Editor’s note: The Frisc is nonprofit and independent. We stump for issues, not candidates or ballot initiatives. What follows are explanations, not endorsements. Read, decide, and most important, go out and vote on Nov. 5.
As The Frisc reported a few months ago, Mayor London Breed faces a slate of little-known challengers to her re-election. Nothing has changed.
Despite Breed’s running battles with progressives on the Board of Supervisors (regarding affordable housing, mental health), and little progress on homelessness on her (admittedly short) watch so far, high-profile contenders like Mark Leno and Jane Kim, who ran in last year’s mayoral election, are sitting this one out. (One candidate, Ellen Lee Zhou, gained attention last week by pasting up a racist and downright bizarre anti-Breed billboard.)
Recent polling shows potential voters think SF is in bad shape, but they haven’t soured on the mayor. She’s going to win (barring a force majeure), but it will be worth noting how many voters in protest leave their choice for mayor blank.
While we all cross our fingers that SF’s new election gear goes glitch-free, here are the other matters and folks on the ballot that require your attention:
The Propositions
Proposition A (Affordable Housing Bond): Unless you believe that everyone who deserves to live in San Francisco is already here and we should keep new people out, we need to build more housing. Prop A lets the city borrow up to $600 million to build, buy, and rehabilitate around 2,800 units of affordable housing, the largest affordable housing bond in city history.
Why so much for what feels like so few units? Building around here is expensive; there’s no quick fix to that. Waiting for prices to come down (if ever) isn’t a workable option. This cash wouldn’t solve the housing crisis by any means, but it would get new developments off the ground and restart stalled projects. Combined with Prop E (see below), it could fast-track new, much-needed development.
The next consideration: Where would the money go? According to the measure, more than a third ($220 million) would be earmarked for rental housing. One quarter ($150 million) would go to rehabilitate public housing, and another quarter to senior housing. The rest would go to boost existing housing and support teachers and other employees of SFUSD and City College. Across these different buckets, 30 percent of the cash is earmarked to support or house extremely low-income people.
Prop A requires a two-thirds majority to pass.
Proposition B (Department of Disability and Aging Services): There is already a city department for aging and adult services. This measure would change the name and tinker with the qualifications of three of the seven commission members. It would have little to no fiscal impact.
Proposition C (Vapor Products): Call it the Juul rule. Except, now, Juul has distanced itself from Prop C, which it once funded as a way to strike down the Board of Supervisors’ ban of e-cigarettes, which would last until the products gain FDA authorization. Prop C aims to overturn the ban, which passed earlier this year, and instead make the products illegal for people under 21 and have retailers check IDs, limit sales, and more. (Many of these rules are already in place.) Even as Juul and others were pushing to put C on the ballot, lung injury associated with vaping was emerging as a public health threat that has only grown worse.
The links seem stronger to vaped cannabis, but there’s no hard science yet. What is clear: Vaping is epidemic among teenagers and is driving an increase in cigarette use.
Proposition D (Traffic Congestion Mitigation Tax): If Prop D passes, your Uber/Lyft rides will be slightly more expensive. It’s a tax on all transportation network company, or TNC, rides within SF city limits: 1.5 percent for rides in zero-emission vehicles or shared rides, and 3.25 percent for all others. The tax on an average ride from the SF Zoo to Pier 39 would be 78 cents, according to SPUR.
Prop D would generate $30 million to $35 million in annual revenues, according to the city controller. About half would go to Muni; the other half to pedestrian and bike safety. (It would represent a 6% increase in the current two-year SFMTA budget.)
The big question: Would it actually mitigate traffic congestion by dissuading the use of TNCs and making Muni, walking, and biking more attractive? The controller doesn’t weigh in on that. However you end up voting, it would be nice if you tipped.
Proposition E (Affordable Housing and Educator Housing): What happens when fewer and fewer teachers can afford to live within commuting distance of the kids they teach? Just a reminder: Housing is expensive in this town, and last we checked, teachers don’t get stock options and free massages, haircuts, and egg-freezing services. Prop E would allow development of 100% affordable housing and educator housing on public land and, just as important, also speed the approval process without nitpicky reviews before the Planning Commission.
Supervisors Sandra Lee Fewer, Matt Haney, Aaron Peskin, and Shamann Walton have put limits on the measure to apply only to lots greater than 10,000 square feet, to exclude parkland, and to ensure no existing units be replaced or demolished.
Given the housing crisis and the crucial need to keep SF’s educators in the city, Prop E is backed by all the supervisors and the mayor. It also has the backing of the YIMBYs, who make a point to fill in the backstory of how this sausage got made at City Hall after Breed failed to enshrine a charter amendment that would streamline affordable and teacher housing.
Proposition F (Campaign Contributions and Advertisements): This proposition would increase restrictions on campaign cash to local officials or candidates from LLCs and limited partnerships. It would also restrict contributions to top city officials (and candidates and campaigns) from people with “certain financial interests” in the city’s land-use approvals. Everything comes back to housing and development around here. The proposal would also add new rules regarding disclaimers for ads paid by political action committees.
District 5 race
The incumbent is Supervisor Vallie Brown, Breed’s former aide. When Breed went from the D5 seat to the mayor’s chair, she selected Brown to replace her. Brown is facing the voters for the first time, and her main challenger is Dean Preston, who went up against Breed for the same office in 2016 and barely lost. He’s a tenant advocate and a well-to-do investor in tech companies.
At stake is whether the supes solidify further their so-called progressive majority, or whether Breed retains her solid ally on the board. As The Frisc has reported, D5 could also be the next battleground for homeless services. Both candidates say they want a Navigation Center for at-risk youth in their district, which includes the Haight-Ashbury and Western Addition. Economics, regulations, and cranky neighbors have stymied the search so far. Preston blames Brown; it’s unclear how he would “herd the cats,” as Brown described the process to us this summer, any faster.
The contest should be tight, thanks in part to recent news that Brown, who lived out of an RV for some time as a child, had evicted low-income tenants from a Fillmore building she bought in the 1990s. Brown blames the Preston campaign for teeing up a political hit; tenant activists charge her with cruelty and profiteering. Whomever you favor, there’s something to take away from all this. We now have greater restrictions on owner move-in evictions than back when Brown served one on her tenants. Voters last year also pledged more legal help for people facing eviction, a proposition that Preston championed.
The ideological battle lines are shaping up as one might expect.
Board of Education
There’s one seat up. Incumbent Jenny Lam faces two challengers, both of whom told the Examiner that they entered the race in protest after Lam and the other board members voted in June to paint over the controversial “Life of Washington” mural at Washington High School. The board later reversed course, voting instead to cover the murals, not destroy them. (Board president Stevon Cook said at the time that anyone unhappy with the situation could vote to kick him off the board. He’s up for re-election in 2020.) With or without Lam, the board will have to deal in coming months with a lawsuit to keep the mural uncovered, help revise the school lottery system, and much more.
District Attorney
The DA is in charge of prosecutions — which also means choosing whom not to prosecute. The race, a rare one without an incumbent after George Gascón abruptly stepped down earlier this month, got a lot weirder and nakedly political last week when Breed appointed candidate Suzy Loftus to the position. Her instant incumbency has not sat well with her rivals, who lambasted her at a UCSF debate two nights ago.
Her main competition, according to new polls, is Chesa Boudin, a public defender who wants to switch sides and enact big reforms. (His comment about holding the police more accountable and waving away some misdemeanors — like first-time DUIs that don’t cause injury — has drawn the ire of the police union.)
Running unopposed: City attorney Dennis Herrera, public defender Manohar Raju, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, and Treasurer José Cisneros.
