Four candidates running to represent the Sunset District called out the influx of cash to the District 4 race from independent expenditure committees with close ties to Mayor Daniel Lurie and from donors in real estate and finance.
Alan Wong, appointed by Lurie, was absent from the Thursday evening forum, but not the discussion.
“The incumbent in this race has quite a bit of money behind him,” said Tim Redmond, the editor of the news outlet 48 Hills and moderator of the forum. “I haven’t seen this kind of money in a District 4 supervisor’s race, ever.”
The reaction was quick.
“It disgusts me when I see that developers are writing those big checks,” said Albert Chow, one of the candidates and owner of Great Wall Hardware. “It corrupts our system and it truly takes away our everyday voice.”
Natalie Gee, candidate and District 10 legislative aide, used Wong’s war chest as an appeal in her closing statement. “All of us up here, we are not supported by big money… I encourage all of you to help us out on our campaigns.”
Also in attendance were David Lee, an educator at San Francisco State University, and Jeremy Greco, a private school administrator.
Some 60 residents attended the forum on Thursday evening at the United Irish Cultural Center, with many jotting down notes on notepads as candidates spoke. Organizers said Wong, whose grandmother passed away this week, did not respond to multiple invitations to participate going back for months.
The two-hour forum was hosted by Indivisible SF, the group that organized the past three “No Kings” rallies, and Westside Forward, a progressive group headed by former District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar.
Candidates criticized many of the mayor’s policies, including his upzoning plan, cutting taxes for real estate transfers and the charter reform measure to raise the signature threshold for voter initiatives.
Wong voted for the mayor’s upzoning plan a day after taking office and he supports most of Lurie’s policies. He has called raising the signature requirement to put measures on the ballot “reasonable.” When asked about the transfer tax cuts at a March forum, he said he was “very curious” about the legislation.
As of Thursday, the GrowSF PAC supporting Wong has amassed $301,000 and spent over $114,000, according to the San Francisco Ethics Commission dashboard.
SF Believes, a PAC that supports Lurie’s allies, has spent $172,000 backing Wong. Earlier this week, the PAC received $250,000 from the co-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, a MAGA donor. So far, $146,000 from the PAC has been spent to support Wong’s candidacy.
Gee has also received about $300,000 from a labor-backed PAC. Another PAC, Asian Americans for Representation, spent $95,000 to boost Lee, who has worked in the past to increase Asian American voter registrations in the Sunset and Richmond.
While the candidates aligned on many issues — all of them supported a policy that would require local police to demand IDs from ICE agents, for example — they were also eager to set themselves apart.
Greco, a relatively unknown candidate who has raised about $2,500, emphasized that he was the only one who supports Sunset Dunes park.
Chow, the owner of Great Wall Hardware, reminded the audience that he is the only small business owner running for the position. “We are a scrappy bunch,” he said. “We put all of our eggs in one basket as a small business. We really care.”
Chow said he was “neutral” on Prop. D, the overpaid CEO tax ballot measure that would raise taxes on companies with over 1,000 employees and whose CEOs make 100 times or more than their median employee salaries. Every other District 4 candidate, including Wong, has expressed support for Prop. D.
“We do have billionaires here. If we tax them too heavily and in a punitive way,” Chow said, “those are the ones that are the easiest to relocate. What if they pull their headquarters away and take their workforce? That is my only concern.”
When pressed by the moderator if he would support any prospective “tax on the rich,” Chow said he was uncertain. He did point out that he is also “neutral” on Prop. C, a countermeasure of Prop. D that was put forward by the Chamber of Commerce.
Chow was also ambivalent about a proposal to buy out PG&E and create a public power system. “It’s a very old system. What’s under the hood? What are we going to need to fix it and get it up and running and smooth?” Chow asked. “Can we afford to take this on?”
Chow pointed to Texas, a state whose power grid is separate from the rest of the country: Hundreds died during blackouts in a 2021 winter storm when the extreme cold overwhelmed the power grid. “I’m just cautious because I see other things that may or may not be good scenarios for us,” Chow said.
In the same pragmatic vein, Chow said, when facing the city’s large budget deficit, laying off city employees could be on the table if that’s “what the numbers say.”
Gee, meanwhile, positioned herself as the only candidate with the City Hall experience of delivering results — and the only one who can speak fluent Cantonese and Mandarin.
In response to a question about the upzoning plan, Gee pointed to her work on affordable housing projects in District 10, such as the 105-unit Sophie Maxwell building in the Dogpatch. She said she has worked on seven budget cycles, in both surplus and deficit years, and has “found creative ways to save our essential public services.”
When asked about the water and sewer infrastructure needed to accommodate the influx of residents under the upzoning plan, Gee said she was “the only one with experience up here who has negotiated with developers on projects to make sure that they bring in community benefits and invest in the infrastructure.”
At the San Francisco Gateway Project in Bayview near I-280, for example, Gee said she negotiated with the developer to pave nearby streets and turn “unaccepted streets” not maintained by the city into functional roads with water and sewage.
Lee, the educator, emphasized a pledge of transparency and accountability throughout the evening, and harshly criticized the mayor’s policies, calling them “a power grab” in a city that already has a strong mayor system.
Lee pledged to be an “independent” voice on the Board of Supervisors, which he criticized as “a rubber stamp” for the mayor that fails to ask “tough questions.” Lee’s criticism fell flat at times as he often asked a lot of questions, but had fewer answers.
After the two-hour forum, Ellei, a graphic artist who has lived in the Sunset for about three years, was disappointed that Wong failed to show up. She said she was more certain about Gee, but hasn’t decided on a second or third choice yet.
“I just hope that they can have enough momentum,” she said. “I hope for what happened in New York, where candidates kind of uplifted each other to make sure Cuomo didn’t get in.”
