Mayor Daniel Lurie’s District 4 appointee, Beya Alcaraz, was the only San Francisco supervisor appointee in at least 30 years to enter the job with zero experience in either politics or government, a Mission Local analysis found.
Alcaraz abruptly resigned from her post on Thursday night after controversy. Hours earlier, Mission Local published text messages in which Alcaraz said she paid her former pet store workers “under the table,” skimped on taxes, and underreported income.
Three days ago, the San Francisco Standard revealed her store was left in disarray for the new owner, with dead mice, a rodent infestation, filth, and feces.
Alcaraz was out seven days after Lurie tapped her. It was the shortest reign of any city supervisor.
The appointment and sudden ouster raised questions about the mayor’s vetting for a prospective city supervisor: The mayor told reporters she had “absolutely” been vetted, but the damaging information obtained by Mission Local and the Standard came from the owner of Alcaraz’s former pet store, who was just a phone call away.
Lurie pointed to the potential misstep, writing in a statement announcing her resignation: “I regret that I didn’t do more to make sure she could succeed.”
But, even before the controversy, Alcaraz’s lack of political experience stood out.
Since San Francisco voted to reinstate district supervisor elections in 1996 and returned to the practice in 2000, 16 supervisors have been appointed to their positions by the mayor.
All had some manner of political experience. Thirteen of them were already in city government before joining the board, including from sitting on a city commission and working as staff for the mayor.
Carmen Chu (appointed to District 4 by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom) had previously worked as the mayor’s deputy budget director, for example. Sean Elsbernd (appointed to District 7 by Newsom) worked as a legislative aide to former District 7 Supervisor Tony Hall and was Newsom’s first liaison to the board.
Vallie Brown, who was appointed to the District 5 seat by former Mayor London Breed, spent a decade working as a legislative aide in the same office.
Out of 16 appointed supervisors, all had government or political experience
MAYOR WILLIE BROWN (1996 – 2004)
MAYOR ED LEE (2011 – 2017)
MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM (2004 – 2011)
MAYOR LONDON BREED (2018 – 2025)
MAYOR WILLIE BROWN (1996 – 2004)
MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM (2004 – 2011)
MAYOR ED LEE (2011 – 2017)
MAYOR LONDON BREED (2018 – 2025)
Note: Former supervisors are not marked as “not elected” provided they won at least one election after their appointment. Stephen Sherrill is the only appointee who has not yet run for election. Graphic by Xueer Lu & Kelly Waldron.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, has no such experience, and does not appear to be particularly politically active.
The 29-year-old was unknown to both residents and City Hall insiders until her appointment last week, and previously she worked as an art and music teacher, and a pet store owner.
She did not vote in last year’s Democratic primary, or the February 2022 school board recall, or the November 2019 vote for mayor, district attorney, school board, and five ballot measures.
Her six-year run as the owner of the Animal Connection, a local pet store, formed a significant chunk of her resume. But recent reporting by Mission Local and the San Francisco Standard called her business acumen into question.
Alcaraz wrote in texts that she would counted personal expenses, like “dinner and drinks with my friends,” as business expenses to pay less in taxes, and that she paid workers under the table, reducing her taxable income and underreporting her revenue.
The woman who took over the shop from Alcaraz filmed conditions of “squalor” when she got the keys, including “hundreds of dead mice” and a refrigerator filled with animal corpses.
“San Francisco is a $16 billion business, and you’re choosing someone who couldn’t successfully run a small business,” said Eric Jaye, a political consultant, before news of Alcaraz’s resignation dropped.
Appointing someone with Alcaraz’s track record, Jaye said, “demonstrates an unfortunate disregard and lack of recognition of just how hard it is to run a city as complicated as San Francisco.”
In his four decades of watching mayors pick appointees, Jaye said, they typically look for experience in public service, or community engagement — often both. “Lurie did neither,” Jaye said.
Even in cases where past appointees had less experience, they had significant backgrounds in community organizing or work with political associations and campaigns.
Jeff Sheehy, who was appointed to the board by then-Mayor Ed Lee to replace Scott Wiener as District 8 Supervisor, had what the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board described as a “disdain for politics,” for example.
But Sheehy had previously worked as an advisor on HIV/AIDS to then-Mayor Newsom and served as the president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, one of the city’s most established political clubs. Despite this, Sheehy’s time as a supervisor was short-lived. He lost his run to maintain his position to the current District 8 Supervisor, Rafael Mandelman.
When contacted by Mission Local before Alcaraz’s resignation, Charles Lutvak, Lurie’s press secretary, pointed to her roots in the community and underlined Alcaraz’s understanding of the city’s affordability issue.
In the resignation statement, Lurie wrote that District 4 should “have a supervisor who can be fully dedicated to representing them, advocating for their families, and bringing people together. My team and I will get back to work finding that person right away.”
“It’s true that I was a political outsider with no connections to the Mayor when I approached him about the appointment at Sunset After Dark,” Alcaraz said in a statement following her resignation.
“I wanted to be the person that would finally listen to this amazing community. I’m sorry for breaking the trust that was placed in me. I promise to keep working hard and fighting for change on behalf of my neighbors, and I wish the next Supervisor well.”
For Lurie’s future pick, being appointed to the board is often a route to getting elected. Ten of the 16 appointees in the last 30 years went on to keep their seats as supervisors, and two are still current members. Matt Dorsey (District 6) and Stephen Sherrill (District 2) are up for election in 2026.
But others have tossed their names in. Natalie Gee, chief of staff to District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, has jumped into the June 2026 special election, and Albert Chow, a prominent organizer of the Engardio recall, has said he will run for the seat too.
David Lee, who lost to Catherine Stefani in an assembly race last year, is also expected to declare within days.
San Francisco political consultant David Ho, speaking before Alcaraz resigned, said for his part that Lurie’s support and influence will only go so far.
“Mayors have no coattails in terms of political appointments,” Ho said. “They may be popular — whether Willie Brown or Gavin Newsom or [Ed] Lee or London [Breed] — but when it comes to political appointments, it simply doesn’t translate to your coalition or partners or allies.”
Mission Local excluded four appointees from its count: Fiona Ma (District 4), Bevan Dufty (District 8), Ed Jew (District 4) and David Campos (District 9). All four were elected and subsequently appointed before being sworn in because their predecessors had left for state-level jobs.
