Recall attempts are not new to San Francisco.

Mayor Dianne Feinstein in 1983. Supervisor Sophie Maxwell in 2004. Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Jake McGoldrick in 2007. Mayor Ed Lee in 2017.

Those recalls failed miserably because there was no substance to them.

The same is true of an announcement by a group of 31 residents of their frivolous intent to circulate a recall petition for Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer. They cite an election night speech in which she used a word often heard in movies and television to criticize the right-wing leadership of the Police Officers Association (POA) for its despicable Willie Horton-style campaign tactics used against progressive district attorney candidate Chesa Boudin.

Nevertheless, Fewer has since apologized for any unintended offense to the rank-and-file membership.

Since the announcement comes less than a year before Fewer runs for re-election in her Richmond district, it appears that the recall may be a political PR stunt offered by fringe elements, possibly including the POA, designed to help a prospective opponent.

Aside from the fact that the recall sponsors seem to disagree with the supervisor’s positions on key issues, the primary complaint of the recall petitioners is her use of one word in a casual speech on election night in reference to the Police Officers Association.

Fewer, a former Board of Education commissioner and the wife of a 35-year veteran of the police force, expressed her passionate criticism of POA leadership for their disgusting and foul campaign tactics in the course of her election night comments celebrating the victory of Boudin.

While her colorful choice of words garnered media attention, I took it as the only language the current chauvinistic POA leadership understands these days.

Like many of us, Fewer strongly supported Boudin for district attorney. Boudin ran on a platform of criminal justice reform, ending mass incarceration and the racial justice disparities so prevalent in our jails and courtrooms. His progressive campaign ran right in the teeth of $700,000 spending by the Police Officers Association. Their foul and dishonest mailers and TV ads calling Boudin “the #1 choice of criminals and gang members” were aimed far below the belt. Most of all, those mailers were tactics unworthy of anybody associated with the San Francisco Police Department.

In recent years, the POA has launched extraordinarily hostile and vicious verbal attacks on progressive elected officials and candidates who advocate for police reform or depart from the POA’s agenda. On occasion, they have even targeted their own members for being whistle-blowers within the Police Department.

I know it wasn’t always that way. As mayor, I worked with outstanding, supportive POA leaders like the late, former President Bob Barry to make positive, progressive changes in the Police Department. Sadly, that is not the case today. Our city deserves better from organizations like the POA, and our citizens deserve better than frivolous recalls.

Art Agnos is a former mayor of San Francisco.