Here’s the latest in our “Meet the candidates” series for District 5, where we ask each candidate to answer one question per week leading up to the election, with answers capped at 100 words. All the responses will ultimately be compiled onto a single page, where readers can peruse the potential supervisors’ stances on upwards of 40 topics before it’s time to vote in November.
So, here’s our latest question for the District 5 candidates: What do you think of Proposition E’s proposed limits on the Police Commission and policy changes for the San Francisco Police Department? How will it affect District 5 residents?
Allen Jones
I think Proposition E’s Police Chief/Commission aspect is asinine. However, I voted Yes on E because I am unwilling to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I support less police paperwork. The surveillance technology is akin to “See something, say something.” This includes possible police misconduct. I am not looking for fairness in Proposition E; I am looking for the challenge of making it help fight crime in District 5, if passed by voters.
Bilal Mahmood
Amid a fentanyl epidemic, smash-and-grab crisis, and small-business break-in extremity, ensuring public safety must be a priority in District 5. Reducing the bureaucratic bottlenecks for our first responders to ensure they can do their job is one avenue to ensuring we achieve better outcomes on public safety. In turn, the intent of some of the elements of Proposition E I find are in the right direction, but some of the facets like amendments to vehicle-pursuit policies are questionable.
Dean Preston
We need public safety interventions that work to make us safer, not empty rhetoric and failed approaches. Unfortunately, Proposition E offers nothing that will make us safer. The measure reduces oversight of police, blocks crucial reforms, encourages dangerous, high-speed car chases through our streets, and unleashes unchecked surveillance on San Franciscans. It will increase racial disparities in policing, especially when it comes to use of force by police. We need real public-safety solutions, not harmful political gimmicks like Proposition E.
Candidates are ordered alphabetically. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at eleni@missionlocal.com.
Read the rest of the District 5 questions here, and the entire “Meet the Candidates” series here. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
Vote NO on Prop E. We need more accountability and oversight of SFPD, not less. Perfect example of how the current system works: the recent stabbing and death of Bob Lee almost a year ago. Within hours of Lee’s death, SFPD had quick access to the video footage from the surrounding area, and within days, they tracked down, arrested and charged Lee’s suspected killer. Also: the paperwork argument is 1000% bogus. Even copagandist Matt Dorsey was silent on that when Eskenazi asked him recently. Also: the Police Commission is essential and necessary. Police officers are employed by the city…..by taxpayer dollars. They must answer to San Franciscans. No on Prop E. No to Big Brother. No to dangerous car chases where innocent bystanders are killed and criminals get away. Come on voters! Use your brains. PS London Breed put this garbage measure on the ballot because she’s miffed that her appointee Max Carter Oberstone cares more about accountability and justice than he does about kissing her ring.
The Bob Lee murder actually shows how well surveillance cameras support good policing. It closes the speculation gap. And while I agree that the police commission is a necessary part of civic life, I don’t think the tail should be wagging the dog. The police Commission should be much lower profile and submit their findings directly to the Mayor first and the media later. We hire these people to take on the job of running our systems. If we feel they are doing a poor job we have elections every four years. Our commissioners go directly to the media when they lose a vote in the commission, so the public is supposed to run the city based on how we feel after reading the news. No. This just contributes to the chaos.
Proposition E could potentially add paperwork burden. The measure proposes to reduce the time patrol officers spend on record-keeping and reporting work to less than 20 percent of their time on the job. But since SFPD currently doesn’t track this, a new regime of tracking system for administrative tasks and hours will likely be added to officer’s work if Prop E passes.
Matt Dorsey recently admitted that Prop E’s intention as written is to live-monitor all cameras, and to use them as evidence-gathering devices,
Unfortunately SFPD is woefully understaffed currently, so where will all of these watcher cops come from?
Watcher cops would be a total waste of police staffing when hundreds of hours of police personnel time could be (and should be) spent on interrupting drug crimes or listening to business owners or listening to community members. Not watching camera feeds!!!!!!
London Breed’s Proposition E, which would drastically roll back police regulations on car chases, surveillance and Police Commission, has raised $1.25 million. One of the major donors to Prop E is a tech billionaire who stands to profit from the surveillance technology that would be used if Prop E passes. That stinks.
You rock, Dean,
If I read my chicken entrail correctly, next year’s composition of the BOS will revert to 1998 numbers when Sue Bierman and Tom Ammiano were only Progressive voices
On the elevator problem …
I think we’re ‘judged’ not on the outcome of our efforts but upon our efforts themselves.
Go Niners !!
h.
Thank you for this.
Like all residents who care about the city more than national politics, I voted for Prop E. Now I know Preston is bad, Jones is good, and Mahmood is a double-talker who refuses to take a position on the single most important issue in the current election.
Disappointing from Mahmood. Is he going for the “I don’t know how I feel” vote? It doesn’t seem that it would be especially large.