The Mayor Should Be a Great Boss

They say people don’t quit jobs, they quit bad managers. When you have a bad manager, you know it. You know it because you can’t get out of bed in the morning. You can’t speak your mind because you don’t trust you’ll be listened to. You can’t get good results because there are roadblocks in your way and no one to help clear them.

A good manager, on the other hand, can see the mechanics of their team like a doctor studying an X-Ray, collapsing inefficiencies, lightening workloads, and nipping bad dynamics in the bud. Tim Cook and Lisa Su are transformational leaders who got there by being world class operators. 

We’ve endorsed Mark Farrell for mayor because he’s a leader who is also a good manager. Our CEO Kanishka Cheng was a legislative aide to Mark when he was a supervisor—she was one of only four aides who ever worked for Mark, because unlike many other politicians, he had so little staff turnover. She remembers quarterly staff off-sites to define and measure goals. She remembers Mark actually reading department heads’ budgets and policy proposals in their entirety before meeting with them—and no, this is not common practice among all of our elected officials. She also remembers the way he valued a spirit of cooperation across the aisle. 

All the candidates have big plans to fix San Francisco, but Mark is the only one talking about the factor that makes or breaks what gets done: what kind of manager they would be. Mark has said it’s important to him that his team comes to work in-person five days a week to ensure maximum clarity and cooperation: “I want to work and govern our city the right way, and that means holding every department head accountable.”

“All the candidates have big plans to fix San Francisco, but Mark is the only one talking about the factor that makes or breaks what gets done: what kind of manager they would be.”

The election season rumor mill is saying our team is “biased” towards Mark because some of us have worked for him. But we think it’s the opposite. Just think of a boss or teacher who had a major impact on your life and career. If they were running for mayor, wouldn’t you stake your name on supporting them? It’s precisely our team’s experience in City Hall that qualifies us to endorse Mark’s ability to right this massive ship. 

The Mayor is the Boss of Every City Department—And Their Leaders

City Hall is an arcane maze of red tape. But if you peel it all back, the org chart is not all that different from other big workplaces. Think of the mayor as the CEO, and the department heads as the VPs or directors.

And these departments are in turn directly responsible for the things we as residents experience. The Department of Public Health is in charge of our city’s response to the public health aspect of the fentanyl crisis. The Department of Public Works is responsible for the cleanliness of our streets. And so on. 

“It’s easy to identify the city’s issues. It’s even easy to lay out a plan to fix them. But actually executing the plan is where we know Mark can outshine his competition.”

If the departments are doing a bad job, the buck should stop with the mayor. When our streets are filthy, and there are not enough treatment beds available for those addicted to fentanyl, we should all wonder if the mayor is leading their department heads effectively.  Or, in some cases, does the mayor need to fire the current head of the department and replace them with someone who’s aligned with the city’s goals and up to the task? 

It’s easy to identify the city’s issues. It’s even easy to lay out a plan to fix them. But actually executing the plan is where we know Mark can outshine his competition. 

The Fentanyl State of Emergency Failed Because of Bad Management

A perfect example of failed management in action was Mayor Breed’s fentanyl State of Emergency. She held the press conference. She said it was time to be “less tolerant of all the bullshit that has ruined our city.” But then…crickets. What went wrong?

Declaring the emergency unlocked funding and waived some local laws to make it easier to do things like hire behavioral health workers to fill vacancies and open the linkage center in UN Plaza. That center provided basic services including food, laundry and showers to people on the streets and tried to connect them with housing and drug treatment. 

“If the mayor doesn’t set clear goals for department heads, how can the mayor hold those department heads accountable?”

But declaring the emergency and opening the center were about where Breed’s successes ended. Despite the fact that safe injection sites are federally illegal, the Department of Public Health operated the linkage center as if it were one. Without SFPD enforcing that city-supervised drug use was illegal—which Breed should have ensured—the center spiraled out of control, eventually closing without linking a meaningful number of people to services. At the end of the 90-day emergency period, instead of renewing it, Mayor Breed went on a 10-day European junket to figure out how to boost tourism.

A good manager would have made sure their team was bought in to the plan, aware of their individual and shared measurable goals, and working together to execute the plan. Breed didn’t do any of this.

The most egregious error Breed made, though, was the failure to set measurable goals. Just look at the defined goals of the program.

What is “less?” What is “fewer?” Anyone who has ever gotten unclear direction from their manager can probably understand how this lack of clarity led to fewer than one percent of drug users being linked to rehab as a result of the program—and why the neighborhood is basically a hospice center for those suffering from addiction. 

What would this program have looked like with a few edits to this list?

• Fewer 911 medical calls to the Tenderloin → 25% reduction in 911 calls 

• Fewer tents → 1,000 people per month moved off the street and into interim shelter

• Less open drug dealing → 50% fewer instances of open drug dealing

If the mayor doesn’t set clear goals for department heads, how can the mayor hold those department heads accountable?

Mark is the only candidate talking about how he would manage a team through a renewed fentanyl state of emergency, and he’s the only candidate we’ve seen display those management skills. Breed didn’t do it when she had the chance, and Lurie hasn’t had the kind of job that would require this level of detailed management and complex cross-functional coordination.

The Homeward Bound Program Thrived Under Farrell. Now, It’s Flailing.

Here’s another example of a policy that’s currently failing in the execution stage: the Homeward Bound program.

Homeward Bound works like this: social workers reach out to people experiencing homelessness on the streets of San Francisco and determine if they’re from here or somewhere else. If they’re from somewhere else, they determine if loved ones are waiting for them back at home. They reach out to those loved ones and determine what kind of housing, if any, they can offer the person experiencing homelessness. Then, these case workers manage every step of the process to get them home, from purchasing the bus tickets to overseeing a smooth transition home. 

When he was mayor, Mark Farrell doubled the budget for this program and at its peak from 2018 to 2019, San Francisco was reconnecting 800–1,000 people annually with stable housing. When the city checked in with those individuals a year after their transition home, two thirds of them were still stably housed.

Mayor Breed’s current approach? Bus them anywhere but here, details be damned.

A lot of the mayoral candidates are saying the same things. They’re listening when we say we want to see safer, cleaner streets and an end to the homelessness and drug crises. But talk is cheap. Anyone can say they want to see these problems solved. We’re endorsing the only candidate in the race who’s shown us he has the management chops to get it all done.

Paid for by TogetherSF Action. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.