The Ballot That Ate SF

Jane Kim

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Jane says that reading the League’s book How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office is what convinced her to run for the Board of Education in 2004, when she narrowly missed becoming the first Korean-American on the Board of Education. She’s the youth program director at the Chinatown Community Development Center, and has a long history of teaching, supporting, and listening to high school students. Her detailed answers to our candidate questionnaire show that she knows the SFUSD inside and out, and she’s dedicated to bringing students’ perspective to the Board of Education. She’s also the president of the SF People’s Organization, a law student, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and she plays bass!

Kim-Shree Maufus

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Kim-Shree is a young woman of color who worked with the League on June’s Prop A: Stop Homicides Now campaign. She works for the SF Department on the Status of Women as a policy analyst. She’s an SFUSD mother, active in the PTA, and a founding member of the Board of Education’s Parent Advisory Council. She’s been at the front lines of the fight to make SFUSD’s school closure process fair and transparent. Kim-Shree is awesome.

James Calloway

Endorsed Vote: Yes

He has an impressive 30 years of experience in education and offered reasonable answers to our questions, although he didn’t offer many details. It's a big step down from Jan and Kim-Shree, but we trust Dr. Calloway more than people like Dan Kelly or Hydra Mendoza.

Bruce Wolfe

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Bruce was active in student government as a CCSF student. He's on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, and CCSF is dying for some sunshine. He’s a dedicated progressive activist who worked with the League on our public financing and Community Choice Aggregation campaigns. He wants to provide childcare for all CCSF students who need it and increase the green and social justice curriculums.

John Rizzo

Endorsed Vote: Yes

John is the president of the SF Sierra Club, and he’s on the CCSF Bond Oversight Committee. He wants to create programs to prepare students for new economy jobs like home hospice care and installing the City's solar power. He also wants to build student housing on the main campus.

Anita Grier

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Anita is a fairly progressive incumbent. A couple of her answers to our questionnaire sounded condescending towards youth, but she says supports increased transparency at CCSF and giving the student member of the board a full vote.

Dave Kiddoo

Endorsed Vote: Yes

We asked Dave to run as a write-in candidate because we think he has the smarts, passion, and guts to do the job--and because the incumbent is the most conservative Supervisor on the Board with by far the worst attendance record. Dave works at a non-profit developing affordable housing, and he plans on making housing and economic justice his priorities as District 2 Supervisor. And he's an active League member.

Jaynry Mak

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Jaynry is the closest thing to a progressive in this race. She's the only candidate to support reforming the Ellis Act as well as Prop F for paid sick days and Prop H for tenant relocation benefits. She's also a Sunset native with a long history of working with young people in her community. She's not perfect: she opposes Prop E, the downtown parking tax and Prop 87 for Clean Elections. But considering the sketchy characters she's running against, we think a vote for Jaynry is a vote for a better San Francisco.

Chris Daly

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Chris Daly has had the League’s back on virtually every campaign we’ve worked on. He’s consistently on the side of the under-privileged. As the chair of the Budget and Finance committee he reviewed the Mayor’s $5 billion budget and secured an additional $20 million for SF’s most vulnerable citizens. Sketchy downtown special interests are pouring HUGE money into smearing Chris, which only shows how awesome he is. If he wasn't doing a good job of standing up for the little guy, downtown businesses and the Police Officers Association wouldn't be spending their money to trash him. Vote Chris Daly for president!

Alix Rosenthal

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Alix is a deputy city attorney in Oakland who used to be on the SF elections committee. The incumbent, Bevan Dufty is a nice enough guy, but his conservative politics are out of touch with the Castro and Noe Valley. She’s taken progressives stands on tenants’ rights, green building, violence prevention, and she supports all of the important SF Props (E through H). She's also active in the Burning Man and local art communities and would be a pro-fun Supervisor--as opposed to Dufty who tried to cancel Halloween.

Marie Harrison

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Marie Harrison is a Bayview/Hunter’s Point activist legend with a long history of fighting to close the Hunter’s Point power plant and protecting D-10’s vulnerable communities. Unfortunately, after we voted, we heard that Marie was supporting Prop 90. Say it ain't so, Marie! We share her worries that eminent domain could be used to gentrify Bayview/Hunter's Point, but Prop 90 is NOT the way to fix eminent domain. Vote yes on Marie Harrison and no on Prop 90.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

This is a $450 million bond to pay for fixing up San Francisco schools. It raises property taxes about $165 for every $500K of property value for the next 20 years. Landlords can now pass up to 50% of this on to tenants, which could mean an extra $5-10 a month on top of your rent. In general we’re not fans of bonds, but we need to take care of our schools.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

The proposition will require the Board of Supervisors to adopt a parental leave policy so that if a member cannot physically attend because of pregnancy they will be allowed to participate and have their vote counted via telephone. Senior and disabled activists argue that this should be extended to cover people who can't attend meetings because of disabilities or because they're in the hospital. That's a good point, but we'll still support this one as a first step.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Prop D would make is so the city could only disclose your private information when you give your consent, or if they are required to by a contract, law or court order.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Prop E would increases the tax on downtown parking by 10% to a total of 35%. Downtown is a nightmare of cars and congestion, and this is a good first step to addressing that mess. Prop E would put much-needed money into the budget that could be used to help fix MUNI, and hopefully it will wake some people up to the fact that it makes a lot more sense to take public transit or walk or bike to downtown.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

San Francisco has more than 100,000 workers who currently don’t get any sick leave. Most of these workers are low-wage, young people of color. Put on the ballot by our friends at Young Workers United, Prop F is compassionate and it makes sense. Here’s how it works: Workers would start earning sick leave after being on the job for 3 months. After that, they’d earn one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours they work. Big businesses would provide up to 72 hours of sick leave while small businesses (10 or fewer employees) would provide up to 40 hours. We all have a right to be sick.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Prop G requires formula retail stores (AKA chain stores) to get a conditional use permit before opening in San Francisco. Neighbors will be notified when a store applies for a permit, and they can call for a public hearing to discuss if they want the chain store in their neighborhood. One of the reasons we love San Francisco is because of all our cool small businesses. Prop G will protect them from being run out of town by Starbucks,Wal-Mart and the rest.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

San Francisco’s insane housing market is leading to a lot of us renters getting evicted. Here’s how it works: real estate speculators buy up rental housing, evict the tenants, and sell the units off individually for a huge profit. This practice is gentrifying our neighborhoods and driving out working class families, people of color, seniors, and the disabled. Prop H says if you’ve been in your apartment for at least a year and you get evicted for no fault of your own, your landlord has to give you $4,500 so you can afford a deposit on a new apartment. It’s only fair: if someone can afford to buy your apartment for $500K or more, they can kick down $4,500 to enable you to stay in the City.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Prop I says that we the people think the Mayor should attend at least one Board of Supervisors meeting each month for a “question and answer” session. We think this is a great idea. When is the last time you heard the Mayor talk with the Board of Supes (or anyone else) about Muni, violence, homelessness, housing, or any of the other important issues facing the City? We want to see some political discussion that goes beyond sound bytes and press conferences.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

This is a "statement of policy" that San Francisco wants our state and federal representatives to impeach Bush and Cheney. Look, we all know we don't have the power of impeachment, but we also know that those bastards are criminals, and if nothing else, Prop J will generate "Impeach Bush" headlines across the country on November 7th. Vote yes and keep moving.

Endorsed Vote: Yes

This is another symbolic "statement of policy" that the City needs do everything it can to provide housing for seniors and the disabled. Again, vote yes, and keep moving to the more important stuff on the ballot.