Ross Mirkarimi
Rostam Mirkarimi is an American politician and the former sheriff of San Francisco. Prior to being sheriff, he served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where he represented District 5.
Mirkarimi is a co-founder of the Green Party of California. Elected as a supervisor, Mirkarimi received national attention in 2007 when he introduced the first legislation prohibiting the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by large supermarkets and drugstores, making San Francisco the first city to do so.
In March 2010, Mirkarimi became a Democrat and he was elected sheriff in November 2011. He served from January to March 2012, at which time he was charged with domestic violence battery, child endangerment, and dissuading a witness in connection with a December 31, 2011 New Year's Eve altercation with his wife, and he was suspended from office pending an ethics investigation. Mirkarimi pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor false imprisonment, but was not removed from office. He lost his reelection bid to Vicki Hennessy in 2015. Mirkarimi became the first sheriff in San Francisco to lose their bid for reelection and the first person to be elected without ever serving with the sheriff office.
Early life and education
Mirkarimi was born in Chicago to Nancy Kolman, who is of Russian Jewish descent, and Hamid Mirkarimi, an Iranian immigrant. His parents divorced when he was 5, and he moved with his mother to Jamestown, Rhode Island, in 1973. He graduated from the Catholic, all-male Bishop Hendricken High School.He has a bachelor's degree in political science from St. Louis University, a master's degree in international economics and affairs from Golden Gate University, and a master of science degree in environmental science from the University of San Francisco. He has lived in San Francisco since 1984.
Mirkarimi is a graduate of the San Francisco Police Academy, where he was the president of his class. Before his election to office, he served in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office investigating white collar crime.
Founding of California Green Party
"I totally credit my childhood in Jamestown for my green views," Mirkarimi said. "I'll never forget living near Fort Getty and exploring the unspoiled island with my dog Oscar when I was a boy."Mirkarimi was a co-founder of the San Francisco Greens, and participated in founding the California's Green Party in 1990. He coordinated Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential campaign in California. He also managed local campaigns in San Francisco, including the 1989 Nuclear Free Zone initiative, the 1999 re-election campaign of DA Terence Hallinan, the 2001 campaign for public power and the March 2002 campaign to elect Harry Britt to the State Assembly. He was a press spokesperson and campaign aide in Matt Gonzalez's 2003 San Francisco mayoral campaign. Mirkarimi supported Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. While serving on the Board of Supervisors he changed his voter registration party affiliation to Democrat, acknowledging that he would be unable to advance in his political career as a registered Green.
He supported Green Party candidate Krissy Keefer over Nancy Pelosi in the 2006 congressional election. "Why," he asked in regard to supporting Pelosi, "do we decide to support the lesser of two evils or the evil of two lessers... the level of mediocrity being dished out by the Republicans and Democrats?"
San Francisco Board of Supervisors (2005–2012)
As a San Francisco County supervisor, Mirkarimi sponsored some 40 pieces of legislation in a wide range of areas, including medical marijuana, crime, making streets safer for pedestrians, improving efficiency of city departments, and the environment.Opposition to school closures
Mirkarimi, along with District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell opposed a proposal to close two dozen public schools, predominantly in their districts. This proposal was ultimately scaled back dramatically.Marijuana legalization
In April 2009, he proposed legislation that would make San Francisco the first city in the nation to sell and distribute marijuana. "We're spending much more money keeping marijuana underground, trying to hide a fact that is occurring all around us," he said. "Now is the time to take responsibility for something we've deflected to others and to test our ability to take responsibility."On April 20, 2006, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws honored Mirkarimi with its Rufus King Award for outstanding leadership in the reform of marijuana laws. In a speech accepting the award, he said,
That particular logic, as complex as it is, was emblematic of what certainly concerned me, that we continue to drive back in the shadows the very idea of what we're all congregated here for, and that is to mainstream the issue so that marijuana should not be criminalized and medical cannabis should not be criminalized, and that we should do everything we can to build that kind of resiliency, to shore up even in the face of adversity, that while there's any attempt at pushback or blowback from our efforts to try to proliferate Prop 215 states throughout all fifty states of the United States, that we should not shrink at all with that ever particular kind of adversity once again.
Tobacco smoking ban on golf courses
Mirkarimi supported a measure by Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier to ban smoking in city parks. He helped expand the ban to bus shelters and the city's public golf courses. Not extending the law to golf courses, Mirkarimi declared, "has this undertone of elitism."Reentry Council
On September 9, 2008, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed Mirkarimi's legislation creating a Reentry Council to coordinate the disparate and disconnected city programs that help ex-offenders transition from incarceration back into society. Mirkarimi, in collaboration with Public Defender Jeff Adachi, District Attorney Kamala Harris and Sheriff Michael Hennessey, crafted the legislation to increase the effectiveness of City-wide efforts to reduce recidivism and violence, and promote safe and successful reentry into society for adults released from jails and prisons.Environmental issues
In March 2007, Mirkarimi introduced legislation that prohibits large supermarkets and drugstores from providing customers with non-biodegradable plastic bags, making San Francisco the first city to regulate such bags. Since then other cities around the country and in Europe have taken up similar bans, and there is a move by the California legislature to do the same. Mirkarimi said, "Instead of waiting for the federal government to do something about this country's oil dependence, environmental degradation or contribution to global warming, local governments can step up and do their part. The plastic bag ban is one small part of that." Many supermarkets opposed such legislation. The bill passed 10-1 and became an ordinance. Although the ban was initially criticized as "cosmetic" by the SF Weekly, which asserted that the ban has led to an increase in the use of paper bags, a practice they claim is worse for the environment, the ban also requires stores to charge a ten-cent fee for each paper bag used, to encourage consumers to use reusable shopping bags. All revenues from the fee are kept by the stores. In 2012, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an expansion of the ban to include to all retailers citywide.In June 2008, Mirkarimi sponsored a one-year pilot program of a solar rebate program that provides $1.5 million to nonprofit organizations and lower-income residents for the installation of photovoltaic solar power on rooftops; the measure received initial approval from the Board of Supervisors. In July, he was one of several supervisors who, along with the mayor and various organizations, opposed a move to build fossil-fuel power plants in the low-income southeastern part of San Francisco.
Mirkarimi was the chief sponsor of a measure to require most employers to give pre-tax commuter checks to employees, with the intention of getting workers out of commuting via private car and into using public transportation; the measure is unlike many others involving regulation of businesses in that it was not opposed by the Chamber of Commerce.
Reparations bill
In 2008, Mirkarimi authored part of a reparations bill which would give descendants of those displaced by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency from the Western Addition priority in obtaining affordable housing. During the 1960s the city tore down much of the historic Fillmore district, most of whose residents were permanently removed. Two-thirds of those displaced were African-American.San Francisco Sheriff's Department (2012–2016)
2011 campaign for sheriff
In May 2011, scheduled to be termed out as supervisor, Mirkarimi announced he was running for sheriff of San Francisco in the November 2011 election.Mirkarimi did not receive the endorsement of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriff's Association, the union representing sheriffs. In an endorsement election of members, Capt. Paul Miyamoto received 353 votes to Mirkarimi's 2 votes. "This was a very large turnout for us," said Don Wilson, president of the association. "Miyamoto is a very popular guy in our department. We want one of our own to be sheriff. We want someone with experience."
In an interview with the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, Mirkarimi said about his candidacy:
The challenges of our campaign are that I am running citywide. I have opposition, but with my name recognition as an elected official, it's one of the first times that I'm seen as an automatic frontrunner, instead of the underdog posture that I'm more used to from my previous runs. The election is in November 2011, and it will be at the same time as the mayor and district attorney. Competing for resources and attention is always an inherent challenge with other high profile races.
Mirkarimi made combatting recidivism a centerpiece of his campaign:
We have to realize that what happens in the jail system directly affects public safety throughout all of San Francisco neighborhoods. That entwinement can't really be denied anymore, and the money we throw at the Police Department to just re-arrest the same people really sort of is counter-intuitive without asking the obvious question, "What can we do so that when somebody comes out they will not repeat their offense?" And there are tested programs already existing in the Sheriff's Department, ones that we could I think consider adopting and ones that deserve institutional support because most of the programs in the Sheriff's Department aren't general-fund-funded, they're grant-funded, and so they live and die by the vulnerability of those grants. That says San Francisco is not frontburnering the importance of what it means to stand towards the development and accountability of those programs, and that needs to change. I'll change it.