Five San Francisco candidates running in the June special election to represent the Sunset District were challenged Wednesday night.
Each was questioned on an earlier controversy: Taxes, upzoning, police staffing, school district funding and, of course, Sunset Dunes park and the Great Highway.
“Why should voters trust your ethics and ability to meet important deadlines in City Hall for grants, projects, and other legal obligations?” KQED reporter Sydney Johnson, who moderated the event, asked Albert Chow, referring to the hardware store owner’s missing tax returns for his nonprofit, People of Parkside Sunset.
The nonprofit received at least $440,000 in city funding between 2018 and 2022.
Chow said he had taken responsibility for that lapse, but also blamed COVID-19 and having a child. He has since filed the returns, he said, and pointed to various activities that the nonprofit has organized, such as outdoor movies at McCoppin Square.
The filings, however, have not yet shown up on the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt organization search, or ProPublica’s nonprofit explorer.
Chow later told Mission Local he had talked to his accountants in early January, and they are still in the process of filing, but “I’ve done my due diligence to correct the situation.”
And so, the evening in front of 120 people at the United Irish Cultural Center continued during the first public debate for all five candidates.
For the incumbent supervisor Alan Wong, who was appointed by Mayor Daniel Lurie in November, the tough question aimed at Wong’s support for the controversial upzoning plan, which increases the height and density for housing development in the Sunset.
Johnson asked if Wong will work to move the 1234 Great Highway affordable-housing project forward. A lack of funding paused the eight-story, 199-unit affordable housing project for seniors in January.
Wong, in his fourth month as the Sunset supervisor, punted.
“I’m still developing my policy perspective on this,” he said.
Johnson next grilled Natalie Gee, the chief of staff for District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton’s office, whom the police union wanted disqualified in November’s appointment process because of her alleged intention to weaken the union.
The union has since endorsed Wong, who in 2020 called for cutting the police department budget by 25 percent.
Regarding the police, Gee said she would work with the San Francisco United School District to “bring in folks on a pipeline.” She also said she would staff other emergency services, such as firefighters, nurses and mental health professionals.
“We know that the cops can’t be the only ones serving our neighborhood,” she said.
For David Lee, a longtime educator and Chinese voter registration advocate, the question focused on whether the city should provide more funding to the school district even as it faces its own budget deficits.
He, too, failed to answer the question directly, and instead blamed SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su for letting the four-day educators’ strike happen. He called for accountability from the superintendent and the school board.
Lee moved to District 4 in September after running twice for District 1 supervisor, and then for State Assembly.
Throughout the evening, he touted his advocacy for filing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Sunset merchants against PG&E over the blackout during the holiday season. He also called for creating a substation for the Taraval Police District, which covers the largest area and population in San Francisco.
Then it was on to the Sunset Dunes, the oceanfront park created by the 2024 ballot measure Prop. K.
Jeremy Greco, a school administrator and the only candidate who supports Sunset Dunes, was asked how he would explain his position to the 64 percent of voters in the Sunset who rejected Prop. K, which closed the Great Highway to cars.
Greco replied with a story about how his view of the park changed, thanks to Ocean Calling, an art installation on Sunset Dunes near Ortega Street, where people can make a “call” to lost loved ones, though no one picks up on the other end.
Last February, when Greco’s friend died, he walked over and made a call. When his mother-in-law died in April, his entire family went and made another call.
“A few nights later, they had a concert there, and my wife and I sat there with my daughters. The sun set and music was playing, and somebody had a microphone and everyone was shouting out the names of someone who passed away,” he said, his voice shaking. “It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, and that shows how art can change somebody.”
The other candidates’ answers and demeanor on the Great Highway question were different from their answers a week ago in front of an audience wanting cars back on the road.
On Wednesday, as candidates faced a crowd more likely to support the park, their tones softened.
Chow, an outspoken supporter of opening the Great Highway to cars, praised the “beauties” on Sunset Dunes, “the octopus, the giraffe, the skateboard park.” “All that stuff is great,” he said. “We can have that, and have the road, too.”
Gee, a part-time pilates instructor, asked everyone to take a deep breath to “release the tension in your body” when talking about the Great Highway. She focused her answer on the process of closing the road, saying it happened too soon.
“If the voters voted to close it, we could’ve figured out a way to phase it in over years,” she said. “There were other options on the line that we could have looked into [for] some sort of compromise.”
Wong, who raised his voice last week while blaming his challenger, Gee, for sabotaging his ballot measure to bring cars back, skipped talking about the fight entirely.
He sounded almost apologetic.
“As supervisor, I have to wrestle between these different opinions. Ultimately, I came to the decision that I did,” he said. “I have great respect for the people that are passionate about Sunset Dunes.”
Has anyone in the press asked Albert Chow if he would be willing to release those missed tax filings on his own? There is nothing that I’m aware of that would prevent him from disclosing that information in advance of the forms making their way through the IRS queue.
SFUSD: you could toss a billion dollars into that black hole and it’d still be a mess.
There is so much talk these days about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. But the current “Sunset Dunes” offers no Diversity of use, no equity for local residents, and no Inclusion for people with physical disabilities, school buses, tourists, or commuters. The ending of the weekend compromise (alternative use for all) is an outrage to anyone who has common sense.