About 100 people dropped by City College’s Mission campus on Monday night for a District 9 candidates forum organized by the San Francisco League of Women Voters, just two months before election day.
One of the most pressing questions, the fifth of the night, came up about 50 minutes into the 90-minute forum: It dealt with Proposition 33, which would repeal the California Costa-Hawkins Act and allow cities to set rent control on any type of housing, regardless of the year it was built.
“Would you support Proposition 33?” asked moderator Lauren Girardin from the League.
A supermajority of District 9 residents are renters. Every candidate, except Trevor Chandler, said they backed the measure.
“We often talk about our housing gaps. This is an easy way to meet that challenge,” said Stephen Torres, a bartender at Twin Peaks Tavern. “If we protect people in their homes, less people will end up on the street.”
“There are Trumpian levels of disinformation about this conversation,” said Jackie Fielder, a public bank advocate and democratic socialist. “I absolutely support Prop. 33. I’m a renter. I am a beneficiary of rent control, and I think lots more people in San Francisco should have it.”
Jaime Gutierrez followed Fielder and said he, too, is a rent-control beneficiary.
“I have a city job,” said Gutierrez, a transit supervisor for Muni. “I think that’s the one thing that’s keeping me in this city. Most of my coworkers have moved to other places in the name of saving a buck.”
But Chandler, now a substitute teacher but formerly an outreach director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), called it a proposition supported by Republicans that will stop more housing from being built.
“Prop. 33 Is one of those issues that makes really strange bedfellows, where you have hard right-wing Republicans with folks who claim to be in favor of affordable housing,” Chandler said, calling the measure a “Trojan horse.”
“I support rent control … I want to expand protections. I want to make sure we have strong eviction protections, all of those. But what we’re seeing on Prop. 33 is a real Frankenstein hybrid ideological,” he said.
The California Republican Party opposes the measure, while the California Democratic Party supports it. Tenants advocates across the state support the proposition, while landlord groups are spending handsomely to tank it.
Prop. 33 was not the only issue on which Chandler differed with all the other supervisorial hopefuls.
“This past January, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution calling for a sustained ceasefire in Gaza, humanitarian aid, release of hostages and condemning anti-Semitic, anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic rhetoric and attacks. Do you support or oppose that resolution? In either case, what would your next steps be if elected supervisor for District 9?” Girardin asked.
Roberto Hernandez, a longtime Mission activist and the first to respond, said yes, he supports the ceasefire resolution. Torres followed with a yes, while Chandler — next in line —took a deep breath.
“I would have opposed it. Foreign policy doesn’t belong to the Board of Supervisors,” said Chandler, who said he prefers to focus on local issues, and claimed the debate over the resolution caused anti-Semitic sentiments.
The response brought positive claps and boos from the audience.
Then, it was h brown’s turn. He called the state of Israel “fascist,” and accused it of committing genocide. A member of the audience yelled “respond to the question” and then Brown, 80, replied, “get out of here,” and moved toward the heckler. At this moment, Girardin intervened, and reminded the audience and candidates that she was in charge of the debate.
“Let’s get back behind the table,” Girardin told Brown. “I get behind the table, you can’t see my legs!” replied the candidate, who was wearing shorts, eliciting laughter from some members of the audience.
The forum was not done with housing yet, and Girardin asked the candidates what role developers should play in the city’s housing market.
Chandler said the city needed every form of housing, from 100 percent affordable to market-rate. Fielder responded by saying that the city can’t solve its housing shortage by relying solely on developers. She called for more financing from legislation, like 2020’s Prop. I, which doubles transfer taxes on properties valued at $10 million or more.
Brown, for his part, said the city should be buying all the land it can to stop depending on developers. “Private developers? That’s how we got in this situation. It’s the most money that you can make for the fewest rules,” he said.
This was a sentiment also shared by Torres, who said the city has given developers the “keys to the kingdom,” and that they often leave and lose interest once they’ve made a profit.
Both Julian Bermudez, who works at his family-owned Rancho Grande Appliances, and Hernandez shared brown’s view on the city buying land, but also spoke about the need to work with developers. The first called to phase them out slowly while the second called to build housing for everyone.
“Let’s talk about affordable. It should not only be the dishwasher but it should be the firefighter, the teacher,” said Hernandez. “They say teachers make too much money, but they can’t afford to live here, a nurse can’t afford to live here. So we got to build housing for everybody.”
Gutierrez called for subsidies and for the city to allow building one floor taller.
“Can you imagine if every house was able to go up a floor, and how much housing that would create?” asked Gutierrez.
The candidates also spoke about public safety, with Gutierrez pr and Chandler asking for a fully staffed police department while Hernandez. The first proposed a GI bill kind of plan to attract young people to the force while the second said he would not be satisfied until everyone feels safe walking at 2 a.m.
Fielder called for more foot patrol officers, at the moment the district has 9 between Bayview, Mission and Ingleside. She also called for community-ambassador programs and community policing. Torres said the city needed to support the district through community programs so people “don’t fall through the cracks.”
Bermudez blamed the media and neighborhood apps for creating the sense of insecurity and said he would support community policing.
Bermudez and Torres also called for making the San Francisco Police Department attractive to members of the community.
“Our cops should be part of our community and our neighborhoods, instead of just somebody that comes from Idaho,” said Bermudez. Most of the department lives outside the city, and several super-commute from states as far away as Alabama and Texas.
Brown called for more foot patrol specials and said the problem was the police union. He also, like Torres, rejected the idea that the department is under-funded.
In the last two questions, all candidates agreed that the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency could do more about road safety, and all also rejected the privatization of public parks in the district.
Woof. I’m still not sure who I’m going to vote for here, but what a breath of fresh air to hear “Foreign policy doesn’t belong to the Board of Supervisors”. The destruction of Gaza is horrible and horrifying, and if any of the Supervisors want to lead protests or get their branches of the party to petition against it, *on their own time*, great. But the city has 99 problems right here, right now.
I disagree with Chandler on some things – including, probably, US policy on Gaza – but he’s right with respect to this resolution. We spend a bit too much time on these purely symbolic measures that don’t really have any significance to local governance.
Luis,
You’re like the cop blocking the sight of other cops beating a defenseless victim …
“Nothing to see here, folks … just move it along.”
The World looks to San Francisco for the right thing to do in everything from legalizing Gay Marriage to Free Speech in published poetry and onstage comedy to electing Gay Public Officials and our stances later picked up and implemented World Wide and it all started here and some of us paid with out lives or listening to people of chatboards tell us that we should be quiet.
Kudos to Mission Local for having the courage to print these exchanges so critical in our time of trial on the Battlefields and on the Election Campaign Trails.
h.
I heard only boos when Trevor mentioned his opposition to the Gaza ceasefire resolution. He has the distinction of being the only candidate to get booed by the entire room!
It’s around minute 47:00:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jT4z_i88Y0c&pp=ygUmU2FuIGZlYW5jaXNjbyBwZWFndWUgb2Ygd29tZW4gdm90ZXIgZDk%3D
You guys wanna complain about Gaza destruction? BLAME HAMAS! If these low lives continue to operate in and under schools, UNRWA facilities, mosques and people’s homes, guess what? THEY ARE TO BLAME for those civilian deaths. This knee jerk bias against Israel and against Zionism reeks of leftie antisemitism, and I’m sick of it. The Palestinians have refused to compromise with Jews and Israel for over 76 years. They are not going to destroy Israel and kill Jews so they can have a fantasy state solely of their own. And a bunch of western liberals are morally compromised following this twisted narrative. If you’re so concerned with Arab and Muslim injustice, why is there almost zero protests and media attention on Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen?? 1,000,000 people have collectively died in these brutal conflicts, by Muslim on Muslim violence. But when Israel responds when attacked by various non state actors funded by Iran, you have a shit fit? Oh, maybe it’s because Israel is a Jewish state? Hyper focusing on Israel that while blatantly ignoring much larger conflicts is a form of discrimination folks. Wise up.
Rentier,
Those Jewish Settlements on Palestinian Land aided by the IDF are no different than the White Man’s invasion into the lands of the various American Indian nations supported by our glorious murdering Cavalry.
Your AIPAC agency should be registered like KKK branches.
Only, KKK isn’t backed by nuclear weapons.
My Irish ancestors were starved out of their native land by the Brits but I don’t list that fact seeking preferential consideration in everything.
I’ve moved on and become a failure in my own right.
Stop hiding your war crimes behind the legacy of your own tragic history.
You’re not special.
Not one single bit.
Most ethnic groups here were fleeing murderous land grabs that killed millions of our own grandparents.
Only, the Nazis and Popes and Emperors let some escape.
Israel has cornered a million people and is slaughtering them at the rate of nearly a thousand a week.
Custer’s 7th Cavalry would be impressed.
Go Niners !!
h.
WHY is Gaza an issue for San Francisco supervisors?
The answer is simple: IT IS NOT. They have no power to do anything about the Middle East, and even if they did, their job is to worry about San Francisco.
Under Costa-Hawkins, no apartment in SF built after 1979 can be rent controlled. Ever. That means the new market-rate buildings being built today will never, even in 10, 20, 50 years, be able to offer stability to their tenants.
It’s just common sense to be able to phase new buildings into rent control on a rolling schedule once they’ve had time to recoup their development costs. Prop 33 makes this possible. Making up nonsense about Republican rent control supporters (lol) to block this possibility is a deal-breaker.
Go Stephen and Harold!
I didn’t know hard right-wing Republicans supported rent control (per Travis Chandler)! Which right-wing Republican supports rent control? Travis Chandler is the embodiment of what’s wrong with this city. Fascist, neoliberal, mean-spirited and financially secured assholes who only represent the interest of rich and famous.
Part of the Israel lobby’s mission is to inject pro-Israel sentiments to up-and-coming politicians who aren’t yet making foreign policy decisions, and surely part of Chandler’s job when he worked as Progressive Outreach Director for AIPAC.
Chandler would be singing a different tune if the resolution would’ve been unilateral support for Israel.
RL,
“Progressive Outreach” is what Mossad calls spying on American citizens.
I’m a bit surprised ML printed Trevor’s true career.
His handler is Jim Sutton who recently closed his own practice and whom Chandler lists as his lawyer.
h.
“Progressive outreach” is what the lobby engages in when it sponsors SF politico trips to Israel. The lobbyist will smile and hand an up-and-comer a bottle of wine, but there’s an underlying threat when the hand-off occurs.
Repealing Costa Hawkins is going to drive small, owner-occupied rental owners like myself out of business. The cost of repairs, materials, PGE, and water, has escalated as much as 40%, yet rent increases have been capped at less than 1% for most of the past decade. Most large insurers are pulling out of San Francisco, which means premiums (if you can get one) have doubled.
SF has the strongest rent control protections in the country. The rent board deals with landlords who gouge, and the taxpayers provide free legal representation for tenants (but not for owners). Repeal of Costa Hawkins will prompt small owners to sell, which will remove a large segment of affordable housing from the market. The large corporate owners are able to carry chronic deficits. Small owners are not.
Some ugly truth but we’re chomping at the bit to stick it to the landlord class.
And the master tenant class – you get a roommate – you the “little landlord”.
Good luck making sure roomy is completely sane and will cough up every month cause you’ll never, ever get rid of them should they fall off the deep end.
The main issue will be the outlawing of raising the rent to market rate on vacated units thus marking a major step in the Socialist dream of state controlled housing. On the flip side, as mentioned in the comment, Mom and Pop will sell and we’ll evolve into TIC City.
Never mind. Our rent’s gonna go down. Right?
Thank god Hamas and the IDF agreed to lay down their arms after the Board of Supervisors passed their non-binding resolution calling for a cease fire! Sure, we don’t have a dependable public transit system, and we’ve all but lost faith in our local government to carry out basic infrastructure projects. But I guess those are small sacrifices to make for attaining peace in the Middle East!
Trevor Chandler, the Astroturf candidate backed by Tech and real estate billionaires. We see you. You are out of step with +60% of San Franciscans who rent. Also: your stance on the Gaza Resolution is offensive and equally tone deaf.
Greeny,
Today, both Tim Redmond (with a blazing headline in 48 Hills) and Eskenazi (comment buried in a story maybe this one?) outed Chandler’s deep AIPAC roots which I suspect is causing today’s bot like defenses of the Zionist ‘Outreach’ worker running for Supervisor in San Francisco’s District 9.
The lights will be on somewhere with files of these guys open on a table.
You think I exaggerate ?
Hey, the IDF murders journalists.
Thank god no one considers me one of those.
lol
Ayuk signed today and did we sign Trent Williams yet ?
Williams may be the most talented athlete physically in the NFL.
In one of our first games with him on our side he blazed his 340 pounds on a 50 yard diagonal to bounce a gazelle cornerback at full speed completely off the gridiron and rolling like a bowling pin into a bank of cameras.
That one right there was worth a million bucks.
h.
This brown clown, with his bigoted comments on Israel is a real loser. This topic should not be part of local supervisors purview, period.
Chandler is the only halfway normal candidate here, a first for D9’s long list of past bored of stupidvisors.
Rentier,
While it is true that my name is brown and that I have always aspired to be a clown neither takes away from the fact I was promulgating which is that the present day State of Israel is a Fascist bully practicing genocide upon its Palestinian population in Gaza.
I may be a dummy but at the United Nations over 120 countries agreed with me and put it in writing.
h.
The UN also signed off on a two-state solution in 1947 but the Palestinians thought they could wipe the Jews out instead.
Read my comment about this near top comment. You know nothing about the situation and are sickly biased. It’s hamas, hezbollah, etc. that are fascists and antisemitic. The UN has been hijacked for many years now and has no respectability in this matter, just look at their non profit arm UNRWA. There is clear and abundant evidence that this organization directly aids hamas terror, and also several of its members were directly involved in October 7 attacks.
For a guy that’s let’s say been around for awhile, you need to take the rose colored glasses off. And you’re certainly not representing me or many others in D9 that are tired of implicit discrimination against Jews and the state of Israel.
Rentier,
I read everything you wrote.
You and the guy in the audience at the event thought they’d try a little AIPAC action my way and I do not back down from bullies.
Keep in mind that I’m a Reform School teacher with 3 sets of National Credentials who has broken up a thousand fights and you do not intimidate this 80 year old.
Yuval Harari says the fight is over the conflicting stories the two peoples have taught their children for a couple of thousand years and both stories are lies as are all such Gifts of Real Estate and Promises of Immortality in exchange for murder.
Hamas is liken to the American Indian.
World Court and UN says it’s Palestinian Land but Israel has nukes.
And, of course, they have you and Trevor in D-9.
Nice to meet you, neighbor.
lol
h.
Rentier,
Watch your tone of voice with me please.
My read of the situation over there is same as Yuval Harari who says there is plenty of land for both peoples but they can’t live together because their tribal stories about religion clash and Israel is ready to fight a thermonuclear war to defend theirs.
The Hamas attack was more on a parallel with American Indian attempts to drive the settlers and their villages and towns off what the Indians thought was their land just because they’d been living here for a thousand years or something.
It was pure irony to listen to Peskin begin Board meetings with an acknowledgement that we are on the unceded land of the Ohlone which ‘we’ took by way of genocide which is what Netanyahu wants to do to the Palestinians as he proved by comparing the IDF invasion with Saul’s genocide of the Amalek tribe on order of God.
Do Israeli settlers begin meetings by acknowledging they are on the unceded land of the Palestinian people ?
Please be more civil.
And, as always, Go Niners !!
h.
What ru talking about?!? It’s THE JEWS who are the original inhabitants of the land (after Canaanites), the indigenous inhabitants over 2700 years ago. We were there centuries before Mohammad was even invented by the Arabs 700AD. As for compromising, since 1947 Jews were willing to split the land. It’s the Arabs that kept rejecting a settlement. Also, under British rule the Palestinian mandate was 3x the size, and 70% went to create Jordan. The Jews were offered less than 10% and Palestinians the rest. So who’s being unreasonable here? (You really should know this stuff if you’re going to take a public position on this.)
‘Brown, 80, replied, “get out of here,” and moved toward the heckler.’
Clearly Brown has the right temperament for an elected official. I look forward to his election, and the inevitable humorous deadlines (and likely lawsuits) .
“Foreign policy doesn’t belong to the Board of Supervisors” – Could be a reason Mr. Chandler should not be on the Board? Having a paid tenure with this organization that has arguably the strongest grip of any PAC when it comes to manipulating US foreign policy (and so overtly at the expense of another peoples humanity) is a stain on your moral compass you must now wear.
“Fielder called for more foot patrol officers, at the moment the district has 9 between Bayview, Mission and Ingleside.”
will the wonders never cease?
YIMBY want to raise your rent so they oppose rent control.
As Steph Curry is wont to say, “night, night Trevor Chandler” (puts hands together at a 45 degree angle and leans head onto hands)
The only thing standing between Chandler and the D9 seat is Jackie Fielder’s soporific campaign.