District 5 candidates on Prop. 36 increasing punishment for crimes
Here’s the latest in our “Meet the Candidates” series for District 5, in which we ask each candidate to answer one question per week leading up to the election. Four candidates are challenging incumbent Supervisor Dean Preston to represent District 5, which spans from the east end of Golden Gate Park through Haight-Ashbury, Japantown and the Western Addition, the Lower Haight and Hayes Valley, and most of the Tenderloin.Proposition 47, passed in 2014, made it so some non-violent theft and drug crimes could only be charged as misdemeanors in California. The law has been blamed for homelessness and brazen shoplifting — stealing items worth $950 or less became a misdemeanor under Prop. 47, as did low-level drug possession.This year, legislators are trying to roll that back. Proposition 36, a state ballot measure in the coming election, attempts to crack down on […]