San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins faces one challenger in her re-election bid: Alameda County prosecutor Ryan Khojasteh, whom Jenkins fired as part of an administration change after inheriting the office from Chesa Boudin.

Why it matters: The rise of anti-Asian hate during the pandemic, accompanied by footage of car break-ins and burglaries that often went viral on social media, has heightened scrutiny of the DA's role amid concerns about crime and drug use.

We asked both candidates the same question: What is the first policy you'd enact or change if elected and why?

• Here's what they had to say.

Brooke Jenkins, San Francisco district attorney

Background: Jenkins was an assistant DA for San Francisco for seven years and served in several units, including sexual assault and homicide, before resigning in October 2021. That included time under Boudin, who took office in 2020.

• After becoming DA, she raised the city's conviction rate for the first time in eight years.

Yes, but: A state appeals court ruled last year that Jenkins committed misconduct in 2021 by disparaging a defense lawyer.

If re-elected, Jenkins said, her top priority would be tackling San Francisco's drug crisis.

• "Fentanyl dealers had free reign in the city under my predecessor, and that era is over," she said.
• Her office has secured 314 felony drug-dealing-related convictions in two years, she added. "I know we can save more lives as we fight to eradicate fentanyl from our streets."

Ryan Khojasteh, Alameda County prosecutor

Background: Khojasteh's career has been defined by prosecuting violent crimes. He served six years on San Francisco's Immigrant Rights Commission, where he focused on fighting anti-Asian hate.

• Hired by Boudin in 2020, he was a prosecutor in the DA's office until Jenkins took over in 2022.

If elected, Khojasteh said, he'd "reduce the top-heavy management structure to put more prosecutors in the courtroom" and "hire an experienced chief of staff who understands criminal law."

• Doing so would allow for ethical and successful prosecution of more cases — in contrast to the current DA's "mismanagement and ineffective allocation of resources," he added.

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San Francisco community advocates escalated calls for state and local officials to cease homeless encampment sweeps, one day after Mayor London Breed directed city workers to prioritize relocation over shelter offers.

Why it matters: Encampment sweeps have ramped up since the U.S. Supreme Court's Grants Pass ruling, allowing San Francisco to take stricter measures as critics continue to raise concern over possible infringement on unhoused people's rights.

The latest: 26 local organizations released a letter Friday condemning the "inhumane" sweeps, which they said violate unhoused people's "fundamental human right to housing."

• "Punishing people for being poor won't solve the underlying issues," the letter reads. "In fact, it will make homelessness worse."
• The advocates noted that fining and arresting people leads to warrants and destroys their financial credit, while seizures of belongings can result in loss of government documents and medicine.
• That can make it "nearly impossible" for people to apply for services and benefits.

Catch up quick: Breed's executive order requires city workers to offer unhoused people bus tickets and relocation assistance before providing housing or shelter.

• Her office has maintained that reconnecting unhoused people — many of whom come to San Francisco from elsewhere, according to the city's homelessness count — with stable networks is a compassionate and effective resource.

Yes, but: "It just seems designed to make the problem out of sight" rather than actually address root causes of homelessness, said Nisha Kashyap, an attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

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🧣 A Bayview program operated by a nonprofit reuse and recycling center is providing design and sustainable fashion education to K-12 students. (SF Examiner)

🇺🇸 Vice President Kamala Harris will be the Bay Area's first-ever presidential nominee after securing the Democratic Party's delegate votes. (SF Examiner)

🏅 Karl Cook, a Woodside native, helped the U.S. equestrian jumping team win Olympic silver after being subbed in to compete. (SFGATE)

Despite a decline in demand for software developers, these jobs are still among the best-paying ones around, especially in the Bay Area.

Driving the news: The highest paid work in Silicon Valley and earn a median of $163,000, according to a recent study from ADP.

The big picture: There was a pandemic hiring frenzy for these roles. Workers were fielding multiple calls a day from recruiters and naming their price when it came to salary.

• Now, companies are slower to hire and less willing to expand headcount, Nick Bunker, an analyst at Indeed, told Axios.
• Software developer is ranked second on the U.S. Labor Department's list of occupations with the most projected job growth over the next decade or so, coming in after home health aides.

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The 19 red-light cameras throughout San Francisco issued more than 23,000 tickets between July 2022 and May 2024, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Zoom in: The camera with the most citations is at the intersection of Park Presidio and Lake Street, where it's led to nearly 2,500 tickets in the past two years.

• The most notorious intersection, however, is at Oak Street and Octavia Boulevard, where its three cameras resulted in almost 4,900 citations in that time frame.

What's next: More surveillance is on the way. The city's transportation agency said last year that it would install eight more by 2025.