Candidate Name: Jeremy Lee
Phone Number: 415-949-0151
Web site:
E-mail: lee.jeremy.s@gmail.com
Name of Campaign Manager: Traci M
How much do you expect to spend in this contest: $40K
Major Endorsements: AFT2121, CA Working Families Party, Harvey Milk Club, SF Women's Political Committee. Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Jane Kim, Norman Yee
Incumbent whose votes are most similar to the way you would vote:
Incumbent who votes least similarly to the way you would vote:
1. Do you have practical ideas on how CCSF can be adequately funded?
There is a widespread narrative that CCSF is in dire financial straits. This is simply not true. City College has run a surplus every year since 2020/21, six years running. Those surpluses were large enough that the college has funded optional savings accounts itching year. CCSF has transferred over $30M into the OPEB trust for retiree health benefits and into a capital account. CCSF has a primary reserve of roughly $72M. This is ~35% of annual expenditures. The state statutory floor is 5%, and the Chancellor's Office commends of 17%. State auditors have flagged that the reserve is unusually large and that the administration has articulated no plan for using it.
You cannot have an honest conversation about funding the college while insisting the college is insolvent. That narrative is what justifies closing centers, refusing to open sections, and shrinking programs. CCSF's finances are healthy. What is under threat is student access.
The practical answer is to grow the college. CCSF's state funding is frozen at a floor called hold harmless. The only way off that floor is enrollment growth. The fastest growth is in noncredit classe - ESL, adult education, and workforce training. Noncredit is the largest feeder into the credit program. Noncredit certificate programs are funded by the state at its highest per-student rate. Building out those certificates and strengthening the noncredit-to-credit pipeline is the most efficient investment available to us.
2. Why are you running for College Board?
I want the government to work for everyday people again. Our institutions have long grown complacent, clinging to power, being beholden to corporate interests, and failing to respond to the needs of working people.
City College is the economic engine of San Francisco. Nurses, firefighters, paramedics, teachers, mechanics, childcare providers, and dental assistants all train at City College. It is the one institution where every San Franciscan has an equal opportunity to build a better life regardless of background.
Affordability is the defining issue facing San Francisco, and education is the key to economic mobility. Education is a human right. The stay-at-home mom reentering the workforce, the new immigrant learning English, and the high school student earning college credit. Every San Franciscan is equally worthy of the chance to learn.
Free City College is under threat. The most recent budget negotiations at City Hall proved it. I am running to protect free City College, to secure its long-term finances, and to grow it back to reaching San Franciscans in every corner of the city.
3. How are you currently involved in the Community College -- or how were you involved in the past?
In 2016 I campaigned heavily for the passage of Prop W, the real estate transfer tax that funds free City College. I was ecstatic when it passed by nearly 62% of San Francisco voters. Following Prop W's passage, I became an intern in Supervisor Jane Kim's office. At the time, Mayor Lee didn't want to spend the funds. His administration said it wasn't the right time. I stood alongside Supervisor Kim and the members of AFT2121. We held public demonstrations to put pressure on Mayor Lee to heed the will of voters. In the end, the mayor relented and agreed to make free city college a reality - making San Francisco the first city in the nation to make community college free again for all residents.
More recently, I spoke during public comment against Mayor Lurie's cuts to the Free City grant program. I heard the impactful and tremendously transformative stories from students who were able to better their lives because of Free City.
4. What is your stance on public and private partnerships within the college?
I'm not opposed to public-private partnerships, but I am quite skeptical about their effectiveness. I am also very skeptical about the privatization of public resources and public education. Partnerships that keep the college in control are worth having. I support employers who fund equipment for a vocational program, hire from graduates, or place students into apprenticeships. These arrangements strengthen what the college already does. Our nursing, healthcare, construction trades, and childcare programs train the workforce that serves San Francisco. Relationships with future employers make these programs work better.
What I will not support is a private partner taking over a public asset or program. Those are deals that are pitched as savings and rarely come out net positive for the college. In poorly structured deals, the private partner takes the profit. The college keeps the risk, and the public loses control of something it already owns. That is privatization with a friendlier name.
Any partnership I support must be structured so that the college keeps ownership and control. The terms come to the Board in public before a vote, not after. And no partnership gets justified on the grounds that the college is broke
5. What is your position on Free City College? How should it be changed, if at all?
Free City should remain universal and be made permanent. The City should expand the cash grants for very low income students. The grants served about 6,000 low-income students last year. This budget cycle, Mayor Lurie proposed cutting them by roughly a third. I spoke at public comment against those cuts, and after months of organizing Budget Chair Chan restored the funding.
The City signed a ten-year MOU in 2019, and two mayors have since cut the budget and threatened to limit who qualifies. I will keep pushing for permanent, dedicated funding so students are not facing and then waiting on a budget fight every June. I commit to opposing any future plan by the Mayor to cut it.
6. If elected to the Board, how would you ensure that you and the public would receive the college's draft budget with sufficient time to review it thoroughly before adopting it?
Budget materials need to be provided in a timely manner so the public has enough time to actually read them. Items affecting staffing and programs cannot be presented days before a vote. I would push for a fixed minimum posting window for any budget item, so faculty, classified staff, students, and members of the public can show up prepared.
I will vote to continue any budget item that is not delivered timely. That is the only enforcement a trustee actually has. Trustees are fiduciaries. Past chancellors spent down reserves and committed the college to obligations the Board did not know about. This is what happens when a board votes on documents it hasn't had time to read.
7. What is your position on selling campus properties?
No, City College should not be selling off public properties.
Property is the one thing this college cannot get back. Once a parcel is sold, it's gone permanently. The money buys a few years of operating budget before it's spent. It's converting a permanent public asset into a one-time cash infusion. It leaves the college smaller forever.
The pressure to sell comes from the same false premise. CCSF is not financially insolvent. The college has run a surplus every year since 2020/21 and will close this year with a reserve of roughly $72 million. There is no financial emergency that justifies liquidating property.
CCSF must ensure education reaches people who can't get to Ocean Campus. When the Bayview lost the Southeast Center in 2023, it lost a neighborhood anchor. The same thing is happening with the Downtown Center. Every consolidation decides that students in the far corners of SF must endure an hour-long commute on Muni to take a class. That's redlining education. The students who have to make that commute are overwhelmingly POC, working class, and immigrants.
8. Do you feel there is enough transparency or public disclosure of the Board and the college? How would you change things?
No, there is not enough transparency. The biggest obstacle to transparency from the administration is receiving reports and documents in a timely manner. Budget decisions affecting staffing and programs come to light days before a vote. The public and the unions cannot weigh in on something they haven't had time to read. and trustees end up ratifying work they had no ability to question. I want to see routine public reporting to the Board on the data, like waitlists. I want to see unmet demand by department. I want to see Title IX caseload and outcomes. As trustee I want to see the Chancellor consult with SEIU 1021, AFT 2121, and the Academic Senate before recommendations are drafted. Transparency is making sure the people affected have the information.
9. Have you attended the Community College Board meeting? Would you change public comment policy at the meetings? If so, how?
I have not attended in person, but I have watched the meeting recordings. I would not restrict public comment. San Francisco bodies often restrict to shorter time limits and tighter constraints. It falls hardest on the people who most need to be heard. Anyone using an interpreter should get double time. Comment should be taken before the Board votes, not after debate has closed.
My preference is always for in-person comment, but I would keep the remote option. I would strong support a written policy for handling Zoom-bombing. Comments should concern college business, with very wide latitude. A caller who dials in only to shout slurs, racists language, or antisemitic language is not addressing college business. We cannot allow the public to endure verbal abuse.
10. How will you increase quality child care at ALL campuses?
Childcare is an enrollment issue. A parent who wants to further their education but can't find care, simply won't enroll. I want a dedicated local funding source for both Free City and childcare. Free City shouldn't be an annual fight at City Hall. If we can get dedicated funding passed, childcare should be included. It's a smart investment to support a working San Franciscan to get through City College. A dedicated funding measure can carry both.
11. How will you work to counter and prevent profiling and police
harassment on campus? What is your position on police firearms on
campus?
City College has its own police department, and trustees don't run it. The department is under the chancellor purview. CCSF already prohibits its police from participating in immigration enforcement and bars ICE from campus without a judicial warrant. My job as a trustee is to make sure those protections are real, dependable, and consistent across all sites. That means ensuring staff receive training on the college's ICE policy and that clear procedures are in place if enforcement shows up. I would follow the existing college policy on firearms.
12. What is your position on allowing noncitizens the right to vote for College Board and other local elections? Did you take a public position on previous ballot initiatives on the subject?
San Francisco lets noncitizen parents vote in Board of Education races, and I strongly supported the 2016 measure. Those parents are directly affected by what the board decides. Giving them a vote extended rights to parents and increased civic engagement. If you are raising kids in the city, paying city taxes, and sending your children to school in the city, then the you should have a say in the body who oversee SFUSD.
I strongly believe our next frontier is 16- and 17-year-olds voting in local municipal elections. That is where we would see the biggest gain in participation. Voting is a habit, and it forms early. A 16-year-old still in high school is far more likely to cast that first ballot while they are learning about how our system of governance works. An 18-year-old who took a civics class as a 16yr old is so far removed from that knowledge. San Francisco has taken this to the ballot before and come close. It is worth going back because it is one of the biggest investments into the future of the city.
13. What are your views of transportation and pedestrian safety to,
from and around City College campuses? What, if anything, would
you change, and how would you go about making those changes?
Transit access is enrollment access. I want to see more public transit serving our campuses. That means frequent Muni service timed to when classes actually start and end, including evenings and weekends when many working students take class. I also support free Muni for all City College students. Free City removed tuition as a barrier, but a student who can't afford the fare to get to campus still can't take the class. Making transit free for CCSF students finishes what Free City started.
14. What is your position of military recruiting on campus?
Military recruiters should have access to campus on the same terms as any other employer. No more than that. Federal law requires equal access. I have no interest in picking a fight that puts federal funding at risk. But equal access runs both ways. If a military recruiter gets a table at a career fair, so does the electricians' union, so do the hospitals hiring our nursing graduates, and so do the childcare centers. Students should see the full range of what a City College education opens up. The military should be one option among many.