It is illegal for the Mayor of San Francisco to hold a second job. So is it odd that Mark Farrell got paid more than $100,000 by his employer, just hours before being sworn in as interim mayor in 2018?

The Mark Farrell for Mayor campaign has been something of a performance-art project to test the limits of campaign finance laws. After Farrell paid a hefty fine in 2016 for illegal coordination with a political action committee, the SF Standard reported last month on some unusually lavish campaign spending during his D2 supervisor days and while he was interim mayor in 2018.

Lately, we have seen his laughable ballot designation as a “small business owner” while he threw around millions as a venture capitalist, and the Chronicle reported last month that Farrell appeared to be using ballot donations for November’s Prop D to finance his own campaign.  

A Chronicle reporter stopped by Prop D headquarters, and found it “plastered in red ‘Mark Farrell for Mayor’ posters” with “no signs mentioning Prop D.” When that reporter knocked on the door, it was answered by Farrell’s campaign manager Jade Tu. When Tu was asked about Prop D, she reportedly responded, “What ballot measure?”

The Chron found yet another very odd tidbit in a report today on Farrell’s history as a venture capitalist. As a reminder, it is not legal for the Mayor of San Francisco to hold another job, for obvious conflict-of-interest reasons. But Farrell apparently took a payment of at least $100,000 from his employer Thayer Ventures on literally the day he was sworn in as interim mayor in 2018. (The SF Board of Supervisors appointed him mayor shortly after the death of Mayor Ed Lee.)

Per the Chronicle, the $100,000+ payment came “on the morning of Jan. 23, 2018, hours before he was made mayor.” Farrell called the timing “coincidental,” and insisted he did not know he would be sworn in as mayor that day the payment came through.

We don’t know how much the payment was. The Chronicle dug up campaign filings from 2018, which describe the contribution as “Over $100,000,” which is the highest designation possible. And Farrell argues this was completely legal.

“I did not receive a dime from Thayer Ventures during my entire time as mayor, period,” Farrell told the Chronicle. “We took that obligation incredibly seriously.”

But Farrell’s mayoral opponent Aaron Peskin, who personally engineered that vote to install Farrell as interim mayor, calls bullshit.

“I helped orchestrate his six-month temporary mayorship,” Peskin said to the Chronicle. “He knew days in advance that he was going to be appointed mayor that day.”

The Chronicle’s article, which certainly deserves a full read, also explores whether Farrell and Thayer Ventures’ investments were actually successful (it seems maybe not), and how one of Farrell’s Thayer Ventures partners made the ill-advised comment that the company would profit from Farrell being mayor.

Again, nothing necessarily illegal here. But is it actually illegal to take a payment just hours before being sworn in as mayor, at which point said payment would definitely be illegal? The law is hazy on this, and Farrell’s campaign seems to hope voters are equally hazy on this.

Related: SF’s Wealthiest Political Group Endorses Farrell and Lurie, Relegates Breed to Third Choice [SFist]

Image: @MarkFarrellSF via Twitter