S.F. supe candidate says GrowSF tried talking him out of race, offered to ‘look into’ commission seat

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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 the 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 convince 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.