though I was an unknown, I did garner 22,399 votes overall, in the city’s ranked choice voting system. I knew that what I was saying resonated with voters. And though I did not win, (current mayor London Breed won, and is still mayor, running for reelection this November 2024), my experience on the campaign trail, moving about the city appear on stage with the rest of the pack of candidates, at debates and forums, solidified the need for me to be vocal, to be an advocate and activist. I earned the ear of the media as well, being interviewed by radio, TV and newspapers. I must tell you, being the Republican candidate back then was no easy feat, and many journalist and activists tried to paint me as all sorts of terrible things. Of course, the rumors and accusations were wrong, and much of what I’ve predicted would happen over the years has come true.

Covid hit in March 2020 and mayor London Breed declared our city in lockdown. The stay at home order of March 16th, 2020, remained in varying levels of closed, partly open, closed again, partly open, open for some categories and not others, masks required, vaccine required, mask requirements lifted and so on, a roller-coaster through 2022

The summer of 2020 saw the tragic death of George Floyd and riots, protests across the nation, and mass looting hit San Francisco’s Union Square and surrounding streets. The police department was defunded. Statues and monuments in the park were torn down, the economy was shuttered and shattered, workers moved to either a work from home routine or fled to more open cities. A rogue district attorney, Chesa Boudin, was in power who sided with criminals over law abiding citizens, and several racist public school board commissioners, together with Boudin, were successfully recalled.

These were the darkest hours of San Francisco in a generation.

But we have not recovered. Remnants still linger. As of March 2024, we as a city are stagnating and declining. Our downtown financial district has the highest rate of vacant offices of any major city in America. Tourism barely returning and conventions and expos still shun the city. 

Car break-in are sky high, nearly 54 per day. Drug dealers cater to the needs of addicts, tents blocking sidewalks and activists organizations are demanding more cash from our government to sustain an unthinkable, inhumane status quo. 

San Francisco under mayor London Breed is a bizarre, upside down, taxpayers' money-wasting catastrophe.

As mayor, I would have plans and proposals to take immediate action, addressing the most urgent issues of crime, drug dealing, the city budget, transportation and how to bring an end to the doom loop caused by Mayor Breed and city hall’s elected and appointed officials.

San Francisco needs closure. We need resolution to the concerns of the hard-working, law-abiding citizens of this city who have been suffering for years before Covid til now.

So, buckle up! Get ready for a journey together with me as I outline how I would handle leading the city of San Francisco, as mayor.