Earlier this week, Mission Local has learned, several members of San Francisco’s planning commission received an unexpected phone call from Ned Segal, the mayor’s policy chief for housing and development.
He informed the commissioners that he wanted them to vote for Sarah Dennis Phillips to be the next planning director.
For some, this was confusing. They didn’t know who Sarah Dennis Phillips was. They also didn’t know who Ned Segal was, for that matter.
They do now: Both Segal and Dennis Phillips were at today’s special meeting of the Planning Commission. Prior to going into closed session, the three board-appointed commissioners on the seven-member body walked out, leaving the four mayoral appointees to speak with Dennis Phillips and, presumably, vote.
Following more than three hours of closed session, the commission acknowledged at mid-day that it had “taken an action” and will submit a recommendation to the mayor, but would not disclose what it was or who it was. Again, both Segal and Dennis Phillips were in the room during the closed session meeting and Dennis Phillips confirmed that she had answered questions from the remaining commissioners.
You’re not going to believe this, but Mission Local is informed that Dennis Phillips’ name will be advanced to Mayor Daniel Lurie. Shortly after publication of this article, the mayor’s office confirmed this, as well as the placement of Ann Taupier into Dennis Phillips’ former job atop OEWD and Liz Watty atop the new PermitSF initiative.
This was not how every commissioner expected to spend their Wednesday. Until Segal phoned up, some planning commissioners were under the impression that today’s meeting would be a preliminary step in the process of naming a successor to the outgoing Rich Hillis; something akin to agreeing upon the shape of the table, essentially. Hillis landing this job in 2020 required months of searching and interviewing a trove of qualified candidates after that nationwide search. HR was involved. It was, indeed, a process.
In contrast, it was not until shortly before 8 p.m. on Tuesday, only 13 hours before today’s 9 a.m. meeting, that some commissioners were even given Dennis Phillips’ resume. They definitely hadn’t held interviews, plural, with the best and brightest candidates gleaned in a thorough, nationwide search.
In case you’re wondering how the hiring process for planning director is spelled out in the city charter, this ain’t it. In fact this is it:
The Commission shall provide the Mayor with at least three qualified candidates for Director of Planning, selected on the basis of administrative and technical qualifications, with special regard for experience, training and knowledge in the field of City planning.
So, that didn’t happen. After going into closed session this morning at 9:07 a.m., commissioners Theresa Imperial, Kathrin Moore and Gilbert Williams — the three board-appointed members in the minority of a seven-member commission — walked out of the proceedings at just after 10. When asked for comment Williams replied, “We just walked out of the hearing, so that will let you know how we feel about it.”
Has San Francisco ended up with a qualified director with experience, training and knowledge in the field of city planning? Actually, yes. Sarah Dennis Phillips is, in fact, highly qualified. The head of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development is a knowledgeable former city planner who is also respected and well-liked.
“Sarah is fantastic,” says Sen. Scott Wiener. “She’s really good. She’s thoughtful, knowledgeable, politically savvy; she just wants to get things done. I think it’s a really powerful choice.”
“Sarah is great,” adds former planning commissioner Dennis Richards. “She knows her shit backward and forward. She’s accessible, straightforward, knowledgeable and incredibly honest and transparent. I think she’ll be a great director.”
That these two statements are essentially interchangeable is notable, considering their sources. Wiener is the godfather of the YIMBYs, and Richards is their bête noire. Actually, no; that’d be Aaron Peskin.
“I personally like and respect Sarah,” says Peskin. “There’s no question she has a background in city planning and development and is qualified for the job.”
So, there.
The problem, insofar as there is one, isn’t where the city ended up. It’s how it got there. Commissions in which members are made to be automatons belie the point of having a commission in the first place.
It’s undignified. It’s unsatisfactory. But that’s hardly new. Notably: It’s undignified and unsatisfactory in a different manner than the last time there was a vacancy atop the planning department.
That time, the commission followed charter section 4.105 to the letter. It undertook a nationwide search in which 18 candidates made the cut. It flew in people and interviewed more than half a dozen out-of-towners and locals, a process consuming nearly as much time as a Wagnerian opera cycle.
But, in the end, the winner was the mayor’s preferred in-house candidate, Hillis. It was lost on none of the commissioners that the mayor’s office had unsubtly insisted that Hillis’ name be among those forwarded to the mayor, where his selection would be a fait accompli.
Hillis, however, went through the interviews and was scrutinzed just like everyone else. There was no such process this time around. This time there were no interviews. There were no searches. At the beginning of this week, some of these commissioners wouldn’t have known Sarah Dennis Phillips if she stepped into the elevator with them.
It turns out that she has all the bona fides. She is, again, very qualified. But until late last night, a number of the voting commissioners had no idea if she got her advanced degree from Harvard University or Wossamotta U. (it’s the former).
In short: The prior mayor subverted the process and made a farce of it. The current one eschewed it altogether.
Which is preferable? That’s a deep and difficult question. It feels a bit like, as Tom Ammiano used to say, being made to choose your favorite Menendez brother.
If you’re suffering from repressed memories of November’s election, we’re sorry. But you voted on this: You may recall dueling measures on commission reform, Propositions D and E (again, sorry).
Prop. D, backed by some $10 million in donations, aimed to slash San Francisco’s uncountable morass of commissions and empower the city’s already-strong mayor by doing away with commission-based limitations on hiring and firing.
Prop. D. lost, shockingly and humiliatingly. But Prop. E, an Aaron Peskin joint bankrolled to the tune of a svelte $80,000, won. It takes a softer line on eliminating useless or redundant commissions, and doesn’t touch on mayoral hiring and firing powers.
It’s difficult to parse the will of the voters. But they were recently given the chance to do away with constraints on mayoral hiring and firing. And they didn’t bite.
With that said, does it make bottom-line sense that the mayor, who will ultimately take the praise or blame for the performance of the planning department, should have to navigate the slings and arrows of unelected commissioners he did not put in place in order to hire his preferred planning director?
Not exactly. If Aaron Peskin had won the mayor’s race, for example, would the public have been well-served by him trying to get his planning director through four London Breed appointees on the Planning Commission? Again, not exactly.
You could make all the same arguments, incidentally, regarding the forthcoming hiring of a police chief. So, stay tuned.
But it also makes little sense for city commissioners, ostensibly functioning adults with jobs and the ability to feed themselves and tie their own shoes, to receive phone calls and texts from the mayor’s people to choreograph their moves, big and small.
Projecting a veneer of oversight but simply serving as a conduit for whoever appointed you is the worst of all outcomes. It’d be better to do away with the commission system altogether, or at least redefine its purposes to reflect reality.
Sarah Dennis Phillips looks to be a winner. But it’s perverse that this city, from one mayor to the next, remains so averse to straightforward, competitive hiring practices. We, in fact, often manage to score the worst of all outcomes, undertaking lengthy and costly searches only to promote someone who’s (Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!) already in the building.
Planning Department sources tell me they think Dennis Phillips would be “top of the pile” on even a thorough search of qualified candidates. But now we’ll never know. And a number of other inside-hire department heads, shoehorned into their jobs, did not come in with Dennis Phillips’ level of respect and qualification. Their tenures have not been universally stellar.
Could San Francisco generally find better-qualified people if it, you know, looked for them? Yeah, it’s a possibility. But if it did that, we’ve been told, the city would hire people who “didn’t know 28th Street from 28th Avenue.”
You know, I think there’s an app for that.
We can be pleased and optimistic about Sarah Dennis Phillips. But this process, or contemptuous lack thereof, is hardly a blueprint for success. On the contrary, it’s the blueprint for the insularity, inefficiency, provincialism and self-dealing this city excels at.
And, at some point, we’re left to wonder: Is that the plan?
Additional reporting by Jessica Blough.
Great reporting in both articles. Astounding circumstances.
Hear hear. So there is a process that is silly and time-consuming and expensive and easily manipulated to fill a pretty obscure local administrative position. And we short-circuited that process and ended up filling the position quickly and efficiently with someone who is uniformly considered to be highly qualified. No complaints from me. Inefficiency, provincialism and self-dealing are obviously bad and we should fight that regardless of the process that was used to employ the person who engages in these. Let’s focus more on the substance and less on bureaucratic process that serves no end other than wasting time and (our) money.
I couldn’t agree more. Smart, efficient and a quality appointment. Think of all the money that was saved as well .
Agreed, SFAtty, not much to see here. And it was immature for the three officers to walk out of a meeting just because they knew they were going to be out-voted on something. They are there at taxpayers’ expense to do a job, and not to behave like spoilt children.
It is highly possible that the Mayor should be viewed as the spoiled child given how he gave the Planning Commission no chance to even discuss other potential appointees, let alone send him three names that would have included Sarah’s. The three Commissioners were the grown ups by asserting their independence and not being part of an appointment (anointment) which can be analogized to a temper tantrum by the Mayor getting and eating all of the ice cream and cake at the party.
Still looks like sour grapes to me, sorry.
Tom doesn’t understand (or admit) why this is important. File under : everything.
What is important is that those who are paid taxpayers’ money to do a job don’t throw a hissy fit every time they get out-voted on an issue.
Found the sellout.
Joe:
I’m ambivalent. A lot of time and money was saved, and it probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome…and we do have one hell of a housing problem to address, so maybe it’s not a terrible outcome, but…
The process sucked, the lack of engagement with the non-mayor appointed Commission members being force-fed under these circumstances is unappealing and rude, and it doesn’t scream good governance (repeating your points). Also, this appointee, no matter how good she is, now has this burden being viewed as a hand puppet for the Mayor–sycophant much. She won’t have the same sway or respect that she would have had if she had been put through some review, and some may try to undermine her because of it. You know how politics works in this City.
All I can say is she better not fuck it up.
This is exactly what happened with the hiring of the head of the SFMTA. The Board of the SFMTA is legally responsible for the hiring process. When Tumlin was hired a search was done. But this time Lurie simply appointed someone who would do his bidding, even though that isn’t legal.
I don’t know why he bothered to let Tumlin go. Ever since Lurie appointed Julie Kirschbaum, she’s making the same incompetent decisions Tumlin did and the Mayor seems to be in complete agreement with all of them.
The Optics of these appointments are very disturbing and send a message that diversity and inclusion are no longer relevant to the City’s mission. Surely there could have been consideration of or a promotion for a candidate of color. There are plenty competent veterans of color from SF Planning. The appointment of three white women only widens the gap between the privileged and those who are no longer given a seat at the table because chairs are incrementally being taken away. It has also been documented and reported that at least one of these appointments has caused harm to black and brown men during her tenure at the City.
Under this postmodern settler-occupation of SF, it is clear the Novo Oligarchy is sending a message that the color of your skin matters when it comes to value at City Hall and in land use decisions — by continuing the practice of structural discrimination in local government.
For the “Well-Respected”: Isoken Omokaro
And for PermitSF Initiative staff…
Say his name.
If the Planning Commissioners voted to recommend Dennis Phillips in closed session but then refused/failed to report the identity of that individual after the closed session, that is a clear violation of the Sunshine Ordinance. It is not only a violation, but a willful violation of the Sunshine Ordinance, which is grounds for removal from office as official misconduct. The draft minutes from the June 18, 2025 Planning Commission are due not more than ten working days after the meeting – July 3, 2025. There does not appear to be any coverage of this meeting on SFGOVTV.
This is very encouraging, and happy to hear from the previous commenter that it happened with the SFMTA head as well. If you hold someone accountable to fix city problems, you also need to give them the power to appoint whoever they want (and note that this person was actually voted by the majority of the commission). If city ordinance 2028473766263.2737374744 doesn’t allow for that, it should be also changed overnight. As a citizen of S.F., I expect the laws of the city to address current needs, not stifle change.
“If you hold someone accountable to fix city problems, you also need to give them the power to appoint whoever they want” – Again, the point of a commission is not to have guaranteed “yes” votes when you ask for them top-down. That’s entirely circumventing the POINT of HAVING a COMMISSION. So many “yay strong man” types love to praise exactly that, but they aren’t considering wtf it actually does or why. “As a citizen of S.F., I expect the laws of the city to address current needs, not stifle change.” As a citizen of the world, I expect such decisions of what is needed vs stifling would not be decided by appointed yes-people, essentially cheerleaders for whatever big-$ interests tell them to do. It’s simply mindless to pretend that you can have effective oversight only by short-circuiting the oversight process. Read it again.
Another thoughtful and important article that is a joy to read.
Commissioners Moore and Williams terms expire in July 2026.
Since there is no longer a (so-called) “progressive” majority on the BOS, it’s time to retire both of these reactionary NIMBY obstructionists come this Summer.
So we should dismiss a process for efficiency sake? DOGE (Department of Government Evil) anyone?
As my old political science professor used to say, “The most efficient form of government is a benevolent dictatorship”…. followed by, “unfortunately, the one who follows him may not be so benevolent, and that is the most rapid path to pure authoritarianism”.
That said, the most stable form of government tends to be one run by committee – because it’s so utterly inefficient that it’s practically impossible for a bad leader to completely obliterate anything during their time, and a skilled leader is capable of using committees representatives to their advantage…. but, it’s still time consuming.
Maybe we need a bit more benevolent dictator and a bit less committee, but this isn’t some evidence that all committees are bad and useless. It’s more like pulling into the driveway and your husband telling you, “see, I was fine to drive. I told you cabs are a waste of time and money”, as he struts into the house and you continue helping the neighbor’s child out of the car-seat in the back seat. Maybe he just had a glass of wine over dinner, but when your last husband was a complete alcoholic, that concern wasn’t misplaced.
This is an oddly bizarre and specific analogy, but I agree with your point.
First of all, this is some of the best writing in journalism I have read in this country in a while. That being said I am scared for our city for a few reasons: I’ve always know there’s been behind the door politics, but the callous game plan that is on par with the Trump administration is shocking.
The silence from the media over the mayor’s office also is a red flag considering how any chance they got were after Mayor Breed.
I see a lot of change but no reasons or accountability and it may be until it’s too late. We’ll end up with a boring city with no soul, no diversity and for what.
Just in case you missed the fact that we live in a corporate oligarchy which depends on a craven and corrupt bureaucracy, this episode should give you a clue.
Spur and Scott Wiener’s plans for the city are more privatization and unaffordable, hideous high rises.
If Sarah Dennis Phillips wants to be a good planning commissioner or keep her reputation she should turn down the job or at least ensure it’s only an acting position until the process has been completed. Accepting makes her look like just another case of Mohammad Nuru, the DBI, Parks Alliance and elite corruption. It is harder to get an entry-level job in the city than one of the most senior positions that will impact San Franciscans for generations. Does that sound like a good idea for anyone?
Sarah Dennis Phillips was not in consideration for “planning commissioner” — She was being consider to become the Planning Director.
She’s a SPUR HAC job. Lurie sold out big time to the corrupt Wieners.