At Thursday night’s debate at the United Irish Cultural Center over the political future of District 4, the biggest contention was about who wasn’t there: Incumbent Supervisor Alan Wong.
Wong’s four opponents did not miss a beat, taking the opportunity to punch at Wong’s agenda and the political forces backing the supervisor. In particular, they hammered home the fact that Wong was appointed by Mayor Daniel Lurie and called out the money flowing into Wong’s campaign coffers.
The debate was hosted by the progressive group IndivisibleSF and moderated by 48 Hills founder and editor Tim Redmond. In attendance were Natalie Gee, chief of staff to Supervisor Shamann Walton; David Lee, a political professor at San Francisco State University, Chinese-voter organizer, and former Rec and Parks commissioner; Albert Chow, owner of Great Wall Hardware and a leader of last year’s recall of Joel Engardio; and Jeremy Greco, who works in education.
Wong did not respond by press time to Gazetteer’s question about his absence, sent to a representative of Wong via text and email.
Redmond kicked off the proceedings with an existential question for all supervisors in San Francisco: What specific cuts or revenue streams would the candidate implement to usher the city through a $300 million budget deficit?
Thus began the referendum on the mayor’s tenure.
Lee took a fiery tone, jabbing the air with his pointer finger as he claimed Lurie “did nothing” while staring at budget troubles coming for his administration in year one.
“That’s why we're in this situation, with this budget deficit that he claims will require laying off some 500 people, who knows what that number is,” Lee said. “What we should be demanding is an audit of all the departments to really understand, how did [Lurie] come up with these cuts?”
Lee added that no supervisor has demanded transparency regarding the mayor’s cuts, specifically calling out Wong as a “rubber-stamp” ally of Lurie.
Gee, considered a frontrunner in the race by political observers, had a more specific solution to the budget crisis: Taxing the rich. She touted her experience with budget negotiations and her organizing with local unions to put Measure D — an initiative to tax wealthy executives who make 100 times the median compensation of their employees — on the June ballot.
She also went granular on city policy, pointing out that using city workers, rather than third-party contractors, for San Francisco projects could save dollars. Gee stressed that she does not support the mayor’s ongoing layoffs.
The night’s biggest blows against Wong and the mayor, however, came with Redmond’s second question about how each candidate was raising funds and how to get PAC “dark money” out of local elections, given the influence of wealthy funders and special interest groups.
Wong was appointed by Lurie in December in the aftermath of the mayor’s debacle with Beya Alcaraz, a young political neophyte picked by Lurie to represent District 4 after the Engardio recall. She was then forced to resign after the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Standard, and Mission Local outed her problematic history of business mismanagement, and the incident raised questions about Lurie’s failure to vet her.
Wong was picked at the eleventh hour, and the D4 hopefuls on Thursday night observed that he is now receiving major funding from centrist political groups like GrowSF.
Wong has outraised all of his opponents, with $300,000 from a GrowSF PAC and more expenditures from the PAC SF Believes, which has raised $1.1 million dollars to support Lurie-backed measures, Wong, and District 2 incumbent Stephen Sherrill, a London Breed appointee also up for reelection. (SF Believes is funded by just 13 individuals and has spent $172,000 on pro-Wong materials thus far.)
Chow said the funding of elections in SF “disgusts” him, and added that he refuses PAC money because it could make him “beholden” to Lurie’s powerful allies and influence his board votes.
“I was approached by GrowSF early on in the race and they tried to either bump me out by offering me a commission, or saying ‘Hey, we can really help you, just fill out our questionnaire.’ And I refused to take that on because I knew where that money was coming from,” Chow claimed. “Those five- and six-figure checks are disproportionately funding [Wong].”
Lee also distanced himself from Lurie, stressing that he did not seek a mayoral appointment for District 4 or reach out for any assistance in the current race. Greco, who has the fewest funds, played up the fact that he is a working-class resident “doing everything” on his campaign.
Gee specifically called out the $1.1 million raised by SF Believes: “None of us here is getting that money,” she said.
Continuing the anti-Wong pile-on, all four candidates confirmed they did not support the mayor’s Family Zoning plan to raise density and build housing. Lee criticized Wong, who backed the upzoning plan, for not seeking feedback from the community. Gee said the plan lacks protections for existing tenants. She said she was considered for potential appointment by Lurie, but suggested her opposition to the plan had an effect: “Clearly, I didn’t get the job,” she joked.
All four also oppose the BUILD Act, introduced this year by Lurie and District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood. It would cut the city’s transfer tax in half, purportedly to spur real estate investment; the District 4 candidates, meanwhile, framed the act as helping rich developers rather than those who need affordable housing.
As much as the candidates criticized Wong, the debate was equally a referendum on Lurie’s first year as mayor. The distrust was even sharp on matters of ICE enforcement: “I want to know what Trump and Lurie talked about,” Greco declared, referring to a call between the two that has not yet been released. Lee also criticized the mayor while saying SFPD had assisted ICE during a March 23 incident at San Francisco International Airport.
It’s impossible to predict an election based on one debate, but Thursday’s event, sans Wong, showed how the incumbent could lose out in a ranked-choice election amid a diverse and motivated field. Lurie is not on the ballot, but he might as well be in District 4.
