Local Candidate Questionnaire: Theo Ellington, 2018 Candidate for San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Here at TechEquity, we believe that voting down the ballot is crucial for active, local citizenship. While a lot of the national spotlight is on congressional races, there are a multitude of local candidates that have the potential to make significant impacts on your communities.
We’ve reached out to candidates for San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Oakland Mayor, City Councillors of Oakland and Berkeley, and CA State Assemblymembers to answer our five-part questionnaire. Check out our index of the seats on the ballot and the candidates who have responded to our questionnaire.
Below are the questionnaire responses from Theo Ellington, 2018 candidate for San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Disclaimer:
We’re a nonpartisan 501c3 non-profit, which means we cannot and do not endorse candidates. With that in mind, we gave every candidate that we could reach an opportunity to fill out our questionnaire.
Displayed are the unedited answers from each candidate as they came to us. We are publishing these questionnaires to educate voters on candidates’ positions; we do not endorse their positions nor statements.
Candidate’s Name:
Theo Ellington
Office for which Candidate is Seeking Election:
Board of Supervisors
Jurisdiction in which Candidate is Seeking Election:
San Francisco District 10
Candidate’s Website:
Ed Lee will be remembered in large part for his work to grow San Francisco’s tech economy by creating incentives to attract tech businesses to the city. What elements of his policies would you retain and what would you change?
Technology businesses are the backbone of our city’s economy, and instead of being lauded they’ve becoming a punching bag. Technology companies create opportunities for San Franciscans. In fact, a Salesforce internship created opportunities for me in the seventh grade, and I know that similar programs have helped thousands of students across the city. That is why would maintain Mayor Lee’s emphasis on local training, recruitment, and resource development that helps our city’s best and brightest.
The housing crisis is the most urgent issue for our members, and it is TechEquity’s top advocacy priority this year. What is your view on how we can solve the housing crisis and make the Bay Area an affordable place to live for people at all income levels?
We need to achieve aggressive housing goals both citywide and within the region. The city can leverage its land-use authority to ensure that developers are required to build affordable housing on-site. The city should also play an increase role and heavily invest in funding and building middle income-housing on existing property it owns. It is no secret we have a housing shortage and we’re in desperate need of building more housing across every part of the city.
During my time as Commissioner for the Redevelopment Successor Agency we funded and built affordable housing across the city. At the time, we were able leverage tax increment financing to fund affordable housing projects at every income level. As a former board member of Chinatown Community Development Center, we built hundreds of new units of housing throughout the city.
How will you address the homelessness crisis? Do you think the City’s current budget allocation for homelessness is adequate? What solutions do you think are working, and what else would you implement?
The city must come to terms with this being a public health crisis. In a normal situation money would be a barrier, but in this case we spend an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars at this issue. We first need an audit to find out how much each department is spending. Simultaneously, better interdepartmental communication is needed. Lastly, we should take a serious look at our service providers and expand services that prove to be effective and problem solve in areas that need a bit more attention.
How would you create more stability for renters in our city, especially for low- and middle-income renters?
In all circumstances I will vote for and advocate for the livelihoods and safety of renting families. That means providing the necessary housing assistance for renters and creating more homeownership opportunities. I also propose expanding programs like Open Door Legal that provide universal access to legal services with an emphasis on illegal eviction support.
How do we modernize the city’s transit and mobility system to accommodate the rapidly-changing needs of the city’s residents?
We first need to align our development goals with transit. As we build more, we must ensure the necessary investments in transportation reach our neighborhood. The T- Train is a basic functioning north/south connection for local travel, but it’s in dire need of improvement. For regional connectivity, Caltrain service is in the beginning stages of electrification. Our District is seriously lacking adequate east/west connections. For Potrero Hill this means getting people to and from the hill in a safe and reliable manner. For other parts of the District this means connecting the neighborhoods to the rest of the city. We must also support our small businesses and retail corridors, upgrade our parks and open spaces, and attract a full scale grocery store in every neighborhood.
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