By Thomas K. Pendergast

Her friends and admirers call Nancy Wuerfel a formidable advocate, master of the spreadsheets, a supernatural force, a secret weapon, the Sherlock Holmes of city bureaucracy and a fiercely independent woman dedicated to good city government.

At a June 13 meeting of the SF Board of Supervisors, Wuerfel was honored for her efforts with a resolution commending her for her “exemplary advocacy and stewardship in promoting preservation and conservation efforts in the City and County of San Francisco, recognizing her significant contributions to historic preservation, environmental protection, neighborhood-based planning and expressing gratitude for her dedicated service to the citizens of San Francisco.”

District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who sponsored the resolution, said he met her in 2001 after he first became a San Francisco supervisor.

“She was in essence my secret weapon, as this Board of Supervisors stood up to the Federal Aviation Administration, Gov. Gray Davis, then (State Sen.) John Burton and Mayor Willie Brown, oh, and President George Bush. They were dead set on filling in two square miles of the bay for additional runway separation, which now is a thing of the past, as we spent way less money than the $10 billion that project would have cost and now have radar technology that can solve most of the problem,” Peskin said. “Nancy was at the forefront of that fight and did things that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody do, which was to read bond prospectuses and tease out things that were dynamite for this supervisor at the time.”

She was also a columnist and opinion piece writer whose work appeared in the Richmond Review, Sunset Beacon and Westside Observer, where she supported and advocated for the expansion of the Emergency Firefighting Water Supply system as a separate set of water pipelines built to be robust enough to survive a major earthquake like the 1906 shaker, along with a seawater pump to supply it at Ocean Beach.

“Nancy was a formidable advocate because of her deep knowledge of the city’s budget and policies,” her friend Mary McAllister told the Board. “She was the master of the spread sheets that revealed how projects were funded and the economic interests that were involved.

“Nancy was my co-worker when she worked at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), and I was working at UCSF. We were both responsible for managing professional fee billing and reimbursement for services provided by doctors at SFGH and UCSF. I admired her understanding of the complexity of professional fee billing.”

District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio shared a story of an encounter he had with her.

“When I was running for supervisor last year, I knocked on her door and I was probably talking to her for a good 45 minutes,” Engardio said. “She grilled me on all manner of issues, and I appreciated how much she has served our City by being a budget hawk, by investigating the natural areas plan, by really pushing for better public safety on the west side when it comes to water and the fire department; I’m just really grateful for the work she’s done.

“And I’m told that she’s listening in right now and so Nancy, thank you for your service to San Francisco,” he added.

Nancy Wuerfel was unable to attend the meeting due to illness.

“I’ve known Nancy for almost 25 years,” Sally Stephens said. “I’ve sat next to her at countless hearings here in City Hall and we’ve spent hours on the phone discussing strategy and politics. I’ve watched her organize community support and sometimes opposition to various proposed policies.

“She’s helped me understand city budgets and how to figure out where the money goes. She was an early mentor when I began to get involved in animal, park and neighborhood issues; all areas with which she has had experience,” Stephens said.

“She always backs up her positions with real data, looking up hard-to-find, decades-old original documents to see for herself what the facts actually were, not simply something what other people told her they were. She’s a fiercely independent woman and I am honored to be her friend. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of today’s honor.”

Another community advocate and activist, Katherine Howard, also gave her accolades.

“Nancy’s not able to attend the hearing today but she is listening in,” Howard said. “She has an amazing depth of knowledge about how the city of San Francisco works. Whenever I would call her about an issue, she’d list the city departments involved, what needed to be done, whom to contact and perhaps most intriguing, where the bodies were buried.

“As a member of the Golden Gate Park Preservation Alliance, Nancy worked to prevent the Rec. and Park Department, from building a water-treatment plant on parkland, again in Golden Gate Park. The project included a chemical building and other important sites. As a result of community efforts, the SFPUC made a decision to move the project out of Golden Gate Park,” she said.

“I want to thank you Nancy for all your work and for inspiring future generations to know that one person can make a difference,” Howard said.

“She is a wonderful person,” said Charles Head of the Sunset Heights Association of Responsible People. “She is a great authority. She is a supernatural force in San Francisco, and I commend her to you, I commend you for giving her this honor and God bless you all.”

“Nancy is and has for decades been an exemplary citizen of this City, an advocate for good government, historic preservation and public safety,” said Woody LaBounty, president and CEO of San Francisco Heritage. “Nothing gets by Nancy, and she always makes sure she has her receipts when she fights for what’s right in San Francisco.”

“I think her friend Tomasita Medál summed it up just right and I just wanted to read her words into the record,” Peskin said. “Nancy Wuerfel was the Sherlock Holmes of city bureaucracy for decades. She set her magnifying glass on obscure volumes of city records to find corruption, contradictions, incompetence and malfeasance. She was a formidable champion of City efficiency. She is a legend and will always be remembered.”