It’s official: Jackie Fielder has won the race for District 9 supervisor, securing more than 58% of the vote and representing over 10,000 ballots.
“It’s hard to take in [the results] when it’s been a really long year,” Fielder said outside of Bar Part Time during her election night campaign party. “I’m incredibly proud to be a part of it—it’s certainly not about me, but every single person that gave us their time, gave us their money.”
As supervisor, Fielder will replace Supervisor Hillary Ronen and represent the Mission District, Portola, and Bernal Heights neighborhoods, where Latinx residents make up about 26% of the population.
Political newcomer Trevor Chandler trailed with about 41% of the tallied votes, while longtime Mission organizer Roberto Hernandez placed third with 22.65%, representing about 5,700 votes.
A queer Latina and Indigenous woman, Fielder ran the most progressive campaign in the male-dominated District 9 race, advocating for workers’ and renters’ rights, affordable housing, and environmental justice.
This is not Fielder’s first political endeavor. In 2020, she challenged incumbent Scott Wiener for the California State Senate District 11 seat, securing 42.9% of the vote.
In 2017, Fielder co-founded the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, which promotes a public bank to support small businesses, affordable housing, and renewable energy. She has also been active in environmental and Indigenous rights, notably supporting resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock.
Fielder’s progressive platform earned endorsements from the California Nurses Association, the Bernal Heights Democratic Club, and the San Francisco Tenants Union.
In July, El Tecolote sat down with Fielder to discuss how she would approach key issues affecting District 9’s Latinx communities, based on reader submissions. Here’s how she responded.
Why should Latinx communities support you?
I am the proud daughter of a single, working Latina mom who raised me on her secretary income, and I am also the proud granddaughter of Native American and Mexican grandparents. I have fought against the Wall Street banks that are investing in private prisons, detention centers, and pipelines. At the age of 25, I was teaching “Race, Women, and Class” at SF State. In 2020, I challenged the most real estate-backed politician in California, and a lot of the same forces are at play here in this race, where I’m fighting the greed and apathy that have led to displacement, criminalization, and abandonment of the most vulnerable in our community. My mom taught me to stand up for those with little power. That’s why I continue to be a not-bought-or-sold politician.
How would you strengthen D9’s cultural districts?
There is an effort underway right now by people aligned with billionaire and real estate interests, groups like Grow SF, to undermine cultural districts, including the Latino Cultural District. In this budget year, it was really sad to see the cultural districts’ funding on the chopping block. As Latinos, we are 15% of the city, and we need to have commensurate support for our cultural districts. I would love to work on expanding our cultural district, and I will fight in the coming budget seasons to ensure that our cultural districts have adequate support and can expand, while also fighting the gentrifying forces that want to destroy our cultural legacies.
How will you support D9’s street vendors?
Vending is the backbone of Latin American culture in the Mission District. I’ve talked to vendors throughout the past, more than a year. I’ve talked to vendors at La Placita and El Tiangue multiple times and had long conversations about what can be done. I’m fully committed to making sure that on day one, our vendors can come back to Mission Street in an organized fashion. I think that’s possible. We just have to get all of the different stakeholders onto one plan: small business owners, the police, Public Works employees who are responsible for navigating the plaza centers and Mission Street. I think it’s possible. What I am concerned about is the further criminalization of vendors, especially those who might not have papers, as we might see a Trump presidency. In the past, I’ve worked on a campaign called “No Tech for I.C.E.,” so I’m committed to ensuring that our city remains a sanctuary city and to decriminalizing enforcement on our cultural vendors.
How will you address public safety concerns along Mission Street?
As a woman who takes public transportation, who walks these streets—public safety is always at the back of my mind. That’s just the nature of being a woman in the city. Every person walking to home, to school, to work deserves to feel safe. I’m all about making sure that we’re using law enforcement resources wisely and effectively. We definitely need a fully staffed police department, but with 1,500 officers and a city of 800,000 people, that means we have one officer per 540 people. We also have slow response times, even though police are responding to fewer calls. I would love to expand non-armed professionals who can handle lower-level quality-of-life issues and free up officers for actual emergencies and violent crimes, and making sure that we have triple the number of community ambassadors who, unfortunately, were on the chopping block in this budget year. Bad policing has also cost the city millions of dollars. I think accountability of every single department is warranted.
How would you hold leaders accused of sexual assault accountable?
Sexual violence is a stain on our community, and I believe in restorative justice. I believe people can repair their harms, but until they take accountability, real justice cannot happen. Real healing cannot happen. I’ve consistently been among the first to call out and support the survivors who have come forward against people who have multiple and detailed accounts around sexual violence. You know, beyond that, we have a broader problem in the city of gender-based violence against LGBTQ people, trans people, women, homeless women—homeless women are disproportionately at risk for sexual assault on the streets. I think we need to expand shelter options, permanent supportive housing, and domestic violence services, because often people are not able to access those services, especially late at night and on weekends. And my plan for that is in my public safety platform.
What is your approach to parking versus street accessibility?
I’m someone who, unfortunately, doesn’t own a car. I walk a lot of places, I ride Muni, I do have a moped. I’m really glad to see that the city has rolled back really regressive parking ticket pricing, because those are so expensive. We know that low-income people face a disproportionate burden in the city. I was really disturbed to hear about the disproportionate enforcement on southeast neighborhoods in the city around parking enforcement. I think that we need real accountability there. Also, I think we need a tremendous amount of investment in our public transportation, because right now it’s at a fiscal cliff and there are many, hundreds, if not thousands of working-class families that depend on public transportation to get to work, to school, to live their lives. I would love to see more investment in public transportation.
How will you make housing more accessible in D9?
I’m a renter, and I don’t know that I will ever be able to afford to own a home in the city, and so I am a full proponent of strong renter protections. I am all for repealing Costa Hopkins at the state level to expand rent control. I want housing that’s affordable for working-class people that are making the city run—artists, vendors, city workers, nurses, teachers, etc. Right now, we cannot be able to reach our housing goals unless we invest in affordable housing. There are so many federal programs that we have not applied for as a city that are just on the table; we’re talking millions of dollars. I’ve also been working on a public bank to finance affordable housing. But in general, we need to pass the affordable housing bond in November and also fight to make sure that we’re putting our money where our mouth is.
How would you address the rising number of Latinx homeless families?
I’m concerned about this. I don’t think a lot of people know that we’ve seen a huge influx of immigrant families to our city. Certainly way more than a decade ago, with the accompanying minor crisis. We have hundreds of newcomers, students into SFUSD every single month. There are people sleeping in bus shelters and parks because there is no room in our shelter system. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of red tape—lots of requirements around partners and pets and drugs, and it’s just not a lot of the shelters are not fit for families. I would love to expand shelter options for the temporary measures and also invest in actual legal representation that would enable people to apply for an asylum case and, in that way, be able to get a work permit. A lot of people I’ve talked to who are struggling with this and are without papers say that they want to work, and so we need to be able to support them with that if we’re going to be a real sanctuary city.
Do you think San Francisco is still a sanctuary city? Why or why not?
As a daughter of Mexican immigrants who were able to go down the path of citizenship, I owe it to the path of citizenship for my ability to be here right now. And it’s gravely concerning to me that the president issued an asylum ban and has closed the border to anyone seeking asylum. There are more than 900 people on the waitlist here in San Francisco for legal help who are seeking asylum. And it’s really concerning that there’s been no increase for funds to support this legal defense. There are community ambassadors who do such thankless jobs in the Mission, who have connected people to housing, have literally put money out of their own pockets to put people up in hotels. And so the city needs to do much more to be able to say that it’s a sanctuary city. For me, that means fighting for housing, permanent supportive housing, shelter for immigrant families, community ambassadors, and legal representation.