Some of my best friends support Dean Preston. Really! And I get where they’re coming from.
They see the various injustices in our city.
They understand that San Francisco is getting more expensive to live in. Maybe they're college students, barely making rent, or folks who worked hard to make a good living, and still can't imagine having kids here.
They feel for the cyclists and pedestrians who risk their lives every time they cross the street. Vision zero? More like zero vision.
Dean Preston, in my view, had been a commendable tenant's rights activist years ago. And I appreciate it when he crosses the aisle to support car-free JFK St, in Golden Gate Park.
Here's the part that pisses me off, though. Even though he sometimes talks a good game, and is always ready with a photo op, his votes and bills work against the interests of his supporters and ultimately serve almost no one.
While proclaiming his leftist bona fides, he in fact mostly acts to help the interests of wealthier San Franciscans, and especially the property owners in his district.
Dean’s voters are disproportionately whiter and richer (or at least, pay higher rent), because ultimately he’s not for the working class he claims to represent: he’s for someone who doesn’t want their neighborhood character to change, or care about new homes being built, because they’re doing just fine themselves.
The way I see it, he plays his progressive supporters and volunteers like a fiddle, orchestrating League of Pissed Off Voter endorsements that end up always endorsing the capital-P Progressive establishment of our city’s politics. Getting himself on Fox News and the New York Post, making an embarrassment of San Francisco governance, to mobilize his base in his support. He takes dramatic stands against new homes, like voting for a valet parking lot over 500 homes just because “only” 25% of them (more than is usually possible) would be subsidized. And those are just the most egregious examples.
Dean Preston knows as well as the experts do that when we build more homes, the market price goes down, and that building more normal apartments would increase the budget (via fees) for subsidized low-income housing. But he opposes almost all new projects regardless.
And that hypocrisy is what frustrates me. I'm all for left-leaning policies, like Elizabeth Warren-style curbs on over-financialization, as long as they're well-implemented. Sure, cut police staffing budgets, but compensate for that with speed cameras that will fairly and equitably keep all our neighborhoods safe from speeding cars and violent offenders.
Here’s a good, wonky example: In 2020, Preston wrote Prop I and got it passed, which increased the transfer tax, a sales tax that applies to all homes, apartment buildings, and office buildings. This tax on new construction during the Covid recession is still in effect, and it means that fewer new projects can pencil out. Even more infuriating, a 100-unit apartment building is taxed at a much higher rate than a $4 million mansion, perhaps like Preston’s own.
And the last straw (for the econ nerds) — the transfer tax is not marginal, which means that a new $10M apartment building has a $550,000 fee, while one that sells for a dollar less would only need to pay $225,000. Imagine if that’s how income taxes worked!
I’m a 7-year resident of this city who has lived almost all my life in the Bay Area. I’ve listened to various perspectives, advocated on behalf of navigation centers for those experiencing homelessness, and talked to our politicians and voters alike. I campaigned for more homes in 2022, Yes on Prop D, which Dean managed to narrowly defeat by 1% with a misleading counterproposal. Yes, I may be a tech bro, but I hope my perspective is as valid as any other, and I personally am ready for a change, and even some growth.
Dean Preston’s policies work to benefit an elite few, those who want to see SF wither, rather than grow. They hurt our broader community. As a long-term resident of the Bay Area, I believe San Francisco needs leadership that genuinely represents and benefits all its citizens. The city needs a new direction—one that truly embodies our progressive values and addresses the pressing challenges we face. It's time for a change.
