The political map of San Francisco will be redrawn, but not all neighborhoods will be affected in the same way.

According to the national census every 10 years, the city is required to change its political boundaries so that each district is roughly the same in population. The process has to be remarkably fast: the nine-person redistribution work group has to complete the new lines by April 15.

Your most delicate challenge will be what to do with District 6, which includes SoMa, Mission Bay, the Tenderloin and Treasure Island. As a district that has hosted the vast majority of the city’s population growth over the past decade, District 6 will have to shrink geographically. Which quarters of District 6 are chopped off and pinned to other districts could have profound political implications.

With this in mind, the redistribution task force is planning a comprehensive public relations process that will include at least one face-to-face event in each district early next year. The public is also invited to the Panel’s regular virtual meetings on the first Monday and third Wednesday of each month.

“I want as much public participation as possible,” said Rev. Arnold Townsend, vice president of the NAACP in San Francisco and chairman of the task force. “It is important that we try to draw districts that give people a fair chance to be represented and that the people who represent them have to listen.”

According to the city charter, the districts must meet legal requirements, including those of population equality. Population differences between districts should be “limited to 1% of the statistical mean, unless additional fluctuations, limited to 5% of the statistical mean, are necessary to prevent minority voting or dilution and / or to keep recognized neighborhoods intact to keep”.

The redistribution must also follow the Voting Rights Act, which provides specific rules regarding the voting rights of minorities and other protected groups. The redistribution working group – consisting of three members appointed by the mayor, three by the supervisory board and three members appointed by the electoral commission – will have the final say on the design of the new districts.

The inhabitants of D6 are most at stake, which is currently 30% overpopulated compared to the average of the 11 districts. District 6 was “so out of whack for the rest of the population,” Townsend said. “With all the different concerns and diversity out there, how can we ensure that we are serving the largest number of people possible? That will be the challenge. “

Compared to D6, no other district has to change much in order to meet the population criteria – another sign of the city’s one-sided growth and development approach in recent years. District 10, which includes Potrero Hill, Bayview, and Sunnydale, all neighborhoods that have seen some new developments in the last decade, is overpopulated by 9%, meaning it needs to shrink slightly. Districts 8 and 5, which include Castro and Fillmore, respectively, are also above the average population, but by less than 5%, so they may not have to shrink at all.

The remaining seven boroughs all have fewer than the ideal borough size, meaning that their population growth has lagged behind that of the city as a whole over the past decade. District 3, including the Financial District and Fisherman’s Wharf, is 9% underpopulated. Districts 1 and 4, which include Richmond and Sunset, respectively, are 8% underpopulated. These districts need to expand geographically in order to increase their population.

As part of the post-census redistribution, San Francisco will have to change its political boundaries so that all of its eleven regulatory districts have roughly the same population. Terry Forte / The Examiner

San Francisco’s district lines have remained relatively stable since they were first drawn in 1996, when voters decided to return to the district elections after being ruled by great overseers for two decades. The electoral commission has tasked SF state political science professor Richard DeLeon and his doctoral student Lisel Blash with drawing the lines. DeLeon’s map is designed to “capture more or less coherent political communities in the new lines that coincide with the other things about race and population size etc,” he said.

After going into effect for the 2000 elections, the new borders had a massive impact on city politics. Without running expensive city-wide campaigns, progressives like Matt Gonzalez and Aaron Peskin took control of the board of directors and severely curtailed Mayor Willie Brown’s power towards the end of his tenure.

Of course, the district boundaries have not been undisputed over the years. The districts of Fillmore and Japantown, which span Districts 5, 2, and 6, were contested during the redistribution process following the 2000 census. “At that time, portions of the Plaza East and Freedom West public housing projects were being cut out of this district,” Townsend said, referring to District 5. “And a lot of people felt that the black electorate was being watered down.”

The right district boundaries are important in giving voters confidence in democracy, says Jonathan Mehta Stein, executive director of California Common Cause, a voting rights advocacy group. “When people see district political lines being drawn to minimize the power of a particular group or to keep incumbents in power, I think it really has an adverse effect on local democracy.”

The question of the term of office could be a tricky one for the new election working group: If the new district managements exclude the residential address of the current superiors, he or she would not be eligible for re-election in their current district. That briefly became a problem during the final redistribution cycle when draft cards showed Supervisor David Chiu was cut off from his ward.

For his part, Townsend, who was appointed to the task force by Mayor London Breed, says he does not know exactly where the current superiors live. His priority is “keeping ethnic communities together so they have some voting effectiveness in their district,” adding that it is too early to say what that will look like on the map. At the moment he is solely focused on getting the public to participate in the redistribution process.

San Franciscans should “attend the meetings, meet with their organizations, their groups, their churches, and even their friends, and start planning and informing us about what you think your district should be like,” Townsend said. “It will be for the next 10 years.”

bschneider@sfexaminer.com

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SACRAMENTO – From a bird’s eye view, San Francisco appears to be a relatively easy place to draw new political maps, as its residents are densely populated on a narrow peninsula and numbered to occupy a congressional district and multiple legislative seats.

In practice, however, creating new district lines proves to be a pain as the city has many strong ethnic and cultural communities. Sometimes moving a line a few blocks can have a significant impact on a block’s voting rights.

This difficult balancing act is playing out as the California Citizens Redistricting Commission draws new political boundaries for the next decade to accommodate the population changes reflected in the recent U.S. census.

“It’s such a melting pot that it’s hard to draw boundaries that communities don’t divide,” said Samuel Garrett-Pate, a spokesman for Equality California, an LGBTQ advocacy group, of the San Francisco relocation. “It’s possible, it just takes hard, thoughtful work. Communities don’t live in pretty little boxes in which you can draw pretty lines around them. “

The commission has proposed few significant changes to the city’s congressional seat held by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or the Senate seat held by Scott Wiener, both Democrats.

But the commission’s work card would change the city’s two assembly districts dramatically. The proposal has angered some local leaders who say it would dilute the influence of Asian Americans, Latinos, African Americans, and LGBTQ residents.

Your proposal to have a working ‘visualization’ at this point could be published as a draft map next week and the Commission will seek public comments. The Commission has until the end of December to adopt its final cards.

The commission has tried to draw more Asian American majority counties across California, including the west side of San Francisco. But by moving more colored voters to an assembly district on the west side of the city, it could also create a white majority district on the east side. Both districts currently have a sizeable Asian population.

David Lee, executive director of the Sino-American Voter Education Committee, said community leaders fear the card could inadvertently reduce minority representation by cramming colored voters into a district.

“Why is the east side of San Francisco getting whiter under this plan?” asked Lee. “Some have suggested that this could be viewed as packing, trying to put all Asians into one district and thereby dilute their power.”

For decades, San Francisco’s assembly districts have essentially divided the city in half from north to south, with District 19 on the west and District 17 on the east. Both areas have elected Asian-American MPs for many years, most recently with members of the Democratic Assembly, Phil Ting in District 19 and David Chiu in District 17 (Chiu recently resigned after being appointed city attorney).

The advocates of the map commissioners would instead divide the city into two ornate L-shaped districts:

• In the south, several multi-colored working-class neighborhoods – including Bayview-Hunters Point, the Outer Mission and Visitacion Valley – would be incorporated into District 19.

• In the north, several predominantly white and affluent neighborhoods – including the Marina District, Pacific Heights, and Sea Cliff – would join District 17.

Reallocation officers have spent little time discussing these changes in their public line drawing meetings. A commission spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on concerns about the proposed San Francisco boroughs.

If the cards are ultimately adopted, the demographics of the boroughs would change dramatically.

According to an analysis by the Sino-American Voter Education Committee, white people would make up about 56% of voters in District 17, instead of 40% in the current district. District 17 would also have a much smaller percentage of Asian voters: 25% versus 34% today.

In the meantime, District 19 would become more diverse, with fewer white voters and slightly more Asians. Asian Americans would make up 49% of the district on the new map, compared to 47% today.

David Ho, a political advisor and long-time organizer in Chinatown, said someone unfamiliar with San Francisco might look at the map and believe it gives the city a more Asian-American influenced district.

He said this attitude ignored the city’s long history of electing different representatives in both assembly districts. He said it also ignores the nuanced nature of neighborhoods because it would separate Chinatown from other allied working-class neighborhoods like Bayview-Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley.

The map would also break up other color communities in the city, including separating the historic Black Fillmore neighborhood from Bayview-Hunters Point, which is now home to many black residents. The map would also separate the Mission District from the Outer Mission and divide Latino voters.

“I think this card is a bit annoying for everyone,” said Ho. “This iteration is just offensive. I don’t see any group that would support this iteration locally. “

LGBTQ leaders have also raised concerns about the map as it moves two neighborhoods, Bernal Heights and parts of Twin Peaks, to District 19. These neighborhoods have a lot of LGBTQ residents and were previously grouped into District 17 with Castro and SOMA.

“We didn’t see the priority of keeping the LGBTQ community together the way we need to,” said Garrett-Godfather, chairman of Equality California.

David Campos, a former board member running for Chius’ old seat in District 17, lives in Bernal Heights and could be pulled out of District 17. The new card will not be used for this special election, but it will apply for the regular election next year for the district.

Campos said that beyond the potential impact on his campaign, he finds the proposed district lines confusing due to the impact it will have on blacks, Latinos and LGBTQ residents.

“If the goal was to disenfranchise color and LGBTQ communities, they did an excellent job,” he said. “It seems like the visualizations are as bad as you can imagine from a stock perspective.”

Dustin Gardiner is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner

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Jon Jacobo, a rising political star in San Francisco and an influential affordable housing advocate, resigned from his building inspection commission seat late Friday and took a leave of absence from his nonprofit work after a woman accused him of raping her in a tweet and an extensive online post.

Sasha Perigo, a 26-year-old tenant rights advocate, said she had visited Jacobo at his apartment in the Mission one evening in early April when he forcibly groped and kissed her that night and raped her the following morning. Perigo said she told Jacobo “no” dozens of times during both encounters, and tried to push him off her and block his advances, but that he repeatedly ignored her pleas and persisted.

In a series of tweets on Friday night, Jacobo, 32, said, “My memory of these events is different than her memory. I believed then, as I do now, that our relationship was completely consensual.” He wrote that “every woman needs to be heard” and that he was “deeply saddened by the deep pain being experienced by Sasha Perigo, which she says I caused.”

Jacobo did not respond to requests seeking comment other than to refer reporters to his tweets.

(TW: sexual assault)

I’m heartbroken to share that the man who raped me in April is @Jon_Jacobo.

Prior to my rape, I considered Jon a great friend and a great person, which is why it’s so important for me to come forward.

Please RT and share widely!https://t.co/rKatrJkCuk

— Sasha Perigo (@sashaperigo) August 6, 2021

In the hours and days following the incident, Perigo said she began telling her friends and family that Jacobo had sexually assaulted her and went to San Francisco General Hospital to have a rape kit conducted. Perigo said she didn’t file a police report because of her fundamental opposition to law enforcement and her prior friendship with Jacobo.

But she said that when a friend told her in June about an unsettling experience with Jacobo, she felt compelled to detail her account publicly.

A hospital spokesperson declined to comment on the case, citing patient privacy laws. A spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department also would not comment beyond acknowledging that the special victims unit “is aware of the social media posting and is looking into the matter. Due to the sensitive nature of the allegation, we cannot comment further.”

“I chose to come forward to protect other women from being victimized,” Perigo said. “And to lift the weight of bearing this secret off of my shoulders.”

Jacobo’s response on Twitter included an announcement that he was resigning his position on the Building Inspection Commission and that he was taking a leave of absence from “work.” A Mission District native, Jacobo is a policy director with the South of Market nonprofit Tenants and Owners Development Corporation, known as TODCO.

I believe every woman needs to be heard. I believe every victim of trauma needs to be heard, and the process of speaking out is a part of healing and justice. And I am deeply saddened by the deep pain being experienced by Sasha Perigo, which she says I caused.

— Jon Jacobo (@Jon_Jacobo) August 7, 2021

Last year, he worked as a press secretary in the Latino community for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, and rose to greater prominence as the chair of the health committee on the San Francisco Latino Task Force, helping to lead coronavirus testing efforts in the Mission and drawing attention to racial disparities in infections and aid.

He said he was stepping away from his work “for the sake of the community, which I owe so much, and to avoid distraction from the important work of addressing and preventing the spread of COVID-19 which has been my mission this past year.”

His response came as the allegations spread quickly through the tight-knit affordable housing advocacy community and City Hall, where Jacobo had been widely expected to run for a Board of Supervisor seat in 2024, when District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen termed out.

“My thoughts go out to the victim for her courage and bravery for speaking out on this awful situation that no one should ever experience,” tweeted District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton prior to Jacobo’s resignation. “These are very serious allegations against a City Commissioner. My office is conferring with the City Attorney on legal options.”

My thoughts go out to @sashaperigo for her courage and bravery for speaking out on this awful situation no one should ever experience. I have asked @Jon_Jacobo to immediately resign from the DBI Commission, which he was already planning to do, or the BOS will take swift action. pic.twitter.com/rypsTXgZ4g

— Shamann Walton (@shamannwalton) August 7, 2021

The Chronicle interviewed Perigo Friday and spoke to two friends who Perigo told about the alleged assault in the ensuing hours and days. Reporters also reviewed contemporaneous journal entries in which Perigo described the alleged assault and her efforts to work through the emotional trauma it had caused, as well as text messages between Perigo and Jacobo and Perigo and her friends and other documentation that was consistent with her account.

Perigo publicly posted portions of these documents, including a part of her discharge paperwork from the hospital following the rape kit and a letter from the Police Department’s Special Victims Unit, in a Google Doc she shared online Friday titled “A Prominent San Francisco Politico Raped Me. He Can’t Have Any More Victims.”

Perigo told The Chronicle she met Jacobo in November 2019 when she was writing a column for the San Francisco Examiner focused on the housing crisis and interviewed TODCO head John Elberling.

Perigo, who does communications and organizing for Tenants Together, a statewide tenants rights organization in San Francisco, said she had admired Jacobo’s reputation in the housing advocacy world. That day, Perigo said, she and Jacobo struck up a conversation about Marin County and how affordable housing could be built on parking lots. Perigo, who grew up in Marin County, was passionate about trying to improve the enormous housing disparities in that area. She said she instantly felt a connection to Jacobo.

“It was really cool to meet Jon, who I had admired a lot, and to hear him talking about the issues I cared about so much,” Perigo said. “I looked up to him.”

Perigo said their initial connection turned into a friendship. The pair had sex in November 2020 once, and “sexted off and on for a while afterwards,” Perigo wrote in her online post. But Perigo said she broke it off in February, telling Jacobo that she preferred to be platonic friends.

Jon Jacobo at the Latino Task Force Resource Hub in San Francisco in November.

Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle 2020

Perigo said she had remained friends with Jacobo when, on April 3, he invited her to hang out. Perigo agreed, but she emphasized that she did not want to engage in anything sexual. They decided to meet at Jacobo’s apartment that night to talk and have some drinks, according to a text thread shared with The Chronicle.

“(Also I don’t think this was your expectation but just to be sure, I started seeing someone so I’m not looking to hook up!)” Perigo texted Jacobo around 10 p.m. Jacobo hit a heart button in response and texted back, “Thanks for the heads up! That’s important and sad news.” He followed up with a laughing emoji.

An Uber receipt provided to The Chronicle indicates Perigo arrived at Jacobo’s Van Ness apartment at 11:51 p.m. She also texted her friend Rebecca Peacock that night before she left, saying she was going to meet up with Jacobo but had established that their relationship was platonic.

Perigo said that after she arrived at Jacobo’s apartment they talked for hours, sharing personal stories, while having a few drinks. At around 4 a.m., Perigo said, she told Jacobo she was going to get an Uber home, but he offered to have her sleep over.

Perigo said she agreed to sleep in a bed with Jacobo and told him they could cuddle. But she said she reinforced that she did not want anything sexual to occur.

Almost immediately upon laying down, however, Perigo said Jacobo forcibly kissed her and put his hands inside her shirt and pants, forcibly groping her breasts and buttocks while she told him “no,” and that she was uncomfortable. She said she tried to push his hands away from her but that Jacobo persisted for around 45 minutes, ignoring her demands that he stop. She said she was so stunned by what was happening that she remained in the bed.

“I said ‘no’ dozens of times,” Perigo told The Chronicle. “I knew he was assaulting me, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t want to rock the boat … and I didn’t want to think that about him.”

Perigo said she then brought up her boyfriend, and that she didn’t want to cheat on him. She said Jacobo finally stopped, but asked if he could masturbate. Perigo said she told Jacobo “no,” and that he would have to go into the bathroom, or she would leave. She said he didn’t and they both fell asleep.

In the morning, Perigo said, they woke up around 8:30 a.m. She said Jacobo again started forcibly kissing her and groping her breasts and buttocks as she told him “no” and tried to push him off her.

Perigo said she continued to tell Jacobo “no” while he pulled her pants off, forced oral sex on her and then raped her. Perigo said she froze in shock.

“A few minutes in, my emotions caught up with me, and I could no longer deny what was happening,” Perigo wrote in her online post. “I told him I was uncomfortable and that I wanted to stop. He ignored my request, and proceeded to finish inside of me. At no point had he asked if I wanted to use a condom.”

Perigo said she went to the bathroom and then came back and laid next to him. “I think I was looking for some warmth in that moment because I didn’t want it to be this moment where my friend was so vicious to me,” Perigo told The Chronicle. But she said Jacobo exclaimed, “That was fun!” and asked her if she wanted to go on vacation with him to Cabo San Lucas.

Perigo took an Uber back to her apartment at about 10 a.m. that morning, according to a receipt she provided The Chronicle. Once at home, she said she fell asleep for several hours. When she woke up, Perigo said she began telling her friends and family about what had happened, as well as writing about the incident in a journal.

“Jon Jacobo raped me this morning,” she wrote in a handwritten diary entry dated April 4 that she shared with The Chronicle. “I feel completely empty and very, very alone.”

At around 5 p.m. on April 4, Perigo texted a friend: “So I took my friend Jon up on an offer to hang out last night to get my mind off things and slept over, making very clear that I was just crashing there and was 0% interested in hooking up because I was seeing someone.”

“He raped me this morning,” Perigo wrote in the text thread she shared with The Chronicle, which she partially redacted.

“That’s disgusting,” the friend wrote back. “What the f***.”

As of early Saturday, The Chronicle had not been able to speak to the friend.

Peacock told The Chronicle that Perigo confided on April 4 that Jacobo had sexually assaulted her after she went to his apartment to hang out.

“She described this relentless experience of saying, ‘No, no, no. The things you’re trying to do with me, I’m not interested in it,’” Peacock said. “She got so overwhelmed with it all.”

On April 5 at around 3 p.m., Perigo texted Jacobo, confronting him about the alleged sexual assault, according to a text thread Perigo posted online and a more extensive version that she shared with The Chronicle.

“You ignored dozens of nos — you literally made eye contact with me and took my pants off AS I WAS TELLING YOU NO … I’m not sure what you think rape looks like, but it looks like this,” she wrote.

“Reading this hurt deeply, that you even feel this way is heartbreaking,” Jacobo texted back, adding that he had tried to call her.

Later that day, after consulting with Peacock and other friends, Perigo went to San Francisco General Hospital for a sexual assault examination, allowing medical personnel to take samples to analyze for DNA evidence, according to Perigo, Peacock and discharge paperwork that Perigo provided The Chronicle.

Perigo, who said she is a part-time student at Stanford finishing a degree in computer science, said she did not file an accompanying police report because her work in advocacy and tenants rights has given her a deep distrust of law enforcement as a path toward justice. She also said she had no interest in enduring a retraumatizing reporting process and a potential legal case.

“A lot of the work I met Jon through was also anti-police brutality work,” Perigo said. “I consider myself an abolitionist and support defunding the police.”

In the following weeks, Perigo experienced worsening depression and had trouble getting out of bed and going to work or any events where she might encounter Jacobo, according to Perigo, Peacock and Perigo’s journal entries.

Peacock said the change in her friend was noticeable. “It really debilitated her,” Peacock said. “She’s had a difficult time getting out of bed most mornings. It’s been really, really hard. I wish I could just snap her out of it.”

On April 15, Perigo agreed to meet Jacobo in person in Golden Gate Park the following day to discuss the incident, according to text messages she shared with The Chronicle and friends she later told about the meeting. Perigo said another friend accompanied her to the meeting, but Perigo declined to provide the friend’s identity, saying the friend had requested anonymity.

“The conversation seemed to go well,” Perigo wrote in her online post. “He cried his way through it, admitted wrongdoing, and told me he’d started therapy. We said our goodbyes and have not talked since.”

In his tweet on Friday, Jacobo wrote, “In April, we attempted a restorative process and I will continue to work to understand why and how she feels I caused her harm.”

On April 22, a San Francisco police sergeant with the Special Victims Unit wrote a letter to Perigo saying they had “developed a DNA Profile” from the swabs that were collected during her medical examination. “The DNA was entered into a national DNA Data Bank and may identify the involved suspect,” the sergeant wrote.

The sergeant said that as of that date, Perigo had not followed up with an investigator about the incident, but referred her to the Special Victims Unit address if she wanted to proceed.

At the time, Perigo said, she was still grappling with the emotional trauma from the incident. She said she was regularly going to therapy and unable to go to work. “In some ways it feels like Jon ripped apart and dismantled me as a person,” Perigo wrote in a journal entry dated April 23. “Who am I? How do I relate to the world? I’m floating.”

Then, shortly before her birthday in early June, Perigo said she told a younger friend that Jacobo had raped her. Perigo said the friend relayed that she, too, had a concerning experience with Jacobo. Perigo said she did not ask the woman for more details. Perigo referenced the conversation with the younger friend in her online post.

Perigo said she resolved to pull together her allegations about Jacobo and post them online to warn other women. Perigo said she wrote a draft of the public post in June, but was unable to fill out the details of the sexual assault because it was too traumatizing to relive.

In early August, Perigo completed the post, and she tweeted it out on Friday at 8:59 a.m.

“One of the reasons I kept this story to myself for so long is that I didn’t want to hurt Jon by coming forward. I cared about him deeply, and I’ll forever be heartbroken that someone I once admired could violate me in this way,” Perigo wrote. “But moving on means accepting that Jon isn’t the person I thought he was. I need to free myself from the burden of shielding him from consequences.”

Cynthia Dizikes and Matthias Gafni are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: cdizikes@sfchronicle.com, matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @cdizikes @mgafni

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Offers a basic income, demands a hazard payment for food and pharmacy workers during the pandemic, re-introduces the police on campus in schools and strives to improve single-family quarters.

Officials from South San Francisco embraced each of these guidelines last year, asking: Is the industrial city going to become a progressive haven?

Vice Mayor Mark Nagales, who first proposed giving grants to residents struggling with COVID-19, admitted that South City’s political makeup is changing.

“There has definitely been a more progressive approach,” said Nagales.

Nagales, a devout affordable housing advocate, made a name for himself while serving on the city’s planning committee for persistently pushing housing companies to build additional sub-market units.

Nagales was originally motivated to save others from his family’s struggles, and said concerns about the cost of living had only grown since the pandemic broke out. And with economic disruptions disproportionately punishing low-income families, Nagales felt increasingly committed to creatively helping those most in need.

Based on a pilot program launched in Stockton last month, Nagales came up with the idea of ​​sending $ 500 a month for a year to 400 residents who have shown financial difficulties during the pandemic.

Although the program deviates from the truest definition of universal basic income, South San Francisco councilors unanimously agreed to further explore the concept.

“We all agreed that we had to help those affected by COVID in some way,” said Nagales.

Council members also agreed that grocery and drug stores were required to provide an additional $ 5 an hour in danger to grocery and drug store employees who are at significant exposure to COVID-19 every time they go to work to pay.

The decision was the first in San Mateo County, and since then, discussions have risen across the peninsula, with San Mateo and Daly City following suit to call for the increases.

Though the proposals for financial aid and hazard payments raised some eyebrows among some residents, Mayor Mark Addiego said that critics’ nerves could be calmed relatively easily if the initiatives were properly designed.

“It was easy to talk to them about COVID and how it put people down on the bottom of the social ladder. And we have the financial ability to educate people so they don’t become a social problem forever, ”said Addiego.

Addiego, one of the peninsula’s longest-serving elected officials, served on the South San Francisco City Council for more than two decades. With a broad experience, he also noticed the clear shift in the political headwinds of his community.

Addiego expanded the scope to include the school district, where officials recently agreed to reconsider an agreement to place police officers on campus and remove a Native American image mascot. The choices reflect the priorities of a developing community.

That change is also reflected in the makeup of South San Francisco’s city council, said Addiego, who noted that the political views of some of his more progressive counterparts are shaped by their age.

“The world is a very different place for people of this generation when it comes to finding housing, starting a family and pursuing a career,” he said. “I think there is a lot of frustration in this age group and that’s part of the natural shift in political dynamics.”

One such colleague is the newly elected Alderman James Coleman, a political freshman who deposed former Mayor Rich Garbarino to represent District 4 last fall.

Coleman is from South San Francisco and left home to attend Harvard University. He became known regionally because he was an Asian member of the LGBTQ + community affiliated with the Democratic Socialist Party and supported by the local advocacy group Change SSF.

For his part, Coleman agreed that emerging interests shake up the landscape in the traditionally docile suburb.

“I think that’s because the normally under-represented groups are getting more involved in local politics,” said Coleman, who found that turnout rose sharply after the city adjusted its election calendar to an even annual cycle.

He also noted that millennials and Generation Z members getting old enough to defend their own interests shaped the political conversation in South San Francisco.

Those voices were heard loudly as officials pondered a proposal to improve single-family neighborhoods and allow maisonettes to be built in areas previously fenced off from such development.

Proponents are deeply frustrated with the rising cost of living and are in favor of the proposal to top it up to compensate for the lack of housing relative to employment growth, which is being driven by the city’s booming biotech sector.

Coleman was also concerned about affordability issues that have driven many of his friends and loved ones out of the area, and said he felt compelled to at least weigh the potential benefits of the proposal.

Nagales, who along with Coleman and newly appointed councilor Eddie Flores had voted to further investigate the initiative, agreed.

“I think we should have this conversation and see what we can do,” said Nagales. “If it comes back and a study says it doesn’t make sense, then it doesn’t make sense. But at least we asked the question. “

Addiego remained more skeptical.

“When it comes to single-family houses, they touched the third line of politics,” said Addiego, who voted against research into upgrading with city councilor Flor Nicolas.

Council members have since tabled the proposal for an increase on a temporary basis, watching the problem develop in discussions between regional and state officials.

Addiego expected officials who have so far shown little resistance to advancing progressive policies to face a rude awakening. Addiego has already heard rumors of possible recall campaigns against elected officials and acknowledged the community’s brewing anger.

“I haven’t seen so many angry whites since a Trump rally,” he said.

Addiego also speculated that his colleagues underestimated the power that real estate owners will struggle with to defend their quality of life.

“It was just badly designed and not much thought was given to how it would play in every neighborhood,” he said.

Offering a different perspective, Nagales nodded to the conversation between state lawmakers considering laws that could revise the regulations governing the zoning of single-family homes across California.

He reinforced this perspective by noting that, despite aggressive pressure from officials to facilitate housing construction in recent years, South San Francisco still falls short of state housing expectations.

Nagales said officials are being forced to consider all options to increase the housing stock, as that mark is expected to rise in the next regional cycle for housing allotment. Coleman agreed, suggesting that South San Francisco exercise local scrutiny over housing decisions rather than risk getting mandates from Sacramento.

Nagales was aware of the power struggle that would shape the future of South San Francisco, but also recognized residents who may feel confused by the direction of their community.

“I love South City. But if we don’t want to try to address these issues, we won’t evolve as a city, ”he said. “And that’s a difficult conversation.”

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