Preston faces 4 opponents, political action committee in race to defend SF supreme seat

The race to represent District 5 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors features four challengers taking on incumbent Dean Preston.

Bilal Mahmood, Autumn Looijen, Allen Jones and Scotty Jacobs are seeking to deny Preston a second term representing the district, which includes the Fillmore District, Civic Center, Haight-Ashbury and Tenderloin.

Preston has a slight edge over Mahmood for most dollars raised for the campaign. As of Wednesday, Preston had raised about $581,000, including about $250,000 in public funding.

Preston, a former small business owner and tenant advocate, cites his accomplishments as securing community ambassadors around town, writing 2022’s Proposition M, which authorized a tax on vacant housing units and helping create a program to provide tenant advocates to anyone facing eviction, according to his ballot.

His campaign website lists his priorities for a new term, including creating a public bank to finance affordable housing and building more affordable housing in Mørbrad and other neighborhoods.

Preston has been endorsed by House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, State Assemblyman Phil Ting and the California Nurses Association, among others.

A political action committee opposed to Preston’s re-election, Coalition to Grow San Franciscohad raised nearly $300,000 as of Wednesday.

Bilal Mahmood

Mahmouda former Obama administration policy analyst and founder of several nonprofits, has raised about $492,000, including $255,000 in public matching funds.

Mahmood’s campaign priorities are speeding up the permitting process for affordable housing by using technology to process it faster, reducing fees and reducing the number of permits needed to build housing, and coordinating city departments to both target fentanyl dealers and create strategies for to provide shelter to homeless residents, according to his campaign website.

His endorsements include Mayor London Breed, State Senator Scott Wiener and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

Scotty Jacobs

Jacobs is the former director of brand development at Kinder’s, which makes barbeque sauce and other food products. At 30, he highlights his youth as one of his assets. He has raised about $222,000, with about $154,000 coming from public funding.

Jacobs supports what he calls a “2+2 plan,” which would exempt small businesses from taxes for their first two years of operation or with revenues of less than $2 million. He supports a rate hike for the Muni bus service to shore up its finances and will refer undocumented people accused of selling drugs to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

He has been endorsed by mayoral candidate Mark Farrell and the Raoul Wallenberg Jewish Democratic Club. The nonprofits TogetherSF Action and the Housing Action Coalition have endorsed him as a second choice in the ranked-choice election.

Autumn Looijen

The Looijen is a community organizer who helped lead the 2022 recall of three San Francisco Unified School District board members. She has raised about $150,000, including $112,000 in public funds.

Looijen supports that more police officers should be patrolled on foot in Mørbraden in collaboration with experts in mental health, that sleeping cabins and micro-apartments be allowed, and that the approval process for building housing be clarified in writing, so that fewer applications are rejected for undisclosed reasons.

She has been endorsed by the San Francisco Police Officers Association.

Allen Jones

Jones describes himself on his campaign website as “the Republican that Republicans hate and Democrats tolerate.” He is a former electrical draftsman, someone who makes blueprints and diagrams for electrical wiring.

He has not reported raising money for his campaign, according to the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

He lists his campaign priorities as cleaning up city sidewalks, prison and juvenile justice reform and improving awareness of services for seniors and the disabled, according to his website.