Campos, Haney, Mahmood, Selby face off as a special election for council seat in San Francisco – CBS San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) – Four candidates vying for California’s 17th District seat – covering most of San Francisco’s eastern and southeastern neighborhoods – went head-to-head in a virtual panel discussion on Thursday. Thursday.

The event, organized by the Commonwealth Club, is less than two weeks away from the February 15 primaries.

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At the helm is Supervisor Matt Haney, who is also the former chairman of the Board of Education; former Supervisor David Campos, who was most recently chief of staff for the District Attorney’s Office; City College of San Francisco trustee, Thea Selby, is also a small business owner and co-founder of the Lower Haight Neighborhood and Merchants Association; and businessman and neuroscientist Bilal Mahmood, a former policy analyst in the Obama administration. All candidates are Democrats.

“I see a California where we stop talking about poverty and really tackle poverty starting with a living wage. I see a California where homelessness is not the generosity of individual cities or counties but approached as a humanitarian challenge that the entire state must pay to address,” Campos said. “I see a situation where we can create middle class jobs today by investing in affordable and green energy that will save our planet tomorrow; a state where we don’t confuse luxury housing with affordable housing; a state where we end hunger now; and a state where we grow our economy and we actually share our prosperity fairly. ”

“I’m running because we have huge challenges that are overlapping and reaching crisis levels. Housing is not affordable, except for the very rich,” says Haney. “Homelessness is not just out of control in San Francisco but across the state. We are in the midst of a climate crisis and emergency, with more wildfires every year, the threat of sea level rise, and we don’t see the state-of-the-art solutions we need. . ”

“We needed a new kind of vision in our city,” says Mahmood. “The dream of the middle class is really disappearing. If you look around the city, the cost of rent is increasing, the number of non-users is increasing, the number of opioid-related deaths is twice the number of COVID deaths, the transportation routes are decreasing, and all We all face climate catastrophes. over the next eight to five years. ”

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Mahmood added, “I’m running for the state council because I think we need courage and innovation to tackle these issues.”

“I am a woman and I raised a family. I’m also a parent – the only parent in this race. I have a whole world of experience from raising a family in this city. I know how difficult it is,” Selby said. “I think we all deserve it, not just working families, but everyone deserves it, which is to live in safe and thriving neighborhoods. develop. We all deserve safe roads, good schools, fair housing, good transportation, and good communities. I will certainly fight for our working families, but I will also fight for small businesses.”

The seat was up for grabs after former Congressman David Chiu took office as San Francisco’s city attorney back in November. Mayor of London Breed appointed Chiu to the post after she had previously appointed the former law. City Attorney Dennis Herrera serves as superintendent of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

After the primaries are held on February 15, if no candidate receives a majority of the votes, or more than 50 percent, a general election will be held on April 9, in which Voters will choose between the top two candidates from the primaries. The winning candidate will serve until the start of the next term in January 2023.

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