Full Biography for Jim Reid

Candidate for
Mayor; City of San Francisco

Jim Reid Bio

Jim Reid was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on March 27, 1950 and grew up in Cleveland Ohio. He attended Cleveland State University with a major in accounting and Kent State with a major in Architecture. Jim moved to San Francisco in 1975. He worked as a general contractor remodeling houses where he developed good problem solving, people management, and listening skills. Jim is a gay man and has always had a deep concern for people; he is angered by injustice of any kind. In January of 1998, his best friend and first lover Gary Behrens died suddenly of a heart attack at age 43. This death propelled Jim to dedicate the remainder of his life to service to humanity. In March, the press reported that 43 tobacco billboards were in violation of a new state law protecting minors. At rush hour on a Friday in March, he climbed up onto the largest Lucky Strike billboard in San Francisco within 100 feet of the central freeway and painted: "Selling addiction with sex". That day, he decided to take more effective ways to serve and protect people. Jim ran for Supervisor in 1998 on the single issue to fix MUNI and received 16,390 votes while spending less than 10¢ a vote. He spent several months researching the problems of MUNI and authored a City Charter Amendment to create a nine member elected transit board, who would ride MUNI everyday. Jim uses the same problem solving method used by Benjamin Franklin. Study a problem for six weeks with your undivided attention; talking to all parties that have an interest in the problem or solution. Come up with a solution, share it with all involved, get feedback, make changes, and then implement the solution. Jim is now working on a project to write a Charter Amendment to address the problem of homelessness in San Francisco. He spent nine days and nights in February on the streets, living and talking with the homeless. Jim will deliver on Mayor Brown's broken 1995 campaign promise to host a citywide homeless summit. Reid plans to assemble a Department of homeless Services made up with existing services and staff from other departments to address homeless services in one location. See http://www.SFMayor.com for details.

Jim rides MUNI everyday and plans to continue riding after he is elected. The only way to fix MUNI is for the Mayor to ride it daily and keep attention focused on its problems until we solve them. There are enough voters who ride MUNI to put any candidate into the runoff and elect them in December.

Jim Reid