See how they run: DJ Brookter’s fundraiser brings ‘spoonfuls of support’

Even in a room lined with distractions — gleaming Christmas lights, conversations competing with one another, and old-style LED neon Giants signs — Dion-Jay “DJ” Brookter rarely breaks away from conversation. 

The District 10 candidate’s cadence is warm, and his index finger drags across the table when he speaks. Those listening can’t help but be intrigued. 

“I wanna be known as neighborhood supervisor,” Brookter told former District 10 supervisor Sophie Maxwell and another attendee at his fundraiser last Thursday night as they huddled around a high-top table at Il Pirata in Potrero Hill.

By neighborhood, Brookter means the many neighborhoods of  District 10: Bayview-Hunters Point, Potrero Hill, Visitacion Valley, Dogpatch, and Sunnydale. 

Around 30 of Brookter’s supporters and volunteers gathered in the dimly lit bar — the kind with disco balls that reflect off checkered floors and leather booths — to raise money for the man they hope will succeed Supervisor Shamann Walton, who hosted the event.

“I love connecting people,” said the 43-year-old as the conversations grew around him. “That’s what my purpose is.”

Brookter is a progressive candidate in the race, but a dark horse. His opponent, Theo Ellington, has far outraised him, and is benefiting from considerable outside spending. A pro-Ellington PAC received $500,000 from cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen, perhaps the largest single gift in a supervisor race ever. 

As of Sept. 25, Brookter is in third place, money-wise: He’s raised $145,000 through public financing and his candidate committee, to Ellington’s $488,000 and Eppler’s $159,000. Including Larsen’s half-million, Ellington has received another $582,000 in PAC money.

Walton, working the room for donations, said that Brookter was “not scared” of Ellington’s backing, and would raise what he needed from the community. “When have you ever seen somebody give a Black man $500,000?” he asked, though Larsen had done just that.

Brookter’s event featured a who’s-who of San Francisco progressives: Walton, Maxwell, former Supervisor Dean Preston, and former Board President Aaron Peskin were in attendance, He’s also received endorsements from former Mayor Willie Brown, former Mayor Art Agnos, Supervisor Connie Chan, Supervisor Myrna Melgar and former Supervisor John Avalos.

Brookter is relatively new to San Francisco: He moved here in 2014 from Fresno, where he worked with formerly incarcerated individuals for Fresno’s Career Development Institute.

Two years into that job, a mentor reached out to Brookter and asked if he wanted to work with young people involved in San Francisco’s criminal justice system. He took the job at Young Community Developers, an affordable housing nonprofit, and in 2019 became its chief executive officer.

His supporters tried on Thursday to paint him as a hometown candidate.

“A lot of people act like he ain’t from Hunters Point. He’s from Hunters Point more than me now,” said Cory Monroe, better known as “Uncle Cory,” who started his speech in an almost-believable Australian accent; he was back from a trip down under. 

Since moving here, much of Brookter’s work has focused on Bayview-Hunters Point, the city’s historically Black neighborhood. Though its Black population is declining, District 10 has been represented by a Black supervisor since district elections were resumed in 2000.

The district is also, as former District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell said in the same huddled conversation from earlier, one of the highest home-owning districts in the city, where “manicured gardens and yards and painted houses” exist, and people take care of their properties. 

Housing was a through-line on Thursday.

“A lot of the candidates are gonna talk about affordable housing. They are gonna say the things that they want to do. They’re gonna talk about what they can do. But DJ is the only candidate that has actually built affordable housing in this race,” said Walton. 

In the last decade, Young Community Developers has helped build more than 200 below-market-rate housing units; 148 of them were homes for-sale.

“When I think about housing, and we’re naming housing for workforce development, after living through the supervisors who have done it, I have faith,” Brookter said.

Dean Preston, the democratic socialist former supervisor from District 5, said that when the two met for coffee at Farley’s in Potrero Hill, he was looking for three things: “No. 1, [someone who is] dedicated to affordable housing in San Francisco. No. 2, someone who is 100 percent independent of the billionaires and oligarchs. And No. 3 — this one’s important — someone who was endorsed by Shamann Walton.” 

Rounding out the evening, Brookter took the mic. He thanked the progressive supervisors in the room and turned to his father, who stood in the back and was mistaken for Brookter’s brother multiple times throughout the night. 

“Today, my father and I were on the T-train … we’re going to the office, and we’re sitting next to two young Black boys,” Brookter said. “I asked the two young men,” he continued, mimicking his father’s voice, “Shouldn’t y’all be in school right now?”

He got typical teenager white lies in response, Brookter said to laughter.

“I share that story because that’s the type of community that I was raised in. I was raised in a place where my father was stopping at a gas station and having a 20-minute conversation with somebody when we’re trying to go down to Los Angeles.”

“When I think about those two young boys who were on the T train, who should have been in school, but got an opportunity to engage with me and my father to see two generations … talking to them about making sure that they would be safe and get their  education, I have faith. So I want you guys to know, you have a fighter in me,” said Brookter.

“So, as we talk about the next 40 days, and when people ask me, ‘How do you feel about the money that’s come down the pipeline?’” he continued. “I got 500,000 reasons to let you know why I’m going to win.”