Days after Mayor Daniel Lurie appointed Alan Wong as the District 4 supervisor in December, directors of the political group GrowSF met with one of Wong’s challengers in the June election and tried to convince him not to run, according to that candidate, Albert Chow.
Chow said the GrowSF heads — Sachin Agarwal and Steven Buss Bacio — also suggested that he may be able to get a seat on a city commission, an appointment privilege largely reserved for the mayor.
Agarwal and Bacio said in a phone interview that they met with Chow, but could not recall the details of the conversation. They did not deny Chow’s version of events.
Chow recounted the meeting at a forum last Thursday to some 60 Sunset residents who attended the event.
“I refuse to join in those kinds of games,” Chow said. “I really don’t want to be beholden to anybody but my fellow Sunset neighbors.”
GrowSF is a political pressure group that has pledged to spend some $2 million backing Lurie’s allies in their 2026 races. It was one of the few big-money groups embraced by the mayor after his 2024 victory. Two of Lurie’s campaign advisors later went to work for the group.
Chow met with the GrowSF directors on Dec. 3, two days after Wong took office, according to a calendar entry Mission Local reviewed. Chow, the owner of Great Wall Hardware and a lead organizer of the Joel Engardio recall, was one of the finalists in Mayor Lurie’s appointment process.
Over lunch at Sherpa House, a restaurant on Taraval Street, Agarwal and Bacio tried to convince Chow not to run, and asked if he might instead be interested in any city commissions, Chow said.
Chow, who previously served on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the San Francisco Police Department’s small-business advisory boards, told them about these commissions.
Chow said the GrowSF directors told him they would “look into” it and “see what we can do.” He said it seemed to him “that they can pull some strings.”
“Wouldn’t you rather do that than run for supervisor?” Chow said they asked him. He said the two did not promise “that ‘we will give it to you,’ but ‘we can look into those things for you, if you want.’”
Chow declined, he said and, a week after the meeting, filed paperwork at City Hall to declare his District 4 candidacy.
Agarwal and Bacio of GrowSF said they tried to meet all candidates before making endorsements, including Chow, who is “prominent in the community.”
They did not deny Chow’s allegations, but said they did not recall the details of that conversation, nor do they recall if they tried to talk Chow out of running.
“We probably talked about his chances, which we felt were slim to none,” Bacio said.
As for the offer to “look into” a potential commission seat for Chow, Bacio said that he wonders “why Albert is talking about us so much.”
“He should be talking about what he’s going to do for the district,” Bacio said. “Less about people he doesn’t like.”
Chow is not a fan of GrowSF, which backed Engardio, whom Chow helped to recall. It also supported the mayor’s upzoning plan to increase housing height and density in the Sunset, a plan Chow opposed.
In San Francisco, the mayor has the authority to appoint members to most city commissions, including those for the SFMTA and SFPD.
With June’s election on the horizon, GrowSF has spent handsomely to back Lurie’s allies on the Board of Supervisors.
A GrowSF PAC has raised $301,000 and spent $111,000 to support Wong in District 4, and its other PAC in District 2 has amassed $257,000 to back Stephen Sherrill.
Cheers to Albert Chow for having integrity. I don’t see eye to eye with him on a lot of political issues, but we should all applaud someone who recognizes that working with big-money pressure groups like GrowSF would be incompatible with serving the community.
This is not unusual. In 2000 when I was young and stupid and ran for D6 supe back when the southern boundary was in the Mission in the low 20 streets, I was approached by emissaries from Beryl Magilavy’s campaign to drop out of the race and run for BART Board. She was endorsed by Ammiano.
The BART Board seat they urged me to seek was the 3 county seat from East SF to Oakland and up the bayshore to Richmond.
Not only were BART Board agendas the most boring, highly constrained things ever, but why would I ever want to try to, how could I ever represent a predominantly Black district?
Not only did the liberals fear me at the time, the progressives ran Hank Wilson to dilute “the gay vote,” to ease Chris Daly’s ascension, which in retrospect was not a bad thing.
These kinds of machinations happen all of the time in SF politics.
Albert Chow youtube video endorsing Engardio recall says everything needed to know what he’s about. Begin at 0:48 for sincere heartfelt xenophobia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNvBqZkf57A
I did not hear any hint of xenophobia in Albert Chow’s comments, but perhaps you could be more specific as to what you heard that led to your comment.
My family is not Asian and we have lived in the City for generations and in the Parkside since 1949.
The desire for, or anticipation of demographic change in the Sunset by former Supervisor Engardio was articulated at a public meeting, and his meaning was clear.
I wouldn’t necessarily say Albert is outright espousing “xenophobia”**, but he’s definitely being “nativist” (i.e., anti-immigrant/anti-migrant) as is Kathleen, by highlighting how long she and her family have lived in Parkside — as if this grants her and her family some kind of special status vis-a-vis new arrivals.
**While xenophobia is an emotional response, nativism is an active, often structural, campaign to exclude outsiders.
The real story is Albert and his taxes. Not this fabrication of a secret lunch to serve on a commission. Alberto cannot be trusted. He wants the power but doesn’t walk the walk or talk the talk.
Chow has not filed taxes, as Pres, for People of Parkside Sunset (POPS) since *2019.* A Nov 28 2025 Mission Local article reports that the nonprofit received *hundreds of thousands of dollars.*
So Albert Chow says he “forgot” (https://missionlocal.org/2025/11/albert-chow-district-4-pops-tax-returns/). Just forgot to file taxes for years?
From the article, “POPS did file previously, but also skipped a few years, too. That is my fault,” he texted Mission Local. “I plain forgot. It was brought to my attention, and I’m going to ask my accountant to get me those missing filings done… Chow claims his nonprofit filed its returns last year and in 2023, and “I think 2020.” But these returns do not show up on either the IRS’ own website or the ProPublica nonprofit explorer. On Friday, he could not send Mission Local the returns from those years, nor otherwise prove they were filed.”
At a candidates’ forum this year moderated by KQED, Chow told a completely *different* story by blaming COVID and being a parent as reasons for why he did not file taxes for $440,000 or so. He actually did not seem too concerned about it. His accountants are taking care of it, he shrugged.
Is this who should be voted in as D4 Sup?
Albert Chow is renown for riffing on topics he knows nothing about (because he relishes the attention), even though I wouldn’t put it past GrowSF to pressure Albert to drop out of the race.
Albert can’t even manage building relationships with the all merchants on Taraval, who are supposed to make up the People of Parkside Sunset. When was the last time their “Board” had elections, published meeting minutes, or organizational bylaws? This fellow is delulu if he thinks he can rep 80,000+ constituents.
Why doesn’t Grow SF just put themselves into the race instead of hiding in the shadows handing out money and the like? What’s their agenda for D4? Mission Bay housing development starting at Ocean Beach? Make all streets safe and slow with bicycle and Waymo access only? Or is it surveillance cameras and drones blanketing the hood and city to prevent crime? Whatever they want, it would be nice (and only fair) to clear the air with these guys and hear out their agenda.
because then they have to be accountable to the public and do their politics with sunshine.
GrowSf knows Albert Chow has good chances on winning the D4 supervisor election because his leading position for “community input” in L Taraval Project, Pro police and the recalls. While Alan wong and Gee had history of Anti Police motives. Gee is the worst choice on this issue. Gee desire to defund police is a instant no vote days sunset residents. This is not Bayview als.
i love it when people i dislike are fighting.