On Thursday, March 7, Sachin Agarwal, cofounder of GrowSF, placed a call to Autumn Looijen, candidate for the Board of Supervisors, District 5. The request: Drop out of the race if you don’t see traction by August or September.
GrowSF, the nonpartisan political advocacy group had already selected Bilal Mahmood as their top pick. And Looijen was in the way.
“He wanted to know my strategy for fundraising because Bilal and Dean [Preston] were raising a ton of money,” says Looijen. “Sachin was very concerned that Bilal was a weak candidate and this would split the vote.”
Looijen refused to reveal her strategy, and remembers hanging up the speakerphone in shock. “GrowSF had built its reputation on my work — the school board recall,” she says. “It was how they did their initial fundraising.”
In 2022, Looijen initiated and led the effort to recall three contentious members of the San Francisco Board of Education, Alison Collins, Gabriela López, and Faauuga Moliga. She also ran the successful campaign to reinstate eighth-grade algebra in the San Francisco Unified School District.
Although the school board recall won in every precinct in the city, Looijen points out that the effort was at first very unpopular. It was a huge risk that came at significant personal cost. She recalls being screamed at on the street, with accusations of being a racist and a white supremacist. Top political consultants instructed their friends not to donate to the recall effort, believing it would not be in their best interest to take the chance. However, to Looijen, taking the abuse while maintaining integrity and doing the right thing for the people in the district is an essential quality in a politician.
Among her primary aims as supervisor is to tackle the drug crisis. District 5 is home to the Tenderloin, the epicenter of illegal drug sales and fatal overdoses, and she’s the only district candidate to advocate for compelling people who commit crimes and who are suffering from addiction into medication-assisted treatment. Again, a risk, but one she believes will make a major difference in the area as well as save lives.
Now, months after Agarwal’s call asking her to step down, Looijen is instead speaking out.
The spark was GrowSF’s voter guide, which the PAC published in August. They opted out of endorsing multiple candidates for ranked choice voting. For District 5, it was Mahmood and no one else.
“They just stabbed me in the back,” says Looijen. “Luckily I have a strong back.”
Then on Aug. 20, an anonymous X account reiterated GrowSF’s urging:
“Please drop out so @bilalmahmood can win. Otherwise we are splitting the vote. We need you in SF politics, just not D5 supervisor.”
Looijen’s X response:
“No. Not in a million years. This is not the first time I’ve been asked to drop out of something in favor of a far less qualified man. This happens to women everywhere, EVEN IN SF, and I’ll be damned before I set aside what’s best for the people of D5.”
What Looijen wants to know is if GrowSF leadership called the other District 5 candidates — Preston, Scotty Jacobs, and Alan Jones — and asked them to leave the race. She is the only woman running.
“Here’s the core problem with the moderates,” says Looijen. “They look at the numbers. They don’t know that elections aren’t won in the spreadsheets — they’re won in voters’ hearts.”
The Voice of San Francisco reached out to Agarwal twice but he did not return our messages.
Updated Aug. 8, 2024, 4:33 p.m. to reflect addition of lead paragraph previously omitted.
