New chapter for mayor, supervisors
The political makeup of San Francisco’s most powerful legislative body looks much the same after the election, which means the tense relationship between the Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed will likely continue.
But there’s one person who many hope will be the bridge between the mayor and board, as well as among the supervisors: new District Seven Supervisorelect Myrna Melgar.
“That is a pretty high expectation,” Melgar said Monday evening, as she was writing thankyou notes to her supporters. “But I do think that I will play that role. ... I will do my part of make sure we are grownups and respect each other and tackle the issues that we need to tackle.”
Melgar will take over for termedout Supervisor Norman
Yee to represent an area that includes part of the Sunset District, Parkmerced, Parkside, Forest Hill and West Portal.
For the past few years, the leftleaning board and its vetoproof majority has been a point of frustration for the more moderate mayor. They have clashed on housing, homelessness, mental health care, cutting red tape for small businesses and other priorities. In an interview Tuesday, the mayor said that some members are “difficult for the sake of being difficult, and for the sake of opposing me,” but declined to name specific members. Privately, some supervisors have also complained that they have a hard time getting their calls answered from her office.
Breed endorsed candidates in the five contested board races who she felt could help with her key priorities, particularly when it comes to building more mixedincome housing. That included Melgar and incumbents Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safaí, who all won handily in their districts. But Breed’s other allies, former Supervisor Vallie Brown and Marjan Philhour, the mayor’s former senior adviser, lost to moreprogressive candidates.
Still, the mayor said, she’s “hopeful” that she will be able to work with the board and the two new members.
“To imply that I am expecting anyone to be a rubber stamp and do whatever I want is offensive,” she said. “What I focus on doing is working with the board and trying to propose things that are actually going to be good for the people of San Francisco.”
Melgar — the first Latina to be elected to the board without being appointed to the position first — said she wants to put the personal tensions aside and work across political lines.
In San Francisco, those political lines often come down to housing. Progressives generally favor 100% affordable housing, while moderates say that increasing the supply at all income levels is the only way out of the housing crisis.
But Melgar doesn’t fit neatly into either bucket. While she considers herself a progressive on some issues, she agrees with the mayor in that the city needs to build higher and denser housing — particularly on the west side of the city. She pointed to areas in her district, like Ocean Avenue, which could be a good fit for more development.
While having Melgar on the board will certainly give the mayor an ally, she would have had one more if her preferred candidate, Philhour, won in District One. Philhour lost by less than 200 votes to Connie Chan, who was endorsed by current Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer and supported by many members of the current board.
Chan is an ardent supporter of building 100% affordable housing, and said that it would be a top priority for her in office. She believes that the tensions and debates between the board and mayor make for better policies in the end.
“The Board of Supervisors always plays a role of checks and balances with the mayor, and I think my colleagues have been doing that,” she said. “It’s worth our time and energy to have these debates.”
Regardless of political differences, the mayor and her adversaries have still found ways to work together over the past few years.
Supervisors Hillary Ronen and Matt Haney worked with her on a massive overhaul of the city’s mental health care system, despite initially having major differences. More recently, Haney and the mayor introduced legislation Tuesday to reform the city’s environmental review process.
Still, there have been some public flareups. This summer, the mayor chided the board for dipping into the city’s reserves to fund a year of raises for city workers amid a $ 1.5 billion budget deficit. The board also sharply criticized the mayor and her homelessness department for not acquiring more hotels for the city’s homeless, despite not adding any money into the upcoming budget for the program.
“As always, I hope to partner with Mayor Breed,” Ronen said. “But as everyone knows, I’m always willing to speak my mind and push back when we don’t agree.”
Haney said his job includes both working with the executive branch, but also “holding them accountable.”
“I wake up every day trying to solve serious problems my residents are facing during this unprecedented crisis,” he said. “It never involves being difficult for the sake of being difficult.”
The mayor and board have many hurdles ahead as they attempt to help the city recover from the massive recessions caused by the pandemic. That means they will need to make tough choices together on what services and jobs to cut to plug massive holes in the budget.
The two branches will also have to figure out how to allocate revenue generated from Proposition I, a real estate transfer tax increase, and also work together on the newly passed Proposition K, which authorized the city to develop or acquire up to 10,000 units of lowincome rental housing but created no new funding to do so.
Kaylah Williams, copresident of the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, said she was ecstatic about how the board maintained its progressive majority during last week’s election. She said that Melgar — who was her second choice behind Vilaska Nguyen, a public defender — will bring a “unique view that will be important on the board.”
“She is not just a huge win for progressives in San Francisco, but all of San Francisco,” she said. “It’ll help us alleviate some of the drama between the Board of Supervisors and the mayor.”
Todd David, executive director of SF Housing Action Coalition, said that he hopes the Board of Supervisors will “put their money where their mouth is” and support rezoning the west side of the city so more multifamily homes can be built there.
He’s hopeful that Melgar will be the one to lead that charge on the board.
“The moderate-progressive divides in the city don’t always line up so great on housing. It is a little more complex,” he said. “So maybe she is kind of breaking out of the moderate-progressive battle lines. ... which is refreshing.”