In our “Meet the candidates” series, we are asking every supervisorial hopeful in the November 2024 election one question each week. Candidates are asked to answer questions on policy, ideology, and more in 100 words or less.
Answers are being published individually each week, but we are also archiving each answer on separate pages for each district, to make it easier for voters to browse. Click the questions below to see all the District 5 candidates’ responses.
Week 4: 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.
Week 3: Who are you supporting in the mayoral race, and why?
Allen Jones
I am supporting Mayor Breed. At the risk of sounding like I am playing the gender or race card, these three White male challengers should do the same.
I am skeptical of her three challengers: expressing change should not make voters feel skeptical. For instance, stating you would fire the police chief while supporting the mayor’s ballot measure on policing. Another challenger is running ads supporting that same ballot measure. The latest challenger said he would fire the police chief, but called him a “good man” in the same sentence.
Be a part of this city; don’t tear this city apart.
Bilal Mahmood
I am not endorsing anyone for Mayor, and will frankly work collaboratively with anyone who becomes our next Mayor.
Because San Francisco needs results, not the constant excuse-making and finger-pointing we’ve become accustomed to from City Hall politicians. For years, our political establishment, including District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, has been focused on dysfunctional rhetoric and blaming others for their lack of outcomes. Getting results on housing, safety and small business, requires collaborating with those we don’t always agree with, and that’s what we need to achieve results. Accountability is not possible without collaboration.
Dean Preston
I have not endorsed a candidate for mayor, and look forward to seeing who all runs and what they stand for.
I will support the candidate who will work the hardest for everyday San Franciscans, not corporate special interests. A mayor who uses our city budget to create affordable housing, houses homeless people instead of vilifying them, funds data-driven public safety solutions over failed strategies, prioritizes mental health and overdose prevention, fights for public transit, and supports our small businesses will have my vote.
Week 2: 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
Week 1: What is your number-one issue in this election and what do you plan to do about it?
Allen Jones
Restoring world-class city status to San Francisco.
As a longtime (1960) resident of San Francisco, I have witnessed the city lose a lot of its status as a “world-class city.” I believe there are three types of San Franciscans: Those who have class (help others). Those who have no class (threatening elected officials, thieves, vandals, selling drugs, etc.) And those who need to go back to class (the Board of Supervisors).
I intend to open the eyes of San Francisco by reminding us what a world-class city is and is not.
Bilal Mahmood
Housing.
I have been a renter for nearly 10 years in San Francisco and proudly live in the Tenderloin. Workers, nurses, teachers cannot live here unless we build not just affordable and market-rate, but also middle-income housing. We are the slowest city to approve new buildings in the entire state. It’s not progressive, it’s embarrassing. We must tackle the bureaucracy holding us back — 87 permits, $500K in fees, 1000 days of meetings — and I will advocate for initiatives from parallel permitting to technological investments to the reduction of discretionary permits to cut the time to build housing in half.
Dean Preston
My first priority has been, and will remain, getting results for everyday San Franciscans, not billionaires.
I have voted for 29,815 new homes, with 86% affordable. Raised over $400 million for affordable housing. Pioneered the use of empty hotels for homeless people. Raised taxes on large corporations to provide vital services. Banned evictions during the pandemic. Established the right to a free attorney for anyone facing eviction. Championed overdose prevention sites. Brought community ambassadors to District 5 neighborhoods. Protected small businesses from back rent and eviction and assisted those victimized by crime. More results like these will be my priority.
See questions and answers from other districts
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.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
I thought there was someone more to the center that was planning to run?
Bilal is too far left, Preston is all about division. (The other guy does not seem serious).
London Breed is all about division. A photo op mayor. Transactional. Petty and mean. Blames others for her poor policies, ineptitude and lack of vision.
it’s a good bit less about ‘vision’ and more about ineptitude and corruption
I think that Preston is a great supervisor who is working for his district and the city.
I don’t really understand Allen Jones’ take here on the mayor’s race — he seems to say Mayor Breed is almost entitled to another term and any and all opposition is disloyal and divisive, a vote for any of the white male candidates is a vote for “tearing this city apart”?
With such supervisor candidates in my district, I do not need enemies. I cannot imagine anyone worse than any three of them running for my District supervisor.