Joe Sangirardi

• Office: DCCC, Assembly District 17
• Election Date: March 5, 2024
• Candidate: Joe Sangirardi
• Due Date: December 23, 2023
• Printable Version

Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the March 5, 2024 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.

We ask that you please complete this questionnaire by December 23, 2023 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.

Questions

• Education
• Business
• Public Safety
• Housing
• Drugs
• Mental Health
• Public Transit
• General questions

Questions

Please mark the box that best aligns with your position. You may explain any position if you so desire.

Education

	Yes	No
Should all students in 8th grade have access to algebra, if they want it?	✔️
Should all students in 7th grade have access to algebra, if they want it?	✔️
Should all high school students have access to AP courses?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that promote making algebra available to 8th graders?	✔️
Did you support or oppose the recall of Board of Education members Collins, López, and Moliga? If you supported or opposed a subset, please specify below.	✔️

Explain why you did or did not support the recall of each member:

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Business

Should San Francisco…	Yes	No
Reduce the time to obtain all permits to open a new business to no more than 3 months?	✔️
Reduce the cost of obtaining permits to open a new business?	✔️
Reduce the number of activities which must obtain permits, and expand the number of by-right activities?	✔️
Increase the number of available ABC permits?	✔️
Increase the number of available recreational marijuana permits?	✔️
Try to attract businesses of all sizes to the City?	✔️

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Public Safety

	Yes	No
Do you think that property crime in San Francisco is too high?	✔️
Do you support policies commonly referred to as "defund the police"?		✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that promote a fully-funded and fully-staffed police department?	✔️
Should police funding be from the general fund, rather than via special taxes and set-asides?	✔️
Did you support the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin?		✔️

Please explain why you did or did not support the recall of DA Chesa Boudin:

I don't think Chesa was the reason why SF's crime was out of control and, though I didn't like him or his policies, he was made out to be a buggy man. I followed Sen. Wiener's lead.

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Housing

	Yes	No
Is it too difficult to build market rate housing in San Francisco?	✔️
Is it too difficult to build subsidized housing in San Francisco?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that make it easier, faster, and/or cheaper to build market rate housing in San Francisco?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that make it easier, faster, and/or cheaper to build subsidized housing in San Francisco?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that would loosen the existing limits on height, density, and bulk for residential buildings? (ie taller, denser, and fewer/reduced setbacks)	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that would abolish the existing limits on height, density, and bulk for residential buildings?	✔️

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Drugs

	Yes	No
Should San Francisco arrest and prosecute fentanyl dealers?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that formally request help from the State and Federal governments to bolster our police force (both the officers and the investigators)?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies promoting "safe consumption" sites without altering existing laws and lax enforcement around open-air usage?		✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies promoting "safe consumption" sites only if paired with zero-tolerance for open-air usage? (ie consuming drugs like fentanyl on the street would be illegal; and users would be taken to a recovery site until they are sober)	✔️

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Mental Health

	Yes	No
Should San Francisco place people who are experiencing mental health crises on the streets into involuntary mental health holds at psychiatric facilities?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies that facilitate the construction and operation of mental health facilities, and permit those facilities to treat patients involuntarily if they are deemed to be unable to care for themselves (as determined by a panel of psychiatric professionals)?	✔️

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Public Transit

	Yes	No
Should SFMTA and BART conduct fare enforcement operations and prosecute fare evaders?	✔️
Should the Party adopt or support policies requiring SFMTA and BART to enforce fare payment?	✔️
Recent state funding requires Muni and BART to enforce fare payments in order to receive funding; do you agree with this requirement?	✔️

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

General questions

What needs to change with the Party?

We should better reflect the sentiments of Democrats in SF. We should focus more on LOCAL issues rather than national or international issues. And we should aim to only endorse incumbents who have a proven record of producing results (as opposed to those interested only in virtue signaling and performative allyship).

What are the top three issues facing San Francisco, and what would you like to see change?

1. Housing unaffordability - build a TON of housing (eliminate barriers to building housing)

2. Homelessness - Building housing impacts homelessness, commercial corridor vacancies, and the amount of the city's budget that goes to folks who need services, who would reduce the number of housing were more affordable and they weren't rent-burdened. Housing costs result in housing insecurity and that's the single largest pipeline to homelessness.

3. Crime - we need more officers and we need them to have the power to do their jobs.

Tell us one thing you think needs to change in SF that the average voter wouldn't know about.

The BOS has, over the course of several decades, delegated away its authority - and responsibility - to over 130 boards and commissions. The BOS - and several mayoral administrations, have also so thoroughly obfuscated the government structure so as to diminish the power of the mayor to a point where she can't even fire many of the people who report directly to her. The result is that any position we think we're voting for (BOS, mayor, others) does not have the power we think it has and our votes, as a result, have diminished our ability as voters to impact meaningful change through the election process.