Priorities and Disclosures

I am, first and foremost, an urbanist. I grew up in a very car-focused Texas suburb, but have now lived in San Francisco for about 11 years, mostly without a car (I bought my first car this year, in fact, much to my dismay…). That decade has taught me the value of pedestrian-oriented density as well as highlighted where the city of San Francisco falls short on those goals. Additionally, my wife (along with many of our friends) is a daily long-distance runner- her safety (as well as yours and mine!) is very tangibly reliant on safe street design and pedestrian-oriented infrastructure. As such, my top priorities are as follows (not necessarily in order):

  • Market-rate housing development
  • Safe streets infrastructure
  • Bike lanes
  • Funding and expanding public transit
  • Funding and fixing SFUSD
  • More parks!

Things I support but consider less urgent:

  • Small business relief / support
  • Police reform
  • Property crime enforcement
  • Homelessness relief

I am a regular donor to SF YIMBY, Walk SF, and the SF Bike Coalition. I also donated to the London Breed for Mayor campaign this year.

Method

I don’t not vote, and I think it is the duty of all citizens to participate. As such (pending time, as I am writing this pretty late!) I will try to put down an endorsement on everything. I will use a 4-point scale: Strong/weak yes/no. You can think of “weak” as “I am voting this way, but you should make up your own mind” and “strong” as “I am voting this way, and I really think you should too!”.

In an effort to support the reader doing their own research, I will do my best to cite sources in my comments. Time permitting, I’ll also include a list of additional resources that I think are quality guides to the politics of the city.

City

Elected Offices

Mayor

We all want change for the city, and all of the candidates seek to position themselves as the only option for that change. But, if the change you want involves housing, walking, biking, and yes, public safety, rather than reverting to a civic model invented by midcentury planners, London Breed is the only choice for Mayor. She has been a supporter of housing development since day 1, before it was cool. She has pushed hard to build solid bike infrastructure throughout the city, and is the only moderate candidate in the field who supported both Car-Free JFK (actually, sponsored) and Ocean Beach Park. She supported the recall of 3 members of the school board as they dragged their feet on providing a plan to reopen schools during COVID. She has been an advocate for public safety, having sponsored last spring’s Prop E, which provided expanded options (surveillance cameras, drones) for smart policing to SFPD. She is an advocate for safe biking infrastructure, and fully 70% of the protected bike lanes in the city were built under her administration. She authored a prop in 2022 for a $400 million bond to fund Muni infrastructure improvements- it failed narrowly, only about a single percent short of the 2/3rds majority it needed. She continues to be an advocate for public transit- though, admittedly, I’d love to see more about long-term projects, like for example the potential of a Geary / 19th ave subway line, in her priorities for her next term.

Many who object to Mayor Breed’s tenure point to the current state of the city, even magnifying a message of fear to draw support (looking at you, Mark Farrell). And to be sure, there’s a lot that isn’t going well in the city- it remains unaffordable even as commercial real estate is in a bad position, and homelessness, while in a much better place than it was during the pandemic, remains a highly-visible concern. But holding London Breed responsible for all of this implies a level of power usually reserved for the divine. Commercial real estate is in a bad place because it was fully reliant on tech industry taxes coming from downtown, itself designed for a level of foot traffic driven by a 5-days in office paradigm that we may never see again. Homelessness is bad in the city for so many reasons- housing, healthcare, drugs, social support- none of which are controlled by the mayor’s office. If fact, San Francisco’s homelessness problem is on par with other west coast cities of similar size- part of our problem is simply the visibility of the situation due to the density of our urban environment. Furthermore, the degree to which mayor breed has an effect on these gigantic issues has been positive- homelessness is in a much better place now than it was during the pandemic, crime has dropped, and the mayor continues to push downtown revitalization programs. Rather than holding an elected official responsible for events outside their control, I think it more relevant to look at how they responded- Mayor Breed has led us successfully through a dark time in our city’s history, pushing good policy through a hostile Board of Supervisors, holding consistently to a message of hope for the future.

I found the Chronicle endorsement of Lurie to be surprising, but somewhat convincing, even if I don’t accept their criticism of Mayor Breed. I like that he’s aggressive on pushing interim housing for homelessness and supports relief for struggling small businesses in the city. I like that he supports the city’s current housing element plan, which is to develop mid-rise (6-8 story) housing throughout the city, the so-called “Paris model”.

I don’t like his stance on transit- he supports returning rideshare to car-free Market, which in my opinion would eliminate all street safety gains from that project and be essentially the same as killing it. I also don’t like that many of his endorsements, people who are potentially on deck for department head roles, are notable NIMBY and anti-transit names. I really don’t like that he is against Prop K and has no endorsement of the (very popular) Car-Free JFK initiative.

Finally, I really don’t like his complete lack of experience. There is an argument that he wouldn’t be beholden to political relationships, as he supposedly has no plans for a future political career. However, it is just as easy to say that, with no experience in government and very little experience running any large organizations, he would be easy pickings for special interests and entrenched bureaucrats. This is likely what happened to Ed Lee, whose inexperience as an elected official led him to trust the wrong people. And Mayor Lee still had decades of experience as a city employee to draw from, experience that Lurie lacks. Plus, running a city is complicated work, and relying on established relationships to get things done can be incredibly valuable.

Ultimately, Lurie gets my #2 because his priorities for housing are largely aligned with my own and I think he could do some good, even if I don’t agree with his perspective on transit and pedestrian infrastructure and I worry his inexperience would just as likely cause problems as provide fresh perspective.

Why not Farrell?

I’ll start with the most important thing: I don’t think Mark Farrell’s vision for the city is aligned with my own, nor that of any real urbanist. He is strongly against the city’s proposal to meet state-mandated housing growth (that is, mid-rise density across the whole city, a notable change from the status quo in that it includes the western neighborhoods). Rather, he would prefer to isolate housing development to financial district, an area already shouldering most of the burden of housing development and one for which improvement will have diminishing returns. His claim that this could meet the state housing mandate is questionable at best, and comes from the same bad-faith NIMBY motivations that killed housing production and drove up living costs in the first place.

In an interview with Joe Eskenazi from Mission Local earlier in his campaign, Farrell dropped a flurry of anti-housing dog-whistles, likely trying to attract wealthier landowner resident support. Some quotes to highlight:

What we have to figure out from a housing perspective is how to get the state with a bullseye off our back.

This refers to the city’s Housing Element, essentially a development plan required by the state of California for all cities to meet the housing needs of their residents. Obviously, it hasn’t been working, because housing in California sucks. So, recently, the state put some teeth behind it with the so-called “builder’s remedy”. This is a law that allows developers to skip local planning ordinances if that city is out of compliance with their housing element (or if that element never actually meets the housing needs of the people in the city!). Housing advocates love this, as it has seen some real movement on an otherwise pretty stagnant development market, and I am in particular a fan of San Francisco’s plan to build mid-rise housing all around the city, similar to what you might see in Paris- a plan Farrell calls “absolutely insane”. Here, Farrell is discussing ways to get around this requirement, ostensibly to provide housing on his own terms but in practice to provide insufficient housing to make the city affordable to its residents.

We can up zone that neighborhood, people have no expectations of a quaint neighborhood or a street like Valencia downtown.

The literal definition of NIMBYism- Mark wants housing, but not in his quaint neighborhoods.

And, for the record, we’ve literally tried this- here’s the housing element plan from 2007, known as the “Eastern neighborhoods plan”, which concentrated development to the city’s Eastern waterfront. Ask yourself, did it work? Is the city’s housing situation better now than it was in 2007? The answer should be obvious.

Furthermore, Farrell doesn’t meet the bar of other urbanist priorities. He’s made the push against a new park at Ocean Beach, replacing a highway that has millions of dollars of pending maintenance with a beachfront promenade for cyclists and pedestrians, central to his campaign. He wants to undo car-free Market street, a street safety program I enjoy every day on my commute to work (yes, I go in 5x per week- what can I say, I love the city! And I live in a 1 BR apartment with my wife…).

Perhaps less critically, I also really hate how he has taken advantage of a fear-driven narrative on public safety and the state of the city to drive support after sitting out the worst of the city’s difficult last few years. When I visit my family in Texas, I often get concerned questions about my safety on the dangerous and lawless streets of San Francisco- I’m sure many living here have similar experiences. I do my best to cheerfully extol the beauty of the city, it’s fantastic culture, peerless parks and nature, and wonderful, unique people. I tell people to visit, and question their source of factual news. But the truth is, I hate these questions, and I’m getting really goddamn tired of fielding them. I absolutely will not stand for someone seeking to be the political leader and face of this city leveraging and boosting a message that is misleading, inaccurate, and harmful to all of us.

Props

A: School Improvement and Safety Bond

  • Bonds are a great way to pay for necessary things- they amortize the cost of large projects and take advantage of inflation on the payments over time
  • This is a reasonably necessary thing

B: Healthcare, Streets, and Shelter Bond

  • See prop A

C: Inspector General to Investigate Fraud

D: Limit City to 64 Commissions

  • By all accounts this measure was shoddily thrown together by the Farrell campaign as a way to advertise his platform.
  • That’s a pretty common thing to do for challenger candidates.
  • There are also allegations (this was a more fun, if somewhat anecdotal, read) that the Farrell campaign is using the PAC funding for this measure to route donations to his mayoral run, which is obviously sketchy but doesn’t necessarily mean the prop itself is a bad idea.
  • The 65 number is seemingly arbitrary, supposedly based on a private study that hasn’t been released (I don’t have a source for this, so it could be hearsay).
  • Closing commissions like this is likely to cause (potentially significant) disruption in city government and services- some commissions are redundant, but some are critical, and probably some are a little bit of both.
  • SPUR is working with London Breed on a 2026 ballot measure to do commission reform better, so this isn’t likely to be the only chance to do this. And, in addition to being a Breed supporter, I hold SPUR in extremely high regard, so I am very willing to believe that they will do a better job writing their proposition than the Farrell campaign did for Prop D.
  • The limit of 65 must be maintained going forward, which might prevent further bloat but will also cause ongoing rigidity.
  • However- commission reform in general seems like a pretty excellent thing to do, and this measure would do it one way or another. Legislature would most likely find ways to shore up critical losses, as well.
  • I am voting in support of this one because I think it’s “good enough”, but I may yet talk myself out of it before Tuesday.

E: Make a Commission to Evaluate Commissions

  • Competing measure to Prop D sponsored by Peskin.
  • Peskin is excellent at using complicated bureaucracy to wield power and push his personal priorities through, so this measure is very much in line with his governing methods.
  • Creates another committee without actually committing to do anything.
  • Relevant XKCD

F: Deferred SFPD Retirement for Extra Pay

  • We have a significant police shortage that is a priority to reduce for pretty much all of the serious mayoral candidates.
  • This ballot measure allows Police to work past their typical retirement date to buffer the force reduction as we work to improve the recruit pipeline
  • Officers would work at a slightly reduced pay, and there are reasonable measures to prevent fraud
  • Expires in 5 years unless action is taken by the Board of Supervisors

G: Subsidies for Certain Categories of Low-Income Housing

  • The city currently funds subsidies for extremely low income housing
  • The alternative for these folks is generally homelessness, and it would look super bad to not provide the subsidies because then they couldn’t pay rent
  • However, this ballot measure ensures that’s the case, so folks can trust that money won’t disappear
  • Budget set-asides are generally a bad idea, but the reliability of this one seems particularly important

H: More Pension for Firefighters

I: More Pension for Nurses

J: Combine a Bunch of Departments Managing Kid Stuff into One

  • Widely popular measure to combine a bunch of commission that manage some funds for children into one
  • Better oversight, more efficient

K: New Ocean Beach Promenade!!!

  • The current compromise is that the highway along Ocean beach from Lincoln to Sloat closes to cars on weekends. This compromise expires next year, at which point it will revert to being a highway
  • With just the weekend compromise, the promenade is the 3rd most visited park in the city, separately from Ocean Beach itself!
  • The portion of great highway south of Sloat is already scheduled to be closed in 2026 due to erosion.
  • Traffic mitigation work has already been completed in anticipation of the Sloat closure redirecting great highway traffic to Sunset Blvd, with more on the way.
  • Great highway closes an average of 65 days per year due to sand mitigation, so we actually have pretty good data about the effect on traffic. The impact to commute time, even prior to the aforementioned improvements, is… 3 minutes.
  • Funding has not been secured for full park development, but it’s pretty typical for that to come after the site has been procured. However, if K passes, the promenade will be turned over to Rec & Parks, and they will be able to build basic park amenities, similar to what we’ve seen installed on Car-Free JFK, out of their existing budget.
  • Sand will still need to be cleared to prevent the dunes from consuming the promenade, however, it can be done much less frequently. The city controller has estimated yearly cost savings of 350k-700k. Additional sand mitigation work could be implemented as part of the park build-out, but that is out of scope of this ballot prop.
  • The team behind Yes on K did an awesome Reddit AMA, check it out!
  • The opportunity to solidify this coastal space as a refuge for people and wildlife is significant, and a chance to do so without significant impact not already being realized is rare. Vote yes, and don’t let the chance slip away!

L: Tax Rideshare to Fund Muni Operational Costs

  • I admittedly don’t fully understand it, but there’s a poison pill for this one such that it won’t take effect if M passes with more votes.
  • That’s ok- M is probably more important, as this will only fund some operating costs and not capital improvements
  • I also don’t love weirdly targeted taxes like this, but I do love Muni, and Lyft/Uber have not been shy about using legislation to their advantage
  • Hopefully, both pass and L gets more votes, at which point both take effect. But, if not, I can live with that.

M: Business Tax Reform to Support Small Businesses

  • Adjusts city business taxes to account for post-COVID hybrid work. Generally seeks to work in favor of small businesses
  • An economic impact report estimates the reform will create 1900 jobs and a $338 million increase to city GDP over the next 20 years
  • Grow SF and SPUR have excellent breakdowns of the details, I won’t repeat them here.
  • Does likely reduce tax revenue a bit, but the larger problem is the reliance on commercial real estate, which the proposal does not affect.
  • If this does not pass, a 2020 prop will result in a tax hike for small businesses that could see a resulting wave of closures.
  • Widely popular- all of the major mayoral candidates have come together to push this change. It is endorsed by the SF Chronicle and pretty much all of the voter guides. The League of Pissed Off Voters likes it, but is trying to play a numbers game between it and L.

N: Create Fund to Support First Responder Students

  • Does nothing unless private donors actually fund… the fund
  • But maybe they will, so why not?

O: Support Reproductive Health

State

Elected Offices

CA State Senate

Props

2: School Bond

3: Fix the CA Constitution’s Defunct Definition of Marriage

  • This is just an embarrassing misalignment between our constitution and the actual law
  • Constitution defines marriage between a man and a woman, which is unenforceable due to Obergefell v. Hodges (which, yay!)
  • Awkward and shameful, let’s fix it

4: Bond for Water Stuff

5: Chip Away at CA’s Most Terrible Law

  • Background: 1978’s Prop 13, among other things, requires that taxes and bonds get a 2/3rds majority to pass, which makes it incredibly difficult to fund things.
  • This was done to further protect property taxes, as local bonds (as opposed to state bonds, which remain at a 55% pass threshold) are generally funded through property taxes.
  • This requirement has lost us an opportunity to fund Muni projects, fund fire protection infrastructure in Santa Cruz, and lost Berkeley $650 million for affordable housing.
  • This CA prop allows local elections to raise new bonds at a 55% majority, rather than 2/3rds.
  • Examples of this are currently on our ballot as Prop A and Prop B.
  • There is precendence for this kind of legislation: in 2000, voters passed Prop 39, which dropped the supermajority requirement for bonds related to schools.
  • The Chronicle endorsed no on prop 5, pointing to a carve out for real estate interest groups that disallow bonds for affordable housing projects that displace smaller homes (single family lots up to fourplexes).
  • The Chronicle is write to wag their finger at this measure, which was likely added to give the bill political viability. However:
    • Large housing projects are generally not built on such small lots because the economics don’t pencil out without nontrivial density.
    • The carve out is included separately from prop 5, and as such could be repealed separately
    • It was probably necessary to add this for this build to get anywhere close to success: the California Association of Realtors, who had already raised $20 million in opposition, agreed to not contest the bill in return for this carve out.
    • And indeed, it is typically incredibly hard to weaken prop 13, as entrenched wealth tends to defend the significant tax breaks it provides them. For example, a 2020 ballot initiative to force commercial and industrial properties to be taxed at market value rather than purchase value (which, due to a loophole, could be many decades old), failed. And indeed, even with the carve out, polling suggests this ballot measure is still a toss-up.
  • Ultimately, this is an important measure that, while flawed by necessity, will work to improve the housing situation in California for everyone.

6: Disallow Involuntary / Unpaid Labor in CA Prisons

32: Minimum Wage Bump

33: Give NIMBYs a Tool to Avoid Housing Development

  • In short, NIMBYs around California have promised that they will use this to pass rent control requirements so extreme that it will intentionally stifle housing development

34: This One is Specifically For You, Michael Weinstein

35: Tax to Fund Medi-Cal

36: Harsher Punishments for Drug Crimes

Federal

Elected Offices

President

For hopefully obvious reasons!

References and Additional Reading

If you follow my links on most of my endorsements, you’ll probably have seen most of these already, but here is my list of favorite voter guides that I reference regularly.

  • SF Chronicle
    • Very high quality, usually posts an article per prop as well as endorsements for elected officials.
  • SPUR
    • Excellent policy org that does a great job of staying neutral and sticking to the facts.
  • GrowSF
    • More obviously moderate, but publishes a high quality guide that I refer to a lot.
    • Note that this link doesn’t appear to be a permalink, so if you’re reading this in the future it might not point to the correct guide.

Great Personal Voter Guides

Some folks on the YIMBY internal slack have been sharing around (excellent, inspirational) voter guides, and I referred to them extensively when making my own guide. Thanks to them!