Why We’re Not Voting For Myrna Melgar
Let’s start by saying this: Supervisor Myrna Melgar is not Dean Preston, nor is she Connie Chan. She’s not an ideologue or a bomb thrower who’s on the wrong side of almost every issue. She’s had some significant accomplishments during her time in office, brokering a deal to bring thousands of new homes to Stonestown and working to simplify an overly complex system of city funding and spending on child and family care. But too often, Supervisor Melgar’s time in office has been inconsistent and chaotic, as she swings between rejecting and embracing the extremes on both sides of major issues.
It’s a frustrating situation for District 7 residents, who have been asking for some pretty basic things from City Hall for years, with no real results from Supervisor Melgar. An ideal supervisor is able to find solutions and build coalitions to get sh*t done—Myrna Melgar hasn’t found that balance. Her failure to remain consistently in touch with her constituents’ needs ultimately prevents us from endorsing her.
Experience Doesn’t Equal Effectiveness
Supervisor Melgar says homelessness is one of the top issues she focuses on. Not surprising, as it’s been one of San Franciscans top concerns for years. What is surprising is just how ineffective Melgar has been at addressing homelessness and the RV encampments that multiplied in District 7 during her term. First, she promised to solve the problem by asking SFMTA to pick up parking enforcement like it did pre-pandemic. Then, she promised to find RV dwellers a spot to park outside the area. But encampments keep appearing around the district, and with less than half of these families having found subsidized housing, there’s still no workable, permanent solution. Both Melgar and ally Mayor London Breed have expressed their desire to fix the problem, but their inability to unify key departments in a timely manner suggests ineffective leadership.
Her approach to homelessness and public safety hasn’t worked. Now that she’s running for reelection, Supervisor Melgar says San Francisco needs to increase police staffing levels. But just four years ago, Melgar answered a local Democratic club questionnaire by saying she wanted to completely disband the police department, firing every SFPD officer without cause and have them reapply for their jobs. Melgar also expressed support for diluting staffing decisions through the Police Commission. Those should be pretty big red flags for voters concerned about public safety.
She supported Prop B in the March 2024 primary, the “cop tax” which would have tied a fully-staffed police force to a new, unidentified tax. Prop B failed because voters recognized it wouldn’t solve the police staffing crisis, and with a $16 billion budget, San Francisco can easily afford to fund enough officers for every neighborhood in San Francisco. But Supervisor Melgar preferred to add a new tax to finance basic public safety.
And even though a large majority of District 7 residents voted to recall former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Supervisor Melgar opposed the 2022 recall. Same story with that year’s school board recall. It all adds up to a supervisor who isn’t aligned with her districts’ needs.
Consistently Inconsistent
If there’s been one constant throughout Myrna Melgar’s time as Supervisor, it’s her inconsistency. That’s frustrating for residents looking for clear direction and decisive action—how can anyone know what to expect when their supervisor outlines a plan one day, then delivers something entirely different a month later? As the chair of the Land Use and Transportation Committee, Supervisor Melgar has focused on housing and transit issues, and we love to see her earning urbanist cred by biking to work. With that background, you’d think Melgar would take consistent positions on housing and transit issues. Not so much.
Melgar has blocked significant housing projects during her term, like a 495-unit apartment building that would have replaced an empty SoMa parking lot, a 316-unit project in the Tenderloin that supervisors feared would become “tech dorms,” and a 10-home project in Nob Hill that may have—God forbid!—cast a shadow. This kind of project-by-project denial doesn’t work when San Francisco needs to build 82,000 new homes by 2031. And with her vote to block the SoMa apartment building, she ended up supporting TODCO, the wildly corrupt affordable housing nonprofit that spends more on political lobbying than maintenance for their own buildings.
Supervisor Melgar isn’t much more reliable on transit issues. In 2022, she opposed closing the Great Highway on weekends, citing driver frustration. But this year, she co-sponsored the ballot initiative that would permanently open the highway to bikers and pedestrians, creating a seaside park. An elected official’s positions will probably evolve over time, but many District 7 residents and merchants felt Melgar's about-face was a betrayal of her earlier promises.
Additionally, Melgar prioritizes ideologic positions over practical ones, even when the results would be catastrophic for San Franciscans. Take one of her most recent resolutions. The Environmental Protection Agency recently demanded San Francisco update our water system to prevent any possible pollution from entering the bay. Those $10 billion upgrades would increase water rates from $851 a year to around $9,000 a year for every ratepayer, impoverishing thousands of San Franciscans. City Attorney David Chiu is suing the EPA, arguing that it’s impossible for the city to control all the water that touches our coast. But last month, Supervisor Melgar introduced a resolution asking Chiu to withdraw the lawsuit, insisting San Francisco can meet that unreasonable standard, and said she plans to introduce an ordinance that would force San Francisco to drop its lawsuit.
Environmental regulations are incredibly important, but it’s literally impossible for one city to ensure all the water that comes into contact with the coast is pristine. Myrna Melgar is putting San Francisco’s well-being in jeopardy at the expense of her own ideology—all for a project that might not even work as intended.
Paid for by TogetherSF Action (tsfaction.org). Not authorized by any candidate or committee controlled by a candidate. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.