Danny Sauter
- Office: Board of Supervisors, District 3
- Election Date: November 5, 2024
- Candidate: Danny Sauter
- Due Date: February 28, 2024
- Printable Version
Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 5, 2024 election! GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city via common sense solutions and effective government. Our work includes running public opinion polls to understand what voters want, advocating for those changes, and ensuring that the SF government represents the people.
The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco.
Please complete this questionnaire by February 28, 2024 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.
Your Goals
We'd like to get some details about your high-level goals and how you intend to use your elected office to achieve them.
Why are you running for Board of Supervisors, District 3?
I'm running because I believe we need leadership who knows these neighborhoods and is from outside the same old City Hall machine in order to actually get things done and move beyond political grandstanding.
How we respond to District 3's challenges in the next few years will define the next decades of the entire city of San Francisco. From our tourism recovery in Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf to our drug crisis in Lower Nob Hill and our economic recovery in the Financial District, our District 3 neighborhoods will have an outsized role in the future of our city.
What is your #1 policy goal?
My #1 policy goal is to make our city's massive bureaucracy work better. We need better results from our $14 billion dollar budget and our nearly 40,000 city workers. I see this as foundational - without this, none of the most important issues in our city, from public safety to housing to our drug crisis, can be fixed. This will take the form of commission and charter reform, updating hiring processes, improving performance management, and better coordination of existing resources.
How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal?
I will work with anyone on the board in which we can find common ground and bring people together to get results. I'm not an extremist and I'm interested in outcomes and results over everything else.
Will the power of the office of Board of Supervisors, District 3 be enough to achieve this goal?
I will use the District 3 office to the fullest extent to deliver for the people of San Francisco. I will partner with regional, state, and federal officials and departments to increase resources but won't let this stand in the way of us being able to do what we can do on our own locally here in San Francisco.
What are your #2 and #3 policy goals?
Public Safety - Everyone in our city deserves to feel, and be, safe.
Housing - Our housing crisis is largely self-inflicted by decades of obstruction and saying no to housing. The opportunity of our city and our state is at risk if we don't make room to welcome new residents to San Francisco.
Will the power of the office of Board of Supervisors, District 3 be enough to achieve these goals?
I will use the District 3 office to the fullest extent to deliver for the people of San Francisco. I will partner with regional, state, and federal officials and departments to increase resources but won't let this stand in the way of us being able to do what we can do on our own locally here in San Francisco.
What is an existing policy you would like to reform?
I believe Discretionary Review and CEQA need to be reformed. We need to limit the instances in which they can be used in a disingenuous manner to slow down projects, from housing to homeless shelters, without merit.
What is an "out there" change that you would make to state/local government policy, if you could? (For example: adding at-large supervisors, changing how elections work, creating a Bay Area regional government, etc.)
I would like to establish a citywide Participatory Budgeting Program. This program would allow residents to have a greater, more democratic say in how the city dollars are spent. We should transition today's "add-back" spending, an opaque system rife for corruption, into the sunlight by moving these dollars into a Participatory Budgeting Program. This has existed in individual Supervisor offices from time to time (David Chiu started it when he was Supervisor) and it's time to expand it citywide. We can learn from Paris which has a robust system that has grown to constitute nearly 5% of its annual city budget.
Tell us one thing you think needs to change in SF that the average voter wouldn't know about.
Most voters don't realize the control that the Supervisor's office has over the local planning codes, particularly in Neighborhood Commercial Use Districts. I would like to make it radically easier to open a small business in District 3. I've written before about why District 3 is the hardest place in San Francisco to open a small business, and while some progress has been made, we still have much room for improvement.
The Issues
Next, we will cover the issues that voters tell us they care about. We hope to gain a better understanding of your policy positions, and we hope that you use this opportunity to communicate with voters.
Public Safety
What is the #1 public safety issue today?
The #1 public safety issue today is that people don't feel safe in our city. This is a foundational service that our city needs to deliver for its residents and businesses. Without this foundation - as we've seen - everything else is put at risk.
San Francisco currently has about 1,500 sworn police officers. Some have argued that the City should try to match the per-capita staffing levels that other large cities have. If we matched cities like New York or Paris, we would need to have about 3,400 sworn officers. What do you think of this idea? If you support it, how would the City fund recruitment at SFPD to achieve this staffing level? If you don't support it, what would you propose to do instead?
I believe that our initial focus should be on increasing our police force to the number recommended in the 2019 Matrix Consulting Study: around 2,100 officers. From there, we should re-evaluate our staffing levels in a similar study and based on more recent data to see if growth will result in better services and safety. Beyond the 2,100 it's likely that we need more resources but it's too early to tell if those should be part of the SFPD, the Fire Department, Emergency Dispatchers, and so forth. We should be nimble with our response so that we dedicate funding and hiring to the areas of our emergency response network where it is most needed.
What solutions might exist to improve public safety that don't involve expanding the size of SFPD?
We can - and must - take a number of steps that will improve public safety but don't involve expanding the size of SFPD. This is important because public safety comes from a number of places, be it community investment or other parts of our emergency response system such as paramedics, metal health professionals, and 911 dispatchers. Additionally, we cannot wait to hire more police officers to improve the efficiency of our existing department and force. To these ends, I will do the following in addition to expanding our SFPD:
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Partner to Improve Existing SFPD Operations: We need to get officers out of the station and into the community to know neighbors and merchants. We can do this by minimizing duplicative paperwork and expanding technology services.
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Reform our 911 Dispatcher Hiring Process: We should reform how we hire new operators to speed the process up. Rather than a cohort based hiring process, which delays interested applicants, we should have a continuous hiring process.
What three things would you change about how SFPD operates?
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Match FPD District Boundaries with District Supervisor Boundaries - Currently police and Supervisor district lines are different. This causes confusion and hurts our city's coordination of resources. As SFPD redraws its lines in 2025, I will advocate for these lines to be identical so that our office can work in better coordination with the Police Department.
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Retain District Captains - Central Station has had five different captains in the past six years. That is not a recipe for community relationships or team leadership. I'll work to make the Captain role one in which tenure at a specific station is rewarded.
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Increase Bilingual Police Officer Bonuses - Currently, the SFPD bilingual pay bonus is $70 per month. Compare that to the city of Fremont at $250! We need to increase this pay bonus in a targeted effort to grow our force and hire more Cantonese-speaking police officers to serve our diverse population in District 3 and protect API and Chinatown communities.
Do you support policies commonly referred to as "defund the police"? Why or why not?
No. I believe we will become a safer city through a combination of investing in our police force, expanding our entire emergency responder network, and improving our existing SFPD. These all take funding for growth, training, and technology.
Please explain why you did or did not support the recall of DA Chesa Boudin. If you were ineligible to vote in that election, please explain how you would have voted.
I did not take a position on the recall. At the time, I considered recalls to be a tool to remove someone from office for malpractice or negligence but completely understand and respect how others looked at the recall option differently. I want to be clear though: I did not vote for DA Boudin, and have been a strong supporter of DA Brooke Jenkins.
| Should San Francisco… | Yes | No |
|---|---|---|
| Try to achieve "full staffing" for SFPD? (Defined as about 2,100 officers, according to the City) | X | |
| Change the cite-and-release policy so officers can arrest suspects of misdemeanors like shoplifting and car break-ins? | ||
| Arrest and prosecute street-level fentanyl dealers? | X | |
| Prioritize diversion instead of incarceration for street-level fentanyl dealers? | X | |
| Investigate, arrest, and prosecute fentanyl distribution ringleaders (like organized crime and cartel members)? | X | |
| Arrest and prosecute street-level vendors of suspected stolen goods? | X | |
| Investigate, arrest, and prosecute the leaders of theft rings and fencing operations? | X | |
| Arrest and prosecute street food vendors operating without a permit? | X | |
| Fine street food vendors operating without a permit? |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Re #2: I believe someone should be arrested for these crimes but am unclear what changes are proposed here.
With limited public safety resources, we need to prioritize our response to focus on the ringleaders and true "professional" criminals who operate disruptive stolen goods markets and deadly fentanyl sales.
In the case of our approach to street vending, I believe we should begin by lowering barriers to operating everything from food trucks to artists to craft markets. This includes making it easy to obtain permits and clear on how to do so. Only after all of this - and after education and warning- should we consider a fine or punitive measure.
Drugs
In general, how should the City handle people who are abusing drugs on City sidewalks?
We need to make it clear that using drugs on the city sidewalks and public spaces is not acceptable. It creates danger for families and children, hurts our small businesses, threatens our tourism, and puts the drug user themself at great harm.
Our response can begin with resources and connections to services, but we also need to quickly have an option to mandate services if the disruption continues and if the harm grows greater to the individual and the surrounding community. Leaving someone on the street is the worst possible thing that we can do.
Do you support the creation of safe consumption sites in San Francisco? If so, please detail how they should be run. If not, please explain a viable alternative.
If a safe consumption site were to be designed in a manner informed by best practices from sites around the world and closely monitored for their effectiveness, I would support their creation. The site would also need to have a component of mandated services (see next question) to ensure we are connecting clients to recovery. We've seen the alternative of 800 plus overdose deaths, and our drug crisis is too great to sit idly by or to shut down new ideas to respond to the crisis.
Some have argued that safe consumption sites (or sobering centers) are only viable if they are paired with implementing zero-tolerance for public consumption of illegal drugs like fentanyl and heroin. Do you agree or disagree with this view?
Yes, I believe any safe consumption site would need to be paired with increased enforcement and mandated services to be effective and to keep the surrounding communities safe.
Should fentanyl dealing be penalized differently from dealing other drugs?
Yes. We've seen that fentanyl is orders-magnitude more deadly than other substances, and we need our response to meet the severity of the drug itself.
Mental Health
Should San Francisco amend our current laws around mental health crisis intervention to better help people suffering on the streets? If yes, why and how? If not, why not?
Yes. We need to look at our approaches, top to bottom, and expand the efforts that are successful at getting people into recovery. Our city passed a promise of Treatment on Demand in 2008 but it has never been realized. We also passed such a local version of conservatorship that was so limited that it hasn't been able to truly help those who need services.
What is the role of government in providing care for those who cannot care for themselves?
I believe we need to have a more active role in providing care for those who cannot care for themselves. We see the alternative in our city every day, and we cannot continue letting people die on our streets. Some of this will take resources, while others will take expanding our ability to conserve individuals to get them into life-saving care.
Some have argued that San Francisco should place people who are experiencing mental health crises on the streets into involuntary mental health holds at psychiatric facilities. Do you agree or disagree with this view? Please explain why or why not.
Yes. However, we issue thousands of 5150 psychiatric holds already each year. Alarmingly, some 40% of these result in a discharge from the hospital with no service connection. We need to find better outcomes for those who are placed in mental health holds so that this time can be used as a step towards recovery rather than just a waiting period until they are back on the streets.
If you agree with this view, please outline some guardrails and oversight the City must provide to prevent abuse.
I believe these programs should only be used in the instances where this is extreme harm or damage likely to an individual, where other recourse has been attempted, and when there is robust oversight in place to prevent abuse and wrongdoing.
If you disagree with this view, please outline your preferred alternative solution as well as any drawbacks it might have and oversight it might need.
Education
Should the Board of Education be reformed to bring more accountability and better performance to the Board, and boost public school performance? If so, how; if not, why not?
Yes, we saw during the pandemic what happens when the Board of Education is distracted and not taking our children's education seriously. Student outcomes should be the priority of all decisions. We also need to make tough budget choices to avoid a possible state takeover. And while they are district entities, the Board of Supervisors can have a role in being partners to elevate school and parent concerns from our Districts.
Some parents prefer their children attend religious schools, others prefer magnet schools for specific skills (like the Ruth Asawa School for the Arts or Lowell), and others prefer charter schools with nontraditional curricula. Do you think all of these educational options should be available to students in San Francisco?
Yes.
Did you support the recall of Board of Education members Collins, López, and Moliga? Please explain why you did or did not support the recall of each member.
Yes, I endorsed the recall of Collins and López as I believe they neglected the office and caused harm through efforts such as delaying reopening schools and suing the school district. While I did not support Moliga, I did not endorse his recall as I did not believe his conduct was as egregious as others.
| Should San Francisco… | Yes | No |
|---|---|---|
| Offer Algebra in 8th grade to students who want it? | X | |
| Offer Algebra in 7th grade to students who want it? | X | |
| Offer AP courses to high school students who want them? | X | |
| Require schools to improve student performance, and fire teachers who consistently underperform? | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Small Business
What would you change about the process of new retail business formation in San Francisco?
Opening a new business in San Francisco should be clear, quick, and supported:
-Clear: Applicants should know what the process entails (permit streamlining and clarification) and have confidence that their business will be able to open without obstruction (reducing instances where others can protest the business).
-Quick: Permits should be processed in 30 days under most circumstances.
-Supported: A dedicated point of contact should be assigned to each applicant to help shepherd them through the process if needed and to look out for their success.
Should all businesses be permitted by-right? If not, which business categories do you think should require special government approval?
We should expand the list of by-right businesses greatly. Of course large-impact businesses, be it a processing plant, a manufacturing hub, a gas station, and so forth should be more constricted. Most other small businesses, from cafes to retail stores to restaurants, should be permitted by-right if they meet a basic, straight-forward set of criteria.
Some in the Small Business community have argued that San Francisco should increase the number of available ABC permits (also known as a liquor license) to lower the cost of running a business and increase customer revenues from alcohol sales. Others have argued against increasing the number of permits because they don't want more competition, or have already paid a lot of money for their liquor license. What do you think the City should do?
I believe we can expand ABC permits to certain neighborhoods where there is demand for this permit type or conditions have changed where the need for entertainment is greater than before (example: downtown).
Similarly, some in the legal cannabis retailer community have lobbied to reduce the number of available permits. Economists have argued that this reduces competition, raises prices for consumers, and raises profits for retailers. What do you think the City should do?
I would consider this as I believe this situation to be distinct from ABC permits because the legal cannabis space is newer and there were generous overstation projects made that caused many to invest heavily in the space. In particular, I want to ensure that the equity owners of the existing permits are not caused further damage given that the program itself was meant to be a partial recourse for the damage caused from the war on drugs and its impact on black and brown communities.
| 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 | |
| Try to attract businesses of all sizes to the City? | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Housing
Do you believe that San Francisco has a shortage of homes? Why or why not?
Yes, I believe it, the data shows it, and the countless individuals pushed out of our city have experienced it. Our shortage of homes is a great self-made failure of our city.
Do you believe that housing prices are set by supply and demand constraints? Why or why not?
I believe supply and demand have a large role to play in our housing prices. We've seen this play out around the country and world: when cities build more housing, prices stabilize or drop compared to other cities.
San Francisco will almost certainly fail its Housing Element certification, which will cause the State to take over local land use regulation. What should we do now?
We should get serious about a Housing Element that is authentic and compliant. We should consider this certification process an invitation to get serious about our housing crisis instead of shirking responsibility as the city has done for the last 50 years.
Should homeless shelters be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?
Yes. We have a housing and homelessness crisis, and we need to respond accordingly.
Should subsidized Affordable housing be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?
Yes. We've seen the alternative: the longest, most expensive process in the entire country to build housing. We cannot continue this in the midst of a housing crisis.
Should market rate housing be exempt from CEQA, Discretionary Review, and Conditional Use permits?
We should make the process to build market rate housing faster and more clear. This will result in reduced project costs and shorter timelines. I'm open to where within the process we can best clarify and reduce hurdles to encourage more construction, be it reducing or exempting depending on the circumstances.
Should San Francisco retain, loosen, or even abolish the existing limits on height, density, and bulk for residential buildings? (ie taller, denser, and fewer/reduced setbacks)
To build 82,000 new homes we need to revisit our height limits. If the rest of San Francisco looked more like District 3 (think 4-6 story buildings), we would be meeting our housing needs.
San Francisco Planning requires that new street-facing windows comply with City-imposed design requirements that both raise the price of windows while lowering their thermal and noise insulation. Should the City abolish these requirements?
These design requirements need to be revisited. I was proud to begin working on this effort in partnership with others on the Sierra Club Housing Committee and will carry legislation as Supervisor to update this to make window replacement more cost effective and environmentally friendly.
| 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 | ||
| Renovate your home (update bathroom, kitchen, 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 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:
Transit Infrastructure
Should Muni be free for everyone? If so, what other programs would you take money from in order to fund this change, or what new tax would you propose to fund it?
No. While I appreciate the aspiration and want to bring as many riders as possible to public transit, study after study in San Francisco has shown that better services - namely increased speed and frequency and increased feeling of safety - are what will actually boost transit ridership. Instead, I support continued targeted discounts to certain groups such as Free MUNI for Youth, seniors, and those with disabilities.
Some have argued that the cost of fare enforcement exceeds the benefit. Others have argued that not enforcing fare payment starves the Muni and BART systems of revenue, lowers quality of service, and makes the systems less safe. What is your position?
I believe that we need a baseline level of fare enforcement on our transit systems to keep revenue in our system and to maintain public safety. I am aware that enforcement itself can be costly (ironically) so I would look to increase efficiency and/or combine functions with other roles such as safety ambassadors.
Recent State funding requires Muni and BART to enforce fare payments in order to receive that funding; do you agree with this requirement?
Yes.
Should it be the policy of San Francisco to build a citywide protected bike lane network? Why or why not?
Yes. We know that more people would use a bicycle to get around if there was a true safe, protected bike lane network throughout our city. This would ease traffic congestion, be good for our environment (the #1 source of our city's emissions is private vehicles), and increase vibrancy in our neighborhoods. Currently our bike lanes are fragmented and isolated, not the characteristics of successful cities or infrastructure projects.
| Yes | No | |
|---|---|---|
| Do you support banning cars from central downtown areas and certain retail or residential corridors? | X | |
| Do you support congestion pricing? | ||
| Should San Francisco prioritize buses over car traffic by creating more bus-only lanes and directing traffic enforcement officers to ticket drivers who ignore the restrictions? | X | |
| Should Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and other ride-share services be permitted to operate in San Francisco? | X | |
| Should San Francisco allow more bike share and scooter share companies? | X | |
| 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)? | X |
If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:
Congestion Pricing: I'm encouraged by the results in New York City and London. However San Francisco's proposal is incredibly early and has not been revised to reflect the post-pandemic reality of our city and economy. Any successful program would need to be targeted, exempt certain households and small businesses, and include funding for a commensurate increase in public transportation service.
Budget
San Francisco is facing a large budget deficit due to declining tax revenues from our struggling downtown. What will your approach be to fix this?
| 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:
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've lived in San Francisco for 12 years. Opportunity brought me here, and family and community keep me here. I believe the California dream and San Francisco dream are both threatened and it's incumbent upon this generation to make it available to the next.
What do you love most about San Francisco?
I love that San Francisco is a haven for so many people and is a place where people can feel welcome and be true to their authentic selves. I see this every day in our diverse District 3 neighborhoods and communities. But this is under threat thanks to urgent issues of homelessness, housing, and drugs.
What do you dislike the most about San Francisco?
I believe our politics and government are out of touch with the residents of our city. Whereas our residents and businesses are creative, entrepreneurial, and resilient, I see our city government as slow-moving, afraid of progress, and complacent. I want to play a part in closing this gap between these two things.
Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)
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North Beach Neighbors - I've been on the board of my neighborhood association for the last 8 years and have led efforts such as North Beach Delivers, starting the North Beach Farmers Market, winning grants to support local small businesses, and leading on supporting housing in District 3.
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Sierra Club - I was named as the first-ever Housing Chair of the new Sierra Club San Francisco Housing Committee.
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Eastern Neighborhoods Democratic Club - I've served as the District 3 Director of our local Democratic club since 2021.
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North Beach Farmers Market - I led the effort to start this community farmers market eight years ago and still serve as the Market Manager to this day.
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Volunteer - Frequently volunteer with TEL HI Neighborhood Center, NEXT Village, North Beach Citizens, Italian American Community Services, NERT, Francisco Middle School, and others in District 3.
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.