Lurie picks Beya Alcaraz, former pet-shop owner, as District 4 supervisor

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If navigating San Francisco government is a bit like running a zoo, it would help to have experience working with animals. 

Enter Isabella “Beya” Alcaraz. Mayor Daniel Lurie will appoint the 29-year old art and music teacher — and, yes, former pet-shop owner — to fill the District 4 supervisor seat left vacant since Oct. 18 following the recall of Joel Engardio.

Alcaraz, who is of Filipina-Chinese heritage, is not at all known in political circles. But the lifelong Sunset resident said she proactively introduced herself to Lurie at September’s Sunset night market two weeks after the recall vote, telling the mayor she was interested in the supervisor job. 

As of this week, she has it. The mayor will swear her in on Thursday morning. 

“As I’ve spent time listening to families, small-business owners, and seniors in the Sunset, I’ve heard the same thing: They want a City Hall that does things with them, not to them — and I couldn’t agree more,” said Lurie in a statement, mirroring the statement he made on the night of Engardio’s recall. 

“The Sunset deserves accountable leadership, someone who knows what this neighborhood is all about and someone who is of the Sunset and works for the Sunset,” he continued. “She will bring a fresh perspective to City Hall, and I am honored to appoint her as the next supervisor for District 4.” 

A poll received by District 4 voters on Oct. 20 described a woman whose background and ethnicity match Alcaraz’s, but with the pseudonym “Sarah Reyes.” Presumably, she polled well.

Alcaraz has never before been involved in a political campaign, has never walked a precinct, never worked for the city and is not a member of any city Democratic club. The mayor’s office highlighted her experience as a small-business owner who, at one point, paid $1,000 and waited half a year to get the city’s blessing to install a shed at her pet store.

Alcaraz will face a consequential vote almost immediately upon assuming office: Lurie is spearheading an upzoning plan to reshape the Sunset and other parts of the city. The plan has drawn Westside residents’ ire, and Alcaraz will have to answer to her current neighbors and soon-to-be constituents as soon as June 2026 if she hopes to retain her seat.   

Alcaraz, for her part, said the mayor did not ask for loyalty on that or any forthcoming votes as a condition of her appointment. When asked her position on the upzoning plan, Alcaraz said she supports the creation of more affordable housing in the neighborhood but “I will be bringing up some amendments with the mayor.”

She lauded the neighborhood character of the Sunset — “the greatest place that anyone could ever live or raise a family” — but noted that failure to pass a zoning plan that will produce the state-mandated amount of new housing will result in state takeover of the city permitting process and “50-story skyscrapers where they should not be.”

This matches language that Lurie and his allies have used in the past to build support for the plan.

Alcaraz is a life-long Sunset resident. Her parents met at San Francisco State University, and both worked at Holy Name School, a Catholic K-8 on 40th Avenue and Lawton Street, which Alcaraz attended from Kindergarten to eighth grade.

Her mother, Jackie, eventually served as parish manager, and her father, Ron, was the athletic director. She graduated from St. Ignatius in 2014. She later attended Diablo Valley College and City College of San Francisco. 

Before her parents scraped together enough funds to buy a Sunset home, Alcaraz said, the family lived in the downstairs unit of her great aunt’s nearby house. She shared a bed with her mother and older sister, and her father slept on a cot. 

When asked if she was the mayor’s first choice for the job, Alcaraz said she could not speak to that.

“The community knows me. They encouraged me to go for this,” she said. “I am a leader who will be working on rebuilding trust here and bringing the community together.”  

Alcaraz said she was dissatisfied with the way Prop. K, which closed the Great Highway, was placed on the ballot. That led to Engardio’s recall, and “I completely agree with the core issues that led to the recall,” Alcaraz said.

“One of them would be Prop. K. For far, far too long, the Sunset has been represented by people who have made decisions on our behalf without consulting with us and that was such a clear example. I am super excited to get started and start listening to everybody,” she said.

Reopening the Great Highway to cars would, at this point, require another vote of the people. Supervisor Connie Chan has expressed a desire to place this before voters in 2026, and recall organizers have sworn that, even if they must gather signatures, the item will find its way onto the ballot.

Alcaraz’s appointment only increases the odds that city voters will be revisiting this issue next year.

In 2019, at age 22, Alcaraz took over the Animal Connection, a pet-supply store, which she patronized as a child, and where she worked while in college. In February 2025, she made headlines with her quest to give away the store to the right person, charging only for the value of its inventory. 

“She’s stepping away because her family recently moved back to the Philippines,” the San Francisco Standard article read, “and she can’t balance regular flights around the globe with independently owning a small business in San Francisco.” 

She sold the business in May and has, since that time, been teaching arts and music to children. 

Being a district supervisor is also a labor-intensive profession, and Alcaraz says she’s glad that her parents have since returned from overseas; they had temporarily moved to the Philippines to deal with a family death. 

Alcaraz says that she also left the pet store “because I felt like I could make a bigger difference somewhere else.” Teaching music gave her a taste of that, but now, “In this seat, I can effect some real change.”