Welcome to “Meet the Candidates,” where Mission Local asks supervisor hopefuls questions in the lead-up to the November election. In District 7 — which includes the Inner Sunset, Parkmerced and West Portal — Matt Boschetto and Stephen Martin-Pinto are running against incumbent Myrna Melgar.
Between now and the November election, Mission Local will ask each candidate one question per week, and candidates will get 100 words to respond. Take a look at all the answers from District 7 candidates here.
This week, we asked the candidates: What will you do to curtail corruption?
For Melgar, corruption persists because of “cumbersome and slow” city processes that make breaking the rules an attractive shortcut, a situation she says must be changed. For Boschetto, corruption is an issue of public trust and transparency: SF residents should have full access to city audits and financial data. And for Martin-Pinto, more rules must be put in place to curtail corruption and “unnecessary” positions in city government must be removed.
Myrna Melgar
- Job: District 7 supervisor
- Age: 56
- Housing: Homeowner
- Transport: Bike
- Languages: Spanish, French, Swedish
- Education: Bachelor’s degree, Excelsior College; master’s degree in urban planning, Columbia University
- Residency: Living in Ingleside Terraces since 2011, and lived in District 7 while in college at SF State between 1987 and 1991
Corruption flourishes with two main ingredients: There is something to be gained through corruption, and there are bad systems in place to prevent it. I have worked, and will continue to work, on both. We must make our system less cumbersome and slow, to make breaking the rules less attractive as a shortcut, and we also need to make better use of technology to strengthen our systems.
Endorsed by: SF Labor Council, SF Tenants Union, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Hillary Ronen, Supervisor Connie Chan, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, Supervisor Catherine Stefani, Senator Scott Weiner, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins … read more here
Matt Boschetto
- Job: Small business owner
- Age: 35
- Housing: Homeowner
- Transport: Car
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in philosophy, Saint Mary’s College of California
- Residency: Living in District 7 since 2014
As District 7 Supervisor, I will push for more financial transparency at City Hall. I believe that every San Franciscan has the right to access all city data, and with transparency comes accountability. Not only do we need performance audits across all city departments, nonprofits and contractors, but their books should be easily accessible to the public. Democratizing this data, so all residents can access and understand it, will put a spotlight on the financial inefficiencies of the city and promote fiscal honesty. When public trust is breached, we should aggressively pursue criminal charges to deter further behavior.
Stephen Martin-Pinto
- Job: Firefighter/major, U.S. Marine Corps reserves
- Age: 46
- Housing: Tenant in SF, property owner and landlord in Lemon Grove, California
- Transport: Fairly evenly split between car, Muni and walking
- Languages: Spanish, Russian, Georgian
- Education: University of California, Davis
- Residency: Living in District 7’s Sunnyside since 2014, and earlier from 1983 to 1998
- Greatly reduce the size of government by eliminating and consolidating unnecessary and redundant commissions and departments.
- End no-bid contracting that gives money to favored city hall contractors.
- Require zero-based budgeting for all nonprofits. All nonprofits contracting with SF shall start with a budget of zero dollars and must justify, line by line, every dollar requested from SF.
- Give the mayor line-item veto power over individual budget expense proposals and individual bill provisions.
- Require background and credit checks for all commissioner appointees.
- Require strict metric-based evaluations for all city programs and departments.
- Do need assessments for every city position and eliminate unnecessary ones.
Endorsed by: Former District 7 Supervisor Tony Hall, former Planning Commissioner Michael Antonini, former Police Chief Tony Ribera, drug policy advocate Tom Wolf, BART Board Director Debora Allen … read more here
The order of candidates alternates each week. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at kelly@missionlocal.com.
Read the rest of the series here. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
Melgar: “I will do nothing.”
Yeah, SMP gets the ribbon for answering the question. Give him that. If he has no allies on the BS, none of that can happen.
Stephen has a “boots on the ground” approach to turning our city around.
Conducting a campaign to end corruption with ideological dogma from behind an office desk will at best be a diversion tactic.
Pretty clear which candidate has specific programs, and which just have the same bromides that have allowed corruption to spread.