San Francisco politics have been shaken up recently by the ousting of one district supervisor, the announcement and quick resignation of his replacement — and the new search for yet another supervisor to replace that one.
The current candidates in the running to lead District 4 have had to fill out a five-page questionnaire about the state of their finances, and possible conflicts of interest. They’ve had to make it through a fake press conference without disgracing themselves. But — aside from the two who have previously worked as legislative aides — how much do they know about the job itself? How much do we know? We set out to find out.
As a supervisor, your door is open to the public, while the mayor’s is not. At times, a supervisor’s responsibilities are bound only by the imagination of their constituents, and the complexity of the bureaucracy that they navigate.
In the conversations that led to this quiz, one aide recalled an 88-year-old constituent who had asked their supervisor to do something about the overgrown bushes along a staircase next to her home. The staircase was not under the city’s jurisdiction — it seemed public, and the public used it, but it fell under the homeowner’s jurisdiction. But, again, the homeowner was 88.
Finally the supervisor aide in question went out with a few interns and cleared out the shrubbery himself.
How much do you know about being a district supervisor? Take our quiz below.
Find me looking at data. I studied Geography at McGill University and worked at a remote sensing company in Montreal, analyzing methane data, before turning to journalism and earning a master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School.