View the San Francisco for Thursday, December 19, 2024
District 5 Supervisor-elect Bilal Mahmood meets at Woods Lowside on Haight St with some of the Haight-Ashbury merchants who form his constituency.Mayor London Breed said in a statement that new District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill “is dedicated to making San Francisco safer and more affordable for everyone.
” The incoming supervisor most recently served as the director of the Mayor’s Office of Innovation, where his efforts centered on addressing homelessness in The City, according to the Mayor’s Office. “I am deeply proud and eager to serve the residents of District 2, and I am humbled by the opportunity Mayor Breed has given me to step into this role and build on her legacy of leadership and progress,” Sherrill said in a statement provided by the Mayor’s Office. “Catherine Stefani’s example is one that I will strive to meet in ensuring that the government is responsive to the people of District 2 and the City as a whole, and not the other way around.” Sherrill, whom the Mayor’s Office said lives in Presidio Heights, will hold the office until at least the next scheduled election, currently set for the June 2026 California primary. The winner of that race will serve out the remainder of Stefani’s term, and District 2 will then vote to elect a full-term supervisor that November.Stephen Sherrill said in a statement Wednesday that he was ”deeply proud and eager to serve the residents” of District 2. The consequential pick puts to rest months of speculation among San Francisco’s political class about whom Breed might choose for the appointment. Other names that had been floated included former Supervisor Michaela Alioto-Pier as well as Eileen Feinstein Mariano, a City Hall staffer and the granddaughter of the late San Francisco Mayor and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The selection process flirted with controversy in recent weeks when the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Conor Johnston — a Breed confidant who has earned a reputation as one of the Compared to the other names put forward, Sherrill has maintained a relatively low political profile in San Francisco, though the mayor’s announcement of his appointment gives some indication of where his policy priorities might stand. It noted Sherrill’s involvement in Northern Neighbors, a pro-housing-development and pro-transit advocacy group. The release also named the revitalization of downtown and the cutting bureaucratic red tape as key priorities for Sherrill. “He is dedicated to making San Francisco safer and more affordable for everyone, including supporting the housing, transit, and infrastructure we need, and committed to the transparency and accountability our residents deserve,” Breed said in the written statement.that Breed had put forward to serve on influential commissions. Opponents argued that the decision of who to fill the roles should be left to Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie, who is set to take office in January.Sherrill previously worked in a number of roles within former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markulla Center for Applied Ethics, said the appointment should raise ethical alarms. “That kind of broad power is usually a concern. You like to see some sort of check and balance,” Skeet said of San Francisco mayors’ appointment powers. “When you have that type of unilateral discretion, you usually bend over backwards to solicit input and demonstrate that you are not acting solely.” Skeet said it helps that Sherill has worked with Breed for the last two years, which indicates she does have “some direct knowledge of his capabilities.” But Skeet said the choice is further concerning because Breed will be leaving office early next year. “With her own future uncertain, I could see that some people would wonder if she might be trying to curry favor with Bloomberg for her own future employment opportunities, or something of that nature,” Skeet said. Before joining Breed’s office and after leaving Bloomberg’s, mayoral officials said Wednesday that Sherrill worked in private equity, then for an outdoor brand and a volunteer-management software platform.“As we begin a new era of leadership in City Hall, I’ll do everything in my power to aid in the transition and ensure that our neighbors continue to have the engaged, proactive and, responsive representation they deserve on the Board of Supervisors,” she said in a written statement. Lori Brooke, the president of the Cow Hollow Association neighborhood group and an outspoken critic of The City’s efforts to add housing density, said she also welcomed Sherrill’s appointment. She then offered a laundry list of priorities that she would like to see him address, including “safety, traffic concerns, and supporting our small businesses.” Brooke said the local community also values “thoughtful approaches to affordable housing that respect our neighborhood’s historic character and existing scale.”, whom many around City Hall consider a frontrunner to be president of the board in the next term, said Sherrill was an unsurprising pick whose attitudes are “consistent” with Breed’s policies. Melgar said she had hoped Breed would’ve appointed a woman, but she is excited about the board’s infusion of youth: None of the five new members set to take office next year are “Younger folks look at all the challenges we have in The City differently,” she said. “If I was going to make a generalization, I think that that generation is generally better than mine, and certainly than the boomer generation, on issues of race, gender, the environment and things like that.”Melgar, a longtime advocate of increased housing development, said the addition of Sherrill, as a member of Northern Neighbors, should push the board into a more housing-centric direction.A mayoral appointment to a supervisorial seat has previously served as a springboard to later electoral success. Most recently, Matt Dorsey locked in his District 6 seat in the November 2022 election following his appointment to the office by Breed earlier that year. But Sherrill’s status as a relative political novice might leave him with a steeper path to victory if he does run for election in District 2 in 2026, according to Jason McDaniel, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University. “This is not someone who is going to scare off potential challengers,” said McDaniel, meaning for others who might be considering their own District 2 run, “they’re seeing this as an opportunity.” Mayor London Breed — seen in October — had two of her commission nominees rejected by the Board of Supervisors. Outgoing San Francisco Mayor London Breed still has a few more weeks left in office, but The City’s post-election changing of the political guard is already well underway. Breed received a warm send-off during her final appearance before the Board of Supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting. Only a few minutes later, however, a narrow 5-4 majority voted to reject two nominees whom Breed had put forward to serve on influential commissions, overturning some of her last major decisions in office. Supervisor Connie Chan was absent during the vote, and Catherine Stefani’s seat was open at the time following her election to the California State Assembly. Over the course of deliberations, no one on the board questioned the qualifications of the nominees, who would have taken seats on the Board of Appeals and the board overseeing the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Instead, opponents argued that the two nominees — Joanna Gubman for appeals and Sara Barz for transit — should be rejected on the grounds that the personnel decision would be better left to Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie, who is set to take office in January. In explaining his vote, Peskin said that he was opposed to ramming through “a number of last-minute appointments to very high-profile commissions that have terms of four years.” “The obligation of this board is to put our foot down and reject these and let a new mayor nominate whoever he chooses,” said Peskin, who finished third in ranked-choice voting in the mayoral contest. Even a compromise measure put forward by Supervisor Myrna Melgar was also rejected by the majority, made up of the board’s progressive-leaning voting bloc. That measure would have delayed the vote until after Lurie takes office in January, thereby maintaining the nominees’ standing while also giving the new mayor the opportunity to reject them if he so chooses.Earlier in the meeting, Breed had received a standing ovation following her address to those assembled in the chamber, a group that included such luminaries as former Mayor Art Agnos as well as former Supervisor and retired San Mateo County judge Quentin Kopp. “You know, people say that we didn’t get along,” Breed said during her remarks, acknowledging her often fractious relationship with the board during her nearly seven years in office. Nevertheless, she said, “we should be so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish” during a period that included a global pandemic, national unrest unleashed by a racial reckoning, and a rapid explosion of overdose deaths in The City. Following her remarks, a number of supervisors — including some of her most strident opponents — returned the compliment, one after the other speaking up in praise of the outgoing mayor’s leadership. “I want to really recognize the positive things that you did for The City,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who had leveled fierce criticism against Breed over the past year while he campaigned against her for mayor. On Tuesday, he chose instead to focus on those times they found themselves on the same side of San Francisco’s political battles.But when the time came to vote, Safai was among the majority rejecting Breed’s nominees. The majority’s stance was shared by at least some in the general public: A dozen or so people staged a letter-writing campaign urging board members to reject Gubman and Barz so that the decision could be left to Lurie. Such sentiments were summed up emphatically during a public comment section of a board committee meeting held last week that reviewed the nominations. One member of the public told supervisors that even considering Breed’s nominees after her loss in the November election represented “a big middle finger to the voting public.” For her part, Melgar argued that the board shouldn’t be so hasty in rejecting qualified candidates on purely political grounds. “We all know it’s difficult to get really high-quality people who want to do the work that is required” to serve on the two bodies, said Melgar. She went on to praise both candidates’ experience, including Gubman’s time serving as an administrative judge for the California Public Utilities Commission. Barz, meanwhile, has worked on transit issues for the past decade in both the public and private sector and also has had extensive involvement in local civic organizations, according to her resume.Breed had also nominated immigration attorney James Byrne to serve on The City’s Police Commission, a position he held as recently as April of this year. But he withdrew his candidacy before Tuesday’s meeting, Peskin said. Meanwhile, Lurie’s new administration is taking shape as well. Lurie announced that he will be reorganizing the Office of Mayor by introducing four new policy-chief roles, leaders who will help oversee key policy areas.How to Clip Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. 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