Matt Dorsey

• Office: Supervisor, District 6
• Election Date: November 3, 2026
• Candidate: Matt Dorsey
• Due Date: March 12, 2026
• Printable Version

Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 3, 2026 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 March 12, 2026 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.

• Your Policy Goals
• Your Leadership
• The Issues
• Public Safety
• Substance abuse
• Mental Health
• Small Business
• Housing
• Transit Infrastructure
• Budget
• Personal
• Thank you

Your Policy 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.

What policies do you hope to change or preserve by running for Supervisor, District 6? Please be specific, and list them in order of priority.

1. Recovery, Drug Overdoses, Drug Treatment, and Drug Sales
2. Housing
3. Public safety

Why those policies?

I have made these a cornerstone of my first term but the work is far from done. My own personal history with substance abuse and work on this subject the last four years has hardened my resolve. While this is obviously a deeply personal priority for me, I believe it is also a public priority that our City must do a better job of addressing in a multitude of ways. To build public support for the progress San Francisco needs to make, I have proposed Drug-Free Housing to better protect those seeking recovery in our permanent supportive housing supply. I have advocated for increased coercive interventions, which I believe are necessary to discourage open-air drug use.

Public safety is a broad topic that spans street and pedestrian safety to open-air drug use and various forms of addiction-driven lawlessness. San Francisco is still seeing high rates of overdose and drug-related crime, and we also lack enough sober housing for people seeking recovery. These combined problems are manifested in street-level misery that San Franciscans and the nation are too accustomed to seeing; while things have improved since the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, I know from hearing from neighbors and neighborhood stakeholders that there is much left to do.

We have thousands of units in the pipeline but our dire financial situation as a city/county has left a gap between our goals as prepared by state legislation and the economic feasibility. Like most other cities in California, San Francisco has failed to produce sufficient housing at all income levels and in a variety of neighborhoods, and the decades-long persistence of this failure has created a multifaceted crisis of affordability, environmental impacts, racial equity, and more. That's why I fought for the approval of San Francisco's Housing Element, which was an incredibly important moment for our City to begin righting the wrongs of past inaction. Additionally, passing the Family Zoning Plan was a major milestone I am proud to have helped pass as we aim to meet the goals set under our Housing Element.

Explain why your #1 goal is your #1 goal.

It was my own journey in recovery from addiction that moved me to ask — first Mayor London Breed, and then District 6 voters — for a role on the Board of Supervisors. My lived experience and belief in the life-changing possibilities of abstinence-based recovery is why I will always regard it as my number one public policy priority. In a lifetime spent in and around politics, recovery made it personal to me in a way it had never been before. I am proud of the progress we are making on these issues, and inspired to see more and more members of the recovery community finding their voice in San Francisco politics. It’s making a difference and it’s saving lives.

How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal? What obstacles will you face, and how will you overcome them? Will the power of the office of Supervisor, District 6 be enough to achieve this goal?

I will continue building upon my coalition by pursuing and continuing open-minded discussions and conversations with my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, as well as with state elected officials and influential community leaders and organizations, with the goal of making our interventions in drug addiction more consequential, less destructive to our communities, and lifesaving.

Will the power of the office of Supervisor, District 6 be enough to achieve the other goals?

No, and that’s by design. A supervisor — any supervisor — is just one-eleventh of the legislative branch of San Francisco’s local government, and working effectively necessarily means working together. Although I’m grateful for broader consensus on our need to secure safer streets, to build more housing at all levels, to fully staff our public safety agencies, and to expand efforts to support and incentivize recovery from illicit drug use, I’m also aware how precarious our solutions-oriented majority is. City Hall’s newfound spirit of cooperation under the leadership of Mayor Daniel Lurie and Board President Rafael Mandelman is changing the narrative on local government — and we need that to continue with the next Board of Supervisors I hope to continue to be a part of.

San Francisco has areas of procedural and legislative bloat, making it hard for the city to serve its residents effectively. Give three examples of legislation that should be repealed.

I think the entirety of Chapter 12 of the San Francisco Administrative Code —which largely governs restrictions and conditions on city contracting — is desperately in need of reform. This has been an area where performative “vanity legislating” has managed to make competitive bidding far less competitive because of obscure social policy wish-list items that discourage and, in many cases, outright disqualify qualified bidders from doing business with San Francisco. These political stunts do nothing to change social policy, but cost San Franciscans millions. What it's punishing instead is taxpayers, and it deserves a more thoughtful and comprehensive examination than it has gotten to date.

I also think diffused accountability in city departments is a problem that needs addressing. What I mean is that the Mayor, historically and generally, has too often been stymied from leading by commissions and even department heads, preventing city government from delivering the results San Franciscans have every right to expect.

Beyond that, Section 19b of the city’s code (our so-called “Surveillance Technology Ordinance”) needs major reforms. In particular, the section authorizing attorneys’ fees and costs recovery for prevailing parties in litigation is an irresponsible incentive to sue the city and its taxpayers — including by the very same interest group that wrote the law. It’s a self-dealing shakedown, and I’m sponsoring legislation to change it.

What is an "out there" change that you would make to state/local government policy, if you could? For the purpose of this question, you are not constrained to the office of Supervisor, District 6.

The drug-tolerant fundamentalism of our state’s “Housing First” policy, adopted in 2016, has persisted for far too long. The advent of our fentanyl overdose crisis should have been the moral impetus to change it years ago, but it continues to get in the way of creating truly sober and drug-free housing for people in our Permanent Supportive Housing stock who want and need it. Today, 26 percent of our fatal overdoses citywide happen in Permanent Supportive Housing — and shame on us for taking this long to make progress on change. It’s a major problem and both myself and Assemblymember Matt Haney have been working. PSH developments shouldn’t be forced to exist in 100 percent of cases as institutional drug dens, with zero accountability. And yet that’s what the law still does.

Your Leadership

We’d like to learn more about your leadership style and plan to execute effectively once you assume office.

When in office, how would you balance the needs of the electorate with the demands of special interests? Where do you foresee this being the biggest challenge?

I will continue building upon my coalition by pursuing and continuing open-minded discussions and conversations with my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, as well as with state elected officials and influential community leaders and organizations.

When in office, how would you balance the needs of your district with the needs of the city? Where do you anticipate this being the biggest challenge?

In many ways, District 6 issues are citywide issues because the success of our downtown and the emerging industries disproportionately centered in my district are critical to San Francisco’s future. That includes…

• Public safety
  • Transportation & pedestrian safety
  • Housing

How do you think the day-to-day management of a Supervisor’s office can be improved? How do you plan to run your office?

• Our office works at its best when everyone is cohesive and working on priorities that affect the residents. I’m proud to have an excellent team of dedicated professionals, and my office has seen very little turnover in my first four years. I think that speaks to the way we work together, and the commitment we share to the city we love.

If you could measure the success of your term by 1 metric, and 1 metric only, what would that metric be?

I think the general metric of “Right Track/Wrong Track” is the best gauge of sentiment.

When I was appointed to the Board of Supervisors in May 2022, the Board of Supervisors was more unpopular than ever —with a 12% approval rating. The vast majority of our residents thought the city was on the wrong track. In 2022, 35% of people thought the city would be in a worse place in two years than it was at the time. In 2024, 72% of people thought the city was on the wrong track. Generally, people felt negative about where we were as a city. That sentiment has improved, with a recent poll showing 64% of residents felt that the city was headed in the right direction.

I’m convinced that the solutions-oriented pragmatism represented by myself, Mayor Lurie and a narrow majority of my colleagues is making the difference. And I’m committed to keeping the comeback going if I win a second term.

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? Why do you believe this is the #1 issue?

Although public drug use and associated lawlessness remain our #1 public safety problems, in my view the single overriding issue that prevents us from making progress on these and the many other public safety challenges we face is an inadequately staffed police department. Although we are finally beginning to turn the corner on police hiring — recruiting marginally more officers than those who are retiring for the first time in years — our short-staffing crisis is as bad as ever, based on the charter-mandated staffing methodology.

Operationally, SFPD is now 730 police officers short of the minimum recommended staffing level — nearly one-third of the police force we’re supposed to have isn’t there.

What power would you have to solve this issue?

As Supervisor, I am proud to have elevated our police staffing crisis as a City Hall priority, and I made ambitious and solutions-focused efforts with two Charter Amendments to fix it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get either over the finish line. But I’m not done trying.

What three things would you change about how SFPD operates?

Commit to a three-year plan to reach 100% full staffing, full stop.

We need to acknowledge that there is simply no operational adjustment that can fix a police force that’s at two-thirds capacity other than getting to full staffing. The alternative is unacceptable levels of public disorder and drug-driven lawlessness, which is over-reliant on overtime funding just for the basics. So, I’d recommend four things SFPD should do:

1. Improve efficiencies in hiring, including outsourcing background checks, and improving retention rates for recruits to graduate from the Police Academy;
2. Combine recruiting efforts for all public safety agencies — SFPD, SFFD, SFSO, DEM, and OCME — ensuring that a prospective recruit to any agency is presented with alternative opportunities for all agencies;
3. Target recruiting at three levels: we need more newly hired recruits, we need more mid-career laterals, and we need to incentivize delayed retirements and significantly expanded use of Level I Reserve Officers for those newly retired from SFPD; and
4. Maximize civilianization, to get more police doing more police work.

We have a lot of safety challenges that we could address better — if we had a complete police force. Right now, we don’t. And until that changes, we will struggle to solve basic public safety challenges.

What small change do you think would have the biggest impact?

SFPD should be the most attractive law enforcement agency to work at in America. And to the extent that requires greater investments for compensation and benefits, it would ultimately pay for itself with dramatically reduced overtime expenditures and a well-policed, orderly and safer city that is once again the nation’s top pick for conventions and tourism. A city as financially invested in being a safe and welcoming global destination for tourists and events as San Francisco should never again fail as badly as we have on police staffing over the last decade. Make no mistake: this isn’t an SFPD failure — it’s a City Hall failure.

When considering appointments to the Police Commission, which sets SFPD's use of force guidelines, what do you consider to be important in the candidate? Please include what you believe the ideal candidate’s views are on the following: public drug use, sidewalk vending (including food and stolen goods), use of police technology (drones, AI), and shoplifting.

When assessing candidates for the Police Commission, we have to acknowledge that the commission is not a political show for ideologues, it is a place for people who value pragmatism, problem solving and delivering results for San Franciscans. The Police Commission should be focused on developing and delivering policies in conjunction, not in opposition to, the San Francisco Police Department.

Substance abuse

In general, how should the City handle people who are abusing drugs on City sidewalks?

In order to preserve both public order and the public’s trust in government to do things right, San Francisco needs to have a zero tolerance mindset. This means drugs have to be confiscated and law enforcement being involved should be seen as a life-saving intervention. The severity of these measures is matched only by the scale of the crisis itself—but the results can save lives and get people started on their lifelong journey in recovery. Furthermore, second chances are as important as any of the intervening steps.

If someone is passed out from drugs on the sidewalk, how should the City respond?

We should see this as an opportunity to get people into treatment, either through Jail Health, the RESET Center, or other methods of intervention. We cannot continue to hand out supplies to people suffering on the street, check a box and move on for the sake of metrics.

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.

I would support the creation of a safe consumption site in San Francisco, theoretically, provided it were part of a “Four Pillars” approach like those implemented in European cities that include zero tolerance for drug use in the public realm. (The Four Pillars are: Prevention; Harm Reduction; Treatment and Recovery; and Law Enforcement.) Unfortunately, there is no legally permissible way to open such a facility under current federal law — and, sadly, that has been equally true under Democratic and Republican Administrations alike. Safe consumption sites are a dead issue, in my view, for the foreseeable future, but I don’t think that should prevent us from pursuing the same kind of zero-tolerance policies for public drug use as most major cities, including European cities that have demonstrated real progress in eliminating drug-related disorder and reducing fatal overdoses.

Do you support sober housing? Why or why not?

Absolutely, and this is a top priority for me. California’s implementation of Housing First a decade ago defied urging from the Obama Administration’s HUD for recovery-inclusive supportive housing options — adopting instead for a 100% drug-tolerant model, even as the deadliest drug crisis in human history was beginning to take hold. Today, San Francisco’s exclusively drug-tolerant PSH model is blamed for disproportionate rates of fatal overdoses, chaotic and too often violent neighborhood conditions, and a wide range of drug-driven public safety challenges. It’s time to deliver the drug-free options PSH residents have long been asking for.

I am hoping to pass legislation to address this exact issue in the coming months.

Would you continue or change the city’s harm reduction policies that distribute drug use paraphernalia beyond clean needles, such as pipes, foil, etc.?

Providing harm reduction drug supplies was never meant to be the end-all, be-all of drug policy in San Francisco. Since the City’s Health Commission first adopted its Harm Reduction Policy in September of 2000, however, harm reduction became a foot-in-the-door for drug decriminalization advocates — many of whom vocally opposed my Recovery First Ordinance to make a life free of illicit drug use the primary objective of our drug policy. Harm reduction is an incremental step that must be viewed as part of a broader strategy to incentivize and, if necessary, coerce and mandate people into drug treatment and recovery. I support Mayor Lurie’s efforts to require that the distribution of harm-reduction supplies — including safer smoking supplies — be accompanied by efforts to get drug users into recovery. Beyond that, I support the RESET Center and have advocated for years to dramatically scale up efforts to arrest drug users for public intoxication, confiscating their drugs and paraphernalia.

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?

We are compliant with state laws on mental health conservatorships, particularly regarding LPS holds and CARE Court. However, San Francisco is among the worst performers among the state’s 58 counties for compliance with CARE Court. As of 2025, just 92 petitions were filed to refer people into the state-mandated program. Overall, fewer than 11 people successfully completed the program. Anybody who walks the streets downtown (and increasingly in outer neighborhoods) knows that there are far more people than this who need intensive mental health care.

Ideally, San Francisco would collaborate with other counties to create regional mental health treatment centers.

What aspects of San Francisco’s conservatorship policies would you change?

Unfortunately, these laws are largely dictated by the state. If anything, I support making it easier to utilize conservatorships but they are not the end-all, be-all for mentally ill people on the streets.

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. If you agree with this view, please outline some guardrails and oversight the City must provide to prevent abuse. 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.

Our streets cannot be waiting rooms for people with severe mental illnesses—at the same time, jails are also the incorrect solution. Putting people with severe mental illness into county jails is a serious strain for both the Sheriff’s Department and for the jail system’s limited ability to provide acute mental health treatment.

Ideally, San Francisco would collaborate with other counties to create regional mental health treatment centers.

Small Business

What would you change about the process of new retail business formation in San Francisco, across zoning, permitting, renovations, fees, and financing? Please be as specific as possible.

I was proud to have supported First Year Free, which has helped thousands of small businesses by covering registration, permits, and other fees in their first year of operation. Collectively, this program has saved businesses millions of dollars that are better spent being invested in their businesses.

I was also proud to have supported many of Mayor Lurie’s Permit SF legislative actions including making it easier for businesses to have tables and chairs outdoors. While this fix sounds small, many businesses were burdened with having to apply for and maintain permits to have patio furniture outside their business.

I’ve authored and passed many ordinances allowing more diverse uses of existing business space; allowing businesses to have improved signage; and simplifying processes that have caused them headaches for years.

In particular, I am proud of having authored legislation to finally undo a longstanding ban on new nightlife in SoMa’s commercial core.

If San Francisco adopted policies that allowed all non-vice businesses to open without special hearings, what would you do to help local small businesses compete with large national chains?

I would continue to support measures like ones above that support small businesses, such as continuing to reduce processes and fees where possible. Equally as important is continuing to support the public safety resources needed for all businesses to thrive.

Of course, knowing what to legislate and where to direct resources would not be possible without listening to the businesses and organizational stakeholders in my district—we have to continue to be their partners and advocates to know what to tackle next.

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. We’ve said no for too long and we cannot afford to do that anymore. I have been a strong supporter of measures and legislative initiatives to reduce red tape around housing production, such as 2022’s Proposition D, 2024’s Proposition A, the San Francisco Housing Element and the Family Zoning Plan.

The way has been paved for us to build a thriving future for San Francisco through a combination of the State Legislature and local actions—but it still remains too hard to build which is why financing mechanisms like bonds and looking long and hard at fees are crucial to unplugging the city’s enormous pipeline of approved housing units.

Do you believe that housing prices are set by supply and demand constraints? Why or why not?

Yes. For too long, San Francisco has resisted, tooth and nail, the creation of new housing for fear of losing the soul of the city—but losing the soul of any city happens when residents decide to move away because they cannot afford to live here.

Do you think Mayor Lurie’s Family zoning plan is too ambitious or not ambitious enough? Why?

The Family Zoning Plan struck a good balance, but there’s always more that can be done when it comes to housing.

Do you believe that building more housing is the #1 way to reduce the cost of living in San Francisco? Why or why not?

Yes. Part of making San Francisco more affordable for families who live and work here is creating a steady stream of housing that is both high quality and affordable, in addition to providing opportunities for economic growth. Other essentials like availability of groceries and affordable childcare are less addressed topics that are just as essential.

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

Transit Infrastructure

Do you believe the MUNI funding crisis should be solved by taxes alone? Why or why not?

SFMTA derives about 60% of its funding from fares—we need to ensure people actually want to take public transportation which means making it safer, cleaner and faster.

That being said, I supported Proposition L in 2024. My biggest concern as the downtown supervisor is when we ask for funding for our transit service and Muni, in particular, it needs to be a fair, reasonable and sufficient tax to solve the problem. Public transportation is simply essential and not something we can afford to lose. If SFMTA cuts service as deeply as has been proposed, it could increase reliance on cars, pedestrian fatalities, and a death spiral of the agency itself as it serves fewer and fewer people.

Should it be the policy of San Francisco to build a citywide protected bike lane network? Why or why not?

Yes, San Francisco should make it a priority to expand its protected bike lane network to ultimately have a seamless transition from bike lane to bike lane without entering unprotected and car-crowded streets. This will simultaneously protect bicyclists from harm's way while lessening our dependence on cars.

Is Vision Zero the right goal? Why or why not?

We should absolutely aspire to have zero traffic deaths in the city, and take any measures necessary to think smarter about how traffic flows in and out of our city.

As supervisor, I drove the installation of traffic enforcement cameras in my district and across the city. This was a major initiative that has increased accountability for unsafe driving.

Overall, our approach to street safety needs to be inclusive to all types of things—better-engineered streets and enforcement, whether it is manual or automated.

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?

San Francisco should prioritize buses over car traffic and redirect traffic enforcement to ticket drivers with violations in order to incentivize more public transit use. Bus-only lanes have been an effective tool on the corridors where they are to reduce commute times and get people where they need to go.

Budget

San Francisco is facing a large budget deficit due to declining tax revenues from our struggling downtown. What would your approach be to fix this?

Our downtown core needs to be three things: business-friendly, more residential, and clean and safe because having the downtown core be attractive to prospective businesses looking to move here is essential. As the downtown supervisor, I have supported measures to make it easier for housing to be built in disused office spaces; tax measures that work for businesses and the community; and measures that make it easier for businesses of all sizes to operate here.

City Hall staffing has grown 27% while the city’s population has stayed stagnant. Would you support right sizing city government to rebalance the budget? Why or why not? Compare SF to other cities & counties.

San Francisco is not really comparable to even other city-counties across the country. The City has been saddled with difficult decisions thanks to a merciless federal administration and cuts are on the immediate horizon whether we want them or not. It is up to us to ensure the deficit is tended to in a smart and pragmatic manner.

District-Specific Questions

Do you have a 100 day plan for when you take office? If yes, list your top three deliverables, and the metrics you will use to measure progress by Day 100.

I aim to pass my Drug-Free Housing legislation. I am also aiming to address immediate and pressing pedestrian safety issues in my district that have resulted in tragic, painful losses of life for our community.

Open-air drug use remains a major problem in parts of SoMa and Mid-Market. What specific actions will you take as D6 Supervisor to reduce public drug use and overdoses between 2026–2030?

I am excited for what is offered by the RESET Center pilot, and if that is successful, expanding it. I also look forward to continuing the work on creating more sober living environments for people struggling with addiction. For example, The Salvation Army’s Hope House program has been a very promising model for those with addiction who are trying to avoid drug dens in the PSH system. Working on expanding initiatives like this will be a key point of mine in a second term.

Additionally, figuring out a way to promulgate more coercive interventions for people suffering on the street is integral to solving the street addiction crisis. We will need to look at hiring more police officers and using our street outreach teams effectively to get people on the track to lasting recovery.

Should San Francisco expand its conservatorship authority for individuals repeatedly detained for drug-related crises? If yes, name one policy change you support (local or state), and the metrics you would target to ensure the updated policy is working.

Yes. Something that is not talked about a lot locally is the fact that we can make it easier to get people into conservatorships all we want, but if there are no resources to help these people, the system’s failures compound. Proposition 1 was critical to change the way in which we think about the allocation of resources for mental health care and I look forward to seeing it begin this year.

Downtown San Francisco still has one of the highest commercial vacancy rates. What actions will you take to continue to bring employers, residents, and visitors back to District 6?

Supporting more police is crucial to have all of the parties mentioned feel safe. More than that, we need to ensure the city’s business climate remains attractive and provide restaurants, bars and entertainment options for all that work and live here. I look forward to continuing my support for programs like Vacant to Vibrant and Downtown First Thursdays. These activations of spaces are critical to making downtown a destination.

How would you measure the success of downtown recovery in 2030? Please use data, and be specific.

I would like to see office vacancy rates dip below 20%. Ideally lower, but given our proximity to historic highs (i.e. an OVR of 35.7% in Q2 of 2025), even this would be a massive improvement. In 2019 Q2 we had an OVR of just 4.70%.

In 2025, San Francisco saw 625 accidental overdose deaths. I would like to see drug overdose deaths decrease significantly—they peaked in mid-2023, a year where we saw an unacceptable 810 such deaths. While they have generally decreased, they have remained consistent. I would like to see a decrease to pre-pandemic levels.

I would like to see my district’s tax revenue contributions return to pre-pandemic levels.

Should affordable-housing requirements be adjusted downtown to make mixed-income projects financially viable? If yes, how?

Yes. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and oftentimes fighting for higher rates of affordable housing sacrifices entire projects—projects with hundreds of units that would contain affordable housing or generate millions in housing fees.

We have seen nothing be built due to exceedingly high inclusionary rates that make projects go from penciling out to being thrown out.

What is your plan to ensure San Francisco fully implements SB 79? And would you support additional local incentives, such as reduced fees or lower inclusionary requirements, to make housing construction downtown financially viable?

As the downtown supervisor, I am lucky to be able to say that many parts of District Six are already exemplary of the spirit and letter of this legislation. We, more so than most, are an example of transit-oriented development—but that does not mean I would not fight for more projects near transit. I support making projects as realistic and desirable as possible through a variety of mechanisms available to us as the legislative branch of this city.

Personal

Tell us a bit about yourself!

How long have you lived in San Francisco? What brought you here and what keeps you here?

My work in local government and politics in San Francisco began more than three decades ago, when as a newly arrived college graduate I served as a deputy press secretary and campaign finance assistant to former San Francisco District Attorney Arlo Smith in his 1990 bid for California Attorney General. Following a narrow loss for that office, D.A. Smith hired me to manage his successful 1991 re-election, and in that capacity I worked on the formation of a groundbreaking District Attorney's Hate Crimes Task Force to develop protocols for investigators and prosecutors to pursue cases under what were then newly enacted hate crime statutes in California.

Following a period of several years in which I worked in the Clinton Administration's Democratic National Committee and as a Democratic political consultant, I worked in 2001 for Dennis Herrera's campaign for City Attorney of San Francisco. Following Dennis Herrera's election, I soon after joined his office as communications director and senior advisor, and our work together over the next 14 years encompassed the broad panoply of high-profile legal issues facing the City and County of San Francisco — including housing, tenant protections, public safety, consumer protection, public integrity and more. Two of the highest profile achievements during my tenure in that office, in which my own role was central, involved that office's nine-year legal battle for LGBTQ+ marriage equality and the lawsuit that saved City College of San Francisco from closure by rogue accreditors.

After a three-year period in private sector consulting, which included successfully defending San Francisco's restrictions on vaping products from a well-funded ballot measure campaign by Juul Labs, Inc., I joined the San Francisco Police Department as director of strategic communications in January 2020. In that role, I managed a media relations unit that was distinguished among its public sector counterparts for 24/7 accessibility and that played a leading role in evangelizing the importance of 21st century police reforms that SFPD had been pursuing since 2016.

What do you love most about San Francisco?

What I love about San Francisco is its fearlessness in leading boldly and nationally. I'm proud to have been part of those kinds of nationally watched efforts in our City's work to win marriage equality, and I was part of it again at the San Francisco Police Department for its ambitious work to become a model of 21st century police reform.

What do you dislike the most about San Francisco?

The flip side of San Francisco's national leadership, however, is that its policy making too often ventures into the realm of performative — sending a message, rather than implementing serious change where it is needed. My answer on S.F. Administrative Code Chapter 12, regarding city contracting, is a good example of this: policies that may send a message, but that are decidedly not good government.

Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)

Prior to being appointed and then elected to the District 6 seat on the Board of Supervisors, I’ve been an active member of San Francisco’s recovery community, LGBTQ+ organizations, and a regular congregant at faith communities that include Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church (where I served for four years on the Parish Council) and St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, where I am currently a regular congregant. I married the love of my life last year, and my husband and I soon after became doggie daddies to a rescue puppy and, six months later, to another puppy that had become his dog-park girlfriend.

Why do you want to run for public office?

I am running for District 6 Supervisor to represent the people and communities of District 6. I believe my more than 30 years of experience in and around San Francisco local government and politics prepares me well to be a forceful, independent and effective advocate for those I represent and for the City I serve.

Thank you

Thank you for giving us your time and answering our questionnaire. We look forward to reading your answers and considering your candidacy!