Two candidates have filed to run against incumbent Supervisor Dean Preston to lead District 5. The district saw big changes during the 2022 redistricting, and now spans from the east end of Golden Gate Park through Haight-Ashbury, Japantown and the Western Addition, the Lower Haight and Hayes Valley, and most of the Tenderloin.
We have invited the three District 5 hopefuls to participate in our series, “Meet the candidates.” We will 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.
Here’s our second question: How will your life experiences help in your work as supervisor?
Allen Jones
I wrote and self-published an autobiography in 2010. With misspelled words, this book is in the San Francisco Main Library.
How I live, help and inspire others is detailed in 25 chapters. This includes a chapter titled “Beautiful.” Stories of how my father raised ten children as a single parent and taught me to love. Another chapter, “Respect Thy Neighbor,” explains how San Francisco taught me to respect others. Another chapter, titled “King of Hearts,” is a 10-page poem describing the true stories of how I believe God taught me, a crippled homosexual, never to give up.
Bilal Mahmood
I am a Muslim American and a proud son of immigrants. My grandparents’ and parents’ journey from Kenya to Pakistan to the Bay Area, to rise through the middle class, inspires my focus on ensuring San Francisco remains a beacon for upward mobility for all peoples. And as a lifelong renter and current resident of the Tenderloin, these experiences guide and inform my priorities as Supervisor: Ensuring safe streets for the 3,500 children who live in the Tenderloin, streamlining affordable and middle-income housing from Hayes to the Haight, and guaranteeing support for our elders from the Fillmore to Japantown.
Dean Preston
Prior to taking office, I worked as a tenants’ rights attorney for 20 years to keep vulnerable low-income residents in their homes. In 2008, I founded California’s only statewide tenant organization, Tenants Together. I’ve fought on behalf of tenants for housing stability against profit-driven speculators and mega-landlords for decades. Alongside a grassroots coalition, I played a leadership role in fighting to save rent control in 2008 and, a decade later, authored and championed Proposition F, our city’s groundbreaking law to provide legal representation for all tenants facing eviction. My decades of experience as a tenants’ rights lawyer and affordable housing… Read more here.
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 series here. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
Be sure to ask Bilal Mahmood about co mingling funds for his 2 campaigns and the resulting Ethics complaints. Not buying the “a campaign staffer screwed up” excuse. Also not buying the “I called and self reported” stuff. Butter doesn’t melt in this guy’s mouth. Right. The whole reason a nobody like him chose to run for DCCC is because there are no campaign donation restrictions with DCCC and he can fund his supervisor race where the donation limit per individual is capped at $500. Back door business.
Would also really like to know specifically what Mahmood and Jones would do about the possible closure of the Fillmore Safeway where thousand of local residents shop for food, bank and get their medications. Specifics. Focus. Let’s hear the details of what they would do for our local community.
Another question regarding Mahmood.
About a year ago, Kanishka Cheng, CEO of TogetherSF opined on KPIX news that the Tenderloin does not deserve the open space promised by the Golden Gate Greenway. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKdtm9arx8A
Since TogetherSF has endorsed Mahmood for the DCCC, it is fair to ask him if he agrees with the CEO of that “think tank” that people in his neighborhood are not worthy of nice things. As a candidate for D5 Supervisor, will he publicly state a clear position against Cheng and TogetherSF and push to increase open space for the Tenderloin.
As well, I wonder when Mahmood became so interested in the 3,500 kids in the TL. His name never came up and was never included in the list of recipients in any of the hundreds of emails and Zoom meetings among community members, advocates and city staff that were focused on efforts to provide clean and safe streets and outdoor recreation opportunities for those 3,500 kids over the course of the first year of the pandemic.
That’s not at all the message I understood from what Kanishka was saying from the video you linked. I understood it as she is making the point that unless you have public safety, continuing to spend money on public spaces and events without the safety element is not going to draw people to come. And I think that is a very valid point. The roller skating rink she mentioned was always empty. At most I saw a couple people skating, most of the time it was empty. There are some very underused and run down playgrounds in some very central locations. People don’t want to bring their kids there because of cleanliness and safety issues.
That is exactly the message that TogetherSF CEO Kanishka Cheng promoted in the link. Her kid attends private school. Her husband is a former head of the SF Realtors Association and now is on the board of the SF Chamber of Commerce. Cheng is a Breed apologist and City Hall insider. She worked for Mark Farrell as well. She and her husband promote market rate solutions for Tech and real estate profiteers like Cheng’s boss Sir Michael Moritz and death wishing psychos like Garry Tan.
Bilal Mahmood’s and Allen Jones personal stories are compelling. Wonderful. That said: neither of them offers any specifics on the remedies, actions or policies they would take to restore our public transit system or where they stand on desperately needed and deeply affordable or city funded housing development for low income workers, their families and for our seniors. Did they support the expensive recalls? What did the recalls get us exactly? One fears that neither Mahmood or Jones has any idea how to craft policy or legislation that will positively impact D5 residents; this requires tremendous skill and agility. Preston’s actual record to do with tenant protections, help for small businesses, restoring public transit, accountability and oversight of SFPD and other city agencies and his focus on building truly affordable housing at sites like 730 Stanyan and the Fell DMV site (among others he’s identified and is pushing for) is impressive. Does anyone know what Bilal Mahmood’s and Allen Jones’ commitments are to the Gaza/Israel situ? Their plans/positions are murky and squishy.
The wildly popular recalls got us a sane school board.
I am curious to know whether Jones and Mahmood support the Supervisors Ronen’s and Preston’s Ceasefire Resolution.
The gasbags/cashbags funding Mahmood should also come clean on it.
I guess all the downvotes are supposed to indicate that Jones and Mahmood don’t support the cease fire. Thanks for clarifying. We’ll remember that.