Cruise ships to alleviate the housing crisis, temporary get-out-of-jail cards to allow prisoners to work, blue poles around the city with buttons that summon a police officer, and many more gardens to grow food for San Franciscans.
These are all ideas from San Francisco mayoral candidates. Nope, not Mayor London Breed, Mark Farrell, Daniel Lurie, Aaron Peskin or Ahsha Safaí. Instead, they come from some of the other 48 candidates hoping to defeat incumbent Breed in November and claim Room 200 in City Hall.
These visions come from the longshots, the underdogs, the candidates all but certain to lose on Election Day, but who are making their appeal to San Franciscans regardless. Namely, that’s Serena Hughes, Dylan Hirsch-Shell, Shahram Shariati, Guy McCoy and Honest Charley Bodkin.
Welcome to the San Francisco People’s Debate, a weekly mayoral forum that takes place every Saturday in Dolores Park.
Open to all those running for office, the People’s Debate is meant to provide a space for all the candidates most San Franciscans will never know. “Hear from the candidates for San Francisco mayor you haven’t heard from” is how the event’s website describes the debate.
On Saturday, June 1, at the first debate, only a handful of attendees showed up to listen to the five candidates who chose to participate.
It was a bright afternoon, and all of the candidates wore their sunglasses as they faced east to a beautiful view of San Francisco’s landscape, one they hope to see as a mayor one day.
Questions touched on safety, homelessness, pedestrian safety, and Proposition 13.
“This country is putting people in a position where they are in a sink or swim,” said Hirsch-Shell, a former engineer at Tesla. “All it takes is your washing machine breaking down. You can’t wash your uniform for your job and then you lose your job, then you’re living in your car. You get parking tickets, and then suddenly you’re on the street.”
When it comes to street safety, Shariati, who is a transportation engineer with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority, said he would bring in a solution popular on university campuses: Blue emergency poles residents can activate to summon the cops.
“Going back to college, we have those blue poles with call buttons for the police. I want to implement that in the city,” said Shariati. “That will help response times, because the cops would know exactly where to go, and they can act immediately, because we do have a low force right now. We have a shortage of police officers.”
McCoy, who runs a restaurant and a bar in Hayes Valley, agreed that the San Francisco Police Department is understaffed, so he proposed focusing on those who are first offenders, to make them understand they will get caught if they reoffend.
“If there’s a certainty of being caught, you’re going to be less likely to take that first step, and that’s where we need to really focus our attention: The people who are doing this for the first time,” said McCoy. “We need to take a different stance on repeat offenders. If you keep on doing it, then you shouldn’t be out in the streets.”
The audience, a mix of the candidates’ supporters and ordinary park-goers, also asked about Vision Zero. Most of the candidates agreed that it would be difficult to get to zero traffic fatalities in such a dense city, but they said City Hall could do more.
Bodkin jumped right into police-car pursuits and spoke about his support for Proposition E easing the rules around car chases, which San Francisco voters approved in March. “We need the police to be able to have the option to pursue vehicles that are fleeing a crime at high speeds,” said Bodkin, who is a software engineer. “We can’t be advertising to the world, to our neighbors, to people that want to come here to commit crimes, that they can come here and simply flee at high speeds.”
Hughes said she has the perspective of a driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian. She criticized the center-running bike lane on Valencia, and denounced Proposition E for allowing high speed chases, which she sees as counterintuitive to Vision Zero. Hughes also proposed yielding to cars and being polite on the road, because cars “are the hardest ones to stop.”
After about two hours, the candidates shook hands and attendees started to leave. The candidates said having this space every Saturday will allow them to speak to voters directly, so San Francicans know they have many choices come November.
The San Francisco People’s Debate will take place every Saturday until election day at the Miguel Hidalgo monument at Dolores Park from 1 to 3 p.m.
Thank you Mission Local for the coverage! You can watch the full first debate online at:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7sHe6eSaiG/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
It’s a sad statement on the state of San Francisco politics that even these minor candidates echo the fiction that SFPD is “understaffed,” as opposed to the reality that the department is unaccountable and despite record funding won’t do the work to keep us safe.
Respectfully, I pushed back on the notion that our police are short staffed during the debate. As I said, we have more officers here than San Jose, despite San Jose having a much larger population. We have enough officers. It’s my belief that the police have been on an unofficial work stoppage, and that it’s time for a new Police Chief—one that will ensure that officers are actively working to stop and discourage crime, that traffic laws are being enforced, and yes, work on boosting recruitment to fill the positions we have left unfilled, including 911 operators so we don’t leave people on hold when there is an actual emergency. A woman told me that a man broke into her building lobby’s mailboxes and was stealing mail, and as that was happening she ran across the street to tell a police officer (who happened to be there) of the crime in progress, only for the officer to tell her to “call 911 to report it.” We need new leadership at the department to ensure stories like these are never repeated, ensure our streets are safe from speeding or reckless car, and to boost our case clearance rate, which is lower than it used to be when we had a smaller police staff and budget. To put the another way, we spend more on police now, have more police now, and we solve less crimes. Leadership much change.
Honest,
A new Police Chief appointed by the Mayor will change nothing.
We need to elect a Top Cop like we used to and as Michael Hennessey said:
“It might take a couple of cycles til you get one that keeps the promises of their Platform but then you’ll have one for 30 years.
We’ve done this with our Sheriffs (like Mike) and Public Defender.
It will take a Charter Amendment but it is the only way to establish Safe Streets and Beat Cops and Police Kobans all of which succeeding mayors have traded for SFPOA endorsements.
Just asked Safai if he’d support it and he pretended not to even know that the People once had that Power.
Returning that Power to the People is the right thing to do.
Go Niners !!
h.
scottf,
Right you are, scottf,
Overtime is a Union scam that’s gone on for so long that a rookie can plan 30 year mortgage payments around it.
We have a great Police Academy that the Union hates.
They’d rather fill the ranks with Rogue ‘Lateral Transfers’ rejected by other departments for being too violent and murderous.
Go Niners !!
h.
I’m an independent candidate running for Mayor of San Francisco.
The SFPD is having difficulties recruiting cadets due in part to George Floyd & the Black Lives Matters movement.
According to a sergeant I talked to off the record (I have one ☝🏽 published article in the Potrero View), there are 700 SFPD officers and 200 are looking to exit.
Part of the problem is having to go back to the precinct to do minor paperwork.
One of my platform issues is implementing AI & a lean start up mentality to city government.
Body Cams should be used with AI to help transcribe reports & conversations.
@linsanity88 IG ~ Mike Lin