SF Moderates

A reminder if you haven't voted yet - use the GrowSF voter guide, especially for the DCCC candidates. This can be a big year for moderate candidates if we get out the vote!

GrowSF Voter Guide for the March 2024 Primary Election GrowSF analyzed the candidates and measures on the March 5, 2024 ballot in San Francisco. Read our well-researched and unbiased analysis in our voter guide.

2024 is going to be a huge year for San Francisco politics - among other things, a real chance to restore a moderate majority to the Board of Supervisors. There are lots of ways to make a difference, but if you want to focus on just a couple that will make a big difference, here's our recommendation:

1. Use the GrowSF voter guide in the March election to elect new leadership to the Democratic Party that will emphasize public safety and housing affordability. The “DCCC” that is elected in March will be making endorsements in the November election, and it’s critical that we elect a great slate of candidates. The GrowSF slate is the one you want - use it when you vote, and share it with friends and neighbors: https://growsf.org/voter-guides/san-francisco-voter-guide-march-2024-primary-election/

2. In the November election, we'll have several chances to flip far-left supervisor seats. We think the race with the best odds is in District 1, where Marjan Philhour is running for the third time, against incumbent Connie Chan. There are reasons for optimism: Philhour lost by only 125 votes in her last run, and since then the moderate Seacliff neighborhood (with 2,500 votes) was added to District 1 through redistricting. Philhour has made public safety a key issue of her campaign, and the incumbent has taken a number of positions that will anger key constituencies in the district. Fundraising and volunteer opportunities are already underway - if you have time and resources to devote to local politics in 2024, click here to help Marjan Philhour! https://www.votemarjan.com/

Great investigate reporting by the Standard: John Eberling's TODCO is an affordable housing nonprofit that gets millions from the City every year, but has spent much of it on local politics. "It's unconscionable that city contractors would allegedly divert funds meant to protect low-income tenants to subsidize their lobbying efforts. This is exactly why San Franciscans have so many questions about where their money is going."
https://sfstandard.com/politics/sf-housing-nonprofit-todco-politics-tenants-infestations-drug-overdose/?utm_source=The+San+Francisco+Standard&utm_campaign=3553ace762-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_06_21_02_54_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f81e82e2a3-3553ace762-477851474

PS - Eberling is the guy who almost singlehandedly blocked 439 Stevenson, the project that would have brought hundreds of new units to a mid-Market parcel currently used as a parking lot for valet parkers - and caused an uproar that led the State to crack down on SF's resistance to new housing.

Affordable Housing Nonprofit Spends Big on Politics as Tenants Suffer An investigation found 15 TODCO tenants have died from drugs since 2020.

Supervisor Connie Chan is blocking critical funding for the police department - at a time when crime in the neighborhoods is spiking. Please follow GrowSF's easy to use system to send an email to Supervisor Chan on this important topic!

Pass Emergency Police Funding Tell Supervisor Chan to pass the emergency police funding bill!

Happy to see that newly elected supervisor Joel Engardio has been appointed to two committees that relate to his focus on public safety and quality schools. Engardio will be Vice Chair of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee, and a member of the Youth, Young Adult, and Families Committee.

Housing Tensions Simmer as Supervisors Shift Focus to Police Staffing, Overdose Crisis But one lawmaker is planning to take housing to the next level with a law allowing the city to be sued over missed affordable housing goals.

A tale of two DAs and how they prosecuted crime. The San Francisco Chronicle published a flow chart visualization of criminal case outcomes that compare District Attorney Chesa Boudin to his predecessor George Gascon. The data show that convictions went down under Boudin.

This information was made public thanks to the dogged public records pursuit by the group Stop Crime SF, which has posted on its website all the raw data from the Chronicle story.

Read the full story about how Stop Crime SF extracted data from Boudin and find links to all the data obtained: https://stopcrimesf.com/da-public-records-request

Chronicle flow chart visualization of case outcomes: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/chesa-boudin-charts/

Join Stop Crime SF and get our newsletter: https://stopcrimesf.com/sign-up

Stop Crime SF spent six months pursuing a public records request to get case outcome data from District Attorney Chesa Boudin. After facing refusals and resistance every step of the way, we finally prevailed.

The case outcomes Boudin tried to keep hidden are now public for everyone to see. They show a decline in convictions and a rise in diversion programs since Boudin took office two years ago.

Keep reading to learn more and get links to all data and documents Stop Crime SF obtained in the public records request.

EXTRACTING DATA FROM THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY
When residents feel unsafe, they deserve to know what kind of job San Francisco’s top prosecutor is doing. Yet District Attorney Chesa Boudin refused to release data on his case outcomes until legally forced to. This is not the way to gain public confidence and trust.

Boudin touted the thousands of cases he charged. But charges can be dismissed, diverted, or reduced. The public deserves to know the *outcomes* of charges — the actual convictions, sentences, and releases. Yet case outcomes were missing from Boudin’s online data dashboard.

Boudin claimed “transparency” when his data was opaque. Stop Crime SF filed a public records request for all of Boudin’s sentencing outcomes. We retained attorney Karl Olson, a specialist in California Public Records Act litigation with two wins at the state Supreme Court.

REFUSALS, RESISTANCE, AND EXCUSES
Boudin’s office initially refused to release what is supposed to be public data and then resisted doing so at every step. Boudin had lots of excuses that our attorney Olson shot down based on past cases he won when officials didn’t want to comply with public records law.

Stop Crime SF Executive Director Joel Engardio wrote an OpEd asking why Boudin wouldn’t release all his case outcome data. Boudin’s office published a rebuttal essay that blamed the “technological and administrative challenges we face.”

Yet Boudin’s excuses disappeared when he was forced to produce the data.

Stop Crime SF threatened litigation when Boudin gave the San Francisco Chronicle some cherry picked data that he withheld from us earlier. Suddenly, everything he gave the Chronicle arrived by email at 9pm the night before Thanksgiving.

After we threatened to sue, newly appointed City Attorney David Chiu got involved. He defends local officials against lawsuits. We want to thank Chiu’s office for facilitating the release of the data from Boudin’s office and avoiding a lawsuit Boudin would have lost.

WHY MEANINGFUL DATA MATTERS
It would take months of back-and-forth to get the most meaningful data — the case outcomes. We posted all correspondence and data received from Boudin’s office on the Stop Crime SF website for all reporters, researchers, residents, and crime victims to see.

The Chronicle was able to write an analysis of the case outcomes to show a decline in convictions and a rise in diversion programs since Boudin took office two years ago.

This information matters to the San Francisco residents with a long list of reasons they feel unsafe: Attacks and murders of Asian seniors, hit-and-run killings by repeat offenders, open air drug dealing resulting in a record 1,300-plus overdose deaths, and a spike in home burglaries.

It’s unfair to blame Boudin for every criminal act in San Francisco. But as Boudin faces a recall, voters need to make informed decisions about his competence and job performance. That’s why seeing the full data is so important.

WHAT SAN FRANCISCO DESERVES
In Chicago, progressive district attorney Kim Foxx puts all her data in the open. She lets anyone track any case from start to end with a comprehensive, transparent, and accessible online database. San Francisco deserves this, too.

Boudin’s online dashboard finally offers some of the features that his counterpart in Chicago has always provided. But it shouldn’t take threatened legal action to get Boudin to reveal his data.

Safety and justice should go together. Justice reform is necessary. For it to work, residents must feel confident public officials are doing their job to keep everyone safe. That starts with asking officials to put all crime data in the open.

Join us at Stop Crime SF: https://stopcrimesf.com/sign-up

We also have a citywide Nextdoor group: https://nextdoor.com/g/djja5u4dh/

Find this essay on Joel Engardio’s blog: https://engardio.com/blog/extracting-da-data

SOURCES
Boudin says he charged thousands of cases:
https://twitter.com/chesaboudin/status/1449773535736467458?s=20

Boudin promotes his “transparent” data dashboard:
https://twitter.com/chesaboudin/status/1456718088775286790?s=20

Joel Engardio OpEd asking why Boudin won’t release all his data:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-why-wont-chesa-boudin-make-s-f-crime-data-public/

Boudin rebuttal essay to Engardio OpEd:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-why-the-s-f-district-attorneys-office-cannot-provide-timely-criminal-justice-data/

Stop Crime SF website page with all data received from district attorney’s office:
https://stopcrimesf.com/da-public-records-request

San Francisco Chronicle analysis of case outcome data released by Boudin:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Chesa-Boudin-s-office-just-released-new-data-on-16973247.php

Chicago district attorney’s online data dashboard:
https://www.cookcountystatesattorney.org/about/data-reports

San Francisco district attorney’s online data dashboard:
https://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/policy/data-dashboards/

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott is considered one of the nation’s most progressive Black police chiefs. As the rift between Scott and District Attorney Chesa Boudin has intensified, a group called “We Stand With Chief Scott” has launched a website and petition: https://supportchiefscott.com/

Things blew up when Scott abruptly ended an agreement with the DA’s office for shared investigations into police use of force cases. Scott said he lost trust with Boudin after court testimony revealed that one of Boudin’s investigators withheld evidence in a case that would have favored the police department.

Boudin hit back with allegations that SFPD had been putting the DNA collected from r**e victims into a database used to identify crime suspects. Chief Scott said he would investigate the claim and end the practice.

Meanwhile, the California Department of Justice released a report that lauded SFPD for its “substantial work” in implementing reforms that “have resulted in meaningful improvement” in its policies, process, training and culture.

The report said SFPD has enacted 90 percent of the 272 recommended reforms, which is "a significant achievement," and "the only example of voluntary reform at this level in the United States."

Bill Scott became San Francisco’s police chief in 2017 after serving in the Los Angeles police department for 27 years. He was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Scott is married with three children.

Sources

California Department of Justice report on SFPD reforms:
https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/hillard-heintze-phase3-report-sfpd-cri-021122.pdf

SF Chronicle coverage of report on SFPD reforms:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/State-S-F-leaders-step-in-to-mend-rift-between-16917884.php

SF Chronicle coverage of r**e kit claims:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/San-Francisco-police-linked-a-woman-to-a-crime-16918673.php

SFPD webpage and video on California Department of Justice report:
https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/police-reform

We Stand with Chief Scott website:
https://supportchiefscott.com/

Do you want to fix San Francisco? Recalling the school board this week is the first step. We also have to elect new supervisors in November. A big recall win will give us the momentum to defeat the incumbent supervisors who won’t address our city’s critical issues.

Turnout for the Tuesday school board recall election is less than 25% so far. Don’t sit this historic recall out. Urge your friends to mail their ballot by 2/15. Everyone should want a competent school board. It’s fundamental to fixing everything else wrong with our city.

Joel Engardio's remarks at the final push recall rally:

I believe good public schools are essential for a city to thrive. A city’s future depends on investing in families. The first step is to have well-run public schools.

Let’s be honest. San Francisco is not very family friendly.

Our city has one of the lowest percentages of kids in the nation. We have more dogs than kids. Why do families leave San Francisco? A big reason: badly run public schools.

Our school board has been failing at its job for years. And it failed in epic ways during the pandemic.

The school board chose to rename schools instead of reopening them. They put Roosevelt Middle School on the list. But they didn’t know if it was named for Teddy or FDR.

Our school board became a national joke. But we’re not laughing. Our kids suffered too long in Zoom school.

San Francisco’s school board is incompetent. It drove our schools into a financial ditch. More families keep leaving. And less enrollment means even less funding. It’s a cycle to the bottom. But we can fix it.

We can recall the school board.

Do you know how many experts said a recall could not be done? Against all odds, we got it on the ballot.

How did we do it? Little miracles by everyone who joined the recall effort.

Here are some examples:

Tom Colin. He volunteered to gather signatures for the recall petition. He came to my drive-thru event at Lowell High School.

I got up at 6am on a Sunday morning to put little orange soccer cones in the street to make sure no one parked along the curb.

Tom stood at the curb with other volunteers. We had no idea if any cars would show up. Then 500 came! It was a traffic jam.

Tom jumped into action. He ran up and down the street, directing cars with his arms and clipboard. He turned chaos into a perfectly timed ballet dance.

Kit Lam is part of the miracle. He’s a dad who collected thousands of petition signatures on his own. Then someone stole his petitions.

Bad people tried to silence a movement. But Kit fought back. And the movement became stronger than ever.

Ann Hsu is part of that miracle. She’s a mom and a businesswoman. She was never involved in local politics. Six weeks ago she started registering new voters from the Chinese/API community. Her volunteer group broke records. All those new voters will help us win the recall.

Here’s another miracle:

A mom brought her middle school son to the Lowell drive-thru. They volunteered to hold signs.

The boy didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be at home playing video games. But his mom insisted, because this was about his future

The mom waved her sign and waved at the cars going by. The boy stood still and hid behind his sign.

Then a car honked its horn in support. Then another. The mom got excited. She started dancing with her sign. The boy laughed. His first smile of the day.

More cars honked, and the boy peeked his head from behind his sign. Then he waved. The cars kept honking. Before long, the boy was dancing with his mom.

What a miracle that was. They found the power within themselves to stand up to the school board. And they inspired others to join the effort.

We are going to fix our city. The first step is recalling the school board!

Read the point-by-point case: https://engardio.com/blog/school-board-recall-case

There are many reasons to recall San Francisco’s school board. But the most pressing issue is not letting it hire a new superintendent. Imagine the disastrous policy decisions if the current school board gets to hire a leader of the school district who matches their views. The superintendent hire will happen in the next couple months, which is why we can’t wait until the November election to kick the school board out. The February 15 recall is vital so we can have a competent school board hire an equally competent superintendent.

A survey commissioned by the school district asked parents what they want in a new superintendent. Most parents felt the school district is “in need of significant improvement” and the school board is “highly demoralizing and counterproductive.” Parents also felt the “politically motivated” school board functions “more in an advocacy role, rather than in its governance role for the entirety of the student population.”

Read the point-by-point case for recalling the school board: https://engardio.com/blog/school-board-recall-case

Mail your recall ballot before February 15 — and tell your friends to vote.

San Francisco Chronicle article about parent survey: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/Future-of-San-Francisco-schools-5-takeaways-from-16807195.php

The Case for Recalling the San Francisco School Board The greatest indictment against San Francisco’s school board is that it neglected its core job: Getting students safely back into classrooms to avoid the harmful learning loss and mental health stress of being isolated at home on Zoom for more than a year.