A lawsuit accusing San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston of inflating his housing record on a voter pamphlet was tossed after a judge said it failed to make a clear and convincing case that any deception occurred.
The complaint, filed by Corey Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Housing Action Coalition, accused the District 5 supervisor of lying in a candidate statement about approving 30,000 new homes, of which 86% were below-market-rate.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer Jr. rejected Smith’s petition to get the city to revise certain election materials.
Preston celebrated the decision in a news release.
“Unlike the online discourse, in which false claims about my housing record are circulated nonstop with no fact checking, here we have a judge weighing in on the facts,” Preston said. “I’m proud of that record and gratified that the court upheld my right to present my record to voters.”
In a June phone call with The Standard, Smith described Preston’s housing claims as “bullshit,” saying 8,250 of the units the supervisor said were affordable were in fact hotel rooms he voted to approve during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the judge sustained the idea that hotel rooms can be considered homes, saying “many thousand San Franciscans reside in hotel rooms for months.”
Furthermore, a nonprofit eventually converted many of the rooms into longer-term housing, a project championed by Preston.
Smith also claimed that Preston had no right to take credit for the 10,000 concept homes authorized through Proposition K, since that measure — placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors — was approved by voters in 2020.
Ulmer disagreed with Smith’s contention, saying board approval set the stage for voter approval, and those kinds of procedural details don’t need to be included in a campaign pamphlet.
“With a 200-word limit, a qualifications statement is truncated; it is not a civics tutorial,” the judge wrote. “Preston’s statement is not misleading.”
Smith told The Standard he stands by his claims.
“I’m disappointed in the decision and think Preston’s votes opposing housing speaks for itself,” Smith wrote in a text. “I am happy, though, that being pro-housing has become politically popular enough that we’re watching politicians change the way they present themselves.”
Preston’s housing policy has drawn scrutiny over the past decade.
David Broockman, a UC Berkeley professor and volunteer for SF YIMBY, created the website Dean Preston’s Housing Graveyard, which attests that the supervisor has actually rejected 30,000 units, not voted in favor of them. Preston staffers and campaign volunteers, meanwhile, launched the website Dean Preston’s Housing Record in response to what they call “misinformation.”
Preston is fending off education activist Autumn Looijen and entrepreneur Bilal Mahmood in his bid for reelection to District 5, a race that has garnered attention from powerful players.
In March, Preston became the only California politician to receive an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and last week — in a surprise move that bucked the will of the Democratic Party’s San Francisco chapter — House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi gave him her nod.
Locally, Mahmood gathered artillery last week by securing the endorsement of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, a win that will likely bring a windfall of funding.