Friday, November 22, 2024

Meet the District 9 candidates: What would you do about road infrastructure?

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Welcome back to our “Meet the Candidates” series, where we ask the District 9 supervisorial hopefuls in the November 2024 election one question each week. Candidates are asked to answer questions on policy, ideology and more in 100 words or fewer.

Answers are being published individually each week, but we are also archiving the weekly series here.

In terms of political events this week, the Latinx Democratic Club will hold a second round of endorsement interviews at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts on Wednesday Aug. 21st at 6 p.m.

If you know of other political events, let me know and I will add them to the post.

I will be at Zeitgeist (199 Valencia St.) at 5. p.m. on Thursday August 22, to say hello and talk about the district, or you can email me at oscar.palma@missionlocal.com.

This week’s question: Multiple residents have requested we ask about the poor road conditions in the district, many of those requests are about Mission street. If you were elected, can you explain to our readers how much you would do — within your powers — to assure the district gets the road infrastructure it needs.


Jaime Gutierrez

  • Job: Transit supervisor for SFMTA/Muni
  • Age: 57
  • Residency: Tenant, born in District 9 in 1967 and, except for three years spent in the Army, has resided here ever since
  • Transportation: Bike
  • Education: U.S. Army, City College of San Francisco, University of California, Berkeley
  • Languages: English and Spanish

The roads are effectively neglected by permitting improper repair when the street surface is opened. How can Daly City have better roads with less budget than San Francisco? The solution is rather simple. When a road is opened, it is closed properly. A patch of asphalt without foundation or concrete is not acceptable. The main offenders are the Water Department and PG&E. Streets are opened and not properly closed.  As a Supervisor it really is incumbent on me to be sure that the contractors are charged or held accountable for jobs not delivered timely, or in the manner promised.

Endorsed by: Transportation Workers Union Local 200 … read more here


A cartoon of District 9 supervisorial candidate Roberto Hernandez.

Roberto Hernandez

  • Job: CEO, Cultura y Arte Nativa de Las Americas (CANA).
  • Age: 67
  • Residency: Homeowner, born in the Mission in June 1956 and has not left
  • Transportation: Car and bicycle
  • Education: Bachelor’s degree in sociology from University of San Francisco
  • Languages: English and Spanish

D9 desperately needs better road infrastructure. Potholes and ragged conditions are hazardous to bike riders, buses, lowriders, cars, and even pedestrians — during this year’s Cesar Chavez parade, an attendee tripped and injured herself.  

My efforts leading a recent campaign to lobby City Hall to fix the potholes on Mission Street led to safer roads in time for Carnaval. As Supervisor, I’ll leverage my decades of experience successfully collaborating with the Department of Public Works to improve our road conditions beyond simply filling potholes, which is a band-aid solution. Together, we’ll build better roads, creating union construction jobs, across the district.

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