Welcome back to our “Meet the Candidates” series, where District 2 supervisor candidates respond to a question in 100 words or fewer. Answers are published every Tuesday.
District 2 covers neighborhoods in the north of the city including the Presidio, the Marina, Cow Hollow, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights and portions of the Western Addition and North of the Panhandle.
On Dec. 20, 2025, over a third of San Francisco residents were plunged into darkness as the power went out.
During the outage, caused by a fire at a SoMa substation, residents worried about getting in and out of buildings with non-functioning elevators, losing critical supplies like medications as freezers stopped working, and communicating once their phone batteries went dead. Businesses lost thousands of dollars as they were forced to close for one of the busiest weekends of the year.
PG&E, the company that owns and operates San Francisco’s electrical infrastructure, didn’t restore power until more than 24 hours later. Over the next ten days, several more outages plagued San Francisco residents, including in the Presidio in District 2.
As San Franciscans asked what could be done to prevent these outages from happening again, politicians had a suggestion: public acquisition of PG&E’s electrical infrastructure.
Acquiring electrical infrastructure will be costly — PG&E turned down a $2.5 billion offer in 2019 — but proponents point out that with ratepayers as the priority, not shareholders, cities with public power tend to have lower electricity rates.
In addition to power outages, people have been upset at PG&E for high electricity prices, long waits for electrical hookups, and safety issues (its equipment has triggered several of California’s worst wildfires).
It’s not a new idea. The city has been laying the groundwork for acquiring PG&E’s infrastructure, either through a buyout or through eminent domain, since 2019. Most recently, San Francisco State Sen. Scott Wiener introduced legislation this February to shrink the power of the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates cities’ use of eminent domain.
To use eminent domain to acquire PG&E infrastructure would require a two-thirds vote of the Board of Supervisors.
In this week’s answer, candidates were cautiously supportive of public power.
This week’s question: Should San Francisco work to acquire PG&E’s infrastructure?
Mission Local color codes the answers to yes/no questions. A green background means the candidate answered yes, a red background means no, and a yellow background means that the candidate dodged the question.
Lori Brooke
Job: President, Cow Hollow Association
Age: 62
Residency: Homeowner, moved to the district 31 years ago
Transportation: Driving and walking
Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara
Languages: English
We need to modernize and improve our city’s power grid to lower costs and stop the type of outages that recently caused a lot of harm to residents and small businesses. I support the idea of public power, but I want to first ensure that residents trust our city’s ability to handle the management of a critical infrastructure.
San Franciscans want results now and redoing our whole system does not produce anything immediate. I will focus on holding PG&E accountable and helping residents and businesses get compensated for recent damages, and work to lower rates while improving services.
Endorsed by: Former District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, former State Senator and Supervisor Quentin Kopp, AFT 2121, Local 38 (#2) … read more here.
Stephen Sherrill
Job: Appointed District 2 Supervisor
Age: 39
Residency: Homeowner, moved to the district 11 years ago
Transportation: Driving, public transportation, biking
Education: Bachelor’s degree from Yale University
Languages: English
San Francisco should pursue any option that improves reliability, affordability, and accountability for residents — including but not limited to acquiring PG&E’s local infrastructure if it demonstrably delivers better outcomes.
San Franciscans and Californians have seen firsthand the consequences of utility mismanagement from wildfires to blackouts. As climate change intensifies, resilient and well-maintained power systems are critical for public safety, small businesses, and emergency response. I support continued evaluation of municipalization efforts, provided they are fiscally responsible and transparent.
My focus is simple: hold utilities accountable and back whichever model delivers the most reliable, high-quality service while reducing utility rates.
Endorsed by: Mayor Daniel Lurie, GrowSF, Nor Cal Carpenters Union, San Francisco Police Officers Association … read more here.
Candidates are ordered alphabetically and rotated each week. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at io@missionlocal.com.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.