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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.
In a diverse district like District 5, which encompasses many neighborhoods with distinct needs, we’re asking candidates about a couple of specific areas.
This week, we asked the candidates about the Fillmore District, a shrinking neighborhood in the Western Addition, once known as the “Harlem of the West,” which has seen urban redevelopment, an exodus of longtime residents and business owners, and gentrification. More recently, the Safeway grocery store there announced after 40 years that it will be leaving the neighborhood.
What is an issue impacting the Fillmore neighborhood, and how would you address it as supervisor?
Note: I will be at Alamo Square Cafe at 711 Fillmore St. on Wednesday, July 24 at 10:30 a.m. Come say hi and share your thoughts about the election or District 5.
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
The Fillmore Safeway is selling its land to Align Real Estate and closing, leaving the neighborhood without a grocery store, pharmacy or bank. We canโt force them to stay.
A lot of seniors and single parents live here โ and cannot wrangle grocery bags on the bus. Theyโre worried.
I went to the community meetings to hear their needs.
I will explore EVERY option to keep a grocery store in the neighborhood โ working with the developer to keep a grocery store on the ground floor, building another site nearby, holding regular farmers markets during construction. We cannot leave the Fillmore without food.
Endorsed by: San Francisco police union, Marina Times.
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
The Western Addition/Fillmore is losing its only full-service grocery store, risking becoming a food desert. Neighbors in the area share growing concerns about equitable access to food and lack of community input from proposed solutions.
Thatโs why Iโve met with members and earned the support of the community, like Rev. Arnold Townsend, and am proposing investments in co-operative grocery businesses โ democratically controlled and member-owned businesses that can come from, and are for, the community. This will ensure access to affordably priced groceries in our neighborhoods, while investing in economic models that guarantee long-term stability and service in the community.
Endorsed by: TogetherSF Action, 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 Fillmore has been the epicenter of displacement of the Black community. I have stood against displacement, whether by eviction, gentrification or failure to make the community safe and livable. My work includes:
- Stopping abrupt closure of the Fillmoreโs Safeway
- Winning $17 million for street safety in the Western Addition
- Reopening Fillmore Mini-Park and funding Buchanan Mall improvements
- Right to counsel for tenants facing eviction
- Rent control for Midtown
- Bringing community ambassadors to the neighborhood
- Mini-grants for Fillmore entrepreneurs
- Supporting residents and tenant associations in getting repairs
Learn more about my work in the neighborhood here: https://dean2024.com/fillmore-western-addition
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
We must correct Redevelopment Era mistakes, retain cultural history, and support culturally iconic businesses as the next generation of entrepreneurs takes over. Iโll ensure an affordable supermarket replaces the Safeway.
Iโll support the creation of new, special startup grants and tax exemptions to support entrepreneurs from within the community. And Iโll invest in public safety (from community ambassadors to police) to ensure all residents โ and especially seniors โ can safely navigate their neighborhoods. We must invest in retaining the diversity and vitality of our neighborhoods through city-funded economic and social initiatives that support ground-up community development.
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
A dilapidated and embarrassing structure is on the corner of Fillmore and Turk Street (across the street from the police station). This building looks like it has been vacant for at least 30 years. Why? I intend to find out in the first week as District 5 supervisor.
If I canโt get the owner to do something with this corner property, I will apply pressure to tear it down and expand the adjacent mini park. Of course, Iโll probably learn that the city owns it, which explains why it is so embarrassing and neglected.
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.
For Allen Jones: Yes, the city owns it. It’s an historic building, so demolition is unlikely. Repairing, retrofitting, making ADA compliant and restoring will cost a large sum. Maybe the “moderate” Republican-funded ____________SF groups (Together, Better … etc.) could ask one of their benefactors to do the right thing, by which I mean pay to make the building useable as a public good. They have cash enough to buy the local Democratic party and back carpetbaggers and other unqualified candidates for office. Actually giving a gift to the community would show they really want SF to be together and better.
Don’t hold your breath. They’re (mostly) with Trump now, so SF is not on the nice list for them.
I’ll admit that the Safeway provides a crucial service for the neighborhood, but I’d like the political novices in the race to talk about other concrete ideas they have for the neighborhood. That includes funding if you want to say ambassadors are start a co-op. More farmer’s markets won’t fill the need – they aren’t full service and, based on the Saturday market on O’Farrell, not likely to be geared to the majority of the neighborhood. A Civic Center type market with EBT market match could actually serve everyone.
It is irksome that carpet baggers and neophyte candidates have recently plunked themselves down in D5 in order to challenge the current supervisor, and none of them knows much about our communities and our struggles. While the looming closure of theFillmore Safeway is an extremely important issue to our communities, candidates Mahmoodโs Looijenโs and Scotty Party Zone Jacobsโ gaping lack of knowledge of the Fillmoreโs rich cultural history and challenges is on full display here. What of local and recent fights to do with the 139 families @ Midtown and their rent strike? What of the eviction and closure of our beloved Marcus Books? What of the challenges that The Church of St. John Coltrane has faced yet still they rise? What of the ghosts of and the residual impacts of Jim Jonesโ Peoples Temple? What about the saga of the former Yoshiโs and the Fillmore Center? Itโs icky when candidates whoโve recently fallen off the turnip truck bloviate about things they know next to nothing about. And itโs really too bad candidate Mahmood keeps touting Arnold Townsendโs endorsement. In D5 we call him Benedict Arnold because of his shady and bizarre actions as London Breedโs lead appointee to the Task Farce during the recent gerrymandering (aka โredistrictingโ ) of D5. D5ers are furious with him because of his lack of transparency and professional comportment involving unsanctioned late night phone calls and clandestine convos instead of full disclosure and transparency. D5ers love being told what our districtโs history is.
Take note carpet bagger candidates, fake โneuroscientistโ Bilal Mahmood, Los Altos Looijen and Scotty party zone Jacobs: your campaignsโ manufactured concerns about โfood desertsโ and the closure of the Fillmore Safeway are cancelled by all three of your silences when Phil Ginsberg (Rec & Park) evicted the Crown Jewel of all of San Franciscoโs Farmers Markets: the +40 year old Heart of the Cityโs Farmers Market at Civic Center (historic UN Plazaโ(now jack hammered) which served +30,000 San Franciscan EACH WEEK!!Park & Rec displaced this SUPER COMMUNITY RESOURCE to install a skate park and ping pong tables; this was the PRIMARY food source of local Tenderloin, Civic Center and South of Marketโs low income residents, including veterans and seniors. Breedโs and Park and Recโs decision was made without transparency and discussion with the small and independent farmers whose lives and farms sustained our local communities for over 40 years. D5 Supervisor Dean Preston took the lead and used the power of his office to expose the stupidity of Ginsburgโs and Breedโs diabolical decision to jack hammer the plaza to โactivate the spaceโ and install a skate park and ping pong tables. Where were you when your D5 community desperately needed you Autumn, Scotty, Bilal? D5 voters see you and you pandering, posturing and manufactured concerns for our local communities.
Sound and fury and crocodile tears. Scant specifics on how the newbies would address the challenges that our D5 communities and the Fillmore continue to grapple with.
Thatโs some funny math and fabricated local history right there D5โing. While D5ers whoโve been here awhile welcome new neighbors to the district with open arms, most of us take a dim view of carpet bagging candidates (and their gollowers) who make stuff up about events that actually happened with sites like 555 Fulton. The strange and terrible saga of corruption and bungled decision making happened long before Preston was Supervisor. From 2016 when then D5 Supervisor London Breed and her developer boyfriend bungled the deal. https://hoodline.com/2016/12/why-555-fulton-and-hayes-valley-s-grocery-store-has-been-so-delayed/
Although the carpet bagger candidates and their campaigns seek to make this the current supeโs fault, D5ers know the well publicized story of delays, bribes and corruption by billionaire developer Zhang Li, along with Breedโs appointee @ DPW Mohammed Nuru (now in prison) . From 2016 article: โ But 555 Fulton continues to face delays, as the Chronicle reported this weekend. According to the city, that’s because Fulton Street Ventures, the project’s developer, introduced changes to the building without city approval. The planned glass exterior was changed, and the developer also eliminated the landscaping and streetscape improvements for which it had gotten approval.
After negotiations with the Planning Department, Fulton Street Ventures agreed to go back to its original plans. But that meant a new glass curtain wall system had to be ordered, causing further delays.โ
D5 just got a new Trader Joeโs in the hood! Out with the old, in with the new. No need to stay stagnant. Fillmore Safeway has been in need of a major refresh for a decade, bring it on! Just like Breed got TJโs in D5. It took 5-6yrs but it happened.
Welcome to the newcomers! (Although comment from Jones seems pretty out of touch though!)
Many in D5 are absolutely thrilled to have new blood, itโs the new attitude weโre excited about not the same old tired stuff from one trick pony Dean.
Blaming the current D5 supervisor (instead of the two previous supes who failed our community on the 555 Fulton project) for events that didnโt happen on his watch is lame. D5ers know that it was Dean Preston who brought Trader Joeโs over the finish line because we worked together with him and his staff to do it. Blaming him for stuff before he was in office and not crediting him for working with community on important issues makes one think youโre a candidate for D5 supervisor. Scotty is that you?
Breed didn’t get Trader Joe’s in the neighborhood.
Back when the 555 Fulton project was stumbling into its third or fourth year with no end in sight, Vallie Brown who was then a legislative aide to Breed told me that 555 Fulton was the project the then-supervisor was most proud of. All I could say in response was, “Okay.”
It has hardly been a success even after all or at least some of the corruption had been addressed. The condos still haven’t all sold (after more than four years of being moved in ready) that a bunch are becoming rental units. It’s like the Oak on Market near Van Ness: the developers misplayed their hand and now people like you think it’s Supervisor Preston’s fault.
Just say you don’t like working class people and tenants rights and rent control. Of enough voters in the district feel the same they can vote for one of the carpetbaggers. Those of us who do like the people and policies you don’t like will vote for Preston.
Your right-wing backed fill in the blank SF groups can endorse the guy who spent six hundred thousand dollars of his own money to try to buy himself a state assemblymember job. But so far Mahmood has made absolutely no concrete and detailed policy statements that show he has any idea what he would do as supervisor.
He lied on his resume, turned himself into a renter at a luxury building, and now calls himself a progressive. Even Together SF members are mad that the board endorsed Mahmood. After making a few vague suggestions, Mahmood turns out to be empty, just as many of us already knew.
Now that he says he’s progressive, the “moderates” feel cheated. You didn’t feel that way when he said he was a neuroscientist. You only feel duped now because he was never anything but an unqualified opportunist.