As Mayor Daniel Lurie takes his second try at appointing a District 4 supervisor, he’s shaken up the process, adding increased vetting, seeking more public input — and asking candidates to do a bit of homework.
This weekend’s assignment was to go out into the district, connect with community members, take names and hand them into the mayor’s office by Sunday at 8 p.m.
The mayor has released a shortlist of District 4 prospects: Natalie Gee, Supervisor Shamann Walton’s chief of staff; Alan Wong, a San Francisco Community College Trustee; Albert Chow, a hardware store owner; Ike Kwon, the former chief operating officer at the California Academy of Sciences; and Wannong “Tiffany” Deng, who sits on the city’s Asian Art Commission.
After their homework is in, the candidates will do another interview with members of the mayor’s staff on Monday. That will be followed by a meeting with the Irving Street merchants at Hole in the Wall Pizza.
The new scrutiny comes after the mayor’s previous appointment for District 4 Supervisor, Beya Alcaraz, resigned on Nov. 13, just three days after the San Francisco Standard’s unflattering report about her business, and the same day Mission Local ran a story revealing Alcaraz’s text messages about allegedly illegal business practices.
After Mission Local’s article was published, Lurie met with Alcaraz that night and asked for her resignation. She agreed.
“I made a mistake,” Lurie told a crowd of Sunset residents on Friday night, in a recording obtained by Mission Local. “I did not do enough to set up my appointment for success. And so, for that, I apologize.”
This time around, Lurie’s team started by giving candidates a five-page questionnaire on everything from social media to policy positions.
“I went to my team and I said, ‘When a governor appoints a senator, and when a president of the United States appoints commerce secretary or treasury secretary, what’s the questionnaire look like?’” Lurie said at the Friday meeting hosted by the Westside Family Democratic Club, Sunset Chinese Cultural District, Sunset Youth Services and Wah Mei School at the school’s building on Judah and 19th.
Already, each candidate on the shortlist has completed the new five-page questionnaire, and has had at least one interview with the mayor and his staff, including Adam Thongsavat, the mayor’s liaison to the Board of Supervisors, and Staci Slaughter, the mayor’s chief of staff.
The shortlisted candidates have been encouraged to engage with the community. All five attended the Friday night meeting, with Gee, Wong, and Kwon arriving early to chat with residents beforehand.
Between the new questionnaire and “a real thorough — and maybe a bit more public — vetting process,” Lurie said he was confident in the new selection process. Though, he acknowledged, “people still might not be happy with who I pick.”
Some names on the list were considered during the first appointment, including Albert Chow, an outspoken supporter of the Joel Engardio recall and the owner of a hardware store in the Sunset. Chow also opposed Prop. K, which closed the Great Highway to cars and converted it into a park.
The first time around, Chow filled out a different, and briefer, survey and went through three rounds of interviews. This time, he took “several hours” to fill out a much more in-depth survey and completed another interview for the position.
Alan Wong, the former president of City College of San Francisco’s board of trustees, was also considered the first time around, but didn’t get far. This week, he was called back for another interview.
Wong is a Hoover Middle School and Lincoln High School graduate. He worked as a legislative aide for former District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar, and is an active member of the National Guard.
Then there is Ike Kwon, who was the chief operating officer and head of governmental affairs at the California Academy of Sciences. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he and his wife are from, in March 2023, but moved back to the city this June.
While living in Chicago they returned to the city often, though, and held on to their house in the Sunset; his 25-year-old daughter lives there. Kwon initially told the Chronicle that he did not vote in the November 2024 election and stated how he would’ve voted on Prop. K if he were present.
But election records indicate that he did vote here, and he subsequently corrected himself to the newspaper.
Kwon told Mission Local that he opposed Prop. K because he felt that building out the pedestrian paths and bike lanes would be a better option. As the former head of the Cal Academy, Kwon was also wary of car-free JFK Drive.
In the present day, Kwon said he backs the mayor’s upzoning plan to allow taller buildings in the Sunset.
When Lurie made his first appointment, Kwon said he was approached about being supervisor, but declined because he didn’t want a political career.
“I was really excited when Beya Alcaraz got appointed, but when that didn’t work out, my wife and I were frustrated. We were like, ‘someone really needs to step up,’” Kwon said.
This weekend, he plans to connect with District 4 residents by hosting house parties and visiting the library and other Sunset sites in order to connect with District 4 residents.
Another name on the list is Wannong “Tiffany” Deng, who was appointed to the city’s Asian Art Commission by London Breed. She competed in the Miss Chinatown USA pageant in 2015. (Note: As of Nov. 24, 2025, Deng is no longer a candidate.)
Natalie Gee, a legislative aide to District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, is also being considered.
Walton suggested Gee to Lurie during the first round of appointments, but the mayor’s office did not give her an interview; her politics tend to be more progressive than the mayor’s. Nevertheless, on Oct. 28, she declared her candidacy for the June election.
This time around, she has been called back for two interviews, and is a finalist. In addition to Walton, Supervisor Fielder has also suggested that Lurie appoint Gee.
Gee voted against Prop. K, and would support reconsidering opening the Great Highway to cars on weekdays.
“The process was so rushed,” Gee said about Prop. K, adding that the traffic effects had not been fully considered, particularly since the state will start closing lanes of 19th Avenue soon for repaving.
Gee said she would vote against the upzoning plan as it is now. But, if she gets appointed, she will work with the mayor and the community to make amendments after the plan is passed.
Meanwhile, several other supervisors say that they have forwarded names to the mayor, but have declined to put their nominations on the record. At the Nov. 18 Board of Supervisors meeting, Lurie thanked the supervisors who reached out with feedback since Alcaraz’s abrupt resignation.
He promised the 10 sitting supervisors he will appoint someone who “will be the colleague and partner who you all deserve.”
The mayor said he hopes to make his appointment within the next week, but that Thanksgiving, which is next week, may interfere with that deadline.
“We don’t want to rush, but we want to go quickly,” Lurie said.
Campers,
The Mayor has a 5 page questionnaire ?
I just filled out a 36 page questionnaire to stay on Medi-Cal.
Turned it in a month early and got a note back acknowledging receipt and thanking me.
Couple of days letter got another notice, this one asking why I had not turned in my application.
I went through the same song and dance several years ago when SFHA tried to shake me loose from my Hud-Vash unit and denied they got proper paperwork and the like.
This is how Trump’s people ill separate people from their health care too.
Bottom line is that Mayor Lurie doesn’t know squat about how the City runs and who runs it from the street sweeper volunteers (like me and my dog) to SFPD’s district station bosses.
I tried to get him to take Aaron Peskin on as a volunteer til he can legally pay him but he rejected the idea and doubled down on violent cops and heartless developers.
He still has 7 years to come around.
Result thus far ?
Look at the pic with the story of the huge angry looking cop and the equally stern looking citizen and grim looking Mayor.
Why doesn’t he listen to me ?
Harry Truman said it best:
“It didn’t take me long as President to figure out that the country’s problem was that all of the people who know how to run it are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.”
And … picking up trash !
lol
go Niners !!
h.
Peskin, while roundly hated by moderates and yimby, was literally the only one who really knows the ins and outs of getting things done – or stopping them from getting done.
It seems backwards, but honestly, London Breed’s biggest problem was she had absolutely no idea of how all these processes worked. Rules and regulations don’t appear like magic. Someone didn’t say, “let’s make this harder”. It’s like the “don’t stick head under mower” stickers – that wasn’t someone making it up, someone actually did that and they HAD to. Regulations CAN get outdated and sometimes even contradictory, so they do need to be reviewed, but the weakest leaders are always the ones who say, “If we just got rid of these pesky rules, and cut the power from the people’s representatives, THEN I could really get some work done!”. That’s literally the biggest key to failure. It might make you lots of friends immediately, like Reagan, but then it will screw you for decades, like how Reagonomics basically caused the entire nation’s debt to explode.
Anyway, Peskin would have been good to have as an advisor, even if it were what to watch out for. Of all people, he’s really been exceptional at working the system. Even the people that hate him – they hate him because he’s been successful at getting what he wants passed and what he doesn’t want stopped.
“He still has 7 years to come around.” Not at THIS rate he doesn’t.
He’s been wiffing at slow-pitch lately.
It’s a shame that a single reason, the Sunset Dunes park, is the main reason for selecting a candidate who is supposed to represent every resident. It’s ridiculous that they belive that area belongs to Sunset residents rather than the entire city.
Agree. In my opinion it’s even more ridiculous that they think they can undo the citywide referendum by, as far as I can tell, just bullying people (even if it’s only hapless Engardio) and whining and claiming special privileges as non-“transplants” to the exclusion of any other tactics. Like, if you live anywhere else in the city and you enjoy the park, you are going to vote to undo prop K just because some people on the west side bitched about their somewhat longer car journeys in such an obsessive way? A majority of voters are going to go for that? What are the anti park advocates offering these voters? I’m being snarky, yes, but I really am curious.
A citywide CHARADE, you mean? A referendum implies above-board dealing, campaign-grade funding oversight, truth-telling in claims and adverts, and obviously a proposition that doesn’t violate State AND Local laws.
Prop K was none of the above. It was a scam perpetrated by developers to enable land theft from the public commons for private profits, and it violates multiple laws and the will of the affected constituents. Everything about it was dishonest chicanery and the YIMBY rubes fell for it hard.
YIMBYs don’t care who is affected so long as they get what they want. Who cares if there’s traffic and people are endangered? YIMBY got his.
“Transplant doesn’t understand and can’t see gentrification as a problem, news at 11”
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see where any land has been stolen. Or, trying to play along with your argument, where it can be stolen in the future. If you want to present a general citywide applicable not excessively selfish case for making the great highway an automobile road again then now is as good a time as any. You might be the first.
I lived in d4 for 10 years, 2 of which right on the beach. I was living there when I voted yes on K. I have never been rich by USA standards and I have basically zero chance of getting rich on real estate in the future. My general impression of the outer sunset, speaking as a former tenant resident: the neighborhood is pathologically conservative and only wants everything to stay just the way that it is. Muh parking spot, etc. As an adult you know that is not how life works, things change and you adapt. If your argument for undo-K is just a sob story about how people with $1M+ net worth in appreciated real estate and 20th century property tax bills might have to adapt to a new situation then I say tough cookies. If it’s something else then please try to explain more clearly. I’m an unwitting tool of greedy developers? Explain how.
The way I see it I had an opportunity to change a road I never used into a beachside park via ballot initiative and I’m pleased with the results. Let’s do some more roads into parks, that’s my position. You and me each get one vote if we use it, just like everyone else.
I’m actually quite open to being corrected in neutral or even insulting terms, but the correction has to make sense. Go!
It’s a shame that you think Sunset Dunces Park is the main reason that folks in the Sunset want better leadership. Well, mostly a shame . . . but at least your binary framing underscores where the problem resides. You could try asking folks what they need instead of being sure what it is and telling them – might work out better for you.
His political lens is blinding common sense.
Regardless of whether one likes the outcome of the creation of Sunset Dunes, a current legislative aide to a supervisor saying “the process was so rushed” is illuminating to the general pace of other changes and improvements around the city
Not just ‘rushed’ but deliberately pushed through via lies and dark money.
Every single talking point about K was a lie, from the amount of money spent sweeping the streets to the number of cars re-routed through narrow residential avenues without even stop signs in many cases. It was a massive series of lies in contravention of CA law. If it were a meritorious decision it wouldn’t need dark money, lies, or rule-breaking to make it happen – in fact the jogging path alongside the GH has always been open and under-utilized for these purposes, but don’t let that stop YIMBY tools from wasting 50+ million dollars of our tax money while claiming it’s self-sufficient. Lying liars got Fired with Joel.
Not happening, homie.
Crossing my fingers for either Albert Chow or Alan Wong – both are well known in the community, and have good track records serving the public.
Does Alan Wong even live in D4? One presumes he will move there if appointed.
He doesn’t seem to have a backbone about anything, which means Mayor Lurie will probably appoint him.
We’ll have a supermajority of “listen to the back and forth” milquetoast supervisors to rubberstamp the Mayor’s McKinseyist downsizing attacks on public services. So long, MUNI, nice knowing you!
Wong moved there and is a political opportunist.
Chow is a local and the locals back him.
And… he’s out. Gotta run your non-profits better than that Al, taxes have got to be filed. Jesus.
Now Lurie gets another bite at installing a rubber stamp.
I hope these candidates will actually do some good in the District. We all know why the previous supervisor was recalled. Hope whoever gets chosen will open the Great Highway back up to cars. I’m tired of driving around it just to drive into the Richmond district.
He was recalled because he was a liar. Whether Prop K is overturned or not is more of a question for courts to decide – the process was deliberately flawed, illegal, a nonsensical bypass of both local and CA state laws, and the funding was absolutely as suspect as the “Parks Alliance” drama has demonstrated.
It’s not something that can even “be” voted on, it’s that inherently and deliberately flawed as a land grab for private interests to subvert public property. The precedent is truly the threat, not only to SF but to all of CA. We need out from under the greed and lies of Scott Wiener. Right now. We set that precedent with Engardio’s firing – now it’s time to get organized against the real sucking sound.
Most of Tthese finalist intend to open the Great Highway back up. Good. I don’t know why they shut it down in the first place. People want a park? The people can go inside Golden Gate Park. Bad enough they shut the roads inside GG park.
This way of looking at the issue is an immediate dead end. “There’s already enough parks, just use the existing parks” “No, there’s already enough roads, just use the existing roads”. I can’t believe people keep trotting out this talking point as though it’s some big insight.
No, it’s a traffic nightmare that endangers Sunset residents unnecessarily for yuppies to use the same roads, at the same costs, as they always have just fine.
Go figure transplant yuppie who doesn’t live in the neighborhood has no problems with people being inconvenienced and endangered by their YIMBY lies. God dam YIMBYs are mindless.