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Supervisor Matt Dorsey has made fighting the scourge of fentanyl a centerpiece of his brief tenure on the board.

Competitor Honey Mahogany, a former top aide to Dorsey’s predecessor on the Board of Supervisors, leads in fundraising.

Rampant public drug dealing and frequent overdose deaths are not the only challenges in San Francisco’s District Six, but they are likely the most pressing political concerns as voters weigh who should be their local supervisor for the next four years.

District Six includes South of Market — one of the areas hardest hit by fentanyl and other drugs — along with Mission Bay and Treasure Island. (The Tenderloin was in District Six for many years but it was moved to District Five during the city’s redistricting process earlier this year.)

In just one sign of District Six’s close connection to the drug crisis, SoMa is now home to a drug sobering center that aims to provide a safe place for people to ride out highs and get connected to services. But public drug activity remains common in parts of SoMa, and all four candidates running for supervisor in November bring different perspectives and ideas to address the problem.

Matt Dorsey, the incumbent appointed five months ago by Mayor London Breed, is facing a tough challenge from Honey Mahogany, a former top aide to Dorsey’s predecessor. Two other candidates, Ms. Billie Cooper and Cherelle Jackson, are also running.

Dorsey and Mahogany have raised the most funds and racked up the most high-profile endorsements. Through Sept. 24, Mahogany led the money race, ending the period with $233,900 in cash on hand compared to Dorsey’s $177,550.

Here’s how the different candidates would address some of District Six’s top concerns if they win the Nov. 8 election.

Drug dealing and overdoses: Dorsey, who is in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, has made fighting the scourge of fentanyl a centerpiece of his brief tenure on the Board of Supervisors.

He is working on a plan he calls “San Francisco Recovers” — a resolution that, if passed, would urge 21 city departments and six commissions to report back in three months on new resources or policy changes needed to better respond to the drug crisis. The resolution already envisions a range of specific programs, including access to treatment-on-demand for people with substance abuse disorder, which is already city policy, but not necessarily reality. He also calls for supervised drug consumption sites, an expansion of sober housing and job training programs for people in recovery.

“We have to get past the political rancor and get rolling in the same direction if we’re going to make progress,” Dorsey said. “That’s actually why I thought it was important to start this process as a resolution … This is about us getting on the same page about what we’re asking city departments to do.”

Mahogany, who was a legislative aide and then chief of staff to former District Six Supervisor Matt Haney, has been critical of Dorsey’s plan. She said the city doesn’t need a resolution directing departments to report back because officials already know what they need to do to address drug overdoses. Mahogany thinks San Francisco needs to focus on hiring more public health workers and fully funding services that treat people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

“We can’t continue to just half ass it,” she said. “If you talk to any of the city departments or even nonprofits who contract with the city, what they’ll tell you is the city has habitually underfunded them, so they aren’t able to fully staff up to the levels necessary in order to deal with the crisis on our streets.”

Cooper, an activist who is also in recovery, said she wants to give drug users more opportunity to get treatment without being forced to do so, because “not everybody wants recovery.”

Jackson, an activist and labor leader, said she would address the drug epidemic by focusing on investments in harm reduction, social services and job training so that “folks that are trying to get up on their feet have ample opportunities to do so.”

Public safety: Before Breed appointed him to fill the seat that Haney vacated when he was elected to the state Assembly, Dorsey was a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department. As a supervisor, he has supported giving the police more tools to respond to drug dealing and other street issues.

He has proposed implementing enforcement zones that would allow police to prioritize arresting dealers and confiscating drugs in areas around facilities that serve people with substance abuse disorder.

Dorsey was also one of seven supervisors who approved a new 15-month SFPD surveillance policy that allows police to temporarily monitor live surveillance feeds from privately owned security cameras in some circumstances. And he’s a supporter of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, another Breed appointee who has said she’ll consider charging fentanyl dealers with murder.

While discussing his views on public safety, Dorsey often points to the toll of the city’s overdose crisis that has claimed more than 1,700 lives since 2020 — and the increasing amounts of fentanyl police are taking off the streets. He has said the status quo is tantamount to “a war on drug addicts.”

“We can solve this problem and do a better job than we’re doing without a return to mass incarceration, without a return to the drug war,” Dorsey said at a recent news conference.

Mahogany said Dorsey’s plan for extra police enforcement zones around treatment facilities is “a lot of smoke and mirrors” that would not be “the most effective way of dealing with” drug dealing. While she said she supports hiring well-trained police officers, Mahogany said expanded support for community ambassadors could go a long way toward improving street conditions and reversing overdoses with Narcan.

Mahogany said she would not have voted for the SFPD surveillance policy that Dorsey and six other supervisors approved, citing an uneasiness about its live-monitoring provisions. If elected, she has signaled an intent to try to hold the police more accountable amid reports of officers failing to stop crimes while they are happening. Mahogany said she would call for public hearings about whether SFPD was properly doing its job.

“It’s a false dichotomy to say that we can’t have safe streets and also protect people’s civil rights and have a police force that actually obeys the law and stops crime from happening … but also does not abuse their power,” Mahogany said.

Mahogany said she does support some form of “higher consequences specifically for people dealing fentanyl,” though she did not have a specific proposal.

She has so far not endorsed anyone in the district attorney race, in which Jenkins is competing against former police commissioner John Hamasaki and civil rights attorney Joe Alioto Veronese.

Cooper, a longtime Tenderloin resident who now lives in SoMa, said she wanted to see more police foot patrols. She said she supports arresting drug dealers, so long as users aren’t aggressively punished for crimes committed by those supplying the drugs.

Jackson said the city should emphasize providing people with educational resources, sustainable housing and health care so that “people have the opportunity to do good in this city.” But she also acknowledged that “there have to be repercussions for people who don’t make good choices.”

J.D. Morris (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

J.D. Morris covers San Francisco City Hall, focused on the Board of Supervisors. He joined The Chronicle in 2018 to cover energy and spent three years writing mostly about PG&E and California wildfires.

Before coming to The Chronicle, he reported on local government for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, where he was among the journalists awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the 2017 North Bay wildfires.

He was previously the casino industry reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Raised in Monterey County and Bakersfield, he has a bachelor's degree in rhetoric from UC Berkeley.