The Greenberg Brief: SF Supervisor Dean Preston Has a Challenger – I Won’t Support Him

San Francisco’s notorious, self-branded socialist Supervisor Dean Preston has been wreaking havoc for several years, garnering national headlines over claims capitalism is to blame for drug addiction and homelessness in The Tenderloin (his home district and jurisdiction, as member of the Board of Supervisors representing District 5). He’s butted heads with Mayor London Breed. He’s protested the removal of sidewalk-blocking tents and he rallied to declare “Downtown is for Drug Users”.

Preston is the architect of the recent Gaza Ceasefire Resolution, last month’s attraction of hours of speakers from the public, enticing them to come to city hall hearings, them bearing antisemitic hate messages. This guy is a disaster for San Francisco, and we all know it. The nation knows it. Come November 5th later this year, District 5 voters have a very good chance to throw him out of office. He was initially elected when voters made the mistake thinking activists make good legislators. Preston’s pre-city hall experience is as a tenants’ rights advocate. His stint at city hall to date has taught him nothing, aside from how to behave incessantly petulant and get away with it.

Yesterday, a certain Mr. Bilal Mahmood declared his intention to run for District 5 Supervisor, which means he’ll oppose Dean Preston. On social media, much rejoicing ensued. Thank God, prayers answered! An actually viable candidate has emerged. Mahmood apparently has substantial financial resources to make a respectable run.

Previously, Mahmood ran for California State Assembly against Matt Haney. He lost, but that campaign brought Bilal into the public spotlight.

Then in June 2022, Mahmood endorsed SF DCCC chair Alpha Mulugeta (stage name Honey Mahogany), a trans activist, chum of disgraced and recalled DA Chesa Boudin who made outrageous defund and abolish the SF Police Department entirely. Mulugeta/Mahogany is one sick individual.

Now, in this current race, Mahmood is being endorsed by Mulugeta. And by Senator Scott Wiener. And by Assemblyman Matt Haney.

Today, Bilal Mahmood is a candidate in two races, actually: For a seat on the San Francisco Democratic Party leadership group, the twenty-four delegate committee known as the SF DCCC to represent the city’s east side, AD17. In this campaign, he’s running on the “moderate” Democrat slate known as the SF Democrats for Change. On the same slate with him is very respectable Matt Dorsey, current SF District 6 Supervisor who beat Mulugeta/Honey Mahogany back in 2022. Voters preferred a moderate Democrat over the extremist views of Mahonogy. And yet, Mahogony endorses Mahmood in his race. It’s complicated, apparently. It’s a truly weird relationship.

Looking at the list of endorsement on Mahmood’s website, www.BilalMahmood.com, it’s a who’s who of the Left of center committees and clubs, and that’s what’s so concerning. Mahmood would appear aligned with, and to be better placed on, the leftist SF DCCC candidate slate with the socialist, communists and anti-capitalist utopian ideologues.

Just last year Elon Musk offered to throw in $100,000 to help oust Dean Preston. We applauded that gesture, and media picked up Musk’s words; the pressure continued to increase the need to find a candidate to run against Mr. Preston. But with that pledge, Mahmood, before a candidate, responded quite differently, calling Musk anti-Trans, anti-Semitic, anti-Worker and said Musk should “keep his f&%cking money out of our politics.”

At this stage in the game, the awkwardness couldn’t be any worse. The local PAC accumulating the largest bucket of money to oppose Dean Preston’s re-election is Grow SF, creators of the “Dump Dean” campaign. Musk would be donating his $100k bounty to this committee. And now, Grow SF actually endorses Mahmood, who previously publicly trashed Musk’s money. Yes, it’s complicated indeed.

There are too many questions unanswered. Bilal Mahmood, in his prior campaign against Scott Wiener, avoided the hot button topics, which many have changed over the past two years. But he’s silent on current Israel/Antisemitism and the Gaza War, on Reparations, on clearing the sidewalks of tents, and on re-funding our SF Police Department. His website as candidate for SF DCCC shows he’s a dreamer, pie-in-the-sky supporter of getting people onto public transportation and eliminate cars; closing streets to become pedestrian and bike-only; and to convert empty downtown malls, storefronts and offices into an academic hub hosting a dozen university campuses. He’s also a big advocate for guaranteed income. He is very concerned about the climate crisis. He won’t accept corporate PAC money, no law enforcement money and no fossil fuel money donations. Utopian, to say the least. And clearly a Left-wing by local definition.

It is fundamentally disingenuous in San Francisco’s elections when “progressive/liberal” candidates run on a reformist/moderate/pro-law enforcement slate. And then law-abiding citizens awaken when the Trojan Horse is unleashed on us once the candidate is sworn in. This is precisely why, after conferring with many of my fellow San Francisco political pundits and armchair activists, many say they’d rather stick with Dean Preston. At least we know exactly what he stands for.