All through primary season, a mysterious van adorned with the message “Saikat lives in Maryland” trailed congressional events, drawing attention to Saikat Chakrabarti’s slip-up in listing his primary address.
As of Tuesday, the van is back in action with a slightly different message: “I live in this van b/c Connie Chan hates housing.”
Gazetteer SF learned that the registered owner of the van is being paid by a super PAC that supports Scott Wiener.
In April, the San Francisco Chronicle used California Department of Motor Vehicles data to identify Conor Johnston as the owner of the van. Johnston is a longtime Wiener supporter who served as chief of staff to London Breed when she was supervisor, and later advised her mayoral reelection campaign in 2024. He is also owner of the cannabis company Otter Brands, and has a history of political pranks and provocations.
Johnston and his business have been paid nearly $30,000 by the Families for an Affordable San Francisco super PAC this year, according to financial disclosures to the Federal Election Commission. Families is a super PAC founded by Wiener’s active political director, Todd David, who remains the PAC’s treasurer.
On April 28, the PAC paid Otter Brands, Johnston’s cannabis company, $28,611.37 for “office consulting.” One week later, the PAC paid $1,000 to Johnston directly for “office refurbishment.”
Recipients of PAC money who use the funds on communications that urge people to “vote for, elect, or defeat” a candidate have to disclose the source of the funding under state law. Sean McMorris, a transparency, ethics, and accountability program manager at California Common Cause, told the Chronicle in April the van may have dodged any “magic words” that explicitly advocate for voter action, thereby skirting the disclosure requirement.
In a statement to Gazetteer, Sam Singer, spokesperson for the Families PAC, said that the PAC has “nothing to do with the ‘Connie Chan Hates Housing’ van,” but that the PAC staff “do find it entertaining, very smart and clever.”
“Families for an Affordable SF PAC hired and paid Conor Johnston for land use consulting and tenant improvement management to help us locate, secure, and ready our campaign headquarters at 2055 Market St. for use. The site previously served as the campaign headquarters for Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s mayoral race in 2024,” Singer said in a text message.
“Since that time the front windows had been boarded up and the space was in disrepair. Mr. Johnston performed similar work for our Richmond District office, and a separate payment for that project will appear on upcoming campaign disclosure reports.”
Singer insisted that the PAC is “fully complying with campaign finance law and properly reporting all expenditures and contributions.”
The Wiener campaign declined to comment through spokesperson Joe Arellano.
The Families PAC itself is a dark-money mess, as it leverages a 2024 FEC rule change in order for the PAC and Wiener’s official campaign to share staff and coordinate canvassing operations together. In May, campaign finance experts told Gazetteer that the rule change represents a massive breach of a foundational policy to ban communication between a super PAC and a federal campaign on materials that advocate for voter action.
“It’s contrary to a strong electoral system that ensures candidates are accountable to their constituents rather than big money and special interests,” Shanna Ports, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center’s campaign finance team, told Gazetteer.
Johnston’s messaging on the van focuses on the political talking point that Chan is an obstructionist on new housing construction, an accusation her critics have brought up during her time as District 1 supervisor. Chan, meanwhile, has described her approach as prioritizing the housing stability of existing residents and stumping for affordable housing.
Most recently, Chan criticized the reduction of the city’s affordable housing requirement from 15 percent of total units to 5 percent in new market-rate buildings; Chan only voted in favor of the policy change after District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s amendment to require 8 percent in the Mission.
Wiener himself has attacked Chan’s record on housing during his campaign for Congress, including with a June 23 Instagram post outlining the “extensive record” of Chan criticizing and pausing development in San Francisco. Wiener has touted his YIMBY approach to housing construction through the expediting of permits and upzoning to allow for more dense housing on existing sites, and has stated his support for subsidized affordable units and rent-control measures.
Johnston did not respond to Gazetteer’s multiple requests for comment via Instagram. In response to this reporter’s question in the comment section of a post about the re-done van, the account’s owner replied in glib fashion: “Sir, I'm a van. And a home.”
