Meet the 31 people tasked with reshaping San Francisco’s constitution

Six top City Hall officials are involved in the charter reform working group. They come from the Board of Supervisors, the mayor’s office and city departments.

Rafael Mandelman, who is leading the effort, is joined by two newly elected supervisors, one from the moderate slate and one from the progressives.

Bilal Mahmood of District 5 who, during the November 2024 election, was backed by political pressure groups such as GrowSF, is joining the group; GrowSF also secured a seat at the table.

Chyanne Chen of District 11, who was largely supported by organized labor. Unions only managed to get one representative at the table.

Alicia John-Baptiste, who is Lurie’s policy chief on infrastructure, climate and mobility, is representing the mayor’s office in the group.

Charter reform is now one of Lurie’s key priorities, according to the mayor’s office, and John-Baptiste is well-positioned to take the reins: She is the former CEO of SPUR, an urban think tank that recently published a report listing 10 charter reform recommendations, like increasing the power of the City Administrator and raising the threshold for issues to end up on the ballot for voters.

Senior city officials are also part of leading the conversation, including City Administrator Carmen Chu, who oversees more than 25 departments and an annual budget of over $750 million. One of the key recommendations from SPUR is to enhance the power of Chu’s position and department. City Controller Greg Wagner, who acts as the city’s auditor and chief financial officer, is also involved.

Alongside the City Hall officials, several of San Francisco’s most active political-pressure groups have taken seats at the table, each bringing in its own power bases. All come from groups politically aligned with Lurie.

Sachin Agarwal leads the tech-backed group GrowSF, which funded a slew of supervisor candidates from the moderate camp, including current board members Mahmood (District 5) and Danny Sauter (District 3).

GrowSF influence is growing in the Lurie years: Tyler Law, Lurie’s former campaign consultant, is now serving as the group’s senior advisor, as is Lurie spokesperson Max Szabo. GrowSF has aligned itself with Lurie’s agenda, including the upzoning proposal and the effort to reform permitting in San Francisco.

From the business sector, Larry Baer, the president and CEO of the San Francisco Giants, joins the group as the co-chair of Advance SF, a business coalition advocating for downtown revitalization. The group’s members include major employers like OpenAI, Google, PG&E, Visa, Gap and Waymo.

Meredith Dodson, head of both the San Francisco Parent Coalition and its political affiliate SF Parent Action, is also at the table. Dodson and her group backed the 2022 school board recall.

Andres Power, a former policy director to former Mayor London Breed and co-founder of PR firm West Advisors, has found his way back to City Hall: He is at the table through Abundant SF, a YIMBY-aligned advocacy group pushing for housing and transit policies, and led by tech executive Zack Rosen and political strategist Todd David.

The only representative from the city’s unions is Kim Tavaglione, who is the executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council.

After publication, Melanie Matthewson, a legislative aide to Mandelman, said two more members from labor unions had been added to the effort: Zach Goldman, a staff director of SEIU 1021, which is the city employee’s union, and John Doherty, vice president for subcrafts at the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, a group of 24 unions related to development.

Doherty also serves as the business manager and financial secretary of IBEW Local 6 representing electricians and electrical workers in San Francisco.

Two others in the group could be voices for labor, however, including Chyanne Chen, the District 11 supervisor who was backed by labor last year during the election, and Joshua Arce, who is a special assistant to the Northern California District Council of Laborers.

Lurie, the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and a philanthropist himself, has brought wealthy donors into City Hall, soliciting millions of dollars for initiatives including downtown revitalization to street cleaning and the city’s homelessness and behavioral health crises.

Likewise, major philanthropic foundations are joining the discourse on charter reform.

The Crankstart Foundation, which is represented by its CEO Missy Narula, is one of the four foundations at the table. Crankstart is a San Francisco-based family foundation co-founded by venture capitalist billionaire Michael Moritz, the co-founder and chairman of the San Francisco Standard, and his wife, Harriet Heyman.

The foundation has become a key philanthropic partner to the Lurie administration, contributing to emergency food assistance, homelessness, and immigration defense, among other things. It is the largest family foundation in San Francisco, with $3.8 billion in assets.

Others are Fred Blackwell, the CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, who was also the executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the director of the mayor’s office of community development under former Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Bob Fisher is the son of the founders of retail giant Gap Inc. and a co-founding trustee of the Pisces Foundation, which supports environmental and community causes. Fisher has spent his career in retail and serves on the board of Gap, where he has held leadership roles including chief operating officer and president of brand operations.

Susan Hirsch is a principal at Third Plateau, a social impact consulting firm. Hirsch, a Bay Area philanthropist, is connected to Third Plateau through the merger of her firm, Hirsch Philanthropy Partners, into the consulting group.

Six people from the business and real-estate sectors are also part of the group.

Joshua Arce is an advisor on California Alliance for Jobs. Arce is also the vice president of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and brings experience from the labor-management advocacy nonprofit focused on infrastructure investment in California.

Arce is also a special assistant to Northern California District Council of Laborers and was the director of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development for five years from 2018 to 2023.

Katherine August-deWilde, president of Partnership for San Francisco, represents major employers focused on downtown revitalization. Rodney Fong, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, and Tim Omi, president of the Council of District Merchants Associations, are also at the table. Anna Marie Presutti, the CEO of SF Travel, joins them.

There is also Shola Olatoye, the inaugural CEO of the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation, a nonprofit that channels private funds into public improvements for downtown revitalization. The group has raised over $60 million so far, including money from billionaires such as Gap’s Fisher, who is also in this charter reform group, and Ripple’s Chris Larsen.

Think tanks are also involved, particularly SPUR, which is represented by Ben Rosenfield, a senior advisor on governance and economy. Rosenfield is also one of the three co-authors of SPUR’s November 2025 charter reform report.

SPUR’s governance proposals also served as the basis for Lurie’s move toward using policy chiefs, a deputy-mayor-like system to streamline how city department heads report to the mayor.

Rosenfield previously served as the mayor’s budget director for five years under Mayor Willie Brown, and as the city controller for 16 years. He was known as the “adult in the room”, and respected by politicos of all stripes during his tenure at City Hall.

Natalie Sandoval is the other think-tank representative; she is the executive director of the Urban Land Institute San Francisco. Sandoval is also the vice-chair of the Oakland planning commission.

Six people are representing universities and community nonprofits.

Dan Bernal is representing the University of California, San Francisco as its vice chancellor for community and government relations. Bernal previously served as chief of staff to Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, and was president of the San Francisco Health Commission.

Lynn Mahoney is representing San Francisco State University as its 14th president.

Anni Chung, president and CEO of Self-Help for the Elderly, represents programs serving mostly immigrant seniors with health, social, educational, and housing services.

Michael Pappas, executive director of the San Francisco Interfaith Council, connects diverse faith communities to support vulnerable populations.

Shakirah Simley, executive director of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, brings the perspective of one of the city’s oldest Black-led and Black-serving community organizations.

Sherilyn Adams, CEO from Larkin Street Youth Services, is also in the charter-reform group, though she was accidentally left off from the mayor’s initial list, according to Matthewson of Mandelman’s office.