Matt Dorsey

• Office: DCCC, Assembly District 17
• Election Date: March 5, 2024
• Candidate: Matt Dorsey
• 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.

Table of Contents

• 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?	X
Should all students in 7th grade have access to algebra, if they want it?	X
Should all high school students have access to AP courses?	X
Should the Party adopt or support policies that promote making algebra available to 8th graders?	X
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.	X

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

I supported the recall of former commissioner Collins not only for her dismal tenure as the head of the board, but also for her plainly racist targeting of Asian American parents.

I supported the recall of all three because of their opposition to merit-based admissions at Lowell and their bizarre and embarrassing choice to focus on renaming schools instead the educational achievement oif San Francisco's youth.

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?	X
Reduce the cost of obtaining permits to open a new business?	X
Reduce the number of activities which must obtain permits, and expand the number of by-right activities?	X
Increase the number of available ABC permits?	X
Increase the number of available recreational marijuana permits?		X
Try to attract businesses of all sizes to the City?	X

• I have expressed support for a temporary moratorium on permits for future cannabis retail entities, which has been recommended by the Brownie Mary Democratic Club and advocates for many existing cannabis retailers. This would enable law-abiding cannabis dispensaries to better compete with the black market and street-level drug markets undercutting them. This is an evolving area for state and local policymaking, and I believe the City needs to better support and protect law-abiding cannabis businesses from onerous taxation — much of it at the state level — which is only making the illicit, unregulated and potentially dangerous drug supply more competitive and more attractive to marijuana consumers.

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?	X
Do you support policies commonly referred to as "defund the police"?		X
Should the Party adopt or support policies that promote a fully-funded and fully-staffed police department?	X
Should police funding be from the general fund, rather than via special taxes and set-asides?	X
Did you support the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin?	X

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

I supported the recall of Chesa because his policies were visibly terrible for San Francisco, particularly with respect to his permissive approach to overt drug markets and street-level drug dealers. These policies made San Francisco a worse place to live for everyone, but particularly so for addicts who were institutionally enabled by his policies. I wrote an SFGate op-ed more fully explaining my position.

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?	X
Is it too difficult to build subsidized housing in San Francisco?	X
Should the Party adopt or support policies that make it easier, faster, and/or cheaper to build market rate housing in San Francisco?	X
Should the Party adopt or support policies that make it easier, faster, and/or cheaper to build subsidized housing in San Francisco?	X
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)	X
Should the Party adopt or support policies that would abolish the existing limits on height, density, and bulk for residential buildings?	X

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

Drugs

	Yes	No
Should San Francisco arrest and prosecute fentanyl dealers?	X
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)?	X
Should the Party adopt or support policies promoting "safe consumption" sites without altering existing laws and lax enforcement around open-air usage?		X
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)	X

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?	X
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)?	X

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?	X
Should the Party adopt or support policies requiring SFMTA and BART to enforce fare payment?	X
Recent state funding requires Muni and BART to enforce fare payments in order to receive funding; do you agree with this requirement?	X

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

General questions

What needs to change with the Party?

With so much at stake in the 2024 election cycle at the local, state and national levels — and the unthinkable possibility of a Donald Trump revenge presidency — it has never been more important for strong leadership on an S.F. DCCC that stands for core Democratic Party principles, and that shares the mainstream values of the Biden-Harris Administration. Those are the principles I fought for in my first term on the DCCC, between 2012 and 2016. They're values I've worked hard for in a long career as a political activist, executive staffer and consultant for Democratic candidates and progressive causes in 25 states and the District of Columbia. They're values I now represent on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and it's what I intend to represent in the well experienced leadership I would bring to San Francisco's Democratic Party.

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

1. Open-air drug sales and use. I would like to see a fully staffed police department work to make sure open air drug markets are shut down. Once the open-air markets shut down, the police should then work to cite more open-use offenders, in accordance with District Attorney Jenkins' "three-strike" sentencing policy that defers drug court until a third citation.

2. Housing affordability I am a YIMBY and believe San Francisco needs to be cutting red tape so that as much housing as possible, both affordable and market-rate, can be built as soon as possible.

3. Education policy San Franciscans deserve to have a public school system that does not put up roadblocks in the way of educational achievement - particularly the shameful attempts to deprive middle schoolers of the ability to learn algebra.

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

The Board of Supervisors' terrible habit of punting half-measures to voters instead of making hard choices and legislating needs to come to an end. The upcoming cop tax is a perfect example of this phenomenon - and many voters are likely unaware of the Board's cowardly dereliction.