This is a special announcement from GrowSF.
As many of you already know, Manny Yekutiel withdrew from the race for District 8 Supervisor. In response, we got to work figuring out who would be the best choice for the district among the three remaining candidates.
We think Darshini Patel is the best candidate for the job. She’s outcome-driven, she reads the research, and she thoughtfully engages on complex issues. And she’ll adjust her approach as more data comes in. She’s strongly pro-housing and is committing to building the houses that the family zoning plan rezoned for, as well as the shelter and drug treatment facilities the city needs. Patel worked on social innovation and civic participation in the Obama White House. At DoorDash she helped launch more than 300 markets and built the team that advocated for its restaurants. And her campaign’s sibling site, TLDR SF, publishes a city budget explorer and twelve years of Board of Supervisors votes, about 139,000 of them. That’s exactly the kind of work we want to see from elected officials.
Darshini also understands tradeoffs: for example, we’re spending too much on SFPD overtime and if we hire more officers then we’ll get better service at the same (or possibly lower) cost. Or take conservatorship: she wants it to be a last resort, but that means investing in early interventions and in safe places to hold and help people who can’t take care of themselves.
We don’t agree with Darshini Patel on every issue, though. For example she, like Gary McCoy, supports opening drug use sites. We never ask for 100% alignment on all of the issues, and we think that’s a strength. After all, reasonable people can disagree. What matters is that we get smart, hard working, and reasonable people into City Hall.
And Darshini can win with your support. In our latest poll, which we ran from October 5th to 9th, Gary McCoy and Darshini Patel are tied. After ranked-choice plays out, Gary gets 51% to Darshini’s 49%.
If you were planning on voting for Manny Yekutiel, we strongly recommend voting for Darshini Patel instead, or as a number two choice.
We think Gary McCoy will be a disaster for the district. When Gary McCoy was vice president of policy at HealthRight 360, four patients and one staff member died of drug overdose. In 2022, Gary McCoy sued a journalist for almost $2 million over a twitter post. And his criminal record worries us too.
If you have any questions please feel free to email us at contact@growsf.org, and we hope you’ll join us in voting for Darshini Patel for District 8 Supervisor.
Paid for by GrowSF Voter Guide. Not authorized by any candidate, candidate’s committee, or committee controlled by a candidate. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.