Bilal Mahmood, an entrepreneur and District 5 supervisor candidate, repeatedly picked fights with Supervisor Dean Preston at a Wednesday night debate, scolding the incumbent for saying he would defund the police and for criticizing national policies around police funding.
“You are sending a message to police officers that their work is ‘pointless,’ and that is why we are unable to hire staff and we are unable to arrest fentanyl dealers today,” Mahmood said.
Preston shot back.
“If you want a politician who is just going to, every budget season, write a blank check to this police department of $50 million to $100 million extra, with no accountability on how that’s being spent — if you want that kind of person — maybe he’s [sitting] to my right.”
“He is,” Mahmood agreed.
“So, you’re a rubber stamp for police budgets?” Preston said incredulously at the UC Law San Francisco debate, hosted by Mission Local. “We have a serious job to do as legislators. Our job is oversight. I think you disqualify yourself if you’re not willing to actually provide oversight,” he added.
The conversation continued to escalate when Scotty Jacobs, another District 5 candidate, chimed in and attacked Preston for what he alleged to be a lack of cooperation between his office and the Tenderloin police station.
Preston immediately disputed Jacobs’ (and Mahmood’s) claims. “The idea that we don’t engage with the police department is ridiculous,” he said.
“I went to the Tenderloin police station, and the captain said you’ve never been there,” said Jacobs. “So you’re telling me the police officer, the captain of the police department, is lying to me?”
Mahmood and Preston also sparred on the subject of Mahmood’s profession. For months, Mahmood frequently referred to himself as a neuroscientist but, following criticism from a group of neuroscientists who questioned Mahmood’s credentials, he subsequently removed any mention of the profession from his campaign materials.
Mahmood, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Stanford University, where he did undergraduate research in a neuroscience lab, has never worked as a neuroscientist in his professional life.
“I was always referring to my academic training,” said Mahmood. “When I saw this as being misunderstood, I updated my website to clarify that,” he added. Mahmood criticized Preston for taking issue with this.
Preston countered by pointing out that Mahmood’s campaign ads read “Bilal Mahmood: Neuroscientist.” “It’s a very strange thing to do when you’re not a neuroscientist,” said Preston. “That is an issue of betraying trust to voters.”
Many responses during the District 5 forum followed the same pattern: Mahmood, and sometimes Jacobs, would target Preston, and Preston would give a rebuttal.
When Eleni Balakrishnan, Mission Local reporter and the night’s moderator, asked who they would rank second in the November election, Mahmood said “maybe Scotty,” and Jacobs said “Bilal,” revealing a likely alliance.
Meanwhile, Preston and Autumn Looijen said they remain undecided, while Allen Jones said, “I am not supporting any candidate other than myself,” to which the audience laughed.
Preston was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2019, in a special election to finish London Breed’s term as District 5 supervisor. He is a tenants rights lawyer, and is the first democratic socialist to be elected to the board in over 40 years.
While Preston has lived in District 5 for 28 years, four of his opponents are political newcomers and/or new residents to the district. Mahmood moved to the Tenderloin last year, while Jacobs moved to the district in 2022, Jones in 2021 and Looijen in 2020.
On Wednesday, and throughout the campaign, Preston’s main rivals have tried to set themselves apart from him by focusing on law-and-order policies, and on building more market-rate housing.
When Balakrishnan asked the District 5 candidates if they support rent control, one by one, the candidates said yes. But when asked about Proposition 33, a state measure that would expand cities’ ability to enact rent control, Looijen and Jacobs said they oppose the measure.
Addressing Jacobs, Balakrishnan said: “You’ve supported deporting fentanyl dealers and encampment sweeps and you oppose things like Prop. 33. How do these policies represent the majority of District 5?” she asked. She reminded him that D5 is “a very progressive district, made up of 70 percent renter households.”
Jacobs argued that placing more rent-control restrictions would have an adverse effect on affordability. It would, he said, disincentivize development, which is “foundational to actually making housing more affordable.”
Meanwhile, Balakrishnan also pressed Preston on his housing platform: “Dean, some of your critics have said that you’ve obstructed housing development with some of your votes,” she said. “How would you respond to these claims?”
“We have actually moved forward with the development of 14 housing development sites across District 5, of over 2,000 units, over 80 percent of them affordable.”
“The issue people have with my housing record is that I focus so much on affordable housing. I think that’s what the people of District 5 want, because they can’t afford most of the market-rate stuff,” he added.
Thanks Kelly Waldron. Good reporting, very helpful.
Last night’s forum also included a question about government accountability, oversight and operations, referring to Propositions C (Inspector General), D (City Commissions and Mayoral Authority), and E (Creating a Task Force to Recommend Changing, Eliminating, or Combining City Commissions).
Props D and E are competing measures on how to update the number and scope of the commissions in San Francisco. Prop D proponents insist there are too many commissions in San Francisco, complaining that SF has the most of any city in the state. Prop D intends to take a hatchet to them and chop the number in half.
This complaint is as baseless as it is wrong. San Francisco has commissions as a city and as a county. Taken as a city and a county, San Diego has 145 commissions, 11 percent more than San Francisco. Political newbies who don’t know how to look at complex governmental structures can posture and spout sound bites, but that doesn’t mean what they are saying is legitimate, accurate or valid. (See Margaret Brodkin’s recent article in Beyond Chron – https://beyondchron.org/proposition-d-is-terrible-public-policy-and-scary-politics/).
Bilal Mahmood supports Proposition D. He speaks in favor of streamlining and cutting red tape. Among the 65 commissions that Mahmood supports eliminating are three in particular that make me question the way he markets himself. Prop D will eliminate the Commission on the Status of Women, the Immigrant Rights Commission, and the Youth Commission.
Recently, Mahmood has bragged that he supports more female candidates than Supervisor Preston, as if all female candidates are interchangeable simply because they are women. But he doesn’t support Autumn Looijen, the only female candidate in the D5 race. I wouldn’t claim he’s a misogynist or even a bad guy because of this. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his “maybe” choice of Scotty Jacobs as his number two has something to do with their policy positions rather than gender. If Condoleezza Rice or Amy Coney Barrett were mayor of San Francisco instead of London Breed, would Mahmood still be endorsing the incumbent? I don’t believe it is a helpful policy position to want to eliminate a governmental body tasked with “ensur[ing] women and girls [have] equal economic, social, political and educational opportunities in San Francisco.”
Mahmood has consistently identified himself as the child of immigrants, and also how post-9/11 anti-Muslim hysteria made his family so vulnerable that they returned to Pakistan so he could finish high school. That is an important part of who he is. Immigrant (and refuge) status is a vast and urgent set of experiences for many San Franciscans. Language barriers; access to health care, food and housing; employment opportunities; schooling and education; discrimination; trauma and mental health issues; loss of culture and a sense of belonging; family disruption; safety – these are just some of the issues that are particularly acute concerns for new arrivals. But Mahmood supports an ill-conceived ballot measure that will get rid of the Immigrant Rights Commission whose purpose is to “guide the City on issues and policies related to immigrants who live or work in San Francisco.”
Mahmood also supports getting rid of the Youth Commission. 17 youth between the ages of 12 and 23 serve on the commission. Their role is to “advis[e] the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor on policies and laws related to young people. The Youth Commission is also charged with providing comment and recommendation on all proposed laws that would primarily affect youth before the Board takes final action.” On the many occasions that Mahmood has stated just how horrible conditions in the Tenderloin are, he never fails to invoke the 3,500 children (under 18) who live in the neighborhood. Over the past fifteen years, I have met and played with and learned from and been amazed by and enjoyed knowing hundreds of Tenderloin children. There is a lot to criticize about how San Francisco has responded (or not) to their needs, and how those kids are used as political props. While every governmental body or agency has room for improvement, the Youth Commission is a crucial voice and influence for children and transitional age youth. Eliminating the Youth Commission will harm the kids Mahmood invokes to score points. Mahmood is simply wrong to think it is in their interests to get rid of it in the name of efficiency, streamlining and cutting waste.
If Dean has as much vigor to keep police accountable and no rubber check, what about those non profits that flood his district? He could have been mayor, with his fake talk.
I’m sure glad I missed this for the world!
Btw, I don’t know who was responsible for the decision, but I was elated to discover last week that the hideous yellow “lynching gibbets” that adorned Turk between Jones and Leavenworth FINALLY disappeared.
They were there for years!
I think they called the parklet (where the gibbets forlornly stood) the “Sparc”– as if anything good would come of it.
I am grateful no one was ever hanged there!
As for the hanging baskets full of artificial flowers intended for them, but never used– I believe that they can be found adorning broken Muni shelters around Union Square.
Given how much attention you apparently paid to it, it is surprising that you can’t even remember its name. It was called Safe Passage Park (or SPark, with a capital S and a capital P, no quotation marks and no definite article).
You must be the one who complained about it a year or so ago – I’ve never seen the word “gibbet” in print except in the two Mission Local comments that have used in to describe part of the structure at Safe Passage Park.
As I said last time, the park didn’t live up to what we hoped it would be, but maybe that’s because the city (SFMTA, SFFD, and DPW among other departments) managed to interfere with the project at every step of the way – so that pandemic public health emergency outdoor space took almost an entire year to discuss and finally built over the course of a few days. The “grand opening” was a full sixteen months after the public health emergency declaration was issued.
Rather than complain twice (at least) about something, you could perhaps try doing something for the neighborhood.
Yes I am indeed the one who complained from the start about the hideous yellow gibbets, and I did so using my own name.
I confess I had trouble remembering the poor parklet’s name.
For some reason I wanted to call it “spork” because the project and the universal lack of cooperation for it that you describe resulted in the parklet never being one thing or another, spoon or fork.
In addition to being an unwelcoming eyesore, the unmistakable hangman structures were an insult to anyone having concerns about the history of lynching in America– and the unmistakable rise of fascism today– especially after the murder of George Floyd. Safe passage indeed!
Why our city had not simply hung baskets of flowers from them was beyond me. Doubtless someone harbored some fear of making that decision. In the end it threw the baby out with the bathwater and what we have now is arguably worse.
For myself, and perhaps for others as sensitive, the barren gibbets stood as a daily reminder that the United States, let alone San Francisco, is NOT a particularly safe place for ALL its children.
The reason for my initiating this reply is that I wanted to concede being corrected about the name of the parklet, but after checking a photo I took of it, I realize that I stand only partially corrected. The parklet appears to actually have been labeled “sPark” with a small “s” (or a wonky capital S, perhaps?):
https://users.lmi.net/confetti/Turk_Street_gibbets.JPG
Since my previous comments you mentioned, I did indeed learn– from Mission Local’s reporting in fact, that the purpose of the SPark was for the safe passage of children through our neighborhood.
Who could possibly be against that goal?
Not I! (And I don’t need to be rewarded for agreeing with you and others on this point.)
What indeed are WE to do about our neighborhood at the heart of one of the world’s most wealthy cities that pulses with children and hazards in such close proximity? A neighborhood so mired in vice and decay that the fragile safety and happiness of precious children must be cordoned within a narrow, sterile vacuum?
And how did this parklet truly serve the children? And how safe are any of any these parklets during COVID anyway?
While interest groups, tax-exempt charities, and public-private-partnerships seem to wallow in limitless opportunities for “doing good”, what indeed will become of innocent children who must be stewarded to adulthood by so many flimsy, half-cocked, superficial gimmicks?
I think and wonder about it daily as I walk from Turk Street to the top of “Pill Hill” on Golden Gate.
That man with his naked butt out and his lips glued to a dried broken pipe, that woman aged beyond her years, clenched like a dead spider on the sidewalk, even those men glaring with hatred and murder while they handle their mafia’s merchandise: they too were once children with real hope and promise. What do today’s children make out of such sights while they are ushered along and admonished not to look at “the elephant” that the adults pretend not to see?
As a city, as a state, and as a nation we put too much faith in clever cost-saving reforms that do little more than embroider “hope” at the corners of a growing catastrophic failure. I have never believed that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Rather, I believe we need ask why we live in darkness, and fix that.
Our darkness is due to capitalism.
I am old now and weary of living through decades of promises and programs that only enriched oligarchs and their political flunkies, and made decent, well-intentioned people scrap with one another to achieve transitory reforms.
Are we not all mostly fed myths of exceptionalism to make us feel good and move along, without giving a thought to our shared fate– which has become nothing less than trying to survive amid more war, pestilence, and greater class inequality?
I am no longer satisfied going home with a free t-shirt. We need to ask who made the t-shirt and who is selling it and why they are selling it.
What “weird” ideas!
Bilal is so disconnected from this community and does not come off as approachable at all. The point is to be of service to community and this dude with an eyesore of an HQ office with a door that is almost always closed (foreshadowing much?) just spews GrowSF-prepared talking points. Get this Moritz puppet out of here.
Campers Shortcut,
Just look at the candidate’s list of endorsements.
Those that are endorsed by ‘Together San Francisco’ and ‘Grow San Francisco’ were recruited and fielded by the Billionaires’ group funded by Elbendorf and Moritz and the like.
Mark of the Beast as it were.
That’s for all of the various boards and commissions and offices.
Sadly, same goes for ‘endorsed by Democratic Party.
And, you see that and go back and you’ll see their credentials are often fake too.
Like old episodes of the ‘Dating Game’.
Go Niners !! (we have 15 weeks to get well before Playoffs begin)
h.
I attended the debate .
Thank you for hosting this event .
My hope is that everyone who is eligible to vote does .
Also , allow me to state , I believe , the supervisors should represent the whole city not just a district . Rather then dividing the city the system should unify .
It takes a village .
For a good illustration of what at-large elections produce, take a look at SFUSD.
Eliminating district specific supervisors who live in and know the neighborhoods and communities they are elected to represent is a terrible idea. Case in point: London Breed is a city wide generalist. She has been SF’s mayor for +6 years now. When called to task for her policies and decision making, she repeatedly states she is not responsible for (fill in the blank) crime in the Tenderloin, food deserts, public transit failures etc. Imagine if the 11 distinct district supervisor positions were eliminated and supervisors became generalized deputy mayors as Prop D sets forth. . It’s bad enough that we have one unaccountable mayor…….what if we had 11 more in the form of city generalists? No. It’s a terrible idea. Pac Heights residents have very little in common with Bayview or Tenderloin or Haight Ashbury residents. Prop D must fail.
Appreciate the article and chance to learn more about candidates .
I guess if Dean doesnt win , people will need to work, start contributing , need to follow laws and stop taking drugs ?
Self reliance and accountability sound like a good thing . Contributing to ones costs , unless disabled , improves self worth. Government offering temporary shelter , food , clothing and services for a limited amount of time rather then for years , unless disabled , is a win win for all
Police staffing is NOT a uniquely San Francisco problem. It is a NATION WIDE PROBLEM in large part due to recent actual (and escalating) events and media coverage of the violence and deaths caused by monsters like Derek Chauvin, a police officer and his cowardly and vile partners (also police officers) who took no action to avert the public lynching of George Floyd. But sweep that under the carpet if you must Bilal and Scotty. Truth: few in America (and in SF) are willing to become police officers today because of incidents like George Floyd’s murder by police officers. Do candidates Scotty and Bilal think people have forgotten what the police did to Tyre Nichols…. Breanna Taylor….. Sondra Bland? Even worse: why are the two candidates exploiting this issue in their political campaigns while abusing the term “defund the police”? Why did either of them recently move to D5 to run for elected office and not instead the Marina, Pac Heights, Palo Alto? When morons and simpletons seek to blame the current district supervisor for this profound national challenge of police understaffing, San Franciscans see through it. And if either one of you says “defund the police” one more time, we’re all going to scream. So quit it. Bilal: when you were a high school student in Palo Alto, Dean Preston was a young civil rights attorney defending innocent victims against excessive police force. Scotty’s and Bilal’s fomenting of fake outrage over “defunding” the cops is a dog whistle. These two treat the voting public like morons. Quit it. It’s insufferable. D5 deserves better.
Boom. Carpet bagger candidates bilal mahmood (d5 resident of only one year) along with scotty hype man party zone jacobs and los altos Autumn looijen have garbage remedies for D5 issues.
D5’s population is 90% renters. No surprise that hype man Scotty Jacobs (both a property owner and landlord in Marin and SF) is opposed to Prop 33 and rent control. Scotty said “Prop 33 must be defeated.” You have to wonder why Scotty party zone Jacobs recently chose to move to D5 as a “renter.” Why didn’t he remain in his old D2/Presidio neighborhood in the Presidio/D2 where he was better suited to the Pac Heights, Laurel Village, Sea Cliff voters? Mark Farrell country.
This is the third D5 forum in a row that Bilal and Scotty showed up to dressed as twins. Given the range of colors for jackets and shirts, not to mention different styles, there is no way that this dress alike phenomenon is coincidental.