Michael Lai

• Office: DCCC, Assembly District 17
• Election Date: March 5, 2024
• Candidate: Michael Lai
• 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?	Yes
Should all students in 7th grade have access to algebra, if they want it?	Yes
Should all high school students have access to AP courses?	Yes
Should the Party adopt or support policies that promote making algebra available to 8th graders?	Yes
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.	Yes

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

The three now recalled School Board Commissioners were focused more on renaming schools than reopening them, and their policies were harmful for all children, especially the most marginalized students of color they were purporting to help.

Moreover, by putting so much attention on performative progressivism, these three school board members distracted from real fiscal & operational issues in the district, including the payroll system crisis, enrollment shortfall, and budget crises that need to be addressed for SFUSD to be on a long term footing to continue to serve its mission for the most marginalized students who can't afford to opt out into private schools.

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

SFUSD has the 2nd highest achievement gap of any school district in CA, and this is unacceptable. However, increasing equity by lowering the ceiling (e.g. getting rid of 8th grade algebra), which the past Board of Education has done, is unproductive. We need to raise the floor (opportunity) through policies like implementing the science of reading, individualized tutoring, specialized ELL programs for recent Hispanic immigrants, and incentivizing experienced teachers to teach in our most challenging schools. We should also raise the ceiling (excellence) by bringing back 8th grade algebra and expanding specialized merit based programs across high schools so the conversation isn't just about Lowell.

Business

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

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

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

People don't feel safe on the streets, and the social contract felt broken with a district attorney who was not holding people who broke the law accountable, such as fentanyl dealers and those who attacked Asian elders.

DA Boudin's policies were also demoralizing for the police department, who didn't want to give cases to a DA who didn't prosecute them. Most importantly, many communities who were most affected by lax justice policies, for example elderly Asian communities, largely supported the recall.

Just recalling a DA with a progressive ideology is not enough to solve a problem as complex as public safety (we need to fully staff the police department, elect new judges, and more). In addition to advocating for commonsense public safety measures like arresting fentanyl dealers, we need to address the root causes of crime — poverty, drug addiction, homelessness, and more; while being mindful of real concerns about the disproportionate historic racial impacts in policing.

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?	Yes
Is it too difficult to build subsidized housing in San Francisco?	Yes
Should the Party adopt or support policies that make it easier, faster, and/or cheaper to build market rate housing in San Francisco?	Yes
Should the Party adopt or support policies that make it easier, faster, and/or cheaper to build subsidized housing in San Francisco?	Yes
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)	Yes
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:

Many of San Francisco's problems are downstream of not building enough housing, especially affordable housing.

Drugs

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

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

Our current approach to fentanyl and substance abuse is failing, as overdose deaths have spiked in recent years and this is deeply tragic. SF is not the only locality that has struggled with fentanyl, and we need a multi-pronged strategy, resources, and best practices from the state & federal levels.

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?	Yes
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)?	Yes

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

It is not compassionate to allow those on the street going through acute psychiatric problems to stay on the streets without help. I understand there is a history of inhumane conditions in mental health asylums that led to a deinstitutionalization movement, and we need to learn from and be mindful of these concerns while constructing and operating new facilities, but not be completely hamstrung by these concerns.

Public Transit

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

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

Fare evasion is a huge problem for both SFMTA and BART leading to an estimated $15-25M of lost revenues for BART every year at a time when its budget is in freefall. I support fare enforcement & accountability, but I also want to make sure that the policies to prevent fare enforcement are effective ROI wise, so would need to do more research to understand the most high ROI policies (e.g. I'm not sure prosecution is the best method).

In general, part of people's decline of trust in SF government is that they feel that their tax money isn't being spent wisely, and holding SFMTA, BART, and all public institutions accountable is important.

General questions

What needs to change with the Party?

People feel alienated by SF's Democratic Party because it is out of touch with the broad electorate. To restore trust, we need to:

• Focus on what works, instead of what sounds good — results, not rhetoric.

• Increase the civic engagement of those most affected by policy failures in San Francisco, as well as reasonable, pragmatic people engaging in the Democratic process (Democratic Clubs), public comment, etc. and not just those who are the most ideological or narrow interested.

• Engage people with experience solving complex bureaucratic problems (e.g. business & builder backgrounds) running for office, not only activists & lawyers

What are the top three issues facing San Francisco, and what would you like to see change? 1. Public safety: people don't feel safe in San Francisco. This is a complicated issue (for example, part of this feeling of safety has to do with high visible unsheltered homelessness), but it starts with a fully staffed & efficient police department and more accountability.

2. Affordable housing: we have failed to build enough housing the past 50 years, especially affordable housing, in San Francisco, and our sky high rents reflect this. We need to make it easier to build all types of housing and fund affordable housing. Senator Scott Wiener's policies at the CA state level are a great start (e.g. SB423), but we need to flip the board of supervisors to be pro housing and make permitting easier. Once housing is approved, we need to tackle solutions to make it easier for developments (especially affordable developments) to pencil (e.g. restructuring impact fees).

3. Downtown recovery: SF's tax structure is predicated on downtown's tax base, and the city's budget shortfall is tied to a slow downtown recovery post COVID. We should pursue creative solutions, like a university or women's soccer stadium downtown, as well as incentives to get businesses of all sizes back (e.g. childcare centers downtown), which would also help save transit by increasing ridership.

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

We need governance reform to make the government deliver outcomes again in San Francisco — for example, over the past 20 years, the board of supervisors has systematically chipped away the power of the mayor. There are also governance reforms necessary to make SF's agencies perform more effectively.