November 5, 2024 GREENZINE SF Green Party Weekly News and Events www.sfgreenparty.org twitter.com/sfgreenparty instagram.com/sfgreenparty mastodon.sfgreens.org/@sfgreenparty www.facebook.com/groups/SFGreenParty/ Dear Greens, Please vote today if you haven't already! Our complete Green Voter Guide with full explanations of the reasons behind our endorsements is now posted here: https://www.sfgreenparty.org/endorsements/108-november-2024-endorsements A text copy of the Green Voter Guide is also included below; please feel free to share it with other interested voters! Many Greens volunteered on the Prop L campaign, so many of us will be joining their election night watch party tonight. See announcement below. We're also planning a Green Party holiday social and election debrief on November 20, so please save the date! *===========================* What: Yes on L Election Night Watch Party Where: Finnegans Wake, 937 Cole St, SF When: Tues, Nov 5, 8 pm Greens will join other Prop L volunteers after the polls close to watch the results and raise a glass to the campaign! Event will be on the back patio. 21+. Easy to get to on the N Judah; it's less than a block from the Carl and Cole stop. Note that no campaigning will be allowed in the bar - join us after the polls close at 8! RSVP here: https://lu.ma/election *===========================* What: Save the Date - Green Holiday Party and Election Recap Where: 2973 16th St, #300, SF When: Wed, Nov 20, 6;30-9:30 pm Please save the date - details to be announced! *===========================* GREEN VOTER GUIDE 2024 President/VP: Stein/Ware Jill Stein is a Harvard-educated physician and longtime teacher of internal medicine, as well as a mother and an environmental health advocate. She has led initiatives promoting healthy communities, local green economies, campaign finance reform, green jobs, racially-just redistricting, and the cleanup of incinerators, coal plants, and toxins. Stein previously ran for president in 2012 and 2016, with her a 2016 campaign centered around Medicare for all, canceling student debt, climate justice, closing the wage gap, and workers' rights. Dr. Butch Ware, the Green Party Vice-Presidential nominee, is a lifelong activist, artist, organizer, and professor specializing in the history of empire, colonialism, genocide and revolution. For the past two decades, he has put scholarship in service of the people, especially in response to the Gaza genocide and the 2020 George Floyd murder. His work is focused on building sustainable, just, peaceful alternatives rooted in African, Indigenous, and Abrahamic traditions. Ware is currently a UC Santa Barbara professor, teaching in History, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies. The 2024 election is an unprecedented moment in US electoral history as the global outrage over the genocide in Palestine has led to the awakening of many voters. Previously apathetic voters or those loyal to corporate parties now clearly see the US government's role in the global war machine and are making a connection between violent police states in our cities and universities and the global violence perpetrated by the war industry. In this critical moment, the Green Party's vision is a roadmap to a future that voters across the political spectrum want. Voter trust in the two corporate parties is at all-time lows, as Trump incites hate and division and the Biden administration and now the Harris campaign have doubled down on funding a genocide, silencing voices of dissent, and dismissing people's needs, while they keep laser-focused on serving billionaires' greed. A record vote this year for the Green Party ticket will be a message to both parties that we've had enough of their genocide, endless war, and ignoring the climate crisis. It's past time to get serious about building a real alternative! Mayor: Aaron Peskin (#1 ranked choice), Dylan Hirsch-Shell (#2 ranked choice) For 29 years, Willie Brown and his chosen successors, most recently London Breed, have (mis)managed the City on behalf of wealthy elites. 2024 is a rare chance for voters to end this mess, and Greens are pleased to have found two candidates who will represent the interests of ordinary people rather than the Democratic Party Machine. We urge voters to rank Board President Aaron Peskin #1, and former Tesla engineer Dylan Hirsch-Shell #2. We have followed Aaron Peskin since his first term on the Board of Supervisors as part of the "Class of 2000", which included the Green Party's Matt Gonzalez and progressive champion Chris Daly. Peskin knows how to govern (a sharp contrast from the incumbent Mayor), and throughout his decades in City government, he has always been in opposition to the ruling Machine's self-described "moderate" faction. He's the only major Mayoral candidate who will build social housing (https://www.sfcommunityhousingact.com/), the only feasible solution to the City's affordability crisis. Peskin supports building safe shelter beds for homeless people, rather than pointlessly sweeping people from neighborhood to neighborhood, as his major opponents Breed, Farrell, and Lurie propose. Peskin also has the strongest track record on renters' rights. We are far from agreeing with Peskin on everything: we took him to task in 2019 for his close ties to Uber and Lyft, but to his credit, he now joins us in support of Prop L, the new Uber and Lyft tax on the 2024 ballot. We also disagree with him on the need for more police, given that they rarely bother to investigate even serious and violent crimes, and do very little other than harass skateboarders and collect overtime. However, Mayor Peskin might also appoint a police chief who supports real community policing and an end to the effective strike that the cops have been on for the last 5+ years. For our second choice, we're impressed by the Green values demonstrated in Dylan Hirsch-Shell's thoughtful answers to our questionnaire (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/hirsch-shell_mayor.html). Hirsch-Shell agrees with us on the need for alternative voting systems, proportional representation, rooftop solar energy, and social housing. We greatly appreciated Hirsch-Shell's championing of a policy that Greens have long supported: a Universal Basic Income. Hirsch-Shell proposes a cash grant of $1k/month to every San Franciscan, which would eliminate much of the poverty and misery that is present on our streets today. Although some of Hirsch-Shell's are aligned with Andrew Yang's Forward Party, there are many points of commonality with Green Party policy positions and values. As we predicted when we opposed 2022's Prop H, which eliminated odd-year elections, few voters are paying much attention to down-ticket offices, allowing billionaire-backed candidates such as Mark Farrell and Daniel Lurie to try to buy the Mayor's office. We hope that voters will reject this effort and elect Peskin or Hirsch-Shell, who would be accountable to average San Franciscans. D1 Supervisor: Connie Chan Although the Green Party did not endorse Connie Chan when she first ran for office in 2020, her votes once elected have been surprisingly good. We are especially impressed with her track record on renters' rights. Chan has therefore earned our enthusiastic endorsement for re-election. Chan's opponent in D1 is Marjan Philhour, a YIMBY hack with close ties the the Democratic Party Machine who has been rejected by voters twice before, in 2016 and 2020. But like a plastic bag mixed into a compost heap, she stubbornly keeps resurfacing. Unfortunately, the Machine has put their finger on the scale in 2024 with some major redistricting, moving conservatives from Seacliff into D1. Chan needs all the help she can get to come out ahead this time! D3 Supervisor: Sharon Lai Sharon Lai is a first-time candidate who is running to take over the D3 seat vacated by the termed-out Aaron Peskin. She was previously a municipal urban planner, and then founded a nonprofit to house homeless people. Lai is impressive in having assembled a "bipartisan" list of endorsers, including both very conservative and solidly progressive supporters. Greens are pleased to endorse her. In answering our questionnaire (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/lai_d3.html), Lai agrees with Green Party positions on a number of issues, from supporting ranked choice voting to public power. Like Peskin, she wants to expand shelter capacity to address the homelessness crisis. She also supports social housing, police reform, and funding Muni. We disagree with her on some key issues, notably the Chesa Boudin recall, but overall she's clearly more supportive of Green Party values than opposed. Moe Jamil also sought the Green Party's endorsement (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/jamil_d3.html), but we have fundamental disagreements on the importance of hiring more police officers. With police effectively on strike, Greens don't think doubling down on police funding without major police reform would be a good use of scarce public tax money. Jamil thinks otherwise, and does not recognize the problem. Like D1, D3 is ripe for yet another YIMBY pickup by a candidate they've rescued from the compost heap of history. As we said last time about Danny Sauter: Sauter is endorsed by YIMBY Action, and appears to have little knowledge of how the City government works. For example, he attacked Peskin for not providing district services, which only Mayor Breed has control over. YIMBY Action is a fake 'nonprofit' real estate and big tech industry funded front group to support luxury housing profiteering and gentrification for its corporate and billionaire backers. Please join Greens in voting for Sharon Lai to continue Peskin's legacy in D3! D5 Supervisor: Dean Preston Dean Preston is a long-time tenant activist and attorney, who we've endorsed three times before, in 2016, 2019, and 2020. He leads the Board on housing and tenants' rights legislation. He is also a leading member of the local DSA chapter, which is unusually antagonistic towards the Green Party, compared to other DSA chapters around the US. Despite this, Greens share many values with DSA members, including Preston, and we're happy to endorse him for re-election. Our major disagreement with Preston is his sponsorship of 2022's Prop H, which cancelled odd-year elections in SF. As a result, we're in a situation today where few voters are paying attention to down-ticket contests. As we predicted: Moving (more down-ticket contests) into a single election when fewer voters will pay attention will benefit well-funded corporate candidates and their campaign consultants, but will not result in more informed voters. Preston's leading opponents are a fake neuroscientist and an advocate for more Mayoral control of our public schools. Against this dismal opposition, we expect he will be reelected overwhelmingly! But with the influx of billionaire cash and more uninformed voters into the 2024 election, he may have a harder time legislating than in the past. D7 Supervisor: no endorsement No D7 candidate sought our endorsement. This is perhaps to Supervisor Melgar's credit, since she recognized correctly that we would not be inclined to support her reelection. We wrote in 2020 (https://www.sfgreenparty.org/endorsements/95-november-2020-endorsements#D7) about how she ran a nonprofit that sold out to Mayor Breed. D9 Supervisor: no endorsement The D9 Supervisor's seat is open in 2024. Only one candidate, Jackie Fielder, sought the Green Party's endorsement. Fielder's answers to our questionnaire (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/fielder_d9.html) agree with us on many positions. But not enough Greens were convinced by her track record in City politics to earn the supermajority support required for endorsement. Around half of the active Greens supported Fielder because of her positions on opposing YIMBY, protecting tenants, creating a Public Bank and building a Green New Deal to reverse the climate crisis. But other Greens (including several who live in Fielder's district) observed that she has only recently moved to District 9, and seems more oriented towards the local Democratic Party's professional nonprofit-based style of activism than real grassroots community organizing. In 2020, we did not endorse Supervisor Ronen for re-election, based on similar reasoning. Like Fielder, Ronen is closely linked to a number of nonprofits that have a track record of soaking up grassroots activist energy, and channeling it into internal Democratic Party politics. We wrote: The nonprofit industrial complex has a track record of defusing local activism going back more than 20 years. Grassroots activists have tried to change City law to divest from fossil fuels, create a public bank, stop gentrification, and defund the police. In every case, nonprofits led by professional Democrats have grounded this grassroots energy into their groups. This has resulted in laws that are good PR, but don't actually effect the necessary changes - instead, issues are kicked up to the state level to die in Sacramento, or pushed off in a series of endless "studies." Fielder's main opponent is Trevor Chandler, a former AIPAC lobbyist backed by YIMBY who pretends to be a public school teacher. Although there are many other candidates in the race, none took the time or effort to answer the Green Party's questionnaire. We therefore did not endorse any candidate in this contest. D11 Supervisor: Ernest "EJ" Jones (#1 ranked choice), Adlah Chisti (#2 ranked choice) The D11 Supervisor's race is also open this year, as termed-out Supervisor Ahsha Safai is running a quixotic campaign for Mayor. Greens have endorsed two candidates in the race, "EJ" Jones for our first choice, and Adlah Chisti as our second choice. EJ Jones agrees with Greens on many issues (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/jones_d11.html), from public power to social housing. He supports more police accountability, foot patrols, free Muni, and some measures to reduce political corruption. He's more conservative than Greens would like (he previously supported Mayor Breed , and would support Supervisor Melgar's for Board President, although he has endorsed Supervisor Safai for Mayor this year), but overall he'd do a great job of representing both the constituents of his district and Green values. Adlah Chisti is the sister of Alilya Chisti, who currently serves on the College Board (see College Board endorsements, below). She has a similar mix of issues on which she agrees with Green positions (public power, free Muni, social housing), but she also supports Mayor Breed's re-election. We also think she'd do a great job representing both Green values and her district. Several other candidates in D11 merit mention. Michael Lai is the designated YIMBY/billionaire candidate. He's best known for founding an "ed-tech" scam business that destroyed the lives of numerous parents and teachers (https://missionlocal.org/2024/09/michael-lai-tinycare/). Chyanne Chen has been endorsed by several progressive Democratic Party clubs, but she didn't take the time to answer the Green Party's candidate questionnaire. Please join us in ranking EJ Jones #1 and Adlah Chisti #2 in D11! District Attorney: Ryan Khojasteh Ryan Khojasteh is an experienced criminal prosecutor who was one of many prosecutors fired by Mayor Breed's hand-picked DA, Brooke Jenkins, when she took office following the recall of Chesa Boudin. Khojasteh easily found another job as a prosecutor in Alameda County. Greens believe that he'll be a welcome change to restore public trust in the DA's office, which has been badly mismanaged under Jenkins. Khojasteh vows to depoliticize the DA's office, and focus on public safety instead of being a public relations arm of the Breed administration. Khojasteh appears to have much better alignment with Green Party values than the current DA. For example, he is staunchly opposed to the Death Penalty. He has also vowed to restart the Innocence Commission, which was largely dismantled by Jenkins. The Innocence Commission works to overturn convictions that were wrongly prosecuted by past DAs; for example, one person was found to have been wrongfully imprisoned for 32 years for a murder he did not commit (https://missionlocal.org/2022/07/innocence-commission-asks-da-to-continue/). Khojasteh also is certain to be a better manager than Jenkins. Jenkins's office is a nepotistic nightmare, as her chief of staff is a close friend with no law experience. May prosecutors who haven't been fired for insufficient personal loyalty have left, and Jenkins has had to drop dozens of cases, including some of people accused of serious and violent crimes, because her office was unable to get their paperwork together in a timely manner (https://sfstandard.com/2024/08/14/san-francisco-drops-criminal-cases-court-b...). Khojasteh will let many people accused of nonviolent crimes make reasonable plea deals, and his office will make full use of Collaborative Courts and diversion programs. Then, he will be able to focus the DA's resources on the most serious and violent offenses for trial. Greens enthusiastically support Khojasteh to bring and end to the corrupt Machine politics presently at work in the DA's office. Board of Education: Matt Alexander, Laurance Lem Lee, Virginia Cheung Our public schools are facing a severe crisis, as the district is facing fiscal insolvency due to gradually declining enrollment. This decline is partly based on demographics (fewer families with school-age kids), but also due to 1/3 of families choosing to send their kids to private schools. Fewer kids in public schools means less funding from the State, which bases funding on daily attendance and other factor such as the number of high-needs students. Thus, our schools are now faced with a deficit that may be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This is actually not much when compared to the City's budget, so the City could easily step in with additional funds to prevent cuts and school closures. However, this is complicated by an ongoing power struggle between Mayor Breed and her allies on the School Board who want to close public schools and convert them to charter schools, and those of us who recognize the value of investing in public education. Four seats are up for election on the school board. Only one incumbent, Matt Alexander, is running for re-election. Due to the fallout from a contentious recall election and a number of management crises (e.g., an outsourced payroll overhaul that meant teachers' pay was not calculated correctly for years), several other incumbents we've endorsed in the past (Kevine Boggess and former Green Party member Mark Sanchez) have thrown in the towel and are not running again. Superintendent Wayne has just recently announced his resignation, and the next Superintendent and Board will have to navigate a whole host of crises, including deteriorating facilities and a bevy of corrupt contractors who are waiting to rip off SFUSD. Of all the members of the Board, we think Matt Alexander best exemplifies Green Party values (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/alexander_boe.html). He's led the charge to cut SFUSD's central office budget in favor of prioritizing spending in classrooms. His recognition of the importance of in-person learning during the pandemic was spot on. He is also opposed to new charter schools in SF, and recognizes the overuse of standardized testing in SFUSD. As Alexander was recently elevated to Board President when one of Mayor Breed's appointees resigned, we have high hopes that he will lead us out of the current crisis. We are enthusiastically supporting his re-election! Laurance Lee is a citizen activist who currently serves on the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/lee_boe.html). He also helped lead the School Board recall in 2022, primarily out of concern (unfounded, as it turned out) that changes to Lowell admissions would result in lower academic standards. Although we think Lee is too conservative with regards to the issues of Lowell admissions, standardized testing, and JROTC, we also believe that his detailed knowledge of the SFUSD budget will be invaluable in preventing future contracting fraud (as happened with the payroll debacle). His social conservatism is balanced by his strong commitment to citizen activism and a genuine desire to ensure that our public schools meet the needs of the most demanding San Franciscans. For example, the SFUSD citizens' bond oversight committee (CBOC), tasked with monitoring large bond expenditures, was inactive for years after the 2016 bond passed. Lee has been blogging and speaking at School Board meetings about this problem since 2019. He helped ensure a CBOC was seated and has helped oversee $744 million in planned bond expenditures. Virginia Cheung is a public school parent who is new to electoral politics. Her questionnaire answers (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/cheung_boe.html) indicate that she agrees with Greens on a number of positions, including the dangers of expanding charter schools and standardized testing. Like Lee and Alexander, she seems extremely committed to ensuring that our public schools are successful and attractive to more families. As budget cuts and potential school closures continue to strain our public school community, it is of the utmost importance that our elected school board members have in-depth knowledge of the school district's many moving parts. We believe that both Alexander and Lee have demonstrated management expertise, as well as a commitment to fixing the many problems that families, teachers and staff face. We also expect that Cheung will provide valuable perspective as a deeply involved parent. We hope the three of them can work together to restore San Franciscans' trust in our public schools and pull us out of the current crisis. College Board: Alan Wong, Aliya Chisti Four seats are up for election on the CCSF Board of Trustees (College Board). As previously, the major consideration for us is the financial state of the college and the continued need for Free City College. Since the accreditation crisis, private interests have salivated at the thought of driving City College into financial insolvency and then taking it over. Although SF voters enthusiastically endorsed Prop W in 2016, most of the funds raised by the real estate transfer tax have been captured by our corrupt City government, and they are under renewed thread from Mayor Breed this year. Alan Wong currently serves as the President of the College Board and co-chair of the Free City College Oversight Committee. Elected in 2020, he has helped turn the fiscal situation at the College to the better. Enrollment is up, and the budget is balanced. Wong has pledged to work to continue to increase enrollment, primarily by protecting the Prop W funds owed by City government to ensure that courses at City College remain tuition-free. Wong's positions are also in good alignment with other Green Party priorities, including supporting non-citizen voting in local elections and opposing military recruitment and firearms on campus. Aliya Chisti got our endorsement back in 2020 when she was first elected, and we're happy to support her reelection. Like Wong, she has been a champion of Free City College (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/chisti_ccb.html). We also agree with her on limiting military recruiting on campus, and replacing campus police with more alternative personnel to cover necessary services without criminalizing students. She also promises to ensure the public will have adequate time to review CCSF's budget. We are pleased to endorse both Wong and Chisti for re-election to the Board of Trustees. BART Board: no endorsement BART suffers from numerous problems, including a Board dominated by YIMBY interests who are more interested in running a real estate development scheme than a transit system. Since COVID, BART has become increasingly hostile to its riders. The Board has spent scarce funds on "fare evasion" counter-measures such as higher fences and expensive (but barely functional) new fare gates. Maintenance of the system has deteriorated to the point where even a hot day or light rain routinely cause lengthy delays. The Board has also hired expensive steroid-abusing fare enforcement teams to harass riders. Some stations (e.g., Powell St) are routinely sprayed with noxious chemical agents in order to discourage people from loitering. Several candidates sought our endorsement, but neither of them convinced us that they would have the best interest of BART riders. We therefore did not make an endorsement in this contest. Joe Sangirardi is new to SF, and appears to have only a superficial knowledge of previous BART debacles (http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/sangirardi_bart.html). He wants to double down on rider-hostile measures such as fare enforcement and policing. He enthusiastically supports YIMBY development scams on public land owned by the system. Edward Wright (https://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2024/wright_bart.html) has many of the drawbacks we associate with current BART director Janice Li. Like Li, Wright rarely rides BART, and only recreationally as opposed to relying on the system as a daily commuter. He promises to be accountable to the Milk Club and other identity-based affinity groups, but (tellingly) not to the ridership at large. He also supports BART's land development schemes although not to the extent that Sangirardi does. We have now gone several elections without finding a worthy candidate to endorse for BART. We look forward to finding somebody who recognizes the critical importance of public transit in the context of climate emergency, and who also depends on the system to commute to work - and therefore empathizes with the challenges faced by everyday BART riders. NO on Prop A Prop A is a $790 million bond to help pay for construction and renovation of SF public schools. It requires 55% support to pass. Greens are recommending a NO vote, due to lack of accountability in how previous bonds were spent by the school district. Greens supported the previous school bond, which passed in 2016. However, the school district did not meet the legal requirements of having a functioning citizens' bond oversight committee until 2021 (https://thefrisc.com/schools-eye-a-1-billion-bond-sfs-biggest-ever-while-que...). Some of the renovation projects that were promoted as reasons to support the 2016 bond were ignored by the school district altogether, until conditions got sufficiently bad that parents and teachers at those schools could no longer be ignored (https://missionlocal.org/2019/06/rat-droppings-crumbling-ceilings-and-broken...). The school district actively covered up facilities problems, and instead spent money on other projects such as a new elementary school in Mission Bay (https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/sfusd-news/press-releases/2024-07-24-sfusd...). Prop A has the same red flags that made us hesitant to support the 2016 bond. As in 2016, the bond lists a number of proposed projects the money will supposedly be spent on, but there is no legal requirement to fund those projects (the language on spending says "may" instead of "shall"). And with the district proposing to close 13 schools according to nebulous criteria (https://missionlocal.org/2024/10/mission-local-obtains-list-of-13-sfusd-scho...), we are very pessimistic that spending will be prioritized according to the needs of students and families. We suspect this is why the final announcement of which schools may close, and the Board of Education vote on this, are both scheduled to take place after the November election. Greens are often hesitant to support bond funding (see our Statement on Bonds at the end of this Voter Guide), but will make exceptions for good public projects with appropriate oversight. Unfortunately, the current chaos in the school district, caused primarily by Mayor Breed's disastrous School Board appointments following the 2022 recall election, do not give us sufficient confidence at this time. Please join us in voting NO on Prop A, and support our endorsed school board candidates (see below) to help restore trust. NO on Prop B Prop B is a $390 million bond to support a huge number of promised projects, from homeless shelters to street repairs. Greens are strongly opposed. Our concerns are identical to those we stated about a very similar bond from 2020 (Prop A): We generally only support bonds for particular public works projects (see our Statement on Bond Funding, below). This list of miscellaneous projects reads like a slush fund for Mayor Breed. In fact, repeatedly replacing curb ramps was a well-known contracting scam under previous Mayors. Most of the items supposedly funded by this bond are already covered by other funds, or (like street maintenance) should be paid for out of the regular budget. Prop B doesn't meet either of our criteria for 1) specific earmarks requiring where the money will be spent, or 2) filling a very serious and urgent need that can't be funded through the City budget. Until we get a new Mayor who isn't so rampantly corrupt, we won't trust that the money will be well spent. Vote NO. YES on Prop C Prop C would create a new appointed City position, the Inspector General, to investigate corruption. The Inspector General would be nominated by the City Controller, subject to approval by both the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor. They would have the powers to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas. Greens support a YES vote to create this position. The City Controller is not an elected position, but rather a Mayoral appointee who is subject to confirmation by the Board of Supervisors. However, they have some degree of independence from the Mayor, because they serve a 10 year term and can only be removed by the Mayor for cause, with a 2/3 vote of the Board. The Inspector General would serve under the Controller, and so they would be an appointee of a Mayoral appointee (likely from a prior Mayor). That's not as independent as we would like to see, and could potentially lead to selective prosecution of corrupt contractors who are politically opposed to the Mayor. Despite these concerns, Prop C would be an improvement over the status quo, where corruption is allowed to continue unabated until federal prosecutors step in (generally based on the political bias of the Federal government at the time more than the actual level of corruption). We recommend a YES vote. NO on Prop D Prop D would eliminate about half of the City's 115 commissions, where citizens currently serve to advise or oversee various aspects of City government. Currently the Mayor and her allies appoint all or the majority of the members of these commissions. However, some seats are also appointed by the Board of Supervisors or other City elected officials who are nominally in opposition to the Mayor. In addition to eliminating commissions, Prop D would make more of the seats Mayor- appointed, allow the Mayor to fire commissioners at will, and make more of the commissions advisory instead of giving them real control or oversight. Prop D is therefore a Mayoral power grab, and Greens are strongly opposed. As proponents of grassroots democracy, Greens strongly support citizens' right to participate in government at all levels, and serving on a commission has provided many Greens with the ability to change the City for the better. Popular programs like "Sunday Streets" and "Free Muni for Youth" were originally championed by Green commissioners. Prop D would make City power even more strongly centered in the Mayor's office, leading to less oversight and therefore even more corruption and influence by her billionaire friends who sponsored this ballot measure. Worse, Prop D is being used as a slush fund by Mayoral candidate Mark Farrell to avoid limits on campaign donations. Billionaires have been donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to Prop D, which is then spent to promote Farrell's Mayoral campaign (https://missionlocal.org/2024/09/mark-farrell-ads-violate-campaign-law-oppon...). Vote NO on this Mayoral power grab! No consensus on Prop E Prop E is a measure, competing with Prop D, which would create a task force to study eliminating City commissions, and then come back to the voters in two years with another ballot measure that would implement their recommendations. If Prop E gets more votes than Prop D, it supersedes Prop D, and vice versa. Greens did not reach consensus on Prop E, so we have no position on the measure. Green proponents of Prop E thought that some streamlining should be done on City commissions, and also liked the possibility of blocking Prop D. Green opponents thought that the task force, which will be composed primarily of Mayoral and Mayor-allied appointees, will probably come up with a ballot measure almost as bad as Prop D, which we'll just have to organize to oppose in two years. We hope that Greens will consider both sides of the argument and vote your conscience. NO on Prop F Prop F would create a new program for police officers who are at least 50 years old and ready to retire to stay on the job for up to 5 years. During those 5 years, they would earn both their ordinary salary, as well as their pension. In effect, this would let older cops collect double pay as an incentive to not retire. Greens are extremely skeptical that San Franciscans are getting enough value from the SFPD for the amount of money we spend now, so we are strongly opposed to Prop F. We noted earlier this year that the SFPD have have effectively been on strike, refusing to investigate even serious and violent crimes unless the victims are wealthy or influential. We need serious police reform instead of continuing to throw money at a failed system. Prop F is pandering to the police union, and would pay cops double to perform duties few San Franciscans support, such as harassing skateboarders. Just say NO. YES on Prop G Prop G would provide some minimal but badly needed rent subsidies for low income seniors, families, and people with disabilities, and would help directly prevent further evictions and homelessness in the City. Prop G unfortunately only puts forward $12 million for this purpose, when the need is much greater. San Francisco should be providing far more support, and should pass laws establish Housing as Right so that no tenants in San Francisco can ever be evicted from their homes. Furthermore, Greens have correctly observed that such subsidies don't fundamentally solve the housing affordability crisis because they just subsidize existing high rents that private landlords, and even private housing nonprofits charge. Instead, we should focus on directly lowering the price of housing by expanding rent control, outlawing the owning and selling of housing for profit, and using Public Banks to transition all homes into not-for-profit social and co-op housing. But our immediate post-pandemic reality is an all out housing emergency in which tenants in San Francisco have dramatically lost income, rent and housing prices continue to skyrocket, and tenants are being evicted *right now* and need immediate assistance. Prop G is a safety net to prevent many evictions from happening now, until stronger laws like Prop 33 can be passed to permanently protect tenants and low income homeowners. We urge a Yes vote. No position on Prop H Prop H would lower the retirement age for firefighters from 58 to 55. It would reverse 2011's Prop C, which had increased the retirement age. The Green Party did not take a position on Prop H. Greens noted that firefighting is a dangerous and essential job, and we strongly opposed Prop C back in 2011. Prop C was a case of class warfare, where billionaires took advantage of a recession caused by President Obama's Wall Street bailout to enforce "austerity" for ordinary people. Prop C raised retirement ages for City workers by 3 years across the board. Since Prop H reverses Prop C, but only for firefighters, we question why other City workers were not included. And COVID has caused the City's financial situation to be even more precarious than it was in 2011. Therefore, we passed on Prop H, and would like to see a proposal that benefits all City workers instead of putting one powerful public employee union ahead of everybody else. YES on Prop I Prop I would improve retirement benefits for registered nurses and 911 operators who work for the City. Nurses who previously worked as "per diem" nurses (part-time workers with worse benefits) would get to buy service credit for up to 3 years that they previously worked "per diem", giving them a higher pension when they retire. 911 operators would be moved from the City's normal retirement plan into a better plan provided to "safety" employees (but still not as good as the plans given to police and firefighters). Greens support a YES vote on Prop I. The City has severe shortages of both nurses and 911 operators, so giving them better benefits would encourage more people to apply for these positions. However, we also recognize that the main bottleneck to hiring are the inefficient hiring practices of Mayor Breed's HR department (https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/sf-grand-jury-report-slams-city-hi...). We hope Prop I will improve shortages in critical areas, but the real solution that is needed is a new Mayor (see Mayoral endorsement, above). We would like to see improved retirement benefits for all City workers, but nurses and 911 operators are especially critical right now. Please join us in voting Yes on I. NO on Prop J Prop J would give the Mayor and Board of Supervisors more control over the "Public Education Enrichment Fund" that is given to SFUSD by the City to supplement the too-small allocation from the State. Greens trust the elected Board of Education more than we trust the Mayor and Board of Supervisors to protect public school students and families' interests, so we are urging a NO vote on Prop J. Currently, the City provides about $185 million to SFUSD, which has been badly run by a majority Mayoral-appointed school board in recent years since the 2022 recall election. We see the problem as corrupt Mayoral appointees, some of whom are openly working to promote school privatization. Giving the Mayor more control over the public schools' budget is a step in the wrong direction. Please vote NO on Prop J, and help Greens elect better School Board members to properly oversee these funds (see endorsement above). NO on Prop K Since COVID, the Upper Great Highway has been closed to cars on weekends (open to bikes and pedestrians), and open to cars on weekdays. Prop K will close the Highway to cars permanently with no restrictions on what the SF Department Recreation and Parks (#WreckInPark) does with the area. Greens support a NO vote on Prop K, because (ironically) continuing to allow cars on the road on weekdays would be less environmentally destructive that turning the land over to #WreckInPark director Phil Ginsburg to create a playground for YIMBYs. Although a new park sounds great, Greens have serious concerns about putting #WreckInPark in charge of running it. Phil Ginsburg has badly mismanaged the crown jewel of SF Parks, the nearby Golden Gate Park. In every single past situation, Ginsburg has prioritized monetization over nature and habitat protection: * Paved the western end of the Polo Field for concert equipment and in 2024 increased the number of mass concerts for more concert revenue. * Installed 7 acres of toxic artificial turf and 150,000 watts of stadium lighting on the West side of the park, near the ocean (Greens ran a ballot measure to prevent this, but we were massively outspent by billionaires and lost the election). * Placed a revenue-generating ferris wheel with a diesel generator in the East side of the park (since moved to near Fisherman's Wharf). With no funding to develop a new park, Ginsburg will be under serious pressure to bring in revenue-generating activities to build this out to YIMBY expectations. Do we really need another Outside Lands-style situation with gated access to areas right next to Ocean Beach and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA)? Large, environmentally damaging events are not just fearmongering - they're featured prominently on the Yes on K website. During COVID closures, #WreckInPark hosted 10,000-person events in which sensitive dune habitat was destroyed by crowds. The Yes on K website promises "playgrounds, dog runs, and anything else San Franciscans imagine." There's no mention of protecting nature or allowing people to experience nature in peace. Prop K will not get rid of cars, just move them into other, more environmentally sensitive areas. Chain of Lakes Drive in Golden Gate Park is already a parking lot on weekends, and it will become one on weekdays as well if Prop K passes. Finally, Scott Wiener's SB 951 tried to remove the Coastal Commission's jurisdiction over San Francisco's coastline, allowing more intense development along the coast. He and his real estate developer buddies have not given up on trying to turn Ocean Beach into Miami Beach. By closing the Great Highway, Prop K makes coastal development more feasible, attractive, and profitable! Voting NO on K means protecting the environment now and envisioning a better park in the future. Voting NO on K does not mean there can never be a great park along San Francisco’s western shores. However, for this area to become a beautiful, windswept coastal park with healthy dunes, vibrant wildlife habitat, and nature as the prime attraction, we first need: * Scientifically based studies of the environmental impacts on Golden Gate Park, on the Highway, and on Ocean Beach, * A clear plan for how the area will be used, with guardrails on what #WreckInPark can do in this area By voting NO on K now, we protect the environment and allow for a better, more environmental park (run by the GGNRA, not #WreckInPark) to to be created in the future. YES on Prop L Prop L would levy a 1% to 4.5% tax on ride-hail and robotaxi companies such as Waymo, Lyft, and Uber. The money would be used to run buses, trains and paratransit, and provide fare discounts. Greens strongly support Prop L, and in fact helped gather signatures to put it on the ballot! Currently, city taxes and fees on Uber and Lyft are $0.33 per ride; passage of Prop L would increase this to just $0.78 per ride. The tax would generate $25 million annually for Muni. This additional tax would not be charged to the rider or driver, but rather to the ride-hail companies, which already make obscene profits. The price charged to the rider is already far above the company's cost, as drivers are squeezed with sub-minimum wages and no benefits. Federal emergency funding for public transit is about to run out, and Muni is facing a large budget shortfall. Without more money, bus lines would be cut, service hours would be reduced, and waits would be longer for buses and trains. Prop L alone could prevent 10 bus lines from being cut. Muni is absolutely crucial for the working class in San Francisco. Greens have long campaigned to make Muni free to all riders, and more sources of funding (like Prop L) are crucial to eventually achieve this. Uber and Lyft are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to oppose the effort, making it the second-most expensive opposition campaign to a proposition this year (https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/politics/uber-lyft-spend-big-to-beat-sf-muni...). The SF Greens were an early endorser of Prop L, as it clearly aligns with Green values. Funding for public transportation is desperately needed to address the climate emergency and ensure that working class people have mobility. Please join us in voting YES. NO on Prop M Prop M is an extremely complicated update to our business tax policy. Overall, it would lower taxes and fees on small businesses, give even larger tax breaks to the biggest corporations in SF, while raising taxes on the businesses in the middle. But more importantly, Prop M has a "poison pill" that would invalidate Prop L (Muni funding) if Prop M gets more votes than Prop L. For that reason, Greens strongly oppose Prop M. A good Mission Local article goes into additional details of Prop M, which would lower taxes on big businesses such as Google and Uber <https://missionlocal.org/2024/09/san-francisco-tax-proposition-m/>, while hurting mid-size businesses by increasing their tax burden. Although Greens might support another effort to simplify and streamline the tax code, the poison pill in Prop M, along with tax breaks for big business, led us to endorse a NO vote on Prop M. NO on Prop N Prop N would create a fund to pay off the student loans of First Responders (police, firefighters, sheriffs, paramedics, nurses, and 911 operators) employed by the City. Greens urge a NO vote. Greens are strong supporters of free public education, and of forgiving all student loans across the board. But Prop N just pits some City employees against others, and doesn't help the ordinary San Franciscans who are suffering under high student debt burdens. In addition, Prop N was put on the ballot as a booster for Ahsha Safai's failing Mayoral campaign, just as Prop D was put on to boost Mark Farrell. There is no need for this to be on the ballot, as it's an issue that unions should negotiate with the City. Join us in voting NO on N. YES on Prop O Prop O would strengthen abortion rights in SF, and protect patients who travel here to obtain an abortion. It's one of the most thoughtful pieces of legislation to ever come out of Mayor Breed's administration, and Greens are pleased to support it! Prop O would require fake crisis pregnancy centers to post signs saying they do not provide abortion services. It would also prohibit City-funded health care providers from establishing additional barriers to any reproductive health services. City employees and officers would be prohibited from cooperating with federal or state prosecution of doctors, clinics, or patients. Finally, Prop O would establish a fund to support reproductive rights, and direct City departments to monitor legal changes that might interfere with patients' rights. Greens have always been strongly in support of abortion rights, and there were many years when we were the only counter-protestors at huge anti-choice rallies in SF. It's good to see Democrats actually doing something besides fundraising off of the issue. Prop L is a very comprehensive and thorough attempt to protect patients' rights, and Greens are strongly in support. NO on Prop 2 Prop 2 is a $10 billion bond for facility improvements to schools. $8.5 billion would go to public and charter K-12 schools, and $1.5 billion would go to community colleges. Funding would be distributed as matching funds: local school districts would be required to raise as much money as granted by the state. Greens are opposed to Prop 2, and think that money to fund schools should instead come directly from the State budget. We have serious concerns about bonds, like Prop 2, that don't have specific earmarks on how the money will be spent, and that don't explicitly fill a very serious and urgent need that can't be funded through the normal budget. School maintenance can and should be funded through the State budget, without giving tax breaks and pork profits to billionaires and banks (see our Statement on Bonds, below), and without funding charter schools. Join us in voting NO on Prop 2. YES on Prop 3 Prop 3 would repeal 2008's Prop 8, the State constitutional amendment that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. Greens are strongly in favor. After Prop 8 passed in 2008, Greens joined statewide efforts to put a repeal on the ballot in 2010. However, our "partners" in Democratic Party nonprofits gave up on the effort after becoming worried that it might embarrass the Obama administration. Although marriage equality was eventually affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2015, a more conservative Court may overturn that. Therefore, it's important to clean Prop 8 out of the CA constitution before that happens by voting YES on Prop 8. NO on Prop 4 Prop 4 is another $10 billion bond to fund a variety of water projects around the state. Although this bond would fund some extremely important programs, it would also fund logging in the guise of "wildfire management", bad dam projects, so-called 'regenerative' ranching/grazing (a sham funded by the factory beef industry) and polluting biofuels/biomass projects. All of these would increase greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate the climate crisis. Greens urge a NO vote. We are running out of time to meaningfully and effectively respond to the climate crisis. The time to begin a rapid, orderly, and equity-centered phase-out of fossil fuels was yesterday! Prop 4 addresses some of the symptoms of the climate crisis, while making the underlying problems worse. Worse, Prop 4 is a bond (see our Statement on Bond Funding, below), which means this will be paid for by borrowing money from billionaires, rather than by taxing the fossil fuel companies and other corporations most responsible for the climate crisis. What is needed instead is a Green New Deal for California, as often promoted by our State candidates (https://www.cagreens.org/real-green-new-deal). Vote NO on Prop 4. NO on Prop 5 Prop 5 would lower the threshold for passing what it calls local "affordable" housing bonds from 2/3 to 55%. But its deceptive definition of "affordable" pulls the rug out from under housing for lower income and working class people, and promotes luxury housing gentrification. Greens urge a NO vote on Prop 5. Prop 5 is backed by the Real Estate billionaire front group YIMBY to make it easier for speculators to force cities to build gentrifying and high greenhouse gas-emitting luxury housing construction. The so-called "affordable" housing requirement would call housing for families making over $200,000 per year "affordable." For details on YIMBY see: "California YIMBY, Scott Wiener, and Big Tech’s Troubling Housing Push" (https://housingisahumanright.org/inside-game-california-yimby-scott-wiener-a...). Greens generally support lowering supermajority requirements to pass urgently needed public spending. But carving out an exception for just one YIMBY priority (luxury housing construction) earns a strong NO vote from us. YES on Prop 6 Prop 6 would amend the State constitution to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, including in prisons. Slavery is prohibited by the US Constitution's 13th Amendment "except as a punishment for crime." Although Prop 6 doesn't go as far as Greens would like, we recommend a YES vote. Many states require prisoners to do all sorts of labor, from "chain gangs" to serving in call centers for large corporations. In California, 30% of the people who fight our wildfires are prison inmates, paid just a few dollars per day (https://truthout.org/articles/california-is-dependent-on-prison-labor-for-fi...). This service is voluntary, and inmates can reduce their sentence by two days for every day spent fighting fires. Prop 6 would not end this practice. Prop 6 prohibits the State from disciplining any prisoner for refusing a work assignment, but it still would allow credits to inmates who voluntarily participate in work assignments. To Greens, this seems like a distinction without a difference. A prison sentence in itself is a form of discipline, and long prison sentences that are out of proportion to the severity of the crime should be prohibited as "cruel and unusual." Serving a nonviolent offender a long prison sentence, and then offering them "credits" for dangerous and low-paid work like firefighting may not technically be "coerced labor" under the terms of Prop 6, but since the alternative is more time in prison, it seems coerced. Greens support a YES vote on Prop 6, as it may reduce prison slavery in California even if it does not end it. YES on Prop 32 The minimum wage in California is currently $15/hour. Prop 32 would increase this wage in stages until it reaches $18/hour, with annual increases for inflation afterwards. Greens support a "living wage" - meaning that a person who works full time should be able to have a decent standard of living and support their families. To that end, Greens recently called for a national $25/hour minimum wage (https://www.gp.org/green_party_calls_for_a_25_minimum_wage). Note that the minimum wage in SF is currently $18.67/hour, so Prop 32 wouldn't make much difference locally, but a $25/hour minimum would. Although $18/hour is far too low to live on in most parts of California, it's a step in the right direction. Vote YES on 32. YES on Prop 33 Prop 33 would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Act of 1995, a landlord-friendly state law that restricts which types of units are eligible for rent control. Greens strongly support Prop 33. Costa-Hawkins prohibits single-family homes and newer apartment buildings from having rent control in California, even if local governments want to allow it. Currently cities can't apply rent control to any apartments built after 1995, or whatever year the city first passed rent control (1979 in SF). Prop 33 would also allow "vacancy control": limiting rent increases when a tenant moves out and a new one moves in. This is designed to reduce the incentive landlords currently have to harass long-time rent-controlled tenants, since currently they are able to raise rents to market rate once a tenant leaves. Prop 33 would allow each locality in California to enact their own laws around rent control. This is in keeping with the Green Party's value of Decentralization: what's good for a small conservative town is usually not what's best for SF. We strongly urge voters to support Prop 33! NO on Prop 34 Prop 34 bans a single healthcare organization (the AIDS Foundation) from funding ballot measures. It was retaliation for the AIDS Foundation supporting Prop 33. The Green Party strongly opposes Prop 34. Prop 34 was written by the California Apartment Association, a landlord lobby, to punish the AIDS Foundation for supporting Prop 33. We don't always agree with the positions of the AIDS Foundation, but Prop 34 would tie their hands without affecting similar political contributions by many other more conservative foundations. Vote NO. YES on Prop 35 Prop 35 would make the Medi-Cal tax, which HMOs and other insurance companies pay, permanent. This tax is currently set to expire in two more years. Greens support a YES vote. Greens support public spending on "Improved Medicare for All" (a.k.a. single payer health care), which would be free to everyone in the US and include mental health and substance abuse treatment. Current programs like Medi-Cal are just a band-aid on a severely problematic for-profit healthcare system. However, because Medi-Cal serves as a last resort for low-income residents, we need to keep funding it until we can replace the whole system with something better. We have concerns that Prop 35 locks in some funding priorities at current levels, preventing flexibility in how money is allocated in the future. And we think for-profit insurance companies should be taxed at a much higher level than Prop 35 specifies, as long as they exist. Prop 35 also prevents the Governor from "raiding" Medi-Cal funds to pay for other priorities, even if that money is sometimes spent well. On balance, Greens support a YES vote on Prop 35. NO on Prop 36 Prop 36 is a partial repeal of 2014's Prop 47, which turned some nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors. Prop 36 would bring back "three strikes" felonies for shoplifting and possession of some drugs (cocaine, heroin, meth, and fentanyl). Greens strongly supported Prop 47, and strongly oppose Prop 36. Prop 47 successfully helped to reduce prison overcrowding in California, without worsening crime or hurting public safety. The way to deal with the fentanyl crisis is to focus on treatment, not incarceration, similar to Portugal (https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/what-should-us-learn-new-yorks-...). And shoplifting is already a crime; the blatant examples of retail smash-and-grab, with stolen goods being sold openly on City streets, is a result of SFPD effectively going on strike for the past 5+ years. We don't need to bring back "three strikes" which put people in prison for life for minor shoplifting. Bringing back "three strikes" and the "war on drugs" would double down on strategies that we already know are failures. Vote NO on Prop 36. SF Green Party Statement on Bond Funding The SF Green Party has often been hesitant to embrace bond financing. In addition to being environmentally and socially responsible, we are also fiscally responsible. Bond funding requires payments totaling about twice the actual cost of whatever improvements are made, and passes costs on to future generations. Because people who buy bonds are almost exclusively the wealthy, as investors are paid back over the 20-30 year life of the bond, wealth is transferred from middle and low income taxpayers to rich bondholders. Bond funding also helps rich people avoid paying their fair share of taxes, since interest on municipal bonds is exempt from both state and federal tax. As noted in the California Voter Guide in 1992, over 35,000 U.S. millionaires supplemented their income with tax exempt state and local bond checks averaging over $2,500 per week (that's over $130,000 per year tax free). They avoided paying federal and state taxes on over $5 billion, which must be made up by the rest of us. The SF Green Party calls on the public to join us in working to phase out this regressive and unfair subsidy of the rich and their investment bankers (who take millions of dollars off the top when the bonds are issued). There are a few cases in which Greens have supported bond measures. In general, we are willing to support bonds that are issued to in order to build urgently needed, publicly-owned infrastructure, such as a public hospital or high speed rail. We generally oppose bonds that fund ongoing maintenance projects; these should be paid for using City revenues (which should be increased by raising taxes on the wealthy). *===========================* To submit events for our newsletter, please email a short blurb to news@sfgreens.org. Messages to a mailing list will be rejected.