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The FBI isn’t enough — San Francisco should also investigate the allegedly corrupt appointment of Supervisor Stephen Sherrill. 

At least, that’s the opinion of former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who called on the Inspector General, Alexandra Shepard, to jump into the fray in a formal letter sent Friday, which Power Play obtained.

The possible investigation is threatening to throw the June District 2 supervisors race into disarray, as Sherrill fights to keep his office from rival candidate Lori Brooke, a community advocate. 

Peskin’s missive was sent before The Standard reported that the FBI had begun calling people to ask about Sherrill’s appointment process, which was allegedly given to him by former Mayor London Breed in hopes that Sherrill’s former employer, billionaire Democratic donor Michael Bloomberg, would help Breed in a time of dire financial need.

“The conduct described involves a sitting supervisor,” Peskin wrote, “whose appointment is alleged to have been made not in the public interest, but as a personal favor to a billionaire donor in exchange for the prospect of private employment.”

Sherrill is still on the ballot to retain his seat as supervisor of District 2, including the Marina, Cow Hollow, and Pacific Heights, Peskin added. He’s no mere bystander: Peskin reportedly has ties to Brooke, Sherrill’s electoral opponent, and he also crossed swords with Breed as both sought the Mayor’s Office. 

Those caveats aside, Peskin authored the 2024 ballot measure that created the Inspector General’s office which may give him some insight into which cases they’re likely to take up. Voters approved creating the new investigative office in response to a seemingly never-ending series of corruption scandals that began with the indictment of former public works director Mohammed Nuru in 2020 (who, coincidentally, we hear is out of jail as of this month. The Federal Inmate database shows him in a reentry halfway house in Sacramento). 

Before she became inspector general, Shepard was one of the prosecutors who successfully landed Nuru in the slammer.

“The voters of San Francisco passed Proposition C because they understood that City Hall cannot be trusted to investigate itself,” Peskin added. “That proposition is being tested right now. I am confident you will act on it.”

The City Controller’s Office, which oversees the Inspector General, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Breed called the accusations insulting to her accomplishments and character. 

Sherrill’s campaign called the allegations the “lies of a disgruntled ex-staffer with an axe to grind,” referring to Conor Johnston, one of Breed’s closest allies of over a decade, who came forward publicly to cast doubt on the appointment. 

“I am only surprised it took Aaron Peskin this long to attach his name to one of these attacks publicly,” said Sherrill. “My opponent’s campaign is Peskin’s operation from top to bottom, which means a vote for Lori is a vote for Aaron Peskin and the politics of the past. This is what that side reaches for when they have no record to run on, and none of it will distract me from delivering for the constituents of District 2.”

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Gabriel Greschler, Han Li

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GOVTECH BRAWL: It’s no surprise that Mayor Daniel Lurie and the public-sector unions have been at odds over budgets and layoffs: He’s a business-friendly mayor who has promised to overhaul the city’s bureaucracy.

But what nobody expected was a brawl over … software procurement.

PermitSF, a signature initiative of the mayor to make it easier to obtain permits, was under heavy scrutiny this week after The Standard published an investigation into OpenGov, the software controversially chosen to modernize the system. On Friday, another bombshell dropped when a former SF Planning staffer alleged intimidation over objections to the project.

While misgivings about the project have stemmed from former OpenGov employees and current city staffers, the unions have qualms of their own.

A showdown is coming Monday, when the Civil Service Commission will consider a $28.5 million renewal of the OpenGov contract. The commissioners already pushed back a hearing on the matter by two weeks after concerns that the city did not properly notify them of a public-sector union’s criticism of the contract.

That union, IFPTE Local 21, the second-largest public-sector labor group at City Hall, after SEIU, argues that the OpenGov software is designed to exclude city staff. There will also likely be supporters of the project making an appearance; staff members of the Planning Department filed letters to the Civil Service Commission urging approval of the OpenGov contract extension. In response to the controversy this week, the Mayor’s office has defended the project, asserting that it has shown signs of making permitting easier.

There is also the possibility that skepticism about PermitSF spreads to the Board of Supervisors. On Wednesday, in response to The Standard’s investigation, Supervisor Connie Chan grilled department heads over the status of the project.

If the union is able to impede Lurie’s OpenGov project at Monday’s hearing, it will be a victory for the labor group as it enters summer budget negotiations, a fight that’s about to catch fire. And for Lurie, it would be a big speed bump on his eagerness to shake things up at City Hall.

— Gabe Greschler

MR. LURIE GOES TO SACRAMENTO: Gov. Gavin Newsom was once mayor of San Francisco, but that doesn’t guarantee the city any special treatment come budget season. 

In his proposed budget, revealed Thursday, Newsom slashed by half funding for the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (opens in new tab) program to local governments. He’s also asking cities to kick in their own local funds to compel the state to match. 

In San Francisco, the funding supports 1,000 shelter beds. Losing half the state dollars means losing half of those beds, Power Play is told. 

A request from the San Francisco government for Newsom to backfill funding for Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital fell on deaf ears, too. The hospital will lose vital state reimbursements when offering care to the estimated 45,000 people who will lose insurance due to changes from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (opens in new tab) Act.

The California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems asked for $500 million in the budget to shore up hospitals for similar reasons statewide. Lurie supported an additional ask of $270 million to hire 2,000 workers who help people determine health care eligibility to help the newly uninsured get care, as well as SNAP benefits.

Newsom didn’t bite. The hits come as San Francisco already faces a $643 million deficit. 

Lurie is hoping to bring some of that “Let’s go, San Francisco” energy to Sacramento on Monday to lobby state lawmakers to restore those funds. He’s scheduled to meet with leaders in both houses, including Senate President pro Tempore Monique Limón, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, and budget chairs Sen. John Laird and Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel.

The Standard found in a data analysis that there are fewer tents on the streets than in recent years, but finding homes for the most desperate is taking longer and longer, every day.

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

COLLECTING DUST: If you’re anything like this Power Play writer, your ballot is beneath a stack of mail in a random drawer of your entryway table. 

We’re not alone in our procrastination. 

With only 15 days until the June 2 primary, just 4% of California’s 23 million registered voters (opens in new tab) had returned, according to data guru Paul Mitchell’s ballot tracker (opens in new tab). 

Mitchell acknowledged that turnout has been “low” but anticipates that about 35% of voters statewide will cast ballots, roughly on par with 2022 levels (opens in new tab). What’s most interesting so far, he said, is that while Democratic turnout is consistent with the 2022 primary, “Republican turnout is up by about double.” 

Mitchell said that increase is likely due to a waning sentiment among Republicans that voting by mail is a scam, an idea driven by Trump and other GOP leaders in recent years. 

“People are getting back to their old voting practices,” he said. 

Roughly 25,000 San Franciscans have voted by mail, per the Elections Department (opens in new tab) numbers, about 5% of registered voters. More than 46% of San Francisco voters cast ballots in 2022 (opens in new tab).  

It’s no secret that it’s much more difficult to drive voter turnout for primary contests than for general elections, when races have (typically) boiled down to two candidates. But there are a couple of critical races in June that, in theory, would pique voter interest: the governor’s race, which remains wide open, along with local races like the battle to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Congress, along with two special supervisor races and four ballot measures, including two competing initiatives. 

Sure, there’s time left to cull through candidate statements and newspaper endorsements. And maybe this crowd needs no persuading for an “I Voted” sticker. But let’s get to it, shall we? 

— Hannah Wiley