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by\u00a0Joe Eskenazi<\/a><\/strong> December 8, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Traffic](\"https:\/\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/IMG_9503-1-scaled.jpg\")
There\u2019s an old joke <\/a>in which two old ladies are sitting down to dinner. One complains that \u201cThe food in this place is terrible.\u201d The other responds, \u201cI know! And such small portions!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n That, in a nutshell, will be your District 4 supervisor race. It\u2019s going to be a reductive and nasty \u2014 and terrible \u2014 slog. But Sunset residents will be voting in less than six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sleepy Sunset, the Outer Boroughs of San Francisco, has, counter-intuitively, become San Francisco\u2019s political Wild Wild Westside. Voters in September overwhelmingly recalled their supervisor, <\/a>Joel Engardio, for championing the transformation of the Upper Great Highway into a park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter<\/strong> below.Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the first of many regime changes. Mayor Daniel Lurie on Nov. 6 launched a thousand Google searches by tapping unknown 29-year-old Beya Alcaraz to the role \u2014 only for her to resign a week later after post-appointment vetting by the media revealed allegations of appalling conditions<\/a> at Alcaraz\u2019s former pet shop and her own text messages copping to paying workers \u201cunder the table<\/a>\u201d and skimping on taxes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A game show-like process<\/a> to anoint the next supervisor followed, with a game-show-like number of would-be supes getting the Whammy<\/a> after the media pointed out issues like not voting, being a Republican<\/a> or \u201cforgetting<\/a>\u201d to file tax returns. Alan Wong,<\/a> a 38-year-old National Guardsman, former legislative aide and City College trustee, was nearly the last contestant standing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Will Wong become the first District 4 supervisor to win re-election since Katy Tang or will regime change come for him too? The angriest people in District 4 want cars on the Great Highway and high-rises to stay on the east side of town. Wong has remained coy about his hopes for the Great Highway and alienated upzoning critics immediately when he threw in for the mayor\u2019s upzoning plan<\/a> at his first board meeting. This only added to Wong\u2019s challenges; being saddled with this vote is akin to swimming from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park and, at the last moment, being tossed a cinder block to carry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beneath the surface of what could be San Francisco\u2019s most serene neighborhood, great vengeance and furious anger are roiling. It\u2019s possible that a figure from the Engardio recall will jump into the race. But, even if that doesn\u2019t come to pass, Sunset residents are still simmering over the specter of Fontana Towers<\/a> by the beach and inordinately preoccupied with crime in one of the city\u2019s safest neighborhoods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In case you\u2019re wondering, \u201cI\u2019m as mad as hell and I\u2019m not going to take this anymore!<\/a>\u201d in Cantonese is \u6211\u597d\u5b32\uff0c\u771f\u4fc2\u5514\u6703\u518d\u5fcd\u5566\uff01<\/p>\n\n\n\n The D4 stage is set for hyperbolic and specious arguments in a race that promises to be nasty, brutish and short. Here are a few to look out for: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your humble narrator wrote earlier<\/a> that it was a curious decision on the part of the mayor\u2019s office to have progressive candidate Natalie Gee participate in the \u201cWho Wants to be a District 4 Supervisor?\u201d game show-like process when there was never any real chance she\u2019d be appointed. Wong\u2019s electability was not helped by this spectacle, and Gee emerged as a stronger candidate because of it. In the one event in which participants were allowed to vote for their preferred supervisor<\/a>, Gee won a majority<\/em> of votes in a straw poll \u2014 in a four-way contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wong either can\u2019t or won\u2019t give the most fervent opponents of Sunset Dunes Park and Westside upzoning what they want. That put him in an immediate hole. But he \u2014 or, more accurately, his backers \u2014 can deflect from Wong\u2019s shortcomings, past, present and future, by attempting to render Gee unelectable. This is already under way via attempts to immolate Gee as an anti-police extremist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last month, police union president Louis Wong signed his name to a stern letter to the mayor. Wong inveighed against Gee\u2019s potential appointment in part because of an answer she provided in a 2024 Harvey Milk Club questionnaire<\/a> supporting the use of Tasers by law enforcement and writing that she\u2019d rather officers use less-lethal weapons than firearms. With disarming speed, this kompromat found its way all the way to the British tabloid the Daily Mail, <\/em>which did not disappoint with the headline \u201cDemocrat set to control huge swathe of San Francisco believes police should be banned from carrying guns.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s how you spell \u201cswath\u201d in Britain, where, incidentally, only around 3.9 percent of cops<\/a> carry guns. It\u2019s not clear a British reader would find this story all that salacious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither should an American reader: Reached for comment, Gee said she simply would rather police officers use weapons that are less likely to kill people. She never wrote anything about taking cops\u2019 guns away and does not support doing this \u2014 because that would be crazy. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n San Francisco politics can be confusing even to good-faith outsiders, so it warrants mentioning that, by local standards, Gee\u2019s answer to this question was less <\/em>progressive than Alan Wong\u2019s. He wrote, in the same questionnaire, <\/a>that the SFPD should not have Tasers at all. This is our status quo and one needn\u2019t be a wild liberal to espouse such a position: Tasers fail at an alarmingly high rate, <\/a>and, even when they work, they can be ineffective when the person being Tased is, like every Northern Californian, dressed in layers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of Wong\u2019s past positions on policing appear to be out of step with the law-and-order policies District 4 residents, per recent polling, crave today. In a 2020 questionnaire<\/a>, he answered \u2014 in writing<\/em> \u2014 that 25 percent of the police budget should be reallocated to \u201chousing,homeless services, social workers, health, and education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far from defunding the police, every candidate who will be running for D4 supervisor next year will say that they want the police department to recruit and retain more officers. The SFPD staffing crisis is real and costs the city a fortune in overtime. <\/a>But that\u2019s not something a district supervisor has any control over \u2014 the mayor runs the police department. And, even down 500-odd cops, crime rates in San Francisco are at their lowest in decades. A historical analysis<\/a> reveals a surprisingly erratic correlation between police staffing, arrest rates and crime rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a nuanced conversation to be had here. Don\u2019t expect it to take place during this campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Westside residents were clearly incensed by the closure of the Great Highway. They\u2019re livid about the upzoning as well, but it\u2019s difficult to foresee it being quite as galvanizing a force. That\u2019s because when the Great Highway was closed \u2014 it closed. Nothing is going to be upzoned for a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Zoning, in and of itself, does not cause buildings to spring from the ground as if erected via hypnosis<\/a>. Not, at least, while access to capital is low and interest rates are high. Not Jimmy Carter high, but plenty high. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, for the foreseeable future, upzoning remains a concept, not a reality. In harnessing it as a political issue, however, upzoning critics\u2019 strategy harks to a line in the \u201cHappy Happy Joy Joy<\/a>\u201d song: I don\u2019t think you\u2019re happy enough! That\u2019s right! I\u2019ll <\/em>teach<\/em><\/strong> you to be happy! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now substitute \u201cscared\u201d for \u201chappy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, yes, that was candidate Natalie Gee <\/a>saying on Instagram that 20,564 units of rent-controlled housing are exposed to potential razing and redevelopment via the upzoning plan. Is this correct? Yes. Is it accurate? That\u2019s harder to claim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Buildings with three or more units that qualify for rent control are protected by an amendment to the upzoning plan<\/a>. So those 20,564 units citywide are primarily in duplexes that haven\u2019t been converted to condos. To casually state that 20,564 units are at risk to be razed would assume that every duplex in San Francisco is on a lot big enough to build a larger housing development \u2014 a housing development lucrative enough to offset the ordeal of evicting tenants, getting city approval to demolish rent-controlled housing and then <\/em>getting the financing to pay for something big and new. Unless the Ellis Act is used to empty the building, the tenants evicted from said housing will also have the right to return at their former rent under both state and local law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Wong voted for this, and now it\u2019s his to defend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Into these rough waters sails a third notable entrant, David Lee, who recently filed papers to run against Gee and Wong next year. Something of the William Jennings Bryan of San Francisco, Lee has already run three times for District 1 supervisor (he lost) and once for state assembly (he didn\u2019t win). Earlier this year, he moved from the other side of the park into District 4. Will the fifth time be the charm? <\/p>\n\n\n\n If Wong and Gee tear each other down, Lee could absolutely<\/em> be the beneficiary. There\u2019s even a precedent for this: In 2006 <\/a>real estate investor (and future prison inmate) Ed Jew <\/a>landed the D4 supervisor position as other, better-known candidates savaged each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2026 race will be strange and terrible \u2014 and such small portions. Bon app\u00e9tit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We have a big year-end goal: <\/strong>$300,000 by Dec. 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s more important than ever that everyone<\/em> has access to news that reports, explains and keeps them informed. Paywalls don\u2019t serve anyone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your support makes it possible <\/em>for Mission Local\u2019s content to be forever free \u2014 for everyone<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n about:blank<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donate<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n getbackjoejoe@gmail.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Managing Editor\/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour humble narrator\u201d was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Sunset has a new supervisor \u2014 and a bruising, reductive and rapid election on the horizon by\u00a0Joe Eskenazi December 8, 2025 (MissionLocal.org) There\u2019s an old joke in which two old ladies are sitting down to dinner. One complains that \u201cThe food in this place is terrible.\u201d The other responds, \u201cI know! And… Continue reading ![\"Mission](\"https:\/\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mission-local-logo-300x300.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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Who wants to take stuff away from cops? <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Who wants Fontana Towers by the Beach? <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nKeep Mission Local free by making a tax-deductible donation today!<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Latest News<\/mark><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTimes have changed at Ward 86 \u2014 but clinic space has not. After S.F. hospital worker\u2019s killing, that looms large.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nS.F. taps outside firm to find out what led to killing of social worker Alberto Rangel<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhat\u2019s on now at San Francisco museums, December 2025<\/a><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Joe Eskenazi<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n