Matt Boschetto, Candidate For District 7 Supervisor, Answers Reader Questions

The Ingleside Light gathered questions from the community and posed them to the District 7, District 11 and mayor candidates in advance of the Nov. 5 election.

Here are the responses from co-owner of Matilda’s Bloombox Matt Boschetto, whose campaign has set out to create financial accountability inside City Hall along with small business vibrancy, creating solutions around homelessness and mental health and safety.

Boschetto is up against current District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, firefighter Stephen Martin-Pinto and retired surgeon Edward S. Yee.  

Responses have been lightly edited.

How do you plan to be consistently involved in the neighborhood once in office?

One of my core priorities for District 7 is ensuring everyone in the district has a voice in City Hall and feels heard by those who represent them. This ideal certainly extends to the residents of Ingleside and I would make sure that their concerns are heard and acted upon. I plan to spend minimal time at City Hall, with as much time speaking to my constituents as possible.

What is one issue in the neighborhood that you see ignored? How would you tackle this issue?

Improving San Francisco’s public safety is my highest priority and while I don’t feel like this issue is ignored per se, San Francisco could be taking a more proactive and effective approach. We need to address property crime, the illegal drug trade, substance abuse-related encampments, homelessness, people dying of overdose on our streets, public transportation services and traffic safety. Without our children, elders and tourists being able to walk the streets and use public transportation with confidence again, we will suffer as a civil society and our economy will not be able to recover. 

Specifically, I plan to: create additional incentives to accelerate recruitment of police officers, including signing bonuses, housing and school voucher support, deploy force multiplying tools to fill-in the officer staffing gap, including renewed support for neighborhood watch groups, merchant watch groups, and rapid deployment of technologies enabled by Prop E, reform Police Commission powers to return full accountability for policing strategy to the Mayor and Chief of Police, battle the fentanyl crisis by aggressive intervention into open use (arrest, treatment or bus ticket) and continuous, aggressive disruption of open drug markets to dramatically raise the consequences of dealing drugs on our streets, reform, replace and eliminate all policies and processes that attract voluntary, substance abusing homeless to San Francisco (the “Drug Tourism Magnet Effect”), including encouraging Proposition 47 reform, disrupting fencing operations, tying benefits to obligations (such as treatment, sobriety and work), etc, and support more transparency regarding Judicial case dispositions, to better inform voters when seats come up for election. 

Will you commit to fully funding the Dignity Fund in this and future years to meet the growing number and needs of older adults and people with Disabilities?

Yes.

In many ways, City College of San Francisco was the beating heart of the neighborhood, a source of jobs and customers for local businesses. But its troubles have led to a 60%+ decline in enrollment which has precipitated other issues. How will you work with the college community to turn it around?

I firmly believe that education is a key public good, both in the service it provides residents as well in fostering an attractive environment for families and future generations. This is especially true for City College, which as you mentioned is an important part of the Ingleside community. I will both work with the college in ensuring it is providing the best possible education and outcomes for its students, as well as working to promote CCSF to drive enrollment.

City College of San Francisco projects groundbreaking for its long-awaited Diego Rivera Theater — which will prominently feature Rivera's fresco Pan American Unity —  in December 2024. How will you work with the college community and the city's tourism sector to make it an attraction that boosts the economy and puts Ingleside on the map?

I would work with the administration at CCSF as well as SF Travel and other tourism boards/organizations to ensure the Diego Rivera Theater is properly promoted (along with the rest of the neighborhood) in advertisements and travel articles. In addition, I would look into overall neighborhood improvements that would support visitors to the theater and would work with local residents and merchants to ensure these are implemented as thoughtfully as possible 

The Balboa Park Area Plan studied many major and minor projects, including decking the Interstate 280 freeway, realigning freeway ramps, etc. How will you advance portions yet to be done in the district?

A major portion of my policy platform is ensuring an effective and transparent local government. As these projects move forward, I promise to work with my colleagues in City Hall to help push these to completion and advocate on behalf of the affected neighborhoods. As we’ve seen with numerous projects around the city, they frequently take longer than expected to complete (not to mention go over budget), which hurts the surrounding areas. I will also be sure to gather community feedback before, during and after to ensure that any concerns are addressed as quickly as possible.

What will you do to breathe new life into the neighborhood's commercial corridors? Please list 10 concrete proposals.

1. Address public safety first to help small businesses start and thrive. 

2. Create and maintain structured and safe business sectors where it is safe for both merchants and consumers, as well as clean and free of drug use and threats to the general population of our grand city.

3. Reduce government regulatory impediments to start and grow small businesses, including consolidation and streamlining of all government regulatory processes and reduction of start-up and ongoing fees and taxes. 

4. Revamp the Health Care Security Ordnance’s City Option for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, thereby lowering hourly labor costs and cumbersome tracking and regulatory compliance paperwork.  

5. Encourage and regulatorily enable (through tax relief, fee relief and permitting flexibility, etc.) experiential retail businesses for more durability in the new age of online retail competition.

6. Reward small businesses with recognition, awards and publicity to focus attention on their contributions to city vibrancy, economic health and neighborhood social capital building.  

7. Organize and promote neighborhood street fairs, block parties and night markets.

8. Facilitate historical designation for historically and culturally significant businesses.

9. Explore the possibility of seasonal farmers' markets.

10. Push for common sense consensus solutions to traffic improvements that take the concerns of all stakeholders into consideration as opposed to idealistic or overwrought proposals that could potentially significantly harm small businesses.

What does adequate community policing look like for the greater Ingleside neighborhood and its diverse communities?

To me, community policing has many components, all of which I would work to improve. To begin with, we need to make sure we have adequate numbers of police officers on duty. We are currently woefully understaffed and this is having a significant impact on our safety and quality of life. We need to have enough officers on duty to actually walk the beat and know the neighborhood, not just respond reactively in their cars. Secondly, I would do all I can to foster community watch programs. The neighborhoods in District 7 tend to be close knit, and therefore community watch programs would be extra effective. Finally, I believe in utilizing force multipliers, like the SFPD have been doing recently with drones, to ensure that law enforcement has the adequate tools to make them as fair and effective as possible.

Do you support the renewal and expansion of the Ocean Avenue Community Benefit District? If so, why and how will you work with its leadership to make sure it delivers the best results for all stakeholders?

Absolutely! I am a huge fan of the Ocean Avenue Community Benefit District specifically but will support any organization whose mission is to help small businesses. As supervisor, I would work closely with the association to ensure that Ocean Avenue is safe and vibrant by providing adequate public safety resources, working with the organization and businesses to hear and address their concerns and work within City Hall to make owning and operating a small business less onerous overall.

How will you incentivize landlords to rent out long-vacant units and thus increase the housing stock?

I’d work with landlords and tenants on day one to address issues like this and work diligently to find a reasonable and pragmatic solution.

What's your position on Recology's monopoly on trash collection?

With financial transparency and good governance as one of my core policy priorities, I promise to be proactive in demanding oversight. As with any city contract, I believe the current agreement with Recology needs to be periodically reviewed and audited. I am a strong believer in deliverable metrics for any contractor providing services to the city and its residents, including Recology and will push for competitive bids if they fail to meet these criteria.