San Francisco District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong can balance what’s best for the city and the concerns of his constituents, and should keep his appointment, the editorial board says.

Can residents of San Francisco’s District 4 finally get what they want?

In 2022, they voted to oust incumbent Supervisor Gordon Mar, ostensibly for being too progressive, in favor of moderate Joel Engardio. Then last September, they recalled Engardio for being the chief proponent of Proposition K, which city voters approved in 2024 to close a 2-mile stretch of the Upper Great Highway along Ocean Beach to create what is now Sunset Dunes park.

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For many District 4 voters, Prop K was another example of the city forcing policies or changes onto their Outer Sunset neighborhood without residents’ input or consent. They say they want a supervisor who will fight to finally make their voice heard in City Hall.  

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On the Great Highway, that won’t be a problem.

The four top candidates in the June primary race for the District 4 seat all support a citizen ballot measure effort to reopen the road to car traffic during the week.

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But what about other issues?

The Chronicle editorial board has begun rolling out its endorsements for California’s June primary election. In the weeks to come, we will publish our assessments of all the state races, including the governor’s race, plus local races and ballot measures. To read more about how the editorial board makes its election endorsements, go here.Plus: Look out for the Chronicle’s Voter Guide to publish in early May, as ballots get mailed out across the Bay Area.

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District 4 is predominantly single-family homes and often at odds with the rest of the city over policies on housing and transportation.

With Mayor Daniel Lurie and the Board of Supervisors aggressively seeking solutions for major issues such as housing affordability, homelessness and drug addiction, any District 4 supervisor will have to walk a tightrope between doing what’s best for the city and meeting the concerns of constituents. Fail to do the latter, and they’ll meet Engardio’s fate. Fail to do the former, and they’ll become an ineffective political pariah.  

Five candidates are vying to take on this seemingly impossible balancing act. Three stand out.

Natalie Gee, like everyone in the race, told the editorial board that she wants to be the voice for District 4 that residents feel they have lacked. She has the experience to act on that promise, having served as chief of staff to District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton and legislative aide to former District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen. 

Gee, whose politics are similar to those of Mar, is personable and can be nuanced in a way many of her opponents are not. She opposes Mayor Lurie’s City Charter reform proposal to raise the number of signatures needed for a citizens’ petition and to increase the threshold for a supervisor’s initiative to a majority of the board for ballot measures. But Gee is savvy enough about city operations to support the mayor’s effort to streamline contracting by giving the city administrator more power over the process.

It’s exactly this capacity for nuance, however, that makes her positions on some key issues so frustrating.

On housing, Gee told the editorial board that had she been District 4 supervisor when Lurie’s “family zoning” was up for a vote, she would have opposed because “a lot of people in District 4 at the time were against the family zoning plan because they felt like their voices were not heard.”

Gee said she understood the city could lose all local control over land use under the builder’s remedy if supervisors didn’t pass a plan for more housing.

“None of us want a state takeover. I think we can all agree on that,” Gee said.

And yet when asked if she would use her seat to attack family zoning in a way that could invite such a result from the state, Gee refused to answer.

Yes, many District 4 residents hate the family zoning plan. But it’s the job of a supervisor to protect residents — and the city — from catastrophic outcomes. Residents of the wealthy Southern California cities of Santa Monica and Beverly Hills also hated housing mandates. Now they have 23-story towers going up in their backyards because their leaders fought the state on their behalf.

Contrast Gee’s approach with that of Alan Wong, a former City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees member who grew up in the Sunset and was appointed by Lurie to replace Engardio.

Wong voted to pass the family zoning plan on his second day in office despite what he knew was strong opposition from the district. 

Wong told the editorial board the vote was “practical and responsible” given a looming deadline to come into compliance with the state mandate.

“Sometimes you can’t just say no, you have to make a decision,” he told us.

By staving off the state’s wrath, Wong said, he can now work to amend the zoning plan to better meet the district’s needs. Residents won’t get everything they want — the rules say you can’t just move new housing capacity out of the district — but things can be adjusted in nuanced ways to ease local concerns.

This isn’t an idle promise. Unlike his opponents, Wong has the ear of the mayor.

Another top contender, Albert Chow, owner of a hardware store in the Outer Sunset and one of the leaders of the Engardio recall campaign, said he doesn’t think it’s wise to push the state on family zoning. But you wouldn’t know it from his housing stances, which include more local control over individual projects in his district — something that just isn’t going to happen under new state laws.

Chow is thoughtful and gregarious and would be a fierce advocate for district residents. But, like Gee, we fear he’s too willing to tell residents what they want to hear instead of what needs to happen. And he lacks the policy understanding to effectuate the kind of changes residents say they want, much less navigate the broad, citywide structural issues he would tackle as supervisor.

The last top contender is David Lee, a political science instructor and former Recreation and Parks Commission member. He knows the community well through his years as executive director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee. But his open desire to go to war with the state over zoning is disqualifying.

Finally, Jeremy Greco is a campus coordinator at a San Francisco school and the only candidate who wants to keep the Great Highway closed to cars. Greco’s views are in many ways most aligned with those of this editorial board. But he is a political novice who doesn’t have many fully formed positions on policies he would face as a supervisor.

Ultimately, Wong is the only candidate with the willingness to find a balance between neighborhood concerns and taking pragmatic positions that can help solve the city’s broader problems.

The editorial positions of The Chronicle, including election recommendations, represent the consensus of the editorial board, consisting of the publisher, the editorial page editor and staff members of the opinion pages. Its judgments are made independent of the news operation, which covers the news without consideration of our editorial positions.

Wong isn’t a personality like some of his competitors; he can be awkward in speeches and in conversation. But he’s willing to listen to the community and has the political support he needs in City Hall to bring reasonable demands to fruition.

Wong might not be the exact voice at City Hall that District 4 residents say they want, but he is the voice that they need. They should retain him as their supervisor.

Reach the Chronicle editorial board with a letter to the editor: www.sfchronicle.com/submit-your-opinion.

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