Here's a fun exercise: try to name a single signature initiative that District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan has championed during her time on the Board of Supervisors. Take your time. We'll wait.
If you're drawing a blank, you're not alone. While colleagues like Saikat Chakrabarti and Scott Wiener have put their names on substantive policy proposals — agree with them or not — Chan's legislative record reads more like a list of things she's blocked than things she's built. To be fair, she did spearhead Prop E in 2022 and has been involved in the Alexandria Theater redevelopment. But for a supervisor representing the entire Richmond District, that's a remarkably thin résumé.
As one SF resident put it bluntly: "Her whole gig is to make sure initiatives are shut down. The platform is to keep things the same. The people that benefit from nothing changing."
That's the quiet truth about a certain brand of San Francisco politics. You don't need a vision. You don't need to solve the housing crisis, fix Muni, or cut wasteful spending. You just need to show up, say the right things at board meetings, and ensure nothing disrupts the comfortable inertia that benefits a narrow set of incumbent interests.
Another local recalled asking Chan at a public event what she was doing to combat fraud, given her role overseeing the city budget. Her answer? She "tries to tell her staff what to watch out for." That's not oversight. That's barely a suggestion box.
Look, we don't need every supervisor to be a firebrand. But San Francisco faces real, urgent fiscal challenges — a projected budget deficit, crumbling infrastructure, a downtown struggling to recover. The Richmond District deserves a representative who's actively working to solve problems, not one who, as another resident joked, "likes to stand around staring into the distance at things."
Accountability isn't partisan. Whether you lean left, right, or somewhere in between, you should expect your elected officials to actually do something with the power voters gave them. Blocking change isn't leadership. It's just taking up space — very expensive, taxpayer-funded space.
