Karsten Weide
- Office: Assembly, District 19
- Election Date: June 7, 2022
- Candidate: Karsten Weide
- Due Date: Monday, April 11, 2022
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Table of Contents
Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the June 7, 2022 primary election! GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city via common sense solutions and effective government.
The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco and have the expertise to enact meaningful policy changes.
We ask that you please complete this questionnaire by Monday, April 11, 2022 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.
Vision
GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous San Francisco. We work to propose and pass laws that align incentives of private businesses and individuals to promote shared prosperity for every San Franciscan.
This section of our questionnaire seeks to help us gain an understanding of your alignment with our vision for San Francisco. Note that some of the questions may be outside the scope of the office you're running for.
Short-form questions
Please mark the box that best aligns with your position. You may explain any position if you so desire, but this section is designed to be a quick overview of your governing philosophy and view of the city's problems.
Small Business
| In general, is it too hard, just right, or too easy to… | Too hard | Just right | Too easy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open a new businesses | X | ||
| Run a business in the city | X | ||
| Hire staff at a living wage | X | ||
| Obtain various licenses & permits (liquor, entertainment, etc) | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Housing
| In general, is it too hard, just right, or too easy to… | Too hard | Just right | Too easy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expand your home (adding new stories, rooms, decks, etc) | X | ||
| Demolish your home and redevelop it into multifamily housing | X | ||
| Redevelop things like parking lots and single-story commercial into multifamily housing | X | ||
| Build subsidized Affordable housing | X | ||
| Build market-rate housing | X | ||
| Build homeless shelters (including navigation centers and "tiny homes") | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Public Safety
| In general, is it too hard, just right, or too easy to… | Too hard | Just right | Too easy |
|---|---|---|---|
| File a police report | X | ||
| Recover a stolen item like a bike or laptop computer | X | ||
| Arrest & prosecute criminals | X | ||
| File a domestic violence or rape report | X | ||
| Charge & prosecute domestic violence or rape | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Education
| In general, is it too hard, just right, or too easy to… | Too hard | Just right | Too easy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attend a school of your choosing | X | ||
| Transport children to school | X | ||
| Hire teachers | X | ||
| Fire teachers | X | ||
| Set public education curriculum | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Budget
| Do you think San Francisco spends too little, too much, or just enough on… | Too little | Just enough | Enough, but badly | Too much |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Police and public safety | X | |||
| Street cleanliness | X | |||
| Homeless services | X | |||
| Affordable housing | X | |||
| Parks | X | |||
| Roads | X | |||
| Bus, bike, train, and other public transit infrastructure | X | |||
| Schools | X | |||
| Medical facilities | X | |||
| Drug prevention and treatment | X | |||
| Arts | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
N/A
What are the top three issues facing San Francisco, and what would you like to see change?
Restore Public Safety
- Arrest, charge and seek conviction of drug dealers with the goal of protecting addicted homeless people in our city.
- Introduce rules that prohibit releasing repeat violent offenders.
- Launch a crime-fighting program protecting our Asian-American neighbors. This will be a combination of more police presence and charging criminals with the aim to convict and jail them.
- Increase funding for the San Francisco Police Department, and fill the more than 400 open positions for police officers.
- Seek the repeal of Prop 47, the proposition that decriminalized shoplifting and theft.
Help Homeless and Drug Addicts
- Effective policies to address addiction and drug dealing do exist. The Portuguese model, successfully putting an end to the drug crises in Lisbon, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Zurich, will work in San Francisco, too.
- Arrest, charge and seek conviction of drug dealers to jail time with the goal to protect addicted homeless people in our city.
- Offer homeless people addicted to hard drugs (such as Fentanyl, Heroine and Meth) drug treatment and rehab. If declined they would be jailed to protect both the public and addicts. Addicts in San Francisco do not die because they're being jailed - they die because they are not being jailed.
- Create 4,000 more shelter beds in San Francisco instead of trying to build housing, which is too expensive and slow to make a difference.
- Dissolve tent campsites.
- Create a city wide mental healthcare system for rehabbing the serious mentally ill or addicted. Unify mental healthcare on the state level instead of on the county level for more effective treatment of serious addiction.
Fix Our Public Schools
- Find ways to improve teacher compensation state-wide. Our greatest asset in our fight to fix our schools is our teachers. They are doing a great job under very difficult conditions (especially during the Covid crisis). Their work is often underappreciated and underpaid - and they shouldn't have to pay for school supplies out of their own pocket.
- Launch a comprehensive program to address learning shortfalls in underprivileged kids.
- Go back to higher standards and testing for more accountability and better education.
- Reintroduce accelerated math classes and algebra and defend the teaching of calculus. Refund Advanced Placement.
- Seek a review and reform of the district's finances and get expenses back in line with income. This will include a review of the top-heavy senior management positions versus the number of students in the district.
- Offer school vouchers to all parents with school-age kids. Many parents see the value in sending their kids to a public school - if they do a solid job. If not, parents deserve a choice.
Tell us one thing you think needs to change in SF that the average voter wouldn't know about.
Informing voters about what is really going on at city hall. Many of us have voted for left-leaning politicians thinking we did the right thing. Those politicians then went on to introduce extreme, and often experimental, laws and regulations that have led to the general decline of our city. Our current leadership, as well as the SF Chronicle, have gone out of their way trying to hide the failure of these policies. That is why one of the major goals of my campaign is to open up public debate so that we can identify our challenges, and can put alternative ideas out in the open.
Long-form questions
This section is optional.
We know your time is short, so please feel free to respond to the questions below which you think are most relevant to the position you're running for (but you are, of course, welcome to answer all of them). It is not necessary to answer these questions to secure our endorsement, but more context always helps us make better decisions.
Public health
Do you support the creation of safe consumption sites in San Francisco?
No. Current "safe consumption sites" only enable more drug use, and succeed to only pass on about 2% of visitors into treatment. We need to replace the current drug policies with ones based on the Portuguese model (see above).
Do you support our current laissez-faire approach to open-air drug usage? What would you change?
Open-air drug usage needs to be criminalized, open-air drug scenes need to be dissolved. Addicts need to be put before the choice: rehab or jail. Drug dealers need to be arrested and charged with the aim to convict and jail.
Education
How should the Board of Education be reformed to bring more accountability and better performance to the Board?
See above.
Should the ban on middle school algebra be reversed?
Yes. We need to end the practice of dumbing down curricula in order to hide the fact that we failed to uplift underperforming disadvantaged kids.
Should charter schools be allowed to operate in San Francisco?
Yes. If public schools perform well, great. If they don't, parents deserve a choice. Competition will focus the Board of Education's and the district's minds on improving our kids' education.
Urbanism
Do you support raising the price of parking and driving in San Francisco?
No. While it is true that automobile traffic greatly reduces the quality of urban life, for many neighbors there is no alternative to the car, and they don't deserve to be punished.
Clearly, part of the reason for such initiatives is that its proponents want to "nudge" people to do the right thing.
I happen to think that incentives work better to get people to change their behavior than punishment.
Let's expand public transport. Let's make it fast, reliable, clean and safe-none of which are currently the case. Let's integrate MUNI with other Bay Area agencies for smoother regional transport.
Let's expand alternative transport offers, such as car shares, scooters, and e-bikes-and let's make sure they are being used safely.
Let's make it easier and safer to use bicycles.
If alternative modes of transport can compete with automobiles-people will come. I have lived in Munich for a decade and never had a car because public transport was so well developed.
Do you support banning cars from central downtown areas and certain retail or residential corridors?
Yes. For instance, downtown Market Street should be a pedestrian zone rivaling in beauty and attractiveness the Champs Elysee. Pedestrian zones can also be introduced in other parts of downtown and in other shopping districts.
The city has introduced several slow streets. I like the idea of slow streets; they improve safety and quality of life. However, we need a better process to figure out where to install them. Some attract a lot of foot traffic and have residents' support -for example, Sanchez Street in Noe Valley. Some are not used at all by the locals, inconvenience car drivers for no reason, and have little to no local support -for example, any slow street in the Sunset District. Here, Cityhall has pulled off the feat to close not one, but two local thoroughfares, Kirkham Street and Ortega Street. Ortega used to connect the entire neighborhood to three schools, the local library branch and the local rec center. Not anymore. Why? Nobody knows.
Always include local residents in the planning.
Do you support congestion pricing?
I want to wait for the results of the SFCTA study that is currently underway and is expected to present recommendations this year. In principle, I am in support if congestion reaches pre-pandemic levels. But I want to hear what downtown businesses have to say. They have already been hit hard by COVID and out-of-control crime, and reduced car traffic would hit them yet again. Another concern is that congestion charges are regressive: They hit poor people more than rich people.
Should San Francisco expand its protected bike lane network?
Yes. See above.
Should San Francisco prioritize buses over car traffic by creating more bus-only lanes and directing traffic enforcement to ticket drivers who ignore the restrictions?
Yes if it does not unduly hamper car traffic.
Should Uber, Lyft, and other ride-share services be banned?
No. We need more alternative modes of transport, and competition between different taxi schemes will improve overall city transport.
Should San Francisco allow more bike share and scooter share companies?
Yes. See above.
Should San Francisco allow bike and scooter share companies to operate with fewer restrictions on the number of vehicles they offer for rent, and in more places (including inside Golden Gate Park)?
Yes if storage does not take up too much public space and schemes are in place to collect vehicles in order to avoid "vehicle litter". In many cities, there have been safety issues around scooter usage-we need to see if that is an issue in San Francisco as well and react to it if need be.
Do you support keeping JFK Drive and the Great Highway car-free permanently?
Yes re. JFK Drive, In fact, I call for the permanent removal of all cars from Golden Gate Park in general, after figuring out where the displaced traffic will go and how we can properly and effectively manage it. Let's also explore how we can put the Crossover Drive in Golden Gate Park in a tunnel.
I am not in support of permanently closing the Great Highway for cars. There is already a walk-and bike-way on the dam next to it. Also, displaced traffic winds its way through the adjacent residential area, reducing safety and the quality of life with the noise and pollution that comes with a permanent traffic jam.
Should Muni be free for everyone? If so, what other programs would you take money from in order to fund this change?
No. Products that are free are deemed worthless and are treated with disrespect -and Muni is already too dirty, damaged and unsafe from crime as it is. It is also important to have a feedback loop between what people are willing to pay and the product that is being delivered. Finally, in essence, it would put Muni on a "planned economy" footing, and I know from experience that bureaucrats are ineffective at running businesses.
Taxes
Would you repeal Prop 13, if you had the authority to do so? Or, if not repeal it, how would you change it?
No. Property taxes in California in general, but in particular in San Francisco, are already sky high. And in many cases, it is not clear that city hall spends taxpayers' money wisely, and not on fanciful and ineffective policies and projects.
Are taxes and fees on small businesses too low, just right, or too high?
They are too high. Getting permits is too byzantine, slow and expensive as well.
Should San Francisco pursue any and all avenues to impose parcel taxes that could bypass Prop 13, which keeps property taxes on multi-million dollar property artificially low?
No. Even now, property taxes are already too high.
Are sales taxes too low, just right, or too high?
They are too high.
Given the impact of Covid and the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S.-China tensions, supply chain troubles, inflation, and the discontinuation of Covid stimulus checks, we are almost certainly heading into a global economic downturn, if not a recession. HIgh sales taxes dampen consumer spending, which would further hurt local businesses. Lowering sales taxes would help head off the effects of that downturn on our local economy.
Small Business & Entrepreneurship
What would you change about the process of new business formation?
We need to take a machete to the jungle of red tape that is involved with starting a new business. The process is too arcane, too slow, too expensive, and there is accountability and recourse regarding the decisions of city hall.
Should San Francisco welcome all businesses, regardless of size?
Yes, of course. A humming economy creates the wealth that we need to further develop our city.
Do you think the government should decide which businesses can and cannot open in San Francisco?
No. Freedom of business is a prerequisite for a well-functioning, thriving local economy.
Should all businesses be permitted by-right? If not, which business categories do you think should not be by-right?
Yes.
Housing & Homelessness
Do you believe that San Francisco has a shortage of homes?
It does. However, the lack of affordable housing is not the cause of homelessness. The cause of homlessness is serious drug addiction in almost all cases. And what fighting drug addiction requires is better mental health treatment and more shelter spots, not $600K apartments for everyone, free for the asking, as is the policy of our current leadership.
However, the lack of affordable housing is a problem for nurses, teachers, cops, firemen, drivers, shopkeepers, waiters - in other words, the people taking care of the tough jobs in San Francisco - and they deserve to be able to live in the city in which they work.
Do you believe that housing prices are set by supply and demand constraints?
Yes. A lot of rich people want to live in San Francisco.
Should San Francisco upzone? If so, where and how?
Yes. With a lot of deliberation and involvement of local residents.
Should homeless shelters be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?
Yes, no, and yes. We need to create thousands of shelter spots as quickly as we can. Getting people off the street is one major element to cleaning up our city. However, local residents must be heard, and their concerns be taken into account.
Should subsidized Affordable housing be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?
No. The only reason why I am in support of abbreviated permit processes (as above for shelters) is that it is necessary to manage the humanitarian crisis we are facing, and that our current leadership chooses to not do anything effective about.
Should market rate housing be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?
No. (But permit processes need to be cut back dramatically otherwise.)
Policy
Now that we know where you align and differ from our vision for San Francisco, we'd like to get some details about how you intend to use your elected office to achieve your goals.
Why are you running for Assembly?
I love San Francisco. But our city is in crisis. Spiking violent crime. Homelessness and addiction. Failing public schools.The lack of affordable housing. A hostile business climate. State government mismanagement.
Current leadership seems to be content to keep things as they are, or allow them to get even worse.
I am not content with it.
What is your #1 policy goal?
Restoring public safety. Without this civilisation foundation, no society can exist, much less flourish.
How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal?
My major source of energy will be my constituents. The 70%+ number of San Franciscans who in a recent poll said they would vote to recall DA Chesa Boudin proves that citizens have understood we are in serious trouble, that current leadership has failed, and that change is needed.
Will the power of the office of Assemblymember be enough to achieve this goal?
No. Some I will be able to do on the state level. Some needs to be done on the local level. I will be happy to work with any leader in the city who has common sense, be they left, right or center.
What are your #2 and #3 policy goals?
Helping the homeless and drug addicts.
Will the power of the office of Assemblymember be enough to achieve these goals?
As above.
What is an existing policy you would like to reform?
Can we get rid of rank choice voting? It is confusing and leads to odd outcomes where less popular candidates trump ones that are more so.
What is an "out there" change that you would make to SF / local government / policy, if you could? (For example: adding at-large supervisors, changing how elections work, creating a Bay Area regional government, etc.)
See above.
Personal
Tell us a bit about yourself!
How long have you lived in San Francisco? What brought you here and what keeps you here?
I have lived in San Francisco since 1998, with a couple of years in between in Hamburg, Germany, and a couple of years in Boston.
I moved here for love, what else? The love is gone, but I am still here, and I still love San Francisco.
What do you love most about San Francisco?
I love most about San Francisco how colorful it is. There are a lot of different people from different places and different walks of life, and we have a big heart and like to share our city.
What do you dislike the most about San Francisco?
Its rapid decline under the current leadership.
Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)
I am completely new to the process and consider this an upside-it allows me to have a fresh look at things and to have fresh ideas for how to fix problems, with no attachments to any interests in the San Francisco political machine except to those of my constituents and their local interest organizations.
Thank you
Thank you for giving us your time and answering our questionnaire. We look forward to reading your answers and considering your candidacy!
If you see any errors on this page, please let us know at contact@growsf.org.