After Appointment Fail, What’s Next for Mayor Daniel Lurie and the Sunset District?

As an outsider with no political experience, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie promised voters a fresh perspective on local governance and has enjoyed a relatively smooth first year in office. But the honeymoon period appears to have ended with the abrupt resignation of the supervisor he appointed — a shift that could complicate his relationship with residents on the city’s westside and his own political agenda.

“The sophomore slump has officially started,” David Ho, a political consultant, said. “He’s entering this period where he’s going to struggle to maintain the confidence of the voters.”

Lurie carried the westside and did well among Sunset District voters in his own 2024 election. And he has weathered several challenges as mayor so far, including passing a controversial budget earlier this year and, more recently, successfully averting a federal immigration crackdown in the city.

But the fallout over his recent District 4 appointment to the Board of Supervisors, Beya Alcaraz, marked a major misstep. The 29-year-old with no prior experience in government was not active in community organizing and was relatively unknown in the neighborhood and City Hall when the mayor picked her to replace recalled supervisor Joel Engardio.

Lurie said he chose Alcaraz because of her grit and small business background, plus her connection to the neighborhood. He knew she lacked the chops of a career politician, but she also didn’t come with political baggage — and had stated she would support his controversial family zoning plan, one of his chief agenda items. She was also a choice that initially appeased pro-recall voters when she agreed to revisit whether cars could be allowed back on the Great Highway — a flashpoint in the recall campaign.

What Lurie’s team failed to get ahead of, however, was that Alcaraz also apparently misrepresented her business background. Shortly after her appointment, numerous news outlets reported her former pet shop was left in unsanitary conditions after she passed it over to a new owner in 2025, and Mission Local first reported that she admitted to paying workers under the table to skirt taxes.

In choosing Alcaraz, Lurie “made a decision to do something which he hasn’t done yet in his tenure, which was to go off script,” said Patrick Murphy, a professor of public affairs at the University of San Francisco.

Lurie has taken full credit for the botched pick.

“This is not the first time that I have gotten something wrong. It won’t be the last. But what I commit to all of you and to the people of San Francisco is that I’m going to learn from this and I’m going to grow,” he said the day after Alcaraz resigned.

But political analysts who spoke to KQED said that the brouhaha revealed gaps in the mayor’s own resume when it comes to political maneuvering. Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, comes from a well-connected family and has experience running a major nonprofit, Tipping Point.

He showed serious political chops after steering President Donald Trump clear of sending the National Guard to San Francisco, leveraging close ties to powerful tech billionaires to sway the commander in chief.

He’s largely stayed out of political tiffs. Lurie did not endorse Engardio in the recall, for example, and has avoided ever mentioning Trump’s name publicly. Polling on Lurie’s tenure has largely been positive.

So this bluster surprised some residents and analysts.

“It was actually a kind of rookie mistake to avoid the more foreseeable pitfalls,” said Keally McBride, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. “They chose an untested candidate who ended up being quite an embarrassment.”

Alcaraz was the first Filipina woman to serve on the Board of Supervisors. But Ho said it was shocking to him that the mayor didn’t pick someone with closer ties to the powerful Chinese American community, which drove the recall election.

“People were surprised he didn’t pick a much more seasoned candidate that was ready to step into the role of supervisor,” Ho said. “I was also surprised that it wasn’t someone with deeper involvement in the Chinese American community or someone with a deep connection to that segment of the district.”

Groups on both sides of the Engardio recall have expressed concern about the fallout from the resignation, after only a week, of Lurie’s initial supervisor pick.

“The Sunset is once again left without representation, especially during a critical period when major policy decisions like the Family Zoning Plan are moving forward without a D4 voice at the table,” said Julia Kwon, a Sunset resident who advocates for the Chinese American Democratic Club. “The outcome shows that the initial vetting process did not meet the level of rigor that District 4 deserves.”

Lucas Lux, who backed Engardio and is a vocal advocate for Sunset Dunes, the park that has replaced a stretch of the Great Highway, said Lurie is stuck trying to straddle two very different kinds of voters in the neighborhood: those who support the park and his zoning plan, which would allow denser housing on the westside, versus those who want cars back on the Great Highway and oppose bringing thousands of new homes in the district.

“The mayor signaled to us very clearly that he’s willing to move against the will of the voters on Sunset Dunes in order to placate a small voter base on the westside,” Lux said. “The Lurie Administration has not decided who their voters are on the westside. Lurie got elected with more conservative votes on the westside, and his family zoning plan is going to challenge that.”

The challenge is even greater in the wake of the Alcaraz situation because some everyday residents have started to feel disillusioned.

“There’s been a revolving door of politicians … and hopefully there’ll be someone soon that doesn’t turn out to have been corrupt in some way or shady in some way,” Sunset resident Sandra Krista said while on a recent stroll at Sunset Dunes. “But until then, I’m happy that the Great Highway is open as a park. So at least we got something out of it.”

Still, others aren’t holding it all against the mayor.

“I don’t think it’s a reflection on him,” Stelios Vafiadis, a Sunset resident who voted for Lurie, said while sipping coffee outside Java Beach Cafe on La Playa. “Maybe [Alcaraz] just couldn’t deal with all the obligations.”

Lurie said his office will be vetting potential supervisors more thoroughly and is already reviewing candidates to fill the seat as quickly as possible.

He’ll be looking, again, for a unicorn: someone willing to jump into the lion’s den, who has the qualifications to navigate a district in turmoil, and who supports his family zoning plan but also promises to at least look into putting cars back on the Great Highway.

It’s unclear if he’ll pick a caretaker to help get his zoning plan approved, which must be done by January, or if he’ll risk adding a new leader whom he doesn’t align with as closely ideologically but who could be popular in the Sunset.

The appointment is not Lurie’s only test ahead. The next budget cycle is just around the corner.

“Will folks be looking for his next mistake? Absolutely,” Murphy said. “But let’s be honest, the honeymoon was going to end in January, regardless, because he’s got to put forward a budget.”