District 10 was first defined in 1977, as part of a successful ballot initiative to shift from citywide to district elections. Today it consists of a dozen neighborhoods, including Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, Mission Bay, which shifts to and Bayview-Hunters Point.
While few Hill residents visit Hunters Point, the politically connected communities are increasingly knit together by destination businesses and parks – such as Crane Cove and Indian Basin Waterfront – as well as new housing that would benefit from coordinated infrastructure investments.
Longtime Dogpatch resident, Jason Buttorf, who was elected to the Dogpatch & Northwest Potrero Hill Green Benefit District board in 2025, remembers when much of Mission Bay was weeds, wetlands, and vacant lots. Today it’s chockful of housing, University of California, San Francisco facilities, and entertainment venues.
“We’ve seen an approximate sixfold increase in residences,” he said.
That growth is reshaping demand for transportation, open space, and grocery stores. To serve the new population, Mission Bay School began offering pre-, transitional-, and kindergarten in August, and is slated to grow into a TK to fifth grade elementary facility by 2032.
“District 10 is huge,” Buttorf said. “Dogpatch, Potrero, Mission Bay are only a small piece of it.”
The next District 10 Supervisor, he said, will need to advocate for the entire jurisdiction while paying attention to each neighborhood’s distinct character and perspectives.
Ten candidates are running to succeed termed-out Supervisor Shamann Walton. Three have emerged as frontrunners, as measured by money raised, endorsements and media attention.
Theo Ellington, 37, is a third-generation San Franciscan and Bayview native with a master’s in urban affairs. He directs the Ruth Williams Bayview Opera House, works as a policy director at the firm Brownstein, and has served as a city commissioner under three mayors. He finished third in the 2018 District 10 race. His priorities are siting housing near transit, municipal efficiency, and public safety.
J.R. Eppler, a Hill attorney and Board of Appeals commissioner, led the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association for a dozen years, supporting residential development at Pier 70 and the Potrero Power Station. His campaign emphasizes neighborhood-level fixes: cleaner transit stops, safer streets and support for small businesses.
Dion-Jay “DJ” Brookter, a community organizer and former San Francisco Police Commissioner, until this spring led Young Community Developers, a Bayview nonprofit focused on job training, education and housing services. Endorsed by Walton, he stresses connecting the district’s neighborhoods, reviving commercial corridors and putting residents to work.
All three agree that District 10 is on the cusp of what Ellington calls “unprecedented growth,” and that provision of municipal services has lagged behind. Roughly 20,000 residences have been approved in the area but not yet built. The candidates differ on how aggressively the City should move to get them constructed.
This type of development has been emblematic in the district; roughly 24,000 new housing units have been constructed in the South-of-Marketing planning district, which includes Dogpatch, Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, and South Beach, over the past 15 years.
Ellington casts himself as the strongest housing advocate, pledging to launch a community and economic development planning process in his first month and to steer new homes toward transit. His platform focuses on reforming bureaucratic delays with project “shot clocks,” and steering middle-income workforce housing onto long-neglected transit corridors like Third Street and Bayshore Avenue.
Eppler points to his record helping shepherd large projects through Potrero Hill and Dogpatch while favoring a collaborative, neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach; critics on the pro-development side question whether his appeals record matches his rhetoric.
Brookter frames growth as an equity issue, pressing for local hiring and community resources as the district grows.
As a result of new developments, combined with road infrastructure that originally emerged largely to carry industrial circulation, District 10 has elevated traffic risks. Bayview-Hunters Point is one of five San Francisco neighborhoods that together account for roughly 40 percent of traffic-injury crashes. Several of the district’s corridors — including stretches of Third Street — are on the High Injury Network; the 13 percent of streets where 74 percent of severe and fatal smashes occur.
One of the three brothers who own Kansas Street Market, at Kansas and 23rd streets, said drivers speed through the rehabilitated 23rd Street overcrossing above U.S. 101. He called for a speed bump before the stop sign and noted that the cross-street sign was never replaced after the bridge work.
“Please, we need that sign up to help guide people,” he said.
The necessity of better transit management and improved street safety run through all three campaigns, from different angles. Brookter has made infrastructure repair a centerpiece of his campaign, arguing that crumbling roads isolate District 10’s neighborhoods from one another and that the area’s workforce training programs have been too “diced and sliced” to effectively serve families.
Eppler demands immediate, visible street improvements alongside localized micro-transit options to quickly bridge the gap while long-term Muni infrastructure catches up.
Ellington ties reliable transit to housing and commercial vitality, especially along Third Street.
The candidates agree that the district’s toughest problems concentrate in Bayview-Hunters Point: pollution, aging public housing and a long history of underinvestment. At a September debate at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, Eppler told the largely Hill crowd that their Bayview neighbors deserve “safe drinking water, safe housing, safe air.”
Ellington argues the southeast should get the “same energy, investment, and resources as the rest of the City.”
Brookter, citing his nonprofit’s job-training work, wants development to deliver jobs and community benefits, not just buildings.
By early September, Ellington’s campaign had raised about $472,000, Eppler’s roughly $151,000 and Brookter’s approximately $129,000. That month Chris Larsen, co-founder of the cryptocurrency company Ripple, contributed $500,000 to an independent committee supporting Ellington, an unusually large sum for a supervisor race that drew criticism from his opponents, who have questioned his backing from tech and real-estate interests. Ellington has been endorsed by the San Francisco Democratic Party, labor organizations, environmental groups and numerous elected officials.
The large contribution underscores an emerging tension. The growth of artificial intelligence and technology companies could widen wealth disparities across the district.
Buttorf wants a city “where AI companies and the citizens have a mindset of giving back,” he said, “and not just consuming or taking.”
The candidate elected next month will cope with a district where development, infrastructure, transportation and economic growth are increasingly intertwined. For residents and businesses, though, the task is more specific: helping to make sure a local intersection is safe, and kids can get to school on accessible transit.
Lori Higa 
Rebekah Moan 
PV Staff 