With 100 percent of San Francisco’s precincts reporting, but plenty of mail-in and provisional ballots yet to be counted, the early results for all the key measures below are holding. But the margin for the so-called Airbnb Measure F has narrowed (down to 55 percent No), as has the margin for the Mission Moratorium Measure I (down to 57 percent No), while the margin for Measure A, the City’s Affordable Housing Bond, has increased another point (up to 73 percent Yes).

Based on the results of 66,339 votes at the polls and 65,923 mail-in ballots (a quarter of the 257,758 mail-in ballots which were issued), San Francisco Ballot Measures A (Affordable Housing Bond), D (Mission Rock), and K (Surplus Public Land Use) are passing while Measures F (Short-Term Rental Restrictions) and I (Mission Moratorium) are failing.

UPDATED: The latest counts for the measures above based on 184,733 ballots cast (see UPDATES below):

Measure A – Passed (73.91% Yes, 26.09% No) requires 66.6% + 1 to pass
Measure D – Passed (73.98% Yes, 26.02% No)
Measure F – Failed (44.24% Yes, 55.76% No)
Measure I – Failed (42.34% Yes, 57.66% No)
Measure K – Passed (73.92% Yes, 26.08% No)

The full election results: November 3, 2015 Unofficial Election Results.

There are likely another 40,000 or so mail-in ballots that have yet to be counted and added to the tallies above.

UPDATE(11/4): Another 8,684 mail-in ballots have been tallied. And while they haven’t changed the outcome of any election day results, the effective voter turnout is up to 31.54 percent and counting.

UPDATE (11/5): Another 14,729 mail-in ballots have been tallied. And once again, none of the of the early outcomes have changed. But in the eyes of Lloyd Christmas, there’s still a chance.

UPDATE (11/6): Another 16,478 mail-in ballots have been tallied. Once again, none of the of the early outcomes have changed. And while the results haven’t been certified, it’s now mathematically impossible for any of the results above to change.

UPDATE (11/9): Another 9,087 mail-in ballots have been tallied and added to the outcomes above.  And while the margins remain the same, the voter turnout is now officially (just) over 40 percent.

107 thoughts on “San Francisco Election Results, No Real Surprises To Be Had”
  1. Wow, I am surprised by the results on proposition F. Then again 138,000 city residents stayed in Airbnb rentals or hosted guests themselves in the past year (per Airbnb counts itself), which means it’s an entire part of the culture now.

    The Supes were wrong to overregulate. Housing issues in SF are 60% turnover constraints and 40% supply/demand inadequacy. Let rents float, allow reasonable flexibility and owners like me will not have to put their place on Airbnb. I would love so much to avoid the work of corporate rentals, but between this and the risk of the typical slow-motion train wreck of renting out long term with no exit, I will choose the former.

      1. Yup. I have said it many times, but means testing is the way to go. And the difference between market rent and the price someone can afford should be a city subsidy. Let the voters pay for the cost of the policies they want.

        1. That sounds good, but means testing won’t really work going forward. Landlords are already hesitant to rent to poor and lower-middle-class folks for obvious reasons, but nobody is going to rent to them if it means the landlord is subjected to rent control on the property. Even folks who make good money now but are seen as a possible risk of being poor in the future will be out of luck.

          Now I guess maybe we could eliminate rent control completely going forward and only grandfather it in for poor and seniors. But they might as well just grandfather it for everyone in this case. That’s what the state proposition (which lost) a few years ago did. Removing rent control would still be a big win for landlords. And a deal is a deal: middle class folks paid more initially for rent controlled units and they shouldn’t lose that just because they aren’t poor enough.

          1. Well, we need to ask ourselves 1) what is the purpose of rent subsidies (let’s call rent control what it is) and 2) how can we make it as just as possible.

            1) rent subsidies like rent control have the clear purpose to keep a diverse range of people from various backgrounds, especially people who make its soul today. Some would find this debatable, but for the sake of discussion, let’s assume it’s a valuable goal.

            2) Making a just system has to be approached from 2 standpoints: A – the tenants: if someone can afford market rent, he should pay for it. If he cannot but is close by 1000 or 1500/month, then it would be reasonable to subsidize. If taxpayers have to pay 3000/month to keep someone in SF, then we have a problem. B – who pays for the subsidy. Since rent control has been voted into law, the burden has been solely on the landlord, and since supply has been artificially constrained, on newcomers. That is not a just system, but it’s a practical one since landlords are a captive element (there will ALWAYS be landlords since someone has to own a unit), and newcomers are the lucky few among many who would want to live here.

            A just system would be affordable housing for people who deserve it, and since keeping the middle class in SF is a policy desired by a majority, then ALL SF citizen should pay for it.

            Anything else means taking from a minority’s pocket to fill the majority’s. This is what rent control is today.

          2. san FronziScheme: I agree with everything you wrote. I just don’t understand how your means testing approach would work. Why would landlords choose to rent to tenants who might trigger rent control (e.g. poor and middle class tenants) when they could instead rent their units to affluent tenants and substantially reduce that risk? It seems like it would make the situation even worse for low income people seeking rental housing here. Or would you require landlords to accept tenants without regard to their income, credit, and employment status? That seems like an even worse infringement on landlord rights than rent control is.

          3. Flash,

            I think what s FS is saying is that a person would be means tested for a city subsidy. Rents would all now be market rate and a subsidy would be used to give lower and middle income people an extra 500-1500 dollar in purchasing power. That might not sound like a lot. But if rent control were abolished, average prices would fall and vacant units would become rentable again. Also, the older housing stock currently doesn’t have much turnover and inexpensive housing will always be in older buildings (unless it’s construction by the government or by government program). By abolishing rent control, working class families will have greater flexibility in where they live, because what they pay won’t be tied to how long they’ve lived in one location.

          4. Frog basically answered for me…

            The end of rent control would cause some massive shifts between tenants towards a more efficient system than would be more family friendly. Empty nester hogging the 3Bedooms they pay 1300/month would have to downgrade and this would free up a family unit. Some people making less than median pay would have to live in studios. A number of people would be moving to the suburbs because otherwise they would have to pay the real cost of housing in San Francisco.

          5. While I understand the desire to shift the burden of rent control to the city instead of to individual landlords, I think you are overlooking one key fact: Rent controlled buildings, and especially buildings with protected tenants, have a market value much lower then the fair market value without these restrictions. Are landlords who own these buildings entitled to what could be a hundreds of thousands of dollars increase in value, or should it be the city who is allowed to recapture the increase in value?

            I would propose if your system is enacted, that individual landlords should have to buy their unit out of rent control at a cost equivalent to its estimated market value before and after the event (an amount the city could offer and be challenged in court similar to eminent domain valuation). The proceeds of which would go to fund rent subsidization.

          6. RobBob, excellent idea. The amount should be roughly the price difference between condos and TICs, because this is the only real metric we can measure. That’s between 15 and 30% iirc.

          7. But isn’t the landlord’s gain in value simply an offset off loss of value to the landlords when the city implemented rent control in the first place? Further, there have been a number of changes to the rent control rules over the last ~40 years, and I don’t think landlords had to “pay” if they benefitted from any of those changes – so it’d be hard to justify imposing that scheme now.

          8. SierraJeff,

            I agree that this would be an imperfect method and that this would unfairly punish “some” of the rent controlled landlords. Yes rules have also changed with time, which diminished equity little by little.

            But sincerely, I see it that way: a pack of bullies has you cornered with 2 solutions: 1 – the pain of a slow ugly infinite beating, 2 – a one time pay out to eliminate the bullies once and for all. The second option sure looks tempting.

        2. A direct subsidy/voucher system makes more sense than rent control but a big downside is the huge bureaucracy needed to administer such a system. The potential for fraud would remain – as there is some fraud in rent control with a few longtime renters owning homes in other areas and living in their SF rent-controlled place just part time.

          It gets tricky too. If someone is shown to own another home that might disqualify them from a subsidy.

          But what about the 75 year old who is on SS and a small pension. Gets by and inherited a Santa Cruz cabin. Does not use the cabin as the person no longer drives. They let their nieces and nephews use it. Would that person be forced to sell the cabin. As opposed to the renter who is actually living in a place of their own while keeping the rent-controlled apartment here.

          Folks assume the end of rent control means rents fall. I don’t know about that. All the condos built downtown did not lower condo prices.

          Renter would be dubious about this and probably question the reality of any subsidy covering the additional rent costs they would face.

          Plus how is this funded? Say rents don’t fall but remain flat. One person I know rents a 2 bedroom for 1200/month. They have been there for 25 years. Recently rented units in the building like this one go for 4500K/month. That would be a 3300K subsidy. How the subsidy works and all would be worked out but this could be a budget-buster for SF.

          1. Building 50,000 condo units downtown would *definitely* lower unit prices. How many were actually added, a few thousand?

          2. for your 1200/month friend, the subsidy would be capped at $1500 and he’d have to pay market rent minus $1500. Now this friend might want to scale down to a 1BR. Pay $2000, get $1500 in subsidy and you’re good.

          3. How did an article about election results get converted to (yet another) diatribe on rent control? Fergeddiboutit! The issue is never going to reach the ballot.

          4. Airbnb’s success in SF and rent control go hand-in-hand. All the restrictions added on short term rentals are precisely to prevent rent controlled apartment to disappear from the available pool.

    1. Nobody HAS to put their place on Airbnb, it’s a choice. And it’s a scofflaw choice that allows you to profit while circumventing our tenant and zoning laws, and externalizing the costs onto local renters and your neighbors.

      You knew about rent control when you bought, you went ahead even though there were plenty of alternatives. Or if you bought pre-1979, then your place should be paid off and making a windfall on rents, or you can sell for 1000% profit, unless of course you used it as an ATM machine.

      Bottom line – people like you want to have their cake and eat it too.

      1. Not a scofflaw since I do corporate 30+ days. It’s perfectly legal and any of my guests can choose to opt for a long term lease except that would not make sense financially.

      2. I love how you get to decide for others how much profit or loss is appropriate for them? Typical entitlement attitude as it is the antithesis of self reliance.

        1. Indeed. There are some people who wish to decide how much profit others should be receiving. It’s a communist mentality that stems from either envy or some other deep rooted hatred for others profiting.

          1. Yes, and the hatred is multiplied by the fact that the market will always find a way to crush the hopes of free lunch at someone else’s expense.

            Sabbie is essentially stuck in 2008 when capitalism was supposed to be on its way out. “used it as an ATM machine”: I hadn’t seen that since 2009 when the subprime and other craziness had crashed. This expression is totally inappropriate in this context since “ATM machine” refers to extracting paper equity out of a property. In my case, I am simply chasing the best return on investment. I have put my own money into my RE and have no mortgage.

      3. Sabble – I bought my two unit building (I live in one unit) before 1994. In 1994, Prop. I passed which added 2-4 unit buildings to the City’s Rent Ordinance. Am I eating cake?

    2. Yesterday was a triumph for the free market! Run the tenants out of town and sell to owner occupants. I want a property rights agenda. Rent control will die a slow death because you cannot constrain markets.

      1. RC should apply to all property including future construction with after pegging at reasonable amounts with allowance for periodic increases. Residential housing is just too vital a societal issue to be left to the vagaries of the “Market.”

        1. I would go the opposite direction – because residential housing is so important, it’s the last thing that should be left to the known inefficiencies and shortages always caused by central planning. This isn’t 1915, where there’s still a question over which economic system works better.

        2. Look around you. Except if you are in social housing constructed by the county or in a jail or a prison, you are surrounded by walls constructed by someone who built your place for a profit. Things were expensive to the 49ers, to the 1906 survivors, to all generations that settled and tried to make it in SF, but there’s one thing that doesn’t change, it’s that someone will build homes to rent them out, and people who are tired of the temporary nature of renting will want to build their own house, or purchase them from someone else.

          Only the entitled spoiled brats of SF will find that property is theft and should be seized from owners. In the rest of the US, people man-up and make their own destiny.

          1. Residential housing is just too vital a societal issue to be left to the vagaries of the “Market.”

          2. Interesting that your answer is verbatim the line I answered to. Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V doesn’t make for a counter argument.

            Maybe next time you should put quotes like “Little Red Book Page 263, paragraph 6”

      2. Actually, a real return to the free market would include:

        1. Repeal of Prop 13

        2. Repeal of the mortgage interest deduction

        I’m glad all of you support the free market and are such vociferous opponents of the nanny-state asset-class coddling that Prop 13 and the the mortgage interest deduction represent.

        1. I completely agree, and if you follow what te regulars have been saying on SS for more than 5 years, most people who want to repeal rent control also want prop 13 to be done.

          Prop 13 started with the same good intentions: an old widow is on a fixed income, her quaint neighborhood starts to become extremely desirable and suddenly property prices double or triple. Property taxes would follow property prices in lockstep and granny had no other choice than sell and move out. At least that’s how HJTA sold us this thing.

          36 years later, the end result is similar to rent control. You have people on Billionaire Row paying less in property taxes than the young couple in their $850K TIC. You have empty nesters who do not want to move on and downscale because there’s no incentive to do so. You have little turnover and this makes supply very limited. With the high demand that we have had in the last 20 years, this makes SF one of the most expensive places to buy a place in America. And no gilded gates or security guys driving around in their golf carts to keep us safe: we get the smell of urine and crazies hanging around aimlessly all around town to show for our high end prices. It’s a good thing they all reek of pot though. At least there’s one thing to enjoy.

        2. Why would you assume that we’re not adamantly against both of those things? Of course I’d love to see repeal of both. Why in the world wouldn’t I?

          1. Every person who wants to defend rent control assume the other side is full of self-interested profiteurs.

            The “old” logo of the SFTU used to be a guy crushing the top hat of a capitalist holding a money bag.

            They do not really care if the other side is diverse and complex in its thinking, all they need is very simple to shout US-vs-THEM sound bites for their protests.

    3. 29% voter turnout is an absolute shame, so not clear what the city’s populace actually favors. It should be required to vote.

      1. As we reported above, there are likely another 40,000 or so mail-in ballots that have yet to be tallied, which would bring the effective turnout up to around 40 percent.

    4. Oh please. This canard again? JHC. Rent control has absolutely nothing to do with housing supply limits in California. Costa-Hawkins has insured that. Given that new construction projects are exempt from rent control, and have been for anything built after February 1, 1995, rent control is not an impediment to housing supply production. The regulatory constraints on housing supply in San Francisco (as well as the Bay Area and the rest of California) are entirely a function of CEQA and local zoning/design review.

      The amount of supply kept “off market” due to rent control is always gross over-stated by anti-rent control zealots. Its as much a phantom as the “shadow inventory” of REOs that was supposed to flood the market and spell our doom.

      Ending rent control would not make renting a unit via AirBnB less attractive. There are plenty of markets WITHOUT rent control all across the country that are located in destination markets where the same thing is happening with landlords moving from long term rentals to short term rentals via AirBnB. Austin, Texas – in the state with some of the most unregulated housing policies in the country – is seeing a boom in AirBnB rentals, many in residential neighborhoods. Along with a backlash by homeowners similar to what is happening in SF. This is happening all over the country.

      And we have a real-time, real-world example of what happens when you end rent control. Its called Massachusetts, which ended rent control statewide in the 1990s. At the time, only three cities in the state had rent control – Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge. The 1st two had a vacancy decontrol style system, and Cambridge was more strict rent control. So you have a before-and-after data in real-world, real-time experiment that you rarely get to have. The result – average rents in those 3 markets went UP, and the only effect was a large scale displacement of lower income tenants by higher income tenants. There was no net new housing production spurred by ending rent control in those cities, and the vast majority of building permits pulled post-rent control was for existing building renovations as landlords upgraded their units cosmetically in order to rent to higher income tenants.

      1. No, my supply comment was about the fact that many units are hogged by rent controlled tenants for decades. There is little turnover and very poor market efficiency. Our housing system is sclerotic. Without rent control maybe 10% of tenants would have to move out of SF which would provide supply for greatly needed middle class families.

        1. FWIW, in July SS reported the EIR for the prop A bond found that the average RC tenancy was 9 years. Ted Egan, the main author of the report, commented on SS about their method. From their results and US Census data it is easy to calculate the average for non-RC is 6 years. Clearly, RC gives people an incentive to stay put, but we shouldn’t exaggerate the aggregate effect. Not much solace for the unlucky owner of a small RC building that hasn’t had a turnover in 20+ years, but their day will come.

          1. Very interesting metric.

            I would bet there’s much more turnover among the most recent tenants.

            Rents 9 years ago were roughly 1/2 of what they are today (even less than 1/2 from anecdotal evidence). This means that our average rent controlled tenant would see his rent double on the open market. You need a good reason for wanting to give up that sweet deal.

          2. Im not convinced those stats are accurate, much less for the last several years. I’ve only had one tenant stay six years in non RC. All others are 1-3 years max. And other LL’s I know would report the same thing. Data is not robust enough to non critically rely on it.

        1. Rent control is also the result of self-interest. People who do not want to pay more rent or do not wish to move to the suburbs are doing it not for the ideology but for their well-being (keeping more of their money, living where they like to live). They do not do it because they feel that San Francisco would not be able to survive without them, since this would be utterly preposterous.

          In short: everyone defends his self interest, by definition.

          Proof: the tenants that get defended by evictionfreeSF will all take a payout. Like the 460 Noe tenant who make such a fuss and ended cashing out and moving to a sweet desert city. No more Fog for him!

      2. Love your Massachusetts example. Geez, rents went up from the 1990’s to today! Ummm….that’s a 20 year +/- timeframe. Duh, of course rents would go up. And those are all highly urbanized areas with very little vacant land, so not much rental housing was built. Without taking these factors into account, you’re pissing in the wind. Try to be more objective, nnnkkaayyyy?

      1. This is by no means a statement for or against prop A, but maybe he wanted to pay less in property tax. The text in the ballot guide was a little sneaky, it said property tax would not increase — but it said in somewhat cryptic language that property tax would decrease without thus proposition, making it a defacto increase. Depending on how much property you own it could cost you tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the bond.

        [Editor’s Note: Affordable Housing Bond Cost Analysis.]

      2. Prop A is quite regressive and that it directs hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to the benefit of a select few. Such people will now be be indebted to populist politicians,and future residents will have to pay in the form of taxes designed to pay off the debt.

        I have not seen a coherent argument outlining why SF residents should be on the hook for providing such excessive subsidies. Most importantly, is not clear that the recipients need or deserve such a lavish subsidies. There is affordable housing already in places such as Vallejo and Richmond, among others.

        1. Very well said. You really get the essence of what this subsidy is about.

          However, against my rational self, I have to endorse Prop A. People are deeply unhappy with the housing situation. Market could help. But it would not work fast enough, nor could massive building or even repeal of rent control can possibly drive the rent anywhere close to the level poor people can afford soon enough. People want something to be done. They need a victory. 300M is expensive and benefit only a few. So this is what the housing bond is about. We have to open the pocket and keep people happy, a compromise to make if only to keep the backlash like Mission Moratorium and other development to go forward.

        2. Its a transfer of wealth payment from those who have more to those who have less. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that unless your’e just selfish. But the commenter above has adopted “Rentier” as his online nym, which tells you exactly all you need to know about where his coming from.

          Rentiers – the least productive members of a society.

          1. If you’ve been on SS these past few years, SFRentier has built his wealth by himself. Just like I did. 20 years ago I was seriously underwater. Today I have achieved financial independence to the point that I do my day job for pleasure, not for the money.

            And in the mean time I have provided quality housing to roughly 45 people in these 20 years, excluding the corporate rental gig.

            Least productive?

          2. Umm excuuuusseee me housingwonk. I take big risks to provide housing to people in this city. I put up my own capital and assets to do so. I’m a giver. It’s not my fault the kooky politics of this city have also rewarded me with nice profits; RC, restrictive land use policies, etc. severely limit supply, increase demand, and provide for profits. And thanks BTW for everyone who voted in peskin; a nice guarantee that this system will perpetuate.

            What do you do? Mooch off a cheap RC rental?

        3. It seems likely that the fed will increase interest rates in either Q4 2015 or Q1 2016.

          That will increase the overall bond cost, won’t it?

          1. If the fed increases rates soon we’ll likely head back into recession and thus even lower rates. TIPs spreads show low interest rates as far as the eye can see.

  2. UPDATE: With 41.7 percent of San Francisco’s precincts reporting, adding 24,870 votes to the mail-in count, the early results for the measures above are holding, but the margin for the so-called Airbnb Measure F has narrowed (from 61 to 58 percent voting No) while the margin for Measure A, the City’s Affordable Housing Bond, has increased a couple points (up to 72 percent Yes).

    1. The percentage of votes against Lee is quite interesting, given that there was virtually zero organized campaigning against him. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if there had been a strong organized opponent…

  3. UPDATE: With 100 percent of San Francisco’s precincts reporting, but plenty of mail-in and provisional ballots yet to be counted, the early results for the measures above are still holding but the margin for the so-called Airbnb Measure F has narrowed again (down to 55 percent No) as has the margin for the Mission Moratorium Measure I (down to 57 percent No). The margin for Measure A, the City’s Affordable Housing Bond, has increased another point (up to 73 percent Yes with 66.6 percent required to pass).

    With 132,262 ballots tallied so far, there are likely another 40,000 or so mail-in ballots that have yet to be added to the count.

  4. looks like the mayor got most of what he wanted, except for peskin.

    Ed Lee will get fewer votes than he did 4 years ago because of low voter turnout. Without a competitive mayor’s race and the only votes that were as close as even ~10% were Prop F and District 3 Supervillain. How many people really care about either of those.

    Airbnb reportedly spent $8+ million and will end up with ~80k votes. They coulda bought every voter a night at a cheap motel for that and all I got were some lousy mailers.

    1. “looks like the mayor got most of what he wanted, except for peskin.”

      Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

      1. Peskin may make things more difficult for Lee, but three BOS are termed out next year, including two of the most opposed to Lee. Good chance Lee has a favorable BOS for most of his new term.

        I think getting the $300 million bond to build pet housing projects (need to sharpen his blue ribbon cutting scissors) and seeing the other anti-development/Lee initiatives fail is plenty of popular validation for his policies, whether any of us on SS agree with them or not.

  5. Peskin won. All of Julie’s bs and big talk from the SF BARF was just that -BARF. Sonja and her band of white knights trolling online doesn’t win at the polls. And with the new disclosure requirements coming, we’ll finally get the real story on BARF.

    1. Prop C kinda flew under the radar in terms of not getting the attention of the other measures. Will be interesting what sort of info comes out of the woodwork – not just SFBARF, but from a lot of groups.

  6. The only one that sort of surprises me is F. I thought it would be closer. Then again Airbnb has turned a fair number of SF homeowners into small business folks. That over time may create a new voting bloc in SF much as renters tend to be a voting bloc on certain issues.

    The Mission Moratorium was a reaction, though draconian, to the affordability crisis in SF. A much better approach would have been an initiative significantly increasing the BMR requirement on any major SF residential construction. Maybe with a kicker allowing developers to exceed height limits (not bulk limits) if they exceed the mandated requirement.

    1. Prop F’s complexity doomed it from the start. When you cram too much into a proposition, it makes it that march harder to pass. And the “sue your neighbor” provision – while overblown by AirBnB – had enough truth to the criticisms to kill it. If the proponents had taken a much narrow focus, their messaging would have been clearer and possibility of success greater. But when you combine hotel unions, tenant activists and NIMBY homeowners into a single ballot measure, you just get a hot mess.

  7. Peskin is back. Yikes.

    There is “Supervisor crazy” and there’s Peskin crazy. He has created his own league of overreaching busybodyism. Expect every aspect of your life to be scrutinized, criticized and overregulated.

          1. That’s how people go to Sacramento: get elected and be so hated by everyone in your hometown that they’ll promote you out.

      1. Not a matter of worse, as both are worse. But I think Campos got a lot of Latino momentum and solidarity behind him. He had high visibility. Peskin has been out of the running for awhile, so it will take him time to build a new momentum of followers IMO. Sure the existing, old white boomer loonies are excited, but he’ll need to work hard to get the younger and more ethnicity diverse crowd to follow him. That’s my hunch.

        1. Peskin is the Man Behind The Curtain for everything NB of TH. No worries, he still knows how to work his rolodex.

      2. What are the main differences between old white progressives and latino/Asian progressives?

        Peskin may represent the old white progressives. Campos/Avalos represent Latino progressives, Mar/Kim represent Asian progressives. Do all 4 Latino and Asian progressives term out next year? Hope we will get some younger supervisors with a little bit sanity.

      3. SF has 48% white but only 3/11 white supervisors. Black is 6% population but 2/11 supervisors. Seems that white politicians are not very active in SF.

  8. Even though Prop I was defeated, how many project approvals could still be appealed to the BOS? Just the ones that require an EIR certification? In theory, with Peskin’s election there’s now a majority which might be prepared to reject every market rate project they’re asked to consider.

    1. Just heard Ross on the KTVU News at noon blaming City Hall for all his problems.
      His character refuses to accept any responsibility for his actions; and he was rewarded at the ballot box.

      1. His latest ridiculous act was when he decided to show up in uniform without his gun contrary to the rule. He looked really awkward.

  9. What is the City spending per unit to build BMRs lately, $800k a piece? So Basically 90k voted for a 400 extremely lucky few to have a cheap place in SF. The slogan could have read “better than nothing” I guess.

  10. Isn’t it time to end off year elections?

    1. They are not necessary
    2. Voter turnout always stinks
    3. They cost a lot of money

    We just need two elections a year in even numbered years.

  11. Why did San Francisco Apartment Association endorse Peskin? is it because rent control benefits new apartment owners so that new constructions can get more rent?

    Peskin is also a landlord. What kind of buildings does Peskin own?

    “San Francisco Apartment Association, a membership group of rental building owners and property managers, voted to endorse Peskin.”

    1. Peskin appears to own a few SFHs on telegraph hill. One one Filbert, another on the Filbert Steps and one more on Napier Ln (right off the Filbert Steps). This is what shows up for properties in his name, there could be others owned in an LLC.

      1. Didn’t check well enough, the Napier Ln property is 3 units and the Filbert steps property is 2 units. The Filbert St property is a condo.

        So yes, he is a landlord.

    2. Apartment Associate hates Ed Lee because he didn’t veto the tenant protections 2.0 legislation. Julie was his lady, so they supported Aaron. Also, they thought he would win so figured better to get on his good side now.

      1. I think your last sentence is the largest reason. The writing has been on the wall – nobody who actually pays attention to SF politics expected Julie to win. She lost weeks if not months ago. She put her foot in her mouth one too many times and she had not natural constituency outside of hard-core Lee supporters.

        Lee pissed off Rose Pak by not appointing Cindy Wu – and CCDC was strongly opposed to JS – which means JS didn’t have the Chinatown machine behind her. Aaron didn’t originally have Chinatown behind him when he was first elected, but he did a good job once in office building bridges with that community. You combine that with his long standing relationships in North Beach and Telegraph Hill, and it was over well before it was over.

    3. The SFAA are mostly pushovers. It’s basically an association made of of angry yet timid old property owners and management fee houses and thier employees funded by feel good events and a monthly magazine made only for ad revenue.

      1. And their yearly dues are frickin ridiculous! At least SPOSFI is reasonably priced, and provides a decent little newsletter, and when you want to get depressed, monthly meetings.

        Only good thing about SFAA is their monthly mag. Read (parts of it) free online anyways. Balaboombalabim. Done.

    4. The SFAA no longer represents owners. They have evolved into a guild for Landlord Attorneys who pay for all the ads in the SFAA magazine. They don’t want to overturn rent control or give landlords an alternative to it. They only want to maintain the status quo so SF attorneys can keep their specialty practice going strong. Look at their record: they are absolute failures on everything they lobby for. I am defecting to SPOSFI – they more accurately reflect the desires of ownership.

    5. Probably because, even though they mightn’t like his ideology, they know he’s competent and that what you see with him is what you get. Competency and straightforwardness trump ideology in city politics.

  12. Huge surprise that 43% of vote for mayor went to nobodies like Broke-Ass Stuart. Imagine they unite behind one candidate who get 43% v.s. Ed Lee’s 57%. I think it is a black eye to Lee.

  13. UPDATE: Another 8,684 mail-in ballots have been tallied. And while they haven’t changed the outcome of any election day results, the effective voter turnout is up to 31.54 percent and counting.

  14. UPDATE: Another 16,478 mail-in ballots have been tallied. Once again, none of the of the early outcomes have changed. And while the results haven’t been certified, it’s now mathematically impossible for any of the results above to change.

  15. UPDATE (11/9): Another 9,087 mail-in ballots have been counted and added to the tallies above.  And while the margins of victory, or defeat, all remain the same, the voter turnout is now officially (just) over 40 percent.

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