Election Day is now less than two months away. For an update on the District 3 Supervisor race, Hoodline met with former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who's running against incumbent Julie Christensen for the seat. 

Christensen, appointed by Mayor Ed Lee to fill the District 3 seat in January after former Supervisor David Chiu was elected to the State Assembly, has been getting a lot of attention  for her efforts on everything from the Stockton Tunnel to affordable housing to liquor laws. So we wanted to give Peskin a turn, and met with him on a steamy September morning at Caffe Trieste. 

As most readers know, Peskin was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2000 and 2004, and his colleagues elected him president in January 2005, but he was eventually termed out. You can read all about his past on Wikipedia or SFGate, but we're going to focus on the present and future.

Peskin's been busy campaigning, as you'd expect. He appears at house parties; he knocks on doors; he hands out literature on the street. And he's had big events, like last week's Women Leaders For Aaron event at the Colombo building. Endorsements are rolling in; big-name supporters are lining up.

"The buzz on the streets feels very good," Peskin said. "Our campaign volunteer events have been getting larger and larger. Every weekend, we have different speakers to rev up the crowd. We’ve had everyone from John Burton to Planning Commissioner Cindy Wu and Planning Commissioner Kathrin Moore and former Mayor [Art] Agnos. Assembly Member [Phil] Ting has been very supportive and helpful. Norman Yee has been supportive in Chinatown. We have endorsements rolling out in the weeks ahead that will be pretty compelling."

Photo: Aaron Peskin/Facebook

Fundraising has been going well, Peskin said. He has about a quarter of a million dollars in his war chest, and is "eligible for a bunch more public financing we haven’t requested yet."

Peskin might not be the supervisor right now, but you could make the argument that he's the mayor of North Beach (some call him "the Napoleon of North Beach," due to his height). He greets every fellow Caffe Trieste customer by name, asking about their families and knowing details about their personal lives. It's clear he has deep connections in this corner of the world.

"The longer you have lived in the district, the more likely you are to know me, because you were around when I was a supervisor," Peskin said. "But you’re also invested in the fabric of the community." These people know someone who was evicted, he said. They know their kids won’t be able to afford to live in the city. 

Peskin at his campaign HQ opening. (Photo: Geri Koeppel/Hoodline)

We asked Peskin if the lack of a major election this year will help or hurt his chances at the polls, given the expected low voter turnout. "I’ll tell you on November 4th," he said. "Every time I’ve run, I’ve been on the ballot with the president of the United States. We’ve had 80 percent, 75 percent voter turnout."

There are no federal or state races this time, and there's a virtually uncontested mayoral race. However, Peskin's support base skews older, and older people are more likely to vote. He said that's "absolutely, no question" in his favor.

We asked Peskin to outline a couple of major differences between himself and Christensen. "Independence and checks and balances," he said. "It doesn’t matter which mayor appoints you ... When you’re appointed by the executive, you’re accountable to the executive more than you’re accountable to the electorate. I don’t have to worry whether or not I’m upsetting Ron Conway or Mayor Lee. I have to worry about what my constituents want. I think having that independence and having checks and balances to the executive branch is critical to any democracy."

While both candidates have ideas on fighting crime, helping the homeless, and keeping the streets clean and safe for cyclists and pedestrians, one major difference is their philosophies on housing and development. Peskin says the city's not doing enough to protect its renters. "City Hall needs to have an office of tenant protection; a unit of government to deal with the bad actors," he said. "They’re buying these [buildings] way over market and the only way it works is if they go and start ripping people's lives asunder."

SROs in Chinatown and entire buildings in North Beach are being converted to short-term rentals, Peskin said. He wants stricter oversight of them (if Proposition F passes in November, that would be one way), and he wants the city to require developers to build more affordable housing in their projects. He's also in favor of extending rent control to buildings built after 1979, which he knows is a state issue. However, he pointed out he is "the only one willing to suggest it."

"I believe cities should evolve," Peskin said. "But it’s the role of government to take care of its citizens. And right now, City Hall is more interested in who’s going to move to San Francisco than those that already live here. And I think there’s a lot of people from all economic and ideological stripes that share that concern, that understand that cities can and should grow, but there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it."

Want more details about the candidates’ positions? On Friday, look for a recap of a neighborhood candidates’ forum scheduled for Thursday evening. (Sorry, the event is at capacity).