Thirteen people are running for mayor, with the five ranking highest in surveys receiving almost all the attention. Mayoral candidate Dylan Hirsch-Shell is a seven-year Potrero Hill resident.
What qualifies you to be mayor?
I’m a fifth generation San Franciscan. A PhD in neuroscience and lead engineer at Tesla for more than a dozen years, I’ve developed innovations that shaped the future of electric vehicles and associated climate change mitigation, managing projects worth billions of dollars, collaborating with teams across the globe to achieve productive outcomes.
What issues most need to be addressed by city government?
Crime, homelessness, and public drug use are the most visible issues that San Franciscans care about; how we tackle them is key. If we only focus on immediate issues with band aid solutions and ignore root causes, we’ll keep spending more and more money without ever making real progress. That’s why I not only advocate to use smart strategies to address these issues in the present but am the only candidate who wants to tackle the root cause of many of the problems: generational poverty. My plan is to implement a Universal Basic Income in San Francisco, which will break the cycle of generational poverty that’s stifling our community. UBI will be an investment in the future of every child in the City, so they can shake off the yoke of poverty and reach their full potential as self-actualized human beings.
What specific actions would you take that are different from what’s being advocated by other candidates?
I’m the only candidate dedicated to eradicating poverty in San Francisco by doing whatever it takes to implement a Universal Basic Income, which would provide a guaranteed minimum income floor for every resident. I’m the only candidate with a plan to build Universal Social Housing, which would provide tens of thousands of beautiful, low-cost housing units every year for San Franciscans of all incomes, using a sustainable revolving construction loan fund successfully modeled by the award-winning Housing Production Fund in Montgomery County, Maryland. I’m the only candidate dedicated to ending chronic homelessness with the Built for Zero methodology that’s been proven to work in other cities around the country. And unlike the “major five” candidates, my education and experience allow me to successfully use technology to modernize and upgrade government’s systems to improve efficiency and deliver better outcomes for everyone.
Given present polls, what’s your pathway to winning office?
A September KRON4 poll indicated that 28 percent of voters are undecided on who to rank number one among the “major five” candidates. That’s more than frontrunner Mark Farrell’s 21 percent and up from the 18 percent of “undecided” voters in an August San Francisco Chronicle survey. Even more voters are unsure about their number two choice. Many voters are desperate for a fresh candidate, someone who isn’t part of the broken and corrupt system inside City Hall or trying to buy the election with the backing of a billionaire mother. My campaign has been growing rapidly, and we’re ready to make a big push in the final weeks before the election to reach out to as many voters as possible. San Franciscans in recent years increasingly feel the City is on the wrong track. I believe they’re looking for the bold vision and real solutions that this campaign provides.
Mark Steensland 
Stephanie Lam