Instructions:
1. There are 10 sections to this questionnaire. Each section
corresponds to the 10 Key Values of the Green Party.
2. Each section contains one or more written questions and ends with
several multiple-choice questions. Please don't skip the written
questions.
3. The multiple-choice questions are answered by checking the box in the
appropriate column to indicate which is closest to your position:
+ = Support / Agree / Yes
- = Oppose / Disagree / No
: = Undecided / Don't know / No opinion
4. The world is too complex to always break down neatly into
yes/no/maybe choices, so feel free to clarify any answers to multiple
choice questions with a few words.
Candidate Name: Darshini Patel
Phone Number: (415) 449-1604
Web site: votedarshini.com
E-mail: darshini@votedarshini.com
Name of Campaign Manager: Anna Blake
Are you receiving public financing?: Yes.
Signed voluntary spending limit?: Yes, as a public financing participant I'm bound by the spending ceiling.
2nd, 3rd endorsements in District: I haven't made official second- or third-choice endorsements in this race.
Major Endorsements: None to announce yet; I'd rather earn endorsements than collect them early.
Incumbent Supervisor whose votes are most similar to the way you would vote: Jackie Fielder, Myrna Melgar
Incumbent who votes least similarly to the way you would vote: Matt Dorsey
If the election were held today, who would you support as Board President?: Myrna Melgar
Who would be your second and third choices?: Bilal Mahmood and Jackie Fielder
Who did you endorse for Mayor in 2024 (all 3 choices, if applicable)?: No formal endorsement
1) Grassroots Democracy:
A) What are your thoughts on Instant Runoff Voting, and District
Elections? How have they worked to date? What would you change in
the future? What about Proportional Representation?
ANSWER: Both have been good for San Francisco. Ranked-choice voting spares the city expensive low-turnout runoffs and rewards candidates who build broad coalitions instead of narrow ones. District elections keep supervisors close enough to neighborhoods that a resident can actually reach the person who represents them. Neither is finished. The city should fund real voter education so ranked ballots work as well in every neighborhood, in every language, as they do in the highest-turnout precincts, and the Department of Elections should publish ballot-exhaustion data by district so we can see where the system is leaving voters behind. On proportional representation: I find it genuinely interesting for multi-seat bodies, and the case for it is real; winner-take-all rounds a 20% viewpoint down to zero seats, and proportional systems don't. I'd want to study how it has worked in cities that use it before taking a position.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Sub-government such as Neighborhood Assemblies, Networks or District Councils
Advisory structures that feed real decisions, yes.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Voters' right to recall elected officials
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Residency requirements for elected officials should be strictly enforced
B) What strategies would you employ to reduce corruption in San
Francisco government?
ANSWER: Publish everything, enforce what voters already passed, and make the money visible. My platform commits to a quarterly public scorecard on my own office: commitments, dollars, deadlines, results, plus a public corrections log for when I get something wrong. I take no corporate money and no institutional PAC money, and I support expanding public financing so candidates answer to voters instead of donors. The Ethics Commission needs independence and a budget that matches its mandate, not a smaller one. Beyond enforcement, transparency is the cheapest anti-corruption tool a city has: publish department performance data, publish contract outcomes, and publish who is funding campaigns and ballot measures, all in an accessible and digestible format. This June a single committee outspent its opposition roughly two to one to defeat a tax measure. Voters deserve to see that machinery in daylight while it's running, not in an Ethics filing months later. Quiet favors need quiet rooms, and I don't intend to have any.
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[ ] [ X ] [ ] Ethics Commission should be disbanded
It should be funded and independent.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Ethics Commission meetings should be televised
Exceptions for sensitive topics that require privacy for safety
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Ethics Commission should prioritize investigating violations from well-funded campaigns
Follow the evidence wherever it points; the biggest money is where enforcement lags most.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] My campaign is supported or promoted by a Super PAC
No corporate money, no institutional PAC money.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] My campaign has attended events sponsored by "Neighbors for a Better SF", "TogetherSF", "GrowSF" and/or "YIMBY"
We plan to participate in the YIMBY-sponsored candidate forum later this summer
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Remote public comment at board and committee meetings
2) Ecological Wisdom: Please outline your view of the major
environmental and ecological issues facing San Francisco and your
proposed policies to address them.
ANSWER: The environmental issue San Franciscans breathe first is smoke. Smoke season now arrives as reliably as fog, and the city should prepare for it the way it prepares for earthquakes: clean-air shelters graded and published like restaurant scores, and $50 box-filter units distributed through fire stations. Roughly $100,000 protects about a thousand households. Second, the city just cut the Environment Department's General Fund support by about 80% while accepting a climate award. We need to restore it; a climate plan without staff is a press release. Third, transit reliability is climate policy. Every rider the J-Church loses to unreliability becomes a car trip, which is why I treat Muni funding and published route-level performance data as environmental commitments. Fourth, keep finishing what voters started: District 8 voted 69% to keep the Great Highway a park, and I support continuing to reclaim street space for people. The city's oldest environmental injustice belongs on this list too: the Hunters Point shipyard, where the Navy's cleanup contractor was caught falsifying soil samples, and where families live today. Cleanup to residential standards, verified independently and published openly, isn't a radical ask; after literal fraud, it's the minimum. We need to fund the climate work that's already working and publish the receipts.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Phasing out all diesel and biodiesel transit (e.g., Muni, tour, shuttles)
On a funded, engineered timeline.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Public Power with 100% local/regional clean energy mandate and elected utility board
I support public power and CleanPowerSF expansion. Open on governance structure.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Install local/regional clean energy, efficiency, and battery storage and microgrids to supply 100% of our electricity by 2035
The goal, yes; the timeline has to be engineered and funded, so it's a viable assertion.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Reducing or eliminating parking minimums in new housing and commercial developments
[ X ] [ ] [ ] In the Bayview and on Treasure Island, halt all US Navy land transfers to the city or developers, and halt all development, until all sites are retested and cleaned to Residential Standards
A pause tied to independent, published verification, not a permanent halt; the soil testing here was falsified once already. If the wealthiest buyers would be nervous about this land, it isn't ready for anyone else.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Non-native Tree Removals
Case by case; I'd follow the urban forestry and habitat evidence.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Use of herbicides in public parks
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Artificial turf on City-owned athletic fields
The microplastic, PFAS, and heat evidence has moved against plastic fields; engineered natural turf keeps fields playable without them.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Managed retreat, Coastal Zone protection, and restoring wetlands in response to Global Warming
The Ocean Beach adaptation plan is already managed retreat, and wetlands are the cheapest flood protection we can buy.
3) Social Justice:
A) What is your assessment of homelessness in San Francisco, and what
solutions do you propose?
ANSWER: Three people become newly homeless for every one person San Francisco helps off the street. That's an inflow problem, and the city keeps buying the most expensive tool on the shelf. Prevention costs about $6,524 per household per year; an adult shelter bed costs $46,081 a year. Matthew Desmond's Evicted showed that eviction isn't just a result of poverty, it's a cause of it. I'd fund prevention at a scale matching the problem, starting with District 8's roughly 3,570 severely rent-burdened households. I support Housing First because it's effective - data shows retention rates above 90% - and I also support expanding recovery beds; those are complements, not rivals.
District 8 currently has zero shelter beds and 86% of our unhoused neighbors are unsheltered, so I've committed to leading a community siting process for services in my own district within my first six months rather than asking another district to carry it. We also need to tie the city's 300+ homelessness contracts to published outcomes, create a real-time by-name data system that allows providers to better monitor who they're serving while maintaining privacy, and offer services before any encampment is cleared. None of this is net-new spending: prevention is cheaper than the shelter beds the city already buys.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Project Homeless Connect
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Care Not Cash
The supportive housing it funded was real, and I'd keep it. What didn't work was cutting cash grants to the poorest; prevention dollars house more people per dollar.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Healthy SF
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Housing As A Right
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Housing First for Homeless, Addiction, Mental Health
I oppose conditioning PSH funding on abstinence.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Law against sitting or camping on SF sidewalks
No clearance without offering available services first.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] I support more homeless navigation centers in my district
D8 should own its fair share. I've committed to leading siting efforts in the district, not exporting it elsewhere.
B) What are your views on housing affordability, what public sector
strategies have worked, which have failed, and what are your proposals?
ANSWER: San Francisco has approved far more housing than it builds. The pipeline holds over 75,000 units and more than 20,000 are actively stalled, which means the binding constraint right now is delivery: permits, financing, and follow-through.
What has worked: rent control and tenant protections keep people housed, rent stabilization ensures new tenants can afford to move in, and every study of Housing First says the same.
What has failed: treating approval as achievement and assuming new market-rate developments will inherently benefit working people.
My proposals: a public housing-pipeline tracker from day one, enforceable permitting timelines, a second dedicated affordable site in District 8 (74% of our affordable pipeline sits in one building), and a commitment to expanding the city's social housing efforts. I also support community land trusts and co-ops as permanent affordability tools alongside private development. Pro-housing and pro-tenant are not mutually exclusive efforts. District 8 needs both, and I'm not willing to pick a team when the district needs the whole playbook. Housing here is also climate policy: a home built in transit-rich San Francisco is the lowest-carbon home that household can occupy anywhere in California.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Building more market rate housing will lower housing costs for current SF residents
Supply lowers costs, and at our level of undersupply, market-rate alone skews to top earners. I pair it with affordability funding and tenant protections; that is the whole housing answer.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Impacts of all new development should be paid for in advance by fees on developers
Depends on the fees and depends on the development. Fees have to be calibrated to feasibility and impact or nothing gets built and nobody pays anything.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Community Land Trusts, Housing Co-ops
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Rent Control is too strong
I support rent control. I also support rent stabilization to keep rents affordable even when a lease changes hands.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Waive Environmental Review to build Moderate and Low Income Housing
With site-level environmental health protections intact. We shouldn't build affordable housing anywhere that we wouldn't build market rate housing, but we should assess opportunities to accelerate the approval process.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Social Housing (similar to https://www.sfcommunityhousingact.com/)
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Ban on Airbnb and other short term rentals
Enforce our existing short-term rental rules and the vacancy tax first; within those rules, residents across income levels benefit from platforms like Airbnb.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Vacancy tax on residential property and "pied-a-terre" homes
Enforce it: 236 District 8 properties have never filed.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Flipping taxes on housing speculation
I defend Prop I (2020) against rollback.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] 10-year waiting period before corporate and nonresident owners can sell purchased housing properties
I need to learn more about what this does to supply and affordability before making a decision.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Condo conversion is currently too difficult
For owner-occupied TICs, yes: those are homeowners in the hardest kind of ownership, exactly the middle this city squeezes.
4) Nonviolence: What are your solutions for SFPD accountability while
making the streets safer?
ANSWER: Start with the audit the city already paid for. SFPD spent $108 million on overtime in FY23; the Board's own budget analyst found it wasteful, found that 12% of officers collected 32% of the overtime dollars, and made 30 recommendations that sit unadopted. Adopt them: supervisor sign-off, hour caps, quarterly public reporting. That money was buying the appearance of coverage, not coverage, and I'd redirect that documented overtime waste, money the city's own budget analyst called wasteful, to HIV prevention, clinics, and housing stability. Accountability and safety are the same project, not a trade. I support expanding foot patrols, community crisis response through SCRT and SORT, and rebuilding the force over time through recruitment and retention, because SFPD is roughly 700 officers short and overtime is not a staffing strategy. Overtime costs more and delivers less than a filled position. In the Castro, 49 hate crimes since 2019 sit classified with "unknown" motivation; a department that won't classify a pattern can't police it, and my first hearing asks why. Publish deployment data by district, put guardrails on surveillance, and hold the department to the same standard as every other agency: published commitments, published results. Safety also comes from lively blocks. Neighborhood lighting, after-dark programming, and green space are proven to reduce crime, and an open storefront makes a safer corner than a dark one, which is why I'd expand Vacant to Vibrant into District 8. Feeling safe and being safe should be the same thing.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Prioritize SFPD enforcement of moving violations
Enforcement should follow injury data. Market Street gets 60% of citations; Guerrero has the highest injury rate.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Support expansion of foot patrols
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Demand stricter accountability in future MOUs with the SFPD
[ X ] [ ] [ ] The Board of Supervisors should be able to set policies and priorities for the SFPD through legislation
The Board already legislates and budgets; I'll use both.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Support a public safety program modeled after NYC's "Stop and Frisk"
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Prosecution of SFPD officers involved in violet attacks on, and fatal shooting deaths of, SF residents and visitors
I support independent investigations of police shootings.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] End cash bail for nonviolent crimes
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Cut police funding and increase social program spending, and establish community control of neighborhood policing
I'm not running on cutting the force. I'm running on redirecting documented overtime waste to services while rebuilding a department that's 700 officers short, with real accountability attached.
5) Decentralization:
A) What are your thoughts on the Kaufman Charter of 1996? Does it
need revisiting? Would you support replacing the Strong Mayor system
with commissions where the majority of members are appointed by the
Board of Supervisors, or directly elected?
ANSWER: My test for any governance change is simple: does it shorten the distance between a voter and a result, or between a mayor and a department? The Kaufman Charter consolidated a great deal of power in the Mayor's office, and thirty years on it deserves an honest review, because efficiency is sometimes a cleaner word for less accountability. I opposed November 2024's Prop D for exactly that reason: it moved commissions toward unilateral mayoral control. I support careful streamlining, retiring genuinely inactive bodies, standardizing terms, and real transparency, and I oppose unilateral mayoral hire-and-fire and at-will removal of commissioners. On replacing the strong-mayor system wholesale: I'm open to rebalancing appointment power toward the Board where it demonstrably improves accountability, and I'd want any charter-level restructuring to go through a public process with evidence on the table, not a midnight rewrite in either direction.
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[ ] [ ] [ X ] Elected Rent Board
An elected board is only as democratic as its elections, and PAC money is overwhelming local races. Pair any move like this with public financing.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Elected Public Utility Board
Same test: elections make boards accountable only when the elections themselves aren't for sale.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Bring the Housing Authority under the Board of Supervisors
I'd want the federal receivership history and evidence in front of me first.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Will you create formal district councils to advise you?
A standing feedback loop is already my commitment: quarterly public scorecard, weekly newsletter, and structured neighborhood input.
B) The city currently uses non-profits to provide social services. Do
you think this is an appropriate model? Why or why not?
ANSWER: It's an appropriate model with an accountability problem. Community nonprofits deliver services the city can't deliver alone, with language capacity, trust, and neighborhood roots no department can replicate, and the workers doing that care are chronically underpaid for it. What's missing is the feedback loop. San Francisco holds more than 300 homelessness-related contracts, and the city has been slow to say plainly what each one is supposed to produce and whether it did. I'd tie contracts to published outcomes: what was promised, what was delivered, what it cost. That protects the good providers, who constitute the vast majority,from being tarred by the few, and it protects clients from programs that exist mainly to renew themselves. Accountability here isn't punishment. It's how the whole sector keeps the public's trust and its funding.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Expand Participatory Budgeting to at least 5% of the District Budget
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Charter amendment allowing voters to choose the replacement of an elected official being recalled on the same ballot as the recall vote
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Immediately implement open-source voting system for SF elections
I support the goal; "immediately" has to survive a security audit.
6) Community Based Economics: What economic policies, including
taxation and land use, would you propose that would drive capital into
our communities and keep that capital here for residents?
ANSWER: Start by letting neighbors open businesses in their own neighborhood. Opening a small business in San Francisco can take 61 steps across six agencies, $22,648 in fees, and 332 days. That's not regulation. That's a dare, and the people it dares away are exactly the residents we want building wealth here. Flip the default from "no, unless" to "yes, if": pre-cleared kitchen permits that stay with a space, no conditional-use hearing when a restaurant replaces a restaurant, home-kitchen permits with immigration data protections. Enforce the commercial vacancy tax with escalating rates for chronic vacancy, because an empty storefront exports a corridor's capital. On revenue: I support reforming Prop 13 on the commercial side so residential protection stays and corporate landholding pays its share, and I supported June's Overpaid CEO Tax. Revenue should be intentional, tied to what it funds, and collected. We don't always need a new tax; we need to collect the ones voters already passed.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Legislation limiting formula retail outlets/chain stores
Corridor by corridor; Castro, Glen Park, 24th Street, and Church Street each need their own strategy.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Conditional Use permit required for big box stores
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Municipal broadband as a public utility
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Neighborhood cooperatives prioritized as a local supply chain for legalized marijuana
[ X ] [ ] [ ] I support recreational marijuana stores opening in my district
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Local hiring requirements should be enforced and expanded to include private projects
Enforce it on public projects. Before extending mandates to private housing while 20,000 approved homes sit stalled, I'd want evidence it doesn't add to the pile.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Strong preference for union jobs
I've never crossed a picket line and support public-sector workers' right to strike.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Conversion of some golf courses into soccer fields
Kids' leagues wait for field time in this city; I'd follow the recreation-demand and habitat data on which courses convert to what.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Conversion of some golf courses into wild open space
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Prop 13 limits on tax increases should apply only to residential properties
Split roll, yes.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Commercial Rent Control
Open to the evidence, including what legal authority the city actually has.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Transition all residential and small business rental
properties into not-for-profit trusts and co-ops
I support scaling land trusts and co-ops as a growing share of the market. A mandatory transition of all rental property isn't my position.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Vacancy and flipping taxes on local small business property
Enforcement first with escalating rates for chronic storefront vacancy (shouldn't cap at 3 years)
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Transaction/Flipping taxes on all asset speculation to increase city budget
Revenue should be intentional and designed, not blanket. I'd want the legal and economic analysis.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] San Francisco Public Bank by 2027
Yes to a public bank built right: real capitalization, real governance, real risk controls. I'd love 2027; I care more that it's still standing in 2037.
7) Feminism: Do you believe women are underrepresented in city
government? If so, why do you believe this is the case? Is this a
bad thing, and if so, what would you do to remedy the situation?
ANSWER: District 8 has not elected a woman since 1998, and I'm the only woman running for this seat. I'm not running on that, but I'm not pretending it doesn't matter, either. The causes are structural, not mysterious. Caregiving still lands on women, and childcare in this city is both unaffordable and inaccessible (ex. there are 71 infant-care slots in all of D8); you can't serve on an evening commission or listen to long public comment if there's no one to watch your kid. Money also gates entry and credibility, and women's donor networks are historically thinner. The quieter mechanism is one I'm living: women are told we're strong candidates who just can't win here, the money and endorsements follow that prediction, the operation stays thin, and the prediction gets to call itself proof. A prophecy that funds itself isn't analysis, and public financing for all offices is how you break it. Representation isn't decoration. Bodies that don't include diverse perspectives, whether that's the people who ride the 35 with a stroller, age out of a walk-up, or require community healthcare services, write worse policy about all of it. My remedies are concrete: fix the childcare desert with supply-side policy, expand public financing, and appoint women, including trans women, to the offices and commissions a supervisor actually influences.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] The City should help SFUSD provide child care for children of working parents
The subsidy money exists; the slots don't. Fix supply.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] The DPH should provide reproductive health services to both residents and visitors
San Francisco should remain a refuge for care other states have banned.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Require parental consent for minors seeking an abortion
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Require parental notification for minors seeking an abortion
8) Respect for Diversity: Tell us what you believe are the best and the
worst aspects of San Francisco's diversity. How would you try to
protect the best while trying to change the worst?
ANSWER: The best of it made me possible. I'm a first-generation American, bisexual, the eldest daughter of Tanzanian immigrants, and San Francisco is one of very few cities where none of that requires explanation. Our diversity isn't just demographic, it's functional: immigrant-owned corridors, queer institutions that raised generations, people speaking different languages sharing a Muni line. The worst aspect is that we're pricing it out. The communities that made this city diverse are the ones leaving, and we keep celebrating a diversity we're actively displacing. Protection looks like delivery: build the housing we've already approved, enforce tenant protections, defend the LGBTQ clinics facing budget cuts, and fund the Language Access Ordinance, which today carries millions in unfunded mandates while 17% of bilingual positions sit vacant. Diversity survives where people can afford to stay and can reach their government in their own language.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Multilingual government and public education
Fund the Language Access Ordinance; fill the bilingual vacancies.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Undocumented immigrants should have equal access to education and health care
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Non-citizen residents should be able to vote in all local elections
I support non-citizen parents voting in school board elections, which SF voters approved. All local elections is a bigger step I haven't taken a position on.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Full rights for transgender and non-gender-binary persons
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Boards and commissions now reflect the ethnic diversity of San Francisco
Not yet.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Boards and commissions now reflect the political diversity of San Francisco
Not yet.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] My campaign reflects the diversity of San Francisco
The candidate and campaign team span multiple genders, sexual orientations, age groups, income brackets, and racial backgrounds. Our supporters are equally diverse, and we're proud of the perspectives they bring to the table.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] End Drag Queen Story Hour and K-12 School Education on Gender Spectrum Differences
Absolutely not.
9) Global and Personal Responsibility:
A) What should San Francisco government do in response to past ICE
activity in San Francisco, as well as proactive action to prepare for
future ICE activity?
ANSWER: Sanctuary is non-negotiable, and preparation beats reaction. In response to past activity: no local cooperation with ICE, period, and end the Sheriff's contracting relationships that put our jails anywhere near immigration detention. Proactively: expand the immigrant legal defense infrastructure before the next raid, not after. That means funding the Public Defender's immigration unit and the community organizations that actually answer the 2 am calls: La Raza Centro Legal, Mission Action, CARECEN, Catholic Charities. It means know-your-rights outreach in the languages people actually speak, multilingual eviction and benefits notices so fear of one system doesn't push families out of every system, and data protections built into every city program, including small business permits, so nothing the city collects can become a federal targeting list. A supervisor's job here is specific: fund the defense, protect the data, and make sure city departments never do the federal government's immigration work for it.
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[ ] [ X ] [ ] City government cooperating with the PATRIOT Act
[ ] [ X ] [ ] City government cooperating with ICE/Secure Communities
[ X ] [ ] [ ] City government should boycott Israel until it complies with UN resolutions and international law
My objection is to a government's conduct in Palestine, not to the Israeli people. The item's own condition is the point: it ends when compliance with international law begins. Antisemitism has no place in this city or this campaign.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] SF supervisors should take a position on offshore oil drilling outside CA
[ ] [ X ] [ ] SF should refuse to purchase PG&E's nuclear power
My fight with PG&E is the monopoly, not the atom. Diablo Canyon is the state's largest single source of carbon-free power, and refusing it just burns more gas.
B) Please describe how you make your political decisions. What is the
main basis for your decision making (e.g., consultation with your
constituents, political consultants, colleagues, unions, businesses,
donors, or your gut feelings)?
ANSWER: Evidence first, constituents always, and receipts on myself. My values are fixed; every policy serving them is revisable by data, and I won't pretend something works when the data shows it doesn't. I researched and wrote every proposal on my platform myself, no consultants, and published it with a line I stand behind: "including the parts I'm not sure about yet." I take no corporate money and no institutional PAC money, so no donor is upstream of my decisions. The inputs I trust: what constituents tell me at doors and in office hours, what frontline workers and people with lived experience say at the same table as credentialed experts, and what published performance data shows. Then the discipline: every commitment gets an owner, a timeline, and a metric; a quarterly scorecard grades my own office; and when I get something wrong, it goes in a public corrections log. I admit what I don't know, then I find out.
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[ ] [ X ] [ ] Fleet Week and the Blue Angels flyover
Candidly, I love the show; I can't square a recreational air show's fuel burn with the climate commitments we've set.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] JROTC in the public schools
This is the school board's lane; I don't take positions where I'd have no vote.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] In a severe recession, environmental regulations should be suspended to create jobs
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Business taxes are too high
Not at the top: I supported the Overpaid CEO Tax. For small businesses the real tax is process: $22,648 in fees and 332 days of waiting. Cut that instead.
10) Sustainability: What does the Transit First City Charter provision
mean to you? How has Transit First fared in recent years, and how would
you enforce that Charter Provision if elected?
ANSWER: Transit First has been in the charter since 1973, and the city treats it like a suggestion. The J-Church fails its charter-mandated service standard, and the SFMTA quietly stopped publishing route-level on-time performance in December 2018, which tells you how enforcement has fared: you can't enforce what an agency won't even publish. To me the provision means the budget and the street design have to match the charter's words: transit, walking, and biking get priority, measured in outcomes riders can feel. Enforcement runs through the levers a supervisor actually holds. Fund the system, including the measures on this November's ballot, and demand the receipts: published route-level performance as a condition of my votes. Two SFMTA Board seats come up for confirmation 14 months into the term; confirmation is where accountability has teeth. Require equity analysis before any route elimination, because the 35, 36, and 37 climb hills no one can walk through Glen Park and Diamond Heights, home to a quarter of my district's seniors. Fund the system. Demand the receipts. Both, always.
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] Muni should be funded sufficiently to replace most car use, and be free to the rider
Reliability first, then free Muni for youth and seniors, then scale. A free ride on a bus that never comes is still a failure.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Downtown Transit Assessment Tax to support Muni
Open to a downtown assessment as intentional, designed revenue.
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Citywide Transit Assessment Tax to support Muni
I'd want the design and evidence first.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Connect Bay Area (https://connectbayarea.com)
[ X ] [ ] [ ] More weekend closures of streets in/near my district to cars (e.g., Car-Free GGP)
[ ] [ X ] [ ] State law change that lets bicycles treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs
[ X ] [ ] [ ] I ride Muni, bicycle and/or walk instead of driving on a regular basis
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Bus Rapid Transit expanded to all major transit corridors in SF
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Car hailing services like Uber and Lyft should be regulated as taxis, or banned
State law moved this authority to the CPUC, so cities can't regulate ride hail as taxis. What the city can do is charge per-trip fees, which I support.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Scooter/similar vehicle rentals should be required to store vehicles on private property
In-street corrals, not sidewalk clutter; a scooter trip that replaces a car trip is a win.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Allow residents to park on the sidewalk without getting a ticket, unless their neighbors complain
Sidewalks are for people first. Parking across your own driveway is fine where wheelchairs and strollers still pass clean; blocking the path isn't, complaint or no complaint.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Congestion pricing for parking
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Power more City vehicles using biofuels (e.g., corn-based ethanol)
Electrify instead; corn ethanol doesn't pencil out on the evidence.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Residents should be allowed to park in the street in front of their own driveway for free
[ ] [ ] [ X ] Support expanding parking meter hours to include later evening hours and weekends
I'd want the corridor-level small business impact data.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Remove parking spots and car lanes to create dedicated bike and bus lanes or wider sidewalks
Protected lanes with concrete on Church, Guerrero, and Market are on my platform.
Your positions (at the time) on selected current and past Propositions
(skip any for which you didn't live or vote in SF, or didn't take
a position at the time):
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[ X ] [ ] [ ] June 2026 Prop D (Overpaid CEO Tax)
The wealth gap it targeted didn't go away when it failed.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] Nov 2024 Prop D (Stronger Mayor)
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Nov 2024 Prop K (Great Highway)
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Nov 2024 Prop L (Tax Uber and Waymo to fund Muni)
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Nov 2024 Prop M (Block Prop L)
Supported as the business-tax overhaul, not as a vote against transit funding.
[ ] [ X ] [ ] March 2024 Prop E (More Police Chases)
[ ] [ X ] [ ] March 2024 Prop F (Drug Test Poor People)
[ ] [ X ] [ ] June 2022 Prop C (Recall Reform)
[ ] [ X ] [ ] June 2022 Prop H (Boudin Recall)
Recall is for misconduct, not policy disagreement.
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Nov 2020 Prop G (16-17 y.o. voting, local elections)
[ X ] [ ] [ ] Nov 2020 Prop I (Real Estate Transfer Tax)
Supported it, and I defend it now against rollback.
Due Date: Sat, July 11, 11:59 pm
Please submit by email to cc@sfgreens.org. For more information, call
Barry Hermanson at 415-255-9494. Please return your answers in plain
text (not HTML, PDF, or Word format), so that we can post all
candidates' answers in the same format.
The SF Green Party will invite selected candidates who return
completed questionnaires on time to speak and answer questions at our
candidate forum and endorsement meeting. To be given time on our
agenda, each candidate needs at least three active Green Party members
to request their invitation. This will be a hybrid meeting, so
invited candidates may also speak with us via Zoom.
Our endorsement meeting is scheduled for Wed, July 22 from 7-9
pm at our office, 2973 16th St, #300, SF - note that this is across
the street from our old office in the Redstone Building.
Completed questionnaires will be posted on our website,
https://sfgreenparty.org.