Mayoral candidate Mark Farrell is surging toward Election Day on a wave of strong polling and fat coffers — but new attention on his history of ethics violations is threatening to upturn the final sprint in his race.
Last week, three former San Francisco mayors called for the city and state to investigate Farrell, a former two-term supervisor who served as mayor of the city for a few months in 2018, over alleged violations of campaign finance rules.
On Oct. 8, former mayors Willie Brown, Frank Jordan, and Art Agnos sent a letter to SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, alleging that Farrell is using a supposedly independent committee he founded to support Proposition D, a policy that would cut back the number of city commissions and speed up policy decisions, to “launder” and illegally funnel donations to his campaign. It cites recent critical reports by the San Francisco Chronicle and Mission Local to justify an investigation.
Ballot measure committees are allowed to put out mailers, flyers, and ads that feature a candidate supporting the measure, as long as they don’t mention the candidate’s run for office. Candidates can found and operate such ballot measure committees, but the funds they raise that way must be kept strictly separate from their electoral campaign finances.
It’s not Farrell’s first rodeo when it comes to allegations of campaign funding misconduct. Such instances stretch back more than a decade, and paint a portrait of a politician who is not shy about blurring lines when it comes to money and relationships during election season.
Here’s a timeline of the scandals since Farrell first took office in 2010.
2010 election: In November, Farrell, then a political newbie with a background as a venture capital executive, beat frontrunner Janet Reilly to take over the supervisor seat in District 2. He won by just 258 votes, which enraged Reilly and sparked scrutiny over how the race was won.
Reilly ultimately accused Farrell’s campaign manager, Chris Lee, of quietly coordinating with an independent committee to send out anti-Reilly mailers that could’ve tipped the scales. The committee, dubbed Common Sense Ventures, spent $191,000 in the final leg of the election, all of it from two sources: $141,000 from real estate juggernaut Thomas Coates, and $50,000 from socialite Dede Wilsey.
The state Fair Political Practices Commission found Lee at fault and cleared Farrell of wrongdoing — but under stricter city law, the San Francisco Ethics Commission decreed that Farrell was ultimately responsible. In 2015, the Ethics Commission demanded that Farrell pay back the full $191,000. Farrell then sued the city, calling the conflict a “witch hunt.”
In 2016, Farrell settled the case with a $25,000 payment to the city.
From 2016 to 2018: In 2016, Farrell ran for a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee, the governing arm of the local Democratic Party. It’s a common tactic for political candidates because of a quirk in DCCC fundraising: It has no contribution limits.
After the race ended, Farrell used the remaining funds to pay for more than three dozen swanky meals with unnamed “DCCC constituents,” spending thousands of dollars at a time, according to a San Francisco Standard investigation.
He also kept accepting large donations to the account from groups that would normally be restricted to just $500 if they gave to his official electoral campaigns. That included a $5,000 payment from a political action committee that represents city waste collection contractor Recology, as well as $2,500 from Polk Street eatery Mayes Oyster House — both received in March 2018.
Not long after receiving the Recology donation, Farrell appointed Paul Giusti, a Recology exec, to the Treasure Island Development Authority; Giusti would later be found guilty in a separate $1 million city bribery scandal. In June of that year, he appointed Mayes Oyster House co-owner Matt Corvi to the city’s Small Business Commission. Corvi told the Standard that he was not aware of the donation.
May 2024: An investigation by Mission Local discovered a text message that alluded to Mark Farrell potentially coordinating with a powerful political advocacy group, irking fellow mayoral candidates and raising questions of collusion.
TogetherSF is one the city’s most prolific and monied political groups — it got Prop D on the November ballot, for example — and also one with longstanding ties to Farrell. Its leader, Kanishka Cheng, worked for Farrell when he was supervisor.
The text message, sent by Farrell campaign consultant Margaux Kelly (a former staffer with TogetherSF) suggested that Cheng was directly involved in Farrell’s run for office. “Do you want me to set up time to meet with Mark?” Kelly wrote to an unknown recipient in February. “Happy to do so. Me, Jess and Kanishka are guiding the ship.”
(“Jess” refers to Farrell campaign spokesperson Jess Montejano.)
The phrase “guiding the ship” sparked criticism from other politicos, including Aaron Peskin, who wrote to Cheng lambasting TogetherSF for “extremely partisan” tactics. He pulled out of a debate planned by the group, and the entire debate was canceled after Breed followed Peskin’s lead.
Farrell would go on to receive the group’s endorsement.
June 2024: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Farrell was using a supposedly independent ballot measure committee supporting Prop D to pay for mayoral campaign expenses.
Farrell has billed Prop D as a way to reduce the number of city commissions and cut back on bureaucratic oversight of mayoral actions. He oversees the Prop D ballot measure committee — as he is allowed to — but is under fire for blurring the lines between paying for his mayoral campaign versus the Prop D committee, as detailed by two separate news investigations.
As of today, Farrell’s Prop D committee has collected more than $2.3 million in funding, including $500,000 from venture capitalist (and Standard financier) Michael Moritz, $200,000 from mega-investor John Pritzker, and $195,000 from the conservative billionaire William Oberndorf, who has been a force in recent San Francisco recalls.
September 2024: Political materials paid for by ballot measure committees are subject to strict rules on content, and must focus on the proposed legislation, not on a candidate or general public issues.
In September, Farrell’s Prop D committee sent a mailer that seemingly violated the rules. On one side is a smiling Farrell, with a quote urging voters to support a common-sense way to cut red tape in City Hall. On the flip side of the mailer is an image of Farrell with a very different quote: “As interim mayor, I targeted drug dealing and cleared all large tent encampments in just six months. But since then, our leaders have failed us.”
There is no mention of Prop D, and Farrell’s opponents argued that his quote has nothing to do with bureaucracy. “It talks about being interim mayor, being a Democrat, all those things. It replicates his campaign messaging,” Tom Willis, campaign counsel for London Breed, told Mission Local.
October 2024: Farrell apparently forgot to disclose that he owes $675,000 to a wealthy San Francisco businessman, according to a Chronicle report. The loan was given to him by Paul Danielsen through a family trust, and Farrell used the money to buy the Danielsen family’s home in Jordan Park for just under $5 million.
Farrell failed to note the loan in the paperwork he filed for his mayoral run this year. He told the Chronicle that he is remedying the mistake, and claimed he is able to pay back the loan at any time.
