Dean E. Preston (born )
is an American attorney and member of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He founded Tenants Together, a California tenant advocacy organization. In November 2019, Preston won a special election to finish Mayor
London Breed
London Nicole Breed (born August 11, 1974) is an American politician who is the 45th and current mayor of the City and County of San Francisco. She was supervisor for District 5 and was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Board ...
's term on the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors, defeating incumbent
Vallie Brown (whom Breed had named to replace her) to represent
District 5 District 5, 5 District or 5th District may refer to:
Europe
* District 5 (Zürich)
* District 5, Düsseldorf
* V District, Turku
* District 5, an electoral district of Malta
* District 5, a police district of Malta
* Palma-Palmilla, also known ...
. He was re-elected in the November 2020 election.
During his tenure on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, he has worked to
delay and block numerous development plans and legislative proposals to increase the supply of both market-rate and affordable housing.
Early life and education
Preston was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
His parents were refugees from
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Their family owned a
co-operative apartment in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
.
Preston attended
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...
, where he met his future wife, Jenckyn Goosby.
He graduated in 1991 with a major in anthropology and economics.
After graduation, the couple moved to Jenckyn's native San Francisco, settling down near
Alamo Square
Alamo Square is a residential neighborhood and park in San Francisco, California, in the Western Addition. Its boundaries are Buchanan Street on the east, Turk Street on the north, Baker Street on the west, and Page Street Street on the south.
...
.
Preston studied law at
UC Hastings College of the Law
The University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings) is a public law school in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, UC Hastings was the first law school of the University of California as ...
, receiving his J.D. in 1996.
Career
He was a co-owner of the bar and nightclub Cafe du Nord in the
Castro District of San Francisco.
After law school, Preston worked for the law firm of
John Burris
John Leonard Burris (born May 8, 1945) is an American civil rights attorney, based in Oakland, California, known for his work in police brutality cases representing plaintiffs. The John Burris law firm practices employment, criminal defense, DU ...
. He spent the late 1990s working at public interest firms.
Preston joined the non-profit Tenderloin Housing Clinic in 2000 and transitioned to tenant rights law.
Tenants Together
In 2008 Preston founded Tenants Together, a non-profit organization advocating for tenant rights in California. The organization campaigned against California's
Proposition 98 that year. The ballot initiative would have abolished
rent control
Rent regulation is a system of laws, administered by a court or a public authority, which aims to ensure the affordability of housing and tenancies on the rental market for dwellings. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves:
* Price con ...
across the state but was rejected by voters.
Preston spearheaded a series of tenant bootcamps across San Francisco from 2015 to 2017, teaching renters how to protect their rights.
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
![Dean Preston (Election Night 2019)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Dean_Preston_%28Election_Night_2019%29.jpg)
Preston ran against incumbent
London Breed
London Nicole Breed (born August 11, 1974) is an American politician who is the 45th and current mayor of the City and County of San Francisco. She was supervisor for District 5 and was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Board ...
in the
2016 Board of Supervisors election for District 5 but lost 48% to 52%.
He authored San Francisco's 2018 Proposition F, which directs the city to establish a universal
right to counsel
In criminal law, the right to counsel means a defendant has a legal right to have the assistance of counsel (i.e., lawyers) and, if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, requires that the government appoint one or pay the defendant's legal exp ...
for tenants facing eviction.
In July 2018, Preston, a member of the San Francisco chapter of the
Democratic Socialists of America
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing Democratic Socialists of America#Tendencies within the DSA, multi-tendency Socialism, socialist and Labour movement, labor-oriented political organization. Its roots ...
(DSA), became a candidate for the 2019 District 5 Supervisor election, to fill the vacancy left when Breed became mayor. Shortly after, Breed appointed
Vallie Brown to the fill the position, and Brown ran as an incumbent. Preston ran as a
democratic socialist
Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within ...
and won the election by a narrow margin, becoming the first democratic socialist elected to the board in forty years. Preston was sworn in on December 16, 2019.
Positions on housing and zoning
Since his inauguration in December 2019 to November 2021, Preston opposed development plans and legislative proposals that could have housed more than 28,000 people, including affordable housing for nearly 8,500 people.
Preston has argued, "San Francisco is a shining example of the complete and utter failure of the free market address housing needs."
He has blamed homelessness in San Francisco on "unbridled capitalism." He has criticized
YIMBY
The YIMBY movement (short for "yes, in my back yard") is a pro-housing movement in contrast and opposition to the NIMBY ("''not'' in my back yard") phenomenon. The YIMBY position supports increasing the supply of housing within cities where hous ...
ism as "a new face on private market developers' interests."
In 2019, Preston opposed
California Senate Bill 50, which would have eased housing construction near public transit, arguing that it was a "
developer
Developer may refer to:
Computers
* Software developer, a person or organization who develop programs/applications
* Video game developer, a person or business involved in video game development, the process of designing and creating games
* Web d ...
bill."
In 2019, Preston spoke against the construction of a 186-unit apartment complex because only 20% of the apartments were for affordable housing while Preston wanted 33%. Preston is a proponent of rent control. In 2021, Preston blocked discussion of a proposal that would have required 50 signatures to invoke the California Environmental Quality Act to block housing projects, rather than just one person complaining. According to the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', Preston appears "to be one of the supervisors most opposed to building market-rate housing".
In 2020, Preston delayed a major zoning plan which would have led to the construction of thousands of housing units to the Van Ness/Market Street area of San Francisco.
He called for a "a race and equity study" of the project.
Preston ran as an incumbent in the November 2020 election, with Brown campaigning for her former seat. He won against Brown by a wide margin. Preston also introduced two ballot initiatives approved by voters in the election. Proposition I raised the transfer tax rate for property sales valued over $10 million, intended to fund affordable housing. Proposition K authorizes the city of San Francisco to build or acquire up to 10,000 units of affordable housing.
During his second term, Preston authored a resolution passed by the Board of Supervisors requesting a two-month delay in
UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...
's approval process for the expansion of Parnassus campus.
He called for a study into the feasibility of prohibiting for-profit bike-share companies from operating in San Francisco and turning bike-shares into a city-run operation. Preston called for a hearing on housing vacancies, arguing that the focus on building new housing had led to ignoring "the single biggest source of potential housing in San Francisco."
In a committee meeting on the shared spaces program established by the city during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, Preston supported a two-week delay on voting to make the outdoor dining spaces permanent. His questions on an indefinite extension centered on public access and
accessibility
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i. ...
.
In November 2021, Preston sought to halt the city of San Francisco buying a hotel in Japantown which it would use to house homeless people.
In October 2021, Preston voted against the construction of a 495-unit apartment complex (one-quarter of which were designated as affordable housing) on a parking lot next to a BART station.
Preston said that the construction of the apartment complex on the parking lot was "gentrification."
In 2022, Preston pushed for a ballot measure on taxing vacant housing in San Francisco. The tax would only apply to owners of buildings with three or more units when at least one of them has been unoccupied for more than six months in one year. The tax exempted vacant single-family homes and two-unit buildings, including his own home valued at more than $3 million.
When San Francisco was at risk of losing millions of dollars in state affordable housing funds because of the city's failure to provide a legally mandated eight-year plan to build new housing amid the
housing shortage in California, Preston accused California Governor
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California f ...
of being an agent in a neoliberal conspiracy.
Personal life
Preston is married.
He and his wife live in a single family house in the
Alamo Square
Alamo Square is a residential neighborhood and park in San Francisco, California, in the Western Addition. Its boundaries are Buchanan Street on the east, Turk Street on the north, Baker Street on the west, and Page Street Street on the south.
...
neighborhood in San Francisco.
He has been on the board of the Alamo Square Neighborhood Association.
In the early 2000s, he worked to stop fast-food franchises such as Burger King and Domino's Pizza from moving into Alamo Square.
See also
*
List of Democratic Socialists of America members who have held office in the United States
References
External links
*
Tenants Together
{{DEFAULTSORT:Preston, Dean
Living people
21st-century American politicians
American civil rights lawyers
American people of German descent
Bowdoin College alumni
Lawyers from New York City
Lawyers from San Francisco
Members of the Democratic Socialists of America
People from Greenwich Village
San Francisco Board of Supervisors members
University of California, Hastings College of the Law alumni
California socialists
1969 births