Here’s the latest in our “Meet the Candidates” series for District 5, in which we ask each candidate to answer one question per week leading up to the election. Three candidates are challenging incumbent Supervisor Dean Preston to represent District 5, which spans from the east end of Golden Gate Park through Haight-Ashbury, Japantown and the Western Addition, the Lower Haight and Hayes Valley, and most of the Tenderloin.
This week, we asked candidates to discuss the division of power in San Francisco, and where power truly lies in the city.
There is much debate about whether the mayor has too much or too little power, what role the Board of Supervisors plays in allowing or stymying the mayor’s efforts, and what role the city’s civilian commissions should play.
Accordingly, political action group TogetherSF proposed two measures for November’s ballot on this topic. One of those measures would limit the number of city commissions, disband many existing commissions and/or remove their decision-making authority, and give the mayor majority appointing power for any new commissions.
It would also give the mayor sole hiring and firing power over most of the city’s department heads.
We asked the candidates what they think of theย proposal. Unsurprisingly, they don’t agree.
Note: I will be at Cafe International at 508 Haight St., on Wednesday, May 29 at 10:30 a.m. Come say hi and share your thoughts about District 5.
Allen Jones
- Job: Activist
- Age: 67
- Residency: Tenant in District 5 since November 2021
- Transportation: Wheelchair
- Education: Teaching Bible studies at juvenile hall
- Languages: English
Smaller government?ย Hell โฆ o yes. I was a committee member of a commission, and refused to use a โdoctoredโ document for a project. As a result, I was kicked off the committee. Also, when I met with the Mayorโs Office on Disability, it was only then that I learned we even had a Mayorโs Disability Council. By law, it had to take up my issue. Really, San Francisco?
Therefore, I support empowering future mayors with a smaller number of boards and commissions. The proposal would not affect the commission or council, I think needs to go. Damn!
Autumn Looijen
- Job: School board recall co-founder
- Age: 46
- Residency: Tenant in District 5 since December 2020, landowner
- Transportation: Public transit
- Education: Bachelor’s degree from California Institute of Technology
- Languages: English
[No response submitted]
Bilal Mahmood
- Job: Founder of private and philanthropic organizations
- Age: 37
- Residency: Tenant in District 5 since May 2023
- Transportation: Walking
- Education: Bachelor’s degree from Stanford, master’s degree in philosophy from University of Cambridge
- Languages: English, Urdu
San Francisco currently has more than 130 active commissions. This is more than double every other major city in the nation, more than the largest cities like Los Angeles and New York. Many of our commissions are redundant or incredibly specific past the point of significant relevance or value.ย
This extensive network of commissions in San Francisco has led to a bloated bureaucracyย plagued by overlapping responsibilities, inefficiencies, and slowed decision-making processes. Reducing the number of commissions can create more government accountability and streamlined processes โ outcomes sorely needed in San Francisco.
Endorsed by: San Francisco YIMBY, State Senator Scott Wiener and DCCC Chair Honey Mahogany.
Dean Preston
- Job: Incumbent, tenant attorney
- Age: 54
- Residency: Homeowner, in District 5 since 1996
- Transportation: Public transit
- Education: Bowdoin College and juris doctor degree from University of California Law, San Francisco
- Languages: English
San Francisco has a strong-mayor system of government. Our mayor has more power than most, and receives the highest salary of any mayor in the country. The mayor appoints commissions, hires and fires department directors, and has unilateral control over spending the $14.6 billion budget. We have many problems in SF โ lack of mayoral power isnโt one of them.ย
We need to make commissioners more independent and less beholden to the mayor. I was proud to write and pass legislation last year to ban the mayorโs scandalous practice of requiring commissioners to submit undated resignation letters in order to serve.
Endorsed by: Bernie Sanders, United Educators of San Francisco, San Francisco Labor Council, San Francisco Tenants Union, National Union of Healthcare Workers.
Money raised and spent in the District 5 supervisor race
For
Money spent
Against
Dean Preston
$10,530
$301,458
$26,174
$156,791
Bilal Mahmood
$6,846
$63,387
Allen Jones
$0
Autumn Looijen
$0
$0
$100,000
$200,000
$300,000
$400,000
Money spent
For
Against
Dean Preston
$10,530
$301,458
$26,174
$156,791
Bilal Mahmood
$63,387
$6,846
Allen Jones
$0
Autumn Looijen
$0
$0
$100K
$200K
$300K
$400K
Source: San Francisco Ethics Commission, as of April 3, 2024. Chart by Junyao Yang.
The order of candidates is rotated each week. Answers are capped at 100 words, and may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at eleni@missionlocal.com.
Read the rest of the District 5 questions here, and the entire “Meet the Candidates” series here. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
No response from Los Altos Looijen? Where is she? Writing raunchy poetry? Recalling the Superintendent of the Zoo? Why is even she running? Only one reason: to rig the vote and peel votes from the current D5 Supervisor. Los Altos Looijen is weak on solutions and policy ideas yet proud and strong on destruction and chaos. She seeks to discredit and destroy SFโs public schools while promoting private and charter schools that her venture capital and Tech overlords are invested in. Candidate Looijen is D5โs Robert F. Kennedy spoiler candidate.
@Greeny. To be fair, Bilal is also the same Together SF junk. Hard pass on both of them but I appreciate the reporter asking these questions.
I agree with you, Lana. Both Bilal Mahmood and Autumn Looijen are carpet bagging, reactionary TogetherSF funded candidates who havenโt a clue about D5 or our communities, our struggles and our issues. Letโs send them back to think tanks and laboratories and philanthropist dindins.
Wrong. Charter schools are Public Schools. Please do not take away opportunities and options from families and parents. Shame on you for attacking a woman and a mother who is trying to make SF better. You are supporting a hypocrite ChampagneSocialist, #DumpDean.
Since when are charter schools โpublic schoolsโ? Shame on you for supporting a kook (and a hypocrite)whose own three children do not attend San Franciscoโs public schools. And as if that werenโt bad enough Los Altos Looijen is endorsed by the racist and corrupt police officers unionโฆโฆthe kiss od death for any candidate. If Looijen had lived in San Francisco for more than a couple of years, she would know that.
Dean Preston is an excellent supervisor who works hard for his district and working San Franciscans at large. Billionaires are pouring huge amounts of money into an attempt to unseat. District 5 residents should mobilize to reelect him.
It is outstanding that Bilal the immigrant renter is so sucked into the rightwing power grab (“Help, our mayor is weak. Weak I tell you) that he is in favor of getting rid of the Rent Board (a commission) and the Immigrant Rights Commission. And the Human Rights Commission. And the Small Business Commission (remember how a couple weeks ago he said “Haight and Hayes have, combined, lost more than 1,000 businesses, a net 5 percent reduction since 2020”? – because of course there are 20,000 business in those two neighborhoods – or now a mere 19,000. Yeah, right.).
I don’t think BilalTogetherSF will be able to get rid of LAFCO, since those were created by the state legislature more than 60 years ago), but it must be a bad thing.
Bilal, you were glad to see that the Eid al-Fitr celebration at Tenderloin Rec Center included closing the street to cars and creating more space for the celebration (you called it “activating” or something). Did you tell Kanishka Cheng that you support street closures in the TL? She sure as hell doesn’t. She blathered on about how the Golden Gate Greenway is a bad idea because the TL isn’t ready for it (“doesn’t deserve it”).
Bilal is acting less like a neuroscientist (which he never was) than someone whose neurons aren’t firing.
Maybe in a laboratory or a controlled study that crap works. Not in our communities. Not in our neighborhoods. Not in policy making. Stick to lab rats Bilal and looney Looijen (who canโt be bothered to answer policy questions.) Recalling and removing people from elected office is easy when you donโt have a vision or policy ideas for our neighborhoods and our city. Just drop out Autumn. Garry Tan and Michael Moritz will find some other job for you.
Does the spoiler candidate from Los Altos (who prides herself in recalling democratically elected office holders) care more about Recalls and Algebra in the public schools than about answering policy questions if elected to public office? Kinda seems like it.
None of them sound like good options. I’m tired of smelling pee and seeing human poop in my morning walk to work. Dean Preston needs to leave he had been seating in power for way too long, he may care about other D5 neighborhood but definitely does not care about Tenderloin.
Nah. Long before we elected him D5 Supervisor (and before the Tenderloin was recently gerrymandered into D5), Dean Preston began his professional life as a civil rights attorney advocating for low income tenants and their families living in the Tenderloin. That was 20 years ago. Dean cares. The good folks living in the TL love Dean.