Mission Local is publishing a daily campaign dispatch for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: Ahsha Safaí. Read earlier dispatches here.
Between committee meetings at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Monday, mayoral candidate and District 11 supervisor Ahsha Safaí escaped City Hall for half an hour, traveling to Bayview to meet and greet stationary and operating engineers at IUOE Local 39.
It was a big day for the Local 39: Every other year, the union training center opens applications for apprenticeships. Today was the day.
For those interested in an apprenticeship, the application window runs Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to noon, this week. On Monday’s opening day, trade workers lined up around the block at the Local 39 training center at 560 Barneveld Ave., located in the triangle-shaped tract bordered by Oakdale Avenue, Industrial Street and Bayshore Boulevard. Some aspiring engineers arrived as early as the day before.
As a dozen training staff wound down from a busy morning, Safaí arrived a little after 12:30 with his campaign manager, Lauren Chung, and legislative aide Tiffaney Bradley, just in time for the staff’s pizza break. Safaí did not have any slices, though. His lunch came later that day from Dragoneats, a Vietnamese spot five minutes from City Hall.
Safaí introduced himself to engineers over pizza and soda, and expressed his appreciation for their endorsement; the IUOE Local 39 was one of the first three unions to endorse Safaí for mayor.
“We want to keep this a city for everyone. We want to make sure everyone can live, thrive and survive in San Francisco,” Safaí said. “Not just the extremely wealthy, but we want to make sure that working families can thrive here.”
In a 20-minute tour, Shane Mortensen, director of training at the center, showed Safaí and his team around. Through the long and echoing hallways are classrooms like any other college classroom, except that there are hanging wires and power drills behind the desks.
“If we’re doing our job properly, it should be like Disneyland,” Mortensen said as he explained an operating engineer’s job. “Nobody even knows we exist. Everything just works. You walk in, the lights come on. The air is the right temperature. When you flush the toilet, everything goes away.”
Safaí first found himself in a room full of future fire safety directors learning how to deal with natural disasters; then he was in the basic electricity classroom, reviewing the circuits built by apprentices from their very first class. In the following rooms, there are air-balance hoods, vacuum pumps for refrigeration, and a compressor that’s “heart of the beast” for ACs.
“This is cool,” Safaí whispered. He put on his glasses at one point to get a closer look at the circuits. “My son would go crazy.”
It was unclear how many workers in the room were familiar with Safaí before this visit, but showing up seemed to hearten the workers at the center.
“He’s always been pro-labor, always our supporter,” said regional director Jay Vega, who invited Safaí on Monday morning for the visit. “A lot of candidates won’t even come talk to us.”
Damon Holmes, a Bayview resident and apprentice at the training center, only remembers the “Levis guy” as this reporter named all the mayoral contenders. But after learning about Safaí’s support for the labor unions, Holmes said, “that’s who I’ll vote for, a union guy.”
“We know there are a lot of candidates who are backed by a lot bigger money,” said Local 39’s business representative, Chung Park, who also guided Safaí throughout the visit. “But we really like Ahsha. Whenever we go to any kind of rally or picket lines, he’s always there. He not only talks the talk, but he really shows by his action that he’s supportive of workers.”
Not only that, Park said he likes Safaí because he’s creative about solutions that will bring people back to the city, such as inviting Hollywood to film movies and TV shows in the city.
Gerald Ballesteros, a 48-year resident of San Francisco, agrees that revitalizing the city should be the priority. “I think bringing a university is a good idea. It’s kind of old of me to say … bring the city back to its past glory.”
In fact, plans to bring people back to downtown were a large part of what Safaí was focusing on when he left Bayview and headed back to City Hall. As this reporter waited for the 9R bus up Potrero Avenue, Safaí was already back in Board Chambers for the Land Use Committee meeting. There, Safaí held a hearing on the future of Union Square when Macy’s eventually shutters.
Under the chandeliers and alongside his colleagues (and opponents), Safaí settled back into his day job.
