Oct 15, 2024
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Aaron talks about volunteering at a nonprofit in The City called the Trust for Public Land, where he learned about land acquisition for parks and open spaces. Through that gig, he got a paid internship and eventually, a job. In fact, he met Nancy, the woman he would later marry, there.
He eventually moved into
Nancy's apartment in North Beach, his first apartment in SF. The
move came shortly after the couple visited Nepal to climb in the
Himalayas. It was October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake
happened.
We fast-forward to 2000, the
year I moved to San Francisco. I set the stage for my first brush
with Aaron at this point in the recording. My first apartment was
on California Street near Larkin. The cable car runs on that
block. One day, still very new in The City, I spotted a
politician on a cable car campaigning. Back
then, I had no idea what the Board of Supervisors was. But lo and
behold, it was Aaron Peskin, campaigning for his first term on the
Board.
Aaron then tells the story from
his point of view, backing up just a few years.
In his time at the Trust for
Public Land, he worked with elected officials often. He learned his
way around Sacramento and DC. But more pertinent to this story,
Aaron also worked with a North Beach tree-planting
organization—Friends of the Urban Forest, in
fact—and the Telegraph Hill Dwellers to be specific. The work
involved getting volunteers together, convincing folks who'd lived
in the neighborhood for decades to plant trees on the sidewalks in
front of their houses.
It was the late-Nineties. The
first dotcom boom was still happening. Willie Brown was at the
height of his mayoral power. Chain stores were trying their hardest
to move into North Beach. Aaron remembered that he knew the mayor
from his work with the trust, and got a meeting with Brown. He
brought several disparate groups together with the mayor. Brown
told Peskin, "If you don't like the way I run this town, why don't
you run for office?"
From that dismissive comment,
Aaron got involved in the upstart mayor campaign, in 1999, of
Supervisor Tom Ammiano. Through this, he met many folks from many
grassroots and neighborhood organizations. Ammiano, a write-in
candidate, forced a December runoff, which he lost to Willie Brown.
But the experience transformed Aaron Peskin.
Ammiano urged Aaron to run for
the DCCC shortly after the election. Looking over what he'd already
accomplished, he ran and got a seat on the committee. It was March
2000. That fall would see the resumption of supervisor district
elections, vs. at-large contests where the top-11 vote-getters won
seats on the Board that had been in place since 1980. Again,
Ammiano nudged Aaron to run for the newly created District 3
supervisor seat. He thought, Why not try once?
He won the seat. Aaron credits
campaign volunteers with earning that victory. He ended up serving
two four-year terms as the D3 supervisor.
We fast-forward a bit through
those eight years. Highlights include Matt
Gonzalez's run for mayor in 2003, Aaron's
dive into areas of public policy he had been uneducated on prior to
his time in office, and bringing people together to get stuff
done.
I ask Aaron if it's all ever
overwhelming. He says yes, and rattles off the various ways—hiking,
canoeing, yoga— he deals with that. We talk about his addiction to
alcohol as well, something he's kicked for the last three
years.
Aaron was termed out in 2008,
and says he saw it as the end of a chapter of his life. He ran for
the DCCC again, where he won a seat and was the chair of that group
from 2008–2012. He helped get out the vote for Barack Obama in
2008, working to send volunteers to Nevada. After 2012, he figured
he was totally finished with politics. He went back to the Trust
for Public Land. But then a funny thing happened.
Aaron's chosen successor for D3
supervisor, David Chiu, won the seat and took over after Aaron was
termed out in 2008. Then, in 2014, Chiu ran for an California
Assembly seat and won. Then-Mayor Ed Lee appointed Julie
Christensen. A special election in late-2015 saw Peskin run against
Christensen, mostly at the urging of Rose Pak. He won that
election, as well as the "normal" district election the following
year. By the end of this year, he'll be termed out
again.
Highlights of Aaron's second
stint on the Board of Supervisors, for him, include: He's become
the senior member of the Board, having served with 42 different
other members. He's also come to relish the role of mentor for new
supervisors. He goes over a litany of other legislation he's either
written or helped to get passed
Moving forward to the issues of
today and Aaron's run for mayor, he starts by praising the Board
and the Mayor's Office for coming together to deal with COVID. Then
he talks about ways that he and Mayor London Breed have worked
together in their times in office.
And then we get into Aaron's
decision, which he announced this April, to run for mayor. It was a
love for The City and the people who live here. It was a lack of
what he deems "real choices" in the race. But it was also what
Aaron and many others, including myself, see as a
billionaire-funded, ultra-conservative attempt to take over
politics in San Francisco. It all added up to something he felt
he had to do.
Aaron says that, unlike his
first run for supervisor, when it comes to his candidacy for mayor,
he's "in it to win it."
We recorded this podcast at
Aaron Peskin for Mayor HQ in July 2024.
Photography by Jeff
Hunt