The tapestry of our diverse cultures and communities, combined with the geography of our parks and the District’s central location in the City, makes District 5 an enviable and wonderful place to live. I want to keep it that way. I want to walk from my house on Webster Street (at Grove) everyday to City Hall with a smile on my face, proud of the work we are all doing.

I have dedicated my life to public service and civic duty. My advocacy and professional experiences have trained me to be an effective leader who fights for what is right and what needs changing. District 5 is a mosaic of communities, cultures, and incomes and it’s important to me that no one feels left out or shut out. My people and problem-solving skills when dealing with our local and state governments qualify me as a strong advocate for D5.

My plan for improving the quality of life for all residents of District 5 is based on my experience as a twenty-year resident of San Francisco—with nearly twelve of those years living in District 5 neighborhoods—as well as my broad range of policy and advocacy experience built on the problem-solving challenges that revolve around quality of life issues. Many of the solutions to District 5’s problems need to be addressed at the Citywide or regional level. Throughout the summer and fall I will meet with District 5 community residents and businesses to further develop my platform, which is outlined below. As a Supervisor, I will also establish a satellite office to build on this intent of listening to and learning from residents and business owners and remedying district issues.

Here are key Quality of Life issues I would work on:

Transportation

Public transportation, auto traffic, and parking are prime issues in my campaign. Here is what I propose:

• Muni Audit: Instead of politicizing Muni every budget cycle or election year I will work to mandate an independent and comprehensive audit that evaluates management practices and identifies inefficiencies. This audit would cover capital improvements, salary inequities, service efficiency, income performance, and enforcement compliance. Specific steps toward implementing more effective audits can be gleaned from the Bay Area Transit Authority, the Portland (Oregon) Transit Authority, and the Manhattan (New York) Transit Authority.
  
• Muni Funding: I will work to increase sources of funding for Muni. This would include increasing parking taxes on commuters coming into the City. Muni fares, however, should remain low to encourage usage. We would use the funds to first prevent cutbacks that threaten Muni. And we should also continue to expand Muni service in terms of frequency, and to better enable connections between Muni lines and other regional transit.
  
• Muni Service: I will work to create a rapid transit bus to make public transit faster and to improve the overall flow of car traffic. This would include additional lanes dedicated to Muni in transit corridors, streetlights that would be aware of approaching Muni buses to cut trip time, and a rethinking of bus stop locations.
  
• Transit Hub Development: I will also support and encourage developments that include housing, along with retail and other uses, located at transit hubs. This will enable residents to walk to neighborhood services and transit.
  
• Pedestrian Safety: We need a Citywide plan for pedestrians, an issue that is especially important in areas with children and the elderly. This will create a set of standardized traffic-calming methods for different types of streets. Traffic calming can include reducing speeds with increased stops, additional signage at crosswalks, and better enforcement.
  
• Bicycle Safety: A good master plan for increasing bicycle ridership and safety exists but the plan needs an advocate to bring it to life—that’s me. More bike lanes are needed. And the prosecution of vehicular crimes against bicyclists requires greater attention and political will.

Local Economy

If our neighborhood commercial services suffer then so do we all. A key aspect of my program will be the preservation of Mom & Pop and other independent businesses, with the goal of revitalizing our small business economy, including saving minority-owned businesses.

As a former City Hall legislative aide and someone who knows how to troubleshoot and navigate our City’s bureaucracy, I strongly support a sturdier lifeline to our small business community. San Francisco’s small businesses provide large numbers of jobs and help define neighborhood character. I support an Ombudsman service to help guide small business and residents through the City bureaucracy. And to underscore my support, as Supervisor, I will bolster the responsiveness to district residents and merchants by dedicating my office staff to meeting district needs.

Small businesses, especially minority-owned, can be recruited into relocating to District 5 by a tandem effort of neighborhood-driven small merchant associations, the City, and the Chamber of Commerce. Strategies to entice prospective businesses include: guaranteeing successful negotiation around the bureaucratic morass of obtaining local, state, and federal tax incentives and grants; obtaining low interest and tax deferred loans; and getting venture financing depending on the longevity test of the type of business proposed. In return for helping to establish these new businesses, the proprietors agree to a private-public partnership where they abide by living wage remuneration and a benefits package for San Francisco residents.

I would also like to build on Supervisor Gonzalez’s recently passed chain store legislation to give small business and residents greater input when big chain stores attempt to move in, at the expense of pushing out local small businesses.

We don’t need large out-of-town chains or superstores in District 5. The best plan that I’ve heard to date emanates from an alliance of advocates who met at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center last year. Their plan puts local residents and local labor first. In short, the plan calls for the conversion of the Bayshore/Oakdale lot into a high-density small business and affordable housing center. Labor provided would be mostly San Francisco–based. Hiring practices would be monitored by a coalition that includes the SF Labor Council, the City, and Bernal and Bayview neighborhood organizations, among others. We can learn from this successful approach for similar projects in District 5.

Crime

The rising levels of crime, especially gun violence in District 5 and the City are a telltale indication that what we’re experiencing is not a fluke but instead a crisis.

I've worked in law enforcement for over eight years. The quality and effectiveness of relations between the police and the community is a major concern of mine. I know both Park and Northern Stations and I’m aware of the range of styles and approaches that both stations use in the communities they serve. Whether they are misdemeanor or felony crimes, violent or non-violent crimes, I want district residents and merchants to feel safe and be proud of our police. Conversely, I want to work with both community leaders and the police in devising verifiable expectations for activating ongoing community policing practices.

I would seek to develop comprehensive short- and long-term programs for District 5 and the City. Again, we can look to what has worked in other cities, and what has failed here in San Francisco. For instance, we should look at ways to make it more difficult for intravenous drug users to congregate in children’s playgrounds, as has been done in New York and Chicago. I would also enhance our alternative sentencing system for drug-use offenses to help users get off of drugs without clogging up limited law enforcement and court resources.

Stopping vagrancy and other crimes of this ilk are better solved through a continuum of care approach, ranging from homeless or substance abuse services to law enforcement. As seen in other cities, applying an all-out punitive approach to quality of life crimes may seem effective on the front end, but in reality this is a temporary fix at a high taxpayer cost.

Housing

I believe it is important to facilitate home ownership in District 5 and throughout the City.

While I am a steadfast advocate for tenant rights, I am also a homeowner. If owning a home weren’t such an insurmountable hurdle, more people would be buying in District 5. I will advocate for greater homeownership as follows: reducing the income thresholds for first-time homebuyers can be pitched to the increased development of our affordable housing stock that is publicly-privately subsidized; returning to the development and conversion of cooperative (Co-op) homeownership; supporting a tenant-landlord compact that offers the first right of refusal to tenants for buying their own residence, without comprising residence stability; and pushing for greater advocacy in procuring federal and state low- or no-interest grants to augment the move-in costs for first-time homeowners.

Not only do I support City-supplied mediation between tenants and landlords as a means of mitigating lawsuits, but I will also advocate for providing greater conflict-resolution services that are district-based.

Homelessness

One way to address the homeless problem is to lessen bureaucratic loopholes. For example, as it now stands homeless clients need a shelter referral to schedule an intake appointment for money management services. However, people on general assistance will most likely be prioritized for placement in shelter beds as long as a portion of their GA pays for utilities and food. And while this may help expedite shelter services for those on General Assistance (GA), others, who are on Social Security, may have a harder time obtaining a shelter referral, and find a slower process in obtaining service entitlements. Based on current and proposed methods, many homeless will not want to endure the bureaucratic procedures for obtaining shelter and payee assistance. This means that they end up living in Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle.

The City has to be careful in making sure that homeless case managers do not simply convert to being money managers. While it’s critical that we enact a more efficient method for improving homeless care services, it’s just as critical that we don't compromise a continuum approach to addressing the causative reasons that force individuals and families into homelessness.

For the homeless that find themselves in the criminal justice system, we need to look at alternative sentencing and diversion for homelessness to end the revolving door that returns the homeless back to the Park and Panhandle.

Local Environment

We all want clean streets and an urban space that gives us the room to think and walk and feel safe. Improving our local and aesthetic environment does not have to be outsourced when the City possesses the resources and skills to get the job done ourselves. Making better use of taxpayer dollars and in-kind resources (e.g., the SWAP program) will bolster a better performing urban maintenance program.

The Recreation and Parks Department needs to do a much better job of monitoring event noise in parks, particularly Golden Gate Park. This includes the level of noise as well as the hours in the day during which events occur. The City needs to set definite noise-control limits and to design a mechanism for enforcement, thus making compliance less arbitrary. Since event promotion in the Park is a privilege, funding for security enforcement should come from the fees paid by the event promoters.

Sidewalk cleaning on Haight Street is inadequate. I know many Haight Street merchants who arrive at their businesses early to clean the sidewalks themselves. As a Supervisor, I would ask why other shopping districts receive cleaning services from the City that are superior to District 5 merchant corridors, and then I would correct it.

One thing a Supervisor can do is to appoint Planning Commissioners who believe in issuing Environmental Impact Reports, and who support the Planning Code. Many problems associated with development issues range from neighborhood character preservation to excessive bulkiness to exceeding height limits, all of which require better adherence to the Planning Code.

I also support public benefit development, which requires developers to spend money to contribute to the neighborhood’s needs in exchange for their building permits. This contribution can be in the form of new or refurbished libraries, schools, parks and playgrounds, or street improvements.

As Supervisor, I will push to get stronger public benefit development requirements into the Planning Code.

Health Care

Due to the high self-employment rate combined with those residents in District 5 who are unemployed, many of our neighbors and friends in District 5 do not have health insurance. While the issue of providing universal health insurance may seem like a national and state issue, it’s critical that I use the bully pulpit and my legislative skills to develop a supplemental local health insurance plan as a means of helping our residents, not just in District 5, but Citywide.