Look, we're not here to tell you endorsements are useless. But we are here to remind you that no editorial board — no matter how many months they spent deliberating — shares your exact priorities, your neighborhood's specific problems, or your tolerance for government bloat.

So here's our actual voting guide: Do your own homework.

That said, let's talk about what matters this cycle.

Housing is still the issue. It was the issue in 2020. It was the issue in 2015. One local resident dug up 1986 real estate listings and found that an eight-bedroom house in Bernal Heights sold for $145,000 — about $443,000 in today's dollars. A Noe Valley Victorian? Under a million adjusted. Try finding either for anywhere near those numbers today. As one SF resident put it: "Please, for the love of God, can we build more homes?" Amen.

The candidates who deserve your vote are the ones with credible plans to cut permitting timelines, reduce fees on new construction, and stop treating every housing project like a years-long hostage negotiation with the planning department. Anyone promising affordability through more bureaucracy is selling you something.

On candidates: Voters are rightly skeptical of outsiders trying to parachute into local seats. As one local bluntly put it about one contender: "Don't let [him] carpetbag his way into a seat representing us." Residency and roots matter. If someone couldn't be bothered to live in the district before they wanted to represent it, that tells you everything about their commitment.

The bottom line: Vote for fiscal discipline, housing sanity, and candidates who treat taxpayer money like it's real — because it is. Skip the endorsement shortcut. Read the ballot measures yourself. San Francisco's problems weren't created by an uninformed electorate; they were created by an electorate that kept deferring to the same institutions that built this mess.

Polls are open. Make it count.