From Campaign Support to Early Alignment
This post documents our efforts to establish a working cadence with the District 5 Supervisor’s office in early 2025. It reflects contemporaneous correspondence from two neighborhood groups — Hayes Valley Safe (HVS) and the Hayes Valley Small Business Association (HVSBA). No interpretation is required; the record speaks for itself.
The full email correspondence referenced below is available here: [HVS email thread] and [HVSBA email thread].
Under former Supervisor Dean Preston, we maintained a regular meeting cadence and had predictable access to the office when issues required it. We had a productive working relationship with his office, and access was not withheld.
Hayes Valley Safe (HVS)
– January 2025: Initial outreach
– February 27, 2025: One meeting; ~10 minutes with Bilal Mahmood
– March–May 2025: Repeated attempts to schedule follow-up meetings with Supervisor present
– Outcome: No regular cadence established; follow-ups routed to staff
Hayes Valley Small Business Association (HVSBA)
– January 2025: Initial outreach
– March 14, 2025: Meeting held; cut short despite explicit request for one hour
– March–May 2025: Multiple follow-ups requesting completion of agenda and future cadence
– Outcome: No follow-up meeting with Supervisor; no cadence established
This record reflects how access functioned during the Supervisor’s first months in office.
By the second half of 2025, our positions were plainly at odds with the direction being advanced by the Supervisor’s office — on the Hayes Street closure, the Entertainment Zone, Head West, and the growing alignment between City Hall and select neighborhood intermediaries.
At that point, the breakdown in engagement was no longer surprising. It was consistent.
When a Supervisor substitutes intermediaries for broad representation, residents and independent businesses with different positions are pushed outside the democratic process — and treated as something to manage, deflect, or ignore.
This pattern is not isolated. It is part of a documented sequence:
–Bilal in January 2025: Abdicating the Role of Representative
– Who Does a Supervisor Really Serve? Hayes Valley Deserves an Answer
Here, the pattern has not been abstract. It has repeatedly centered around HVNA/MC, treated as representative despite well-documented opposition from residents and independent businesses.