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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.
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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.
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OSCAR PALMA
Oscar is a reporter with interest in environmental and community journalism, and how these may intersect. Some of his personal interests are bicycles, film, and both Latin American literature and punk. Oscar’s work has previously appeared in KQED, The Frisc, El Tecolote, and Golden Gate Xpress.More by Oscar Palma
