{"id":435905,"date":"2026-08-18T03:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T03:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/435905\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T03:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T03:46:16","slug":"s-f-board-president-ousts-potential-rival-from-housing-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/435905\/","title":{"rendered":"S.F. board president ousts potential rival from housing committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco Board President Rafael Mandelman removed Supervisor Bilal Mahmood from a city housing committee on Friday, a move Mahmood alleged was because of his plans to counter historic preservation legislation championed by Mandelman.<\/p>\n

But the conflict between the two legislators also comes amid speculation that they will face off in a California State Assembly race in less than two years\u2019 time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mandelman has already launched a campaign for the seat; Mahmood has said he is not currently considering a run and that doing so would be \u201cpremature.\u201d But political observers believe he may yet throw his hat in the ring, and Mandelman said \u201cI believe he is considering it.\u201d Mandelman denied, however, that this factored into his decision to push Mahmood off the Land Use Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood, who defeated incumbent District 5 supervisor Dean Preston<\/a> in 2024, ran unsuccessfully for assembly in 2022, failing to advance past the primary<\/a> in which Matt Haney beat David Campos<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The assembly seat will either open in 2027 or 2028, depending on whether Sen. Scott Wiener is elected to Congress.<\/a> Haney, the seat\u2019s current occupant, has signaled intentions to run for Wiener\u2019s seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood, for his part, said Mandelman\u2019s decision to remove him from the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee, which oversees housing and zoning, was over Mahmood\u2019s opposition to Mandelman legislation to undertake a study and expand the list of registered city landmarks.<\/p>\n

Mahmood has been critical of the move<\/a>, and says expanding historic preservation will hamper housing production. His proposed amendments would mandate that any loss in potential housing production would be remediated by increasing building height limits on other parcels to make up the difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without a seat on the Land Use Committee, Mahmood will no longer be able to introduce those amendments himself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI could find someone to introduce the amendments,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there\u2019s no guarantee of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mandelman defended his actions and said that his goal is to \u201cput together committees that are true to the mood of the full board.\u201d He said he replaced Mahmood with Supervisor Matt Dorsey to ensure a continued YIMBY presence on the housing committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood was the only supervisor to be involuntarily taken off a committee. Supervisor Connie Chan was replaced as budget chair, but she had announced in December that she planned to step down.<\/p>\n

Mandelman declined to comment on Mahmood\u2019s claims that his removal was related to the historic streamlining legislation. \u201cBut I will say that his approach to my historic preservation legislation has been quite aggressive,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood\u2019s amendments would \u201cgut the legislation,\u201d Mandelman said, adding that the \u201cmore collegial move\u201d would have been for Mahmood to ask Mandelman whether he accepted the amendments. If Mandelman did not, Mahmood could have simply voted no on the legislation, Mandelman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSupervisor Mahmood clearly chose a different course, and that is his right, but I don\u2019t really think that\u2019s the way to keep the era of good feeling going at the Board of Supervisors,\u201d Mandelman said, referring to the fact that, for the most part, there has been little conflict between supervisors this term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood has been sharply critical of other city politicians recently, too, including a few weeks ago when he accused Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Connie Chan of conspiring to block a tax measure<\/a> he had proposed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mandelman took note. \u201cI do think there\u2019s a shift happening in how Supervisor Mahmood is approaching his job and I did consider that as I was making those assignments,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahmood disagreed. \u201cI think to say someone is being aggressive because they\u2019re engaging in the democratic process is pretty misleading,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it is more so a pattern of the president seeming to engage in shuffling the cards to avoid difficult votes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahmood has little recourse about his committee assignment. Mandelman is board president and has unilateral authority over committee appointments.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco Board President Rafael Mandelman removed Supervisor Bilal Mahmood from a city housing committee on Friday, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[49115,6702,21973,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-435905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bilal-mahmood","tag-board-of-supervisors","tag-rafael-mandelman","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}