Catherine Stefani's triumphant primary election night reveals her stance on public safety, housing, and education. Her endorsement of Mayor London Breed, views on Proposition B's defeat, and commitment to nonprofit accountability and victims' rights highlight her vision for a safer, more equitable San Francisco.
You had a big election night in March. Not only did you easily qualify for the general election for the California state assembly, but you were also the top vote-getter in the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) race. How does it feel?
Catherine Stefani: It was a very good night. I felt very pleased to see the vote count for the DCCC in terms of winning with the highest percentage for both districts. So we felt really good about it and it confirmed for us that our message is resonating with San Francisco voters and San Mateo as well.
What do March results mean for the November election in San Francisco?
I think the trends are continuing along the lines of people wanting their city to be safe. They want more housing created in their city. They want their public schools to teach all sorts of subjects. I think what you've seen in 2022, with the recalls and an incumbent supervisor losing his seat in District 4 — and then what you saw in this primary — is a consistent voter turnout that is rooted in getting the basics that they deserve from their government.
You used to work for Mark Farrell. Are you a supporter of his mayoral candidacy?
I have endorsed Mayor London Breed and have a lot of respect for Mark. I wouldn't be in my position had it not been for Mark believing in me. I worked for him for five years and I have a lot of faith in him. So I'll have that discussion with him first, but I believe he would make a good mayor.
Are you considering changing your endorsement?
No, I've endorsed Mayor Breed and I'm not going to withdraw my endorsement for her. But San Francisco has ranked choice voting and there's different ways to handle that when you believe in more than one person.
One notable March election result was the resounding defeat of Proposition B, which would have made police full staffing contingent on a new tax. Why did you support Prop. B?
The problem with Prop B was that there wasn't a lot of input from many stakeholders, including 911 operators, nurses, and those who could be affected by a large set-aside without a real vision of how you get people in those positions. And that was my problem with it. It wasn't a “cop tax”. That was good messaging for the people who were opposed to it, but I was never for a cop tax and never for charging more for the services that I think we are obligated to provide. If you're really trying to solve our police staffing crisis, you have to figure out why people don't want to be police officers.
Let's discuss your recent bill to standardize nonprofit performance metrics across the city. Do you think it will affect how we spend money?
It's more expensive for the city to deliver certain services than it is to contract nonprofits — services like housing, healthcare, and recovery. So we need those nonprofits. And there are a lot of good nonprofits doing very good work. The problem is that the nonprofit corruption cases make people lose faith in their government. And that is a huge thing. You don't want people losing faith in their government. So you need to get a handle on where taxpayer dollars are going and whether it is being spent wisely. We are going to create performance standards and ways to review whether or not the nonprofit is meeting the mark.
If we make all these nonprofit scorecards will they actually be used and enforced?
The evaluations of nonprofits’ performance will be public and it will be transparent. So with that information, if the Board of Supervisors continues to invest in a nonprofit that's not delivering, it will look bad for them. So I think that this transparency is going to be able to hold a lot of people accountable, not just the nonprofits, not just the departments, but also the supervisors that continue to approve contracts when sometimes they shouldn't. It was like my pretrial diversion contract vote a while back. I was the only one who voted “No” when they were extending it for three years for another $80 million. We had proof that the information they were giving us on how they were doing was not true. And now that the evaluation of their performance will be centralized, I think it will be easier to hold everyone accountable.
You've been a champion of victims' rights. What else can we do for crime victims?
There are victims of crime who aren't offered anything from the city and victims of crime who might never see a case that goes to trial. That's why I created the Office of Victim and Witness Rights. A lot of victims of crime don't want to get involved with law enforcement, especially in the domestic violence sphere, but they're still victims of crime and they need help. I definitely believe that we owe more to the victims than we give them.
Why does no one talk about Recology and its bribery of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru and its overbilling of San Francisco residents? Why do they still have a monopoly?
It did go through a court process where they had a settlement. Hopefully, through this last lawsuit and what they've learned, Recology is going to do better. We just actually had a contract that was going to be covered by a different company, Allied Waste, but now they’ve pulled out. So we're in a situation where we have to put that contract out on the market again. Until there's another competitive contractor out there, Recology is the company that we have.
For the full interview with Catherine Stefani, tune in to Ben Kaplan’s WE ARE SAN FRANCISCO podcast and YouTube show.
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