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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. Four 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 about Haight-Ashbury. With all the focus on the Tenderloin or specific issues like the Fillmore Safeway or Parcel K in Hayes Valley, sometimes issues in each of our distinct neighborhoods get overlooked.
What is an issue impacting the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, and how would you address it as supervisor?
Note: I will be at Alamo Square Cafe at 711 Fillmore St. on Thursday, July 18 at 10 a.m. Come say hi and share your thoughts about the election or District 5.
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 University, master’s degree from University of Cambridge
- Languages: English, Urdu
With more than 1,000 doors knocked in Haight-Ashbury, our team has consistently heard the communityโs concerns around a lack of progress on our homelessness crisis.
Iโve proposed a Built for Zero solution, an evidence-based framework that has addressed homelessness in 14 U.S. cities. The plan streamlines missing shelter beds, expands real-time data collection to personalize care to every individual, and consolidates city departments to reduce bureaucracy.
This will curtail the inefficiencies and corruption in our current system, and ensure we actually bring housing and services to those who need them, where they need them, and when they need them.
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: Bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College, juris doctor degree from University of California Law, San Francisco
- Languages: English
The Haight is special because of our residents and small businesses. Their top issues:
Small business: We worked with merchants and halved storefront vacancies. We also passed small business protections, including a business eviction ban, rent debt relief, and grants for vandalized storefronts.
Housing and homelessness: We broke ground on 160 affordable homes at 730 Stanyan, reduced neighborhood homelessness, and saved thousands from eviction by funding rent relief, providing counsel for tenants facing eviction, and banning evictions during the pandemic.ย
Community safety: We brought community ambassadors to the Haight and supported moving officers from vehicles to foot patrols, which improved safety.
Endorsed by: Bernie Sanders, United Educators of San Francisco, San Francisco Labor Council, San Francisco Tenants Union, National Union of Healthcare Workers.
Scotty Jacobs
- Job: Marketing
- Age: 30
- Residency: Tenant in District 5 since November 2022, homeowner
- Transportation: Public bicycle
- Education: Bachelor’s degree from Washington University
- Languages: English
The Haight, like the rest of the city, has an affordable-housing shortage.
730 Stanyan St. (the old McDonaldโs) is a great example of a high-quality project that current Supervisors unnecessarily stalled. Blocking projects because they arenโt 100 percent affordable housing makes you anti-housing. We need to partner with private developers on projects that make mutual economic sense, which means, at times, including market-rate units in affordable-housing developments. I will cut the red tape so we can build higher, denser and faster, and make good on what we owe the citizens of San Francisco: An affordable and socioeconomically inclusive city.
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
I am not aware of anything alarming in “The Haight.” I’ve only been there twice in the last year, for BBQ. I noticed the tourists were not alarmed by the homeless.
Warning: If the next District 5 supervisor does not keep a close eye on SFPD encampment sweeps throughout the city, the risk of encampments and fentanyl will be tenfold in crevices of Haight-Ashbury.
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
New housing for families and transitional age youth is going up now at 730 Stanyan St. in the Haight-Ashbury.
It takes a village to raise a child, and Iโm excited for a new generation of children to grow up with a deep connection to the Haight-Ashbury.
Neighbors want to be sure the project is well-run, and provides the stable environment children need to thrive.
I will work with TNDC and neighborhood residents to make sure community rules are enforced (quickly and consistently and compassionately), and to help our new families build deep connections with the wider community. Children need both.
Endorsed by: San Francisco police union.
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 all of the District 5 candidates’ answers 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.
A bit of recent history for candidate Scotty Party Zone Jacobs, a recent arrival to the Haight Ashbury whose clueless comments make sense because he only just moved here. For +5 long years, local residents and community members organized neighborhood meetings to insure that local folks would provide critical input for the development at 730 Stanyan but Scotty doesnโt know that. We fought hard for deeply affordable housing for our 3 most vulnerable local communities: TAY, low income working families and low income seniors; and if Scotty had lived here for more than a year, heโd know that. As D5 Supervisor, London Breed tried to take credit for discovering and urging the city to buy the parcel. Then Breedโs appointee Vallie Brown tried to take credit. It was Supervisor Dean Preston, along with neighborhood leaders and service providers who made the call (during the COVID pandemic when all congregate shelters shut down and unhoused people had nowhere to go) to convert the empty parking lot at 730 Stanyan into a Safe Sleeping Village for over 50 unhoused campers. Our local community and our supervisor did that. Our community worked with Preston and two non profit developers TNDC and CCDC to bring this project to fruition. Construction commenced on 160 units of deeply affordable housing in June of 2023. We worked hard for that to happen. So hopefully next time before Party Zone Scotty shoots his mouth off about things he doesnโt know squat about, heโll inform himself about the history of his new neighborhood and the things that his neighbors care about. Still wondering what Scottyโs โLetโs Rideโ slogan means.
Also: in 2022, when financing had been carefully sourced for a 6 story 100% affordable project, to everyoneโs surprise, London Breed decided that the building should be 8 stories. That meant that TNDC and CCDC had to return to square one to source funding for the project because an 8 story building (and its foundation) is FAR MORE EXPENSIVE than a 6 story building. This abrupt change drastically impacted the timeline for the buildingโit added at least a year to the timeline. Itโs irksome that carpet bagger candidate Scotty Party Zone Jacobs hasnโt a clue about local history or what his new neighbors are doing or what they care about.
Scotty โLetโs Rideโ Jacobs= clueless carpetbagger candidate who doesnโt care about local history or neighborhood engagement.