Mayor Daniel Lurie has not appointed a new supervisor for D4, but already there’s a strong candidate in the race to defeat the mayor’s choice.
Natalie Gee, labor and community organizer and chief of staff to Sup. Shamann Walton, announced Tuesday that she’s running for the seat.
Gee was born in San Francisco, went to local public schools, including Lowell High and SF State, and if offering an agenda that could appeal to many of the voters who tossed Joel Engardio out of office.
She supports reopening the Great Highway to cars during the week, and says she will back a new ballot measure to repeal the closure. She opposes the current version of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Rich Family Zoning plan, which would allow greater density with no greater affordability on the West Side of town.
From her press release:
Legislatively, Gee will focus on building family-oriented housing without pushing out existing residents, protecting immigrant communities, investing in programs for youth and seniors, and funding true public safety initiatives that build connections between community and law enforcement. She will prioritize safer streets with reliable transit and better roads for pedestrians, micro-mobility users, cyclists, and drivers.
Gee is doing something else that’s critical to local government (and the future of our society): She’s calling on the very rich to pay more taxes.
Gee will make sure we balance the budget by taxing billionaires and big corporations that don’t pay their fair share, not by placing the burden on everyday working San Franciscans.
Labor organizer Gordon Mar won D4 in 2018 as a progressive. Former Mayor London Breed gerrymandered the district to include more conservative areas, and that allowed Engardio to oust Mar four years later.
Engardio ran as a conservative, supporting the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin and calling for a tough-on-crime approach. That was in an era when the mayor, the local and national media, and some politicians made false arguments about public safety and turned that into a defining issue.
Today, the driving issues on the West Side include, of course, the Great Highway—but also demolitions of existing housing, upzoning, and the displacement of small businesses.
If Lurie appoints a supervisor who votes for his Rich Family Zoning plan, that person will be instantly vulnerable.
So Gee is the first in what may be a crowded race, one that will determine if the working-class voters in the Sunset will support a progressive Asian American woman who sides with them on zoning and the Great Highway, and also talks about taxing the rich.
