S.F. board president ousts potential rival from housing committee

San Francisco Board President Rafael Mandelman removed Supervisor Bilal Mahmood from a city housing committee on Friday, a move Mahmood alleged was because of his plans to counter historic preservation legislation championed by Mandelman.

Mahmood claimed Mandelman’s decision to remove him from the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee, which oversees housing and zoning, was over Mahmood’s opposition to Mandelman legislation to undertake a study and expand the list of registered city landmarks.

Mahmood has been critical of the move, and says expanding historic preservation will hamper housing production. His proposed amendments would mandate that any loss in potential housing production would be remediated by increasing building height limits on other parcels to make up the difference. 

Without a seat on the Land Use Committee, Mahmood will no longer be able to introduce those amendments himself. “I could find someone to introduce the amendments,” he said. “But there’s no guarantee of that.” 

But the conflict between the two legislators also comes amid speculation that they will face off in a California State Assembly race in less than two years’ time. 

Mandelman has already launched a campaign for the seat; Mahmood has said he is not currently considering a run, and that doing so would be “premature.”

Still, political observers believe he may yet throw his hat in the ring, and Mandelman said, “I believe he is considering it.” Mandelman denied, however, that this factored into his decision to push Mahmood off the Land Use Committee. 

Mahmood ran unsuccessfully for assembly in 2022. The assembly seat will either open in 2027 or 2028, depending on whether Sen. Scott Wiener is elected to Congress. Haney, the seat’s current occupant, has signaled intentions to run for Wiener’s seat. 

Mandelman, for his part, defended his actions and said that his goal is to “put together committees that are true to the mood of the full board.” He said he replaced Mahmood with Supervisor Matt Dorsey to ensure a continued YIMBY presence on the housing committee. 

Mahmood was the only supervisor to be involuntarily taken off a committee. Supervisor Connie Chan was replaced as budget chair, but she had announced in December that she planned to step down.

Mandelman declined to comment on Mahmood’s claims that his removal was related to the historic streamlining legislation.

“But I will say that his approach to my historic preservation legislation has been quite aggressive,” he said. 

Mahmood’s amendments would “gut the legislation,” Mandelman said, adding that the “more collegial move” would have been for Mahmood to ask Mandelman whether he accepted the amendments. If Mandelman did not, Mahmood could have simply voted no on the legislation, Mandelman said. 

“Supervisor Mahmood clearly chose a different course, and that is his right, but I don’t really think that’s the way to keep the era of good feeling going at the Board of Supervisors,” Mandelman said, referring to the fact that, for the most part, there has been little conflict between supervisors this term. 

Mahmood has been sharply critical of other city politicians recently, too, including a few weeks ago, when he accused Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Connie Chan of conspiring to block a tax measure he had proposed. 

Mandelman took note. “I do think there’s a shift happening in how Supervisor Mahmood is approaching his job and I did consider that as I was making those assignments,” he said. 

Mahmood disagreed. “I think to say someone is being aggressive because they’re engaging in the democratic process is pretty misleading,” he said. “I think it is more so a pattern of the president seeming to engage in shuffling the cards to avoid difficult votes.”

Mahmood has little recourse about his committee assignment. Mandelman is board president and has unilateral authority over committee appointments.