NOVEMBER 2024 VOTER GUIDE

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

What is the Board of Supervisors?

  • An 11-member body that governs the affairs of the city

  • Each supervisor represents the roughly 80,000 residents who live in their district

  • Supervisors hold a significant amount of power to create or block policies and programs that impact the City

  • Supervisors can serve two consecutive terms of four years, and serve staggered terms so that every two years, either the even or odd districts are up for elections (this year, the odd districts are up for election)

  • The salary and benefits of this full-time position total $140,000 per year

Why You Should Care 

Your supervisor represents you at the local level, and has the power to fix many of your day-to-day quality of life issues in your neighborhood. They are also powerful enough to solve citywide problems, particularly through their control of the budget which they pass annually after a series of deliberations. While the budget can be effectively used as a tool to implement policy, it can also be spent wastefully on items that are either performative or unaccountable to the voters. Examples: $61,000-per-tent encampments for the homeless, or $250,000-per-unit public restrooms often repurposed as drug injection sites. 

Our Vision for the Board of Supervisors

They work with the Mayor and City Departments on the nuts and bolts of making our city better, with measurable outcomes, instead of performative and overly bureaucratic policies.

How We’re Evaluating Candidates’ Records

😍 Perfect  😃 Great!  😐 Fine or not enough info  🤔 Questionable  😩 Quite bad

When making endorsements, we judge candidates based on their political experience, managerial experience, and dedication to our issue areas. We came to our endorsement decisions after conducting interviews with candidates, deeply researching their records, and collecting our community’s input.

DISTRICT 1

District 1 includes the Inner Richmond, Central Richmond, Outer Richmond, Lone Mountain, Golden Gate Park, Lincoln Park, Sea Cliff and University of San Francisco.

Why we’re voting for her: Marjan Philhour is a practical, straightforward advocate for San Franciscans, and as someone who was born in the Richmond and raised her family there, she knows her district’s needs inside and out. She’s also an expert in local issues, having just been elected to the Democratic County Central Committee in the March primary election. Her campaign priorities (public safety, education, housing, and street conditions) line up well with San Franciscans’ top priorities. We support Marjan Philhour for supervisor because we need someone with the energy, ingenuity, and courage to tackle the issues facing District 1.

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Why you should leave her off your ballot: Connie Chan has served one term as District 1 Supervisor, and unfortunately, she hasn’t proven herself qualified to serve a second. After winning a squeaker of an election in 2020 over current challenger Marjan Philhour, Chan has just been out of touch with her constituents—even getting booed at one recent event. It’s a sign that residents are fed up with Chan’s inability to improve conditions in her district, and her loyalty to a specific voting bloc on the Board of Supervisors over her own constituents. We’re leaving Connie Chan off our ballot because her priorities don’t line up with the San Franciscans she represents.

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DISTRICT 3

District 3 includes North Beach, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Polk Gulch, Union Square/Financial District and Russian, Telegraph and Nob Hills.

Why we’re voting for him: Danny Sauter has truly progressive values, with policies designed to move San Francisco forward, not keep the city stuck with the status quo. Since 2019, Sauter has been directly involved with youth and senior activity programming as the Executive Director of Neighborhood Centers Together, a network of eight neighborhood centers serving over 10,000 people annually. But Sauter is also an entrepreneur, co-founding performance marketing company Bamboo in 2014, growing it to 30 employees before leaving in 2018. And he knows how to get things done in City Hall—he created the North Beach Farmers Market, which required Sauter to coordinate six different city departments to get the weekly market off the ground. We support Danny Sauter for supervisor because he’s a fresh, energetic leader with plenty of experience working with the community to improve San Francisco.

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DISTRICT 5

District 5 includes the Tenderloin, Haight-Ashbury, Japan Town and Civic Center.

Why we’re voting for him: San Francisco has a lot of smart, effective people in the city, but too few of them ever switch careers and enter public service. That’s why we’re excited to endorse Bilal Mahmood for District 5 Supervisor. Mahmood is a co-founder of analytics startup ClearBrain and the 13 Fund, a philanthropic foundation that has supported San Francisco’s Asian-American community. He’s a strong climate advocate who has worked with State Assemblymember Matt Haney on climate legislation. He has the right ideas about how to tackle the drug crisis, which is most highly concentrated in his district. And he’s ready to hit the ground running—he was just elected to the Democratic County Central Committee in the March primary election, and it took him all of one meeting to propose a resolution to use public health funds to support hate crime victims. We support Bilal Mahmood for supervisor because his entrepreneurial track record, combined with his results-first policy platform will make him the leader that District 5 has lacked for years.

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Why we’re voting for him: This is Scotty Jacobs’ first time running for office in San Francisco, but he’s already picked up endorsements from our endorsed mayoral candidate Mark Farrell and Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. That speaks to the strength of his policy proposals, which focus on affordable housing, ending the mental health and drug crises, public safety, and bolstering public transit and education. The 30-year-old marketing professional has deep ties to San Francisco—his great-grandfather immigrated from Russia, and his grandmother and mom were raised in the Sunset. If elected, Scotty Jacobs would be the youngest member of the Board of Supervisors, and while we don’t think he’d make a better supervisor than Bilal Mahmood right now, we look forward to seeing what he’s going to do in the future.

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Why you should leave him off your ballot: Dean Preston has served one term as District 5’s Supervisor, and in that time he’s been an uncompromising ideologue who puts his own personal values ahead of San Francisco’s wellbeing. He’s publicly stated that “we [should] not hold up compromise as a value in and of itself,” and that uncompromising nature seems to be his guiding principle for governing. Preston’s “my way or the highway” approach is a major factor behind the gridlock at City Hall in the last four years—he’s been the sole ‘No’ vote against city budgets in three of the last four years, purely on ideological grounds. We’re leaving Dean Preston off our ballot because his policy hasn’t led to better outcomes. We prioritize results and practical leadership, and Preston prioritizes his own ideology over everything else.

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DISTRICT 7

District 7 includes West Portal, Forest Hill, Lake Merced, Inner Sunset, Ingleside Terraces, and Saint Francis Wood.

Why we’re voting for him: San Francisco elects the Board of Supervisors by district, so supervisors need to represent the values of the voters in their district, while also working to solve bigger, citywide problems. Unfortunately, District 7 voters haven’t had that kind of dependable representation for years, and it’s time for change. Matt Boschetto’s vision for his district and entrepreneurial experience are clearly aligned with both voters and TogetherSF Action. A small business owner, Boschetto doesn’t have any political experience yet, but he’s reliably supported pragmatic, realistic policies for public safety, housing, and homelessness, while current supervisor Myrna Melgar has not. We want to encourage forward-thinking outsiders who are motivated to create change to get into politics, especially when we have the chance to unseat an incumbent who hasn’t delivered. We support Matt Boschetto for supervisor because his proposed solutions for District 7’s problems are aligned with what the Board of Supervisors needs right now.

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Why you should leave her off your ballot: Unfortunately, current District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar hasn’t delivered consistent results for District 7 or the city during her first term in office, and has sometimes taken positions that are not aligned with voters' priorities. For example, she says homelessness is one of her top issues, but has struggled to address the RV encampments around her district. First, she promised to solve the problem by asking SFMTA to pick up its parking enforcement like it did pre-pandemic. Then, she promised to find them a spot to park outside the area. But the encampments still kept appearing around the district. This isn’t a solution for those experiencing homelessness or housed residents and business owners demanding action. We’re leaving Myrna Melgar off our ballot because she hasn’t delivered results for District 7, and is too inconsistent to expect any better in a second term.

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DISTRICT 9

District 9 includes the Mission District, Bernal Heights and Portola.

Why we’re voting for him: Trevor Chandler is an educator, and it shows in the tenacious way he’s campaigned. Over the past year, Chandler has knocked on thousands of doors, talking face-to-face with voters and clearly explaining why he’s the best choice for District 9. Chandler has made it clear through these conversations that he understands residents’ concerns on issues important to the district like tent encampments, small businesses struggling, and public safety—and that he is willing to work to solve them. More broadly, Chandler has spent his political career managing organizers and campaigns, successfully passing human rights measures and lobbying against anti-LGBTQ legislation in other states, and he was just elected to the Democratic County Central Committee. Chandler’s work ethic and determination will serve District 9 well—residents haven’t had a supervisor that’s focused on constituents or the district for a long time. Chandler’s policy positions make this clear, such as supporting a fully-staffed police department and consolidating street outreach teams. We support Trevor Chandler for supervisor because he’s a natural leader who will focus on his constituents and produce the results District 9 needs to thrive.

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Why you should leave her off your ballot: Jackie Fielder is an ideologue who has more experience as an activist than as a legislator. That appeals to some voters, and the catchy slogans that Fielder likes work for protest marches. But supervisors need to represent ALL the residents in their districts, not just niche groups. Fielder repeatedly takes positions on important issues that are out of touch with voters, and advocates for policies that have had disastrous effects in the real world. We’re leaving Jackie Fielder off our ballot because her uncompromising, niche positions are not what District 9 needs.

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DISTRICT 11

District 11 includes Crocker Amazon, Excelsior, Ingleside, and Mission Terrace.

Why we’re voting for him: San Francisco’s elected officials can act pretty childish sometimes—so it’s a good thing Michael Lai made a career in early childhood education. Lai founded the micro-daycare network TinyCare, whose true innovation was realizing that good teachers are hard to find, and provided subsidized housing for educators and their families to attract quality teachers. While he’s new to politics, joining a recent wave of results-driven entrepreneurs trying to fix the city, he’s gained a remarkable amount of support in a short period of time. We support Michael Lai because he’s proven to be a successful, competent manager whose ideas are all in the right place.

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Paid for by TogetherSF Action (tsfaction.org). Not authorized by any candidate or committee controlled by a candidate. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.

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