By Neal Wong

About a dozen volunteers and staffers for the Natalie Gee and Saikat Chakrabarti campaigns fanned out across the Sunset District’s commercial corridors the week following the primary election, pulling posters off windows in what may be the first-ever cleanup of its kind.

Hakim Husien, who has been working at Sunrise Deli on Irving Street for 16 years, said he had never seen anything like it.

“It shows that these people respect the businesses,” Husien said. “I appreciate that the business put their sign up, and they show enough integrity to come and clean it up – not just leave it to the business owner or workers to clean after their campaign.”

The participants met at Gee’s campaign headquarters to equip themselves with gloves and bags before splitting up to cover Irving, Taraval and Noriega streets.

Gee said she had the idea two years ago. The recent special election to serve the remainder of ousted District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio’s term was her first time running as a candidate herself, and she said she wanted to set a different standard.

“I’ve done campaigns for a really long time, and every time we finish the campaign, people leave their signs up,” Gee said. “I don’t think it’s fair for our small business owners to be the ones cleaning up.”

Daniel Anderson, Gee’s campaign consultant, was among those working alongside volunteers on Friday. Anderson has worked in campaigns for eight years, starting in the 2018 cycle, and has operated independently as a consultant since 2022.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of something like this,” Anderson said. “I think there’s a lot of first-time things that Gee has done or wants to do. She really thinks about things very holistically – the impact of campaigns on the community.”

Anderson pointed to a “Paul Miyamoto for Sheriff” sign from 2024 still mounted high on a storefront wall, out of reach for shorter shop workers, as evidence of the problem campaigns routinely leave behind.

“You see signs that are really old sometimes when you’re walking in neighborhoods,” Anderson said. “The small businesses just don’t have the ability to deal with them.”

He added that Gee’s personal ties to the neighborhood might have contributed to the idea.

“She has a lot of friends and supporters who are small business owners,” Anderson said.

Saikat Chakrabarti, after concluding his congressional race against Connie Chan and Scott Wiener, had his campaign join the cleanup effort.

Sam Hopwood, an organizer with the Chakrabarti campaign, said the cleanup felt like an extension of what the campaigns were about.

“We spent a very long time getting together and fighting for really what we believed in,” Hopwood said. “Today is making sure that we act on that as well – going out into the community, making sure that we pick up all of these paper signs. It’s making sure that we really beautify this fantastic merchant corridor and make good on the messages of our campaigns, which is good quality of life and goodness for San Francisco.”

Albert Chow’s campaign was promoted as being involved with the cleanup, but ultimately did not participate.

“I initially agreed to the clean up, but then realized I may very well be running again in November,” Chow said at the time. He has since confirmed that he will be running against Alan Wong and Jeremey Greco in November. Chow said that he would commit to cleaning up his signs after his campaigning for the year has concluded. Gee has decided to not run again in November. For now, she said, her focus is on the neighborhood.

“That’s what I’m passionate about,” Gee said.