XPost: ba.politics, alt.politics.democrats, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   Julia Baran was just finishing her late-night waitressing shift at the   
   House of Prime Rib when she heard the news.   
      
   San Francisco Supervisor Beya Alcaraz, appointed by Mayor Daniel Lurie,   
   was resigning after just seven days on the job. Baran was floored.   
      
   “Wow,” she texted a reporter. “I did that.”   
      
   The 26-year-old was behind a series of revelations, aired in the media and   
   to the mayor’s office, about Alcaraz, a 29-year-old former pet shop owner   
   with no political experience appointed by Lurie to represent the Sunset   
   District. The information Baran brought to light probably catalyzed   
   Alcaraz’s resignation, which political experts have called a major   
   embarrassment for Lurie’s administration.   
      
   By sharing text messages, emails, photographs and videos with the public,   
   Baran revealed how Alcaraz had sold her a pet store beset by a severe   
   mouse infestation, often failed to pay rent on time and operated at a loss   
   for years. Perhaps most damningly, Baran shared texts in which Alcaraz   
   bragged about skimping on taxes by paying employees under the table and   
   writing off personal expenses like “dinner and drinks” with friends as   
   business expenses — behavior that’s illegal.   
      
   Alcaraz defended how she ran the business Thursday evening, saying in a   
   statement to the Chronicle about the newly unearthed text messages, “I   
   don’t owe a dollar in taxes.” But within hours, she had resigned at   
   Lurie’s request.   
      
   “This is probably the first self-inflicted failure for the   
   administration,” said David Ho, a progressive political consultant.   
      
   Lurie said Thursday morning, “This is not the first time that I have   
   gotten something wrong. It won’t be the last. But what I commit to all of   
   you, and the people of San Francisco, is that I’m going to learn from   
   this.”   
      
   Some have questioned Baran’s motives. Even her father had advised her not   
   to go public with what she knew, Baran said. She was scared, she said. But   
   the petite, soft-spoken San Francisco native, who’s battled her own   
   personal demons and a major family tragedy in the past year, said she   
   ultimately decided to do so because “I would want to know the truth.”   
      
   “Whatever blowback I get from this, the community should know,” she said.   
   “I don’t think I’ve benefited from this much. But I think if I didn’t   
   speak out, it would eat away at me.”   
      
   Alcaraz had sold Baran the Irving Street pet store in May for an agreed-   
   upon $10,000, but the deal soured as Baran discovered dead animals Alcaraz   
   left in the freezer, foot-high mice nests and piles of dead mice, which   
   Baran spent weeks cleaning out. She still hasn’t paid Alcaraz but said she   
   plans to do so.   
      
   The mayor’s office didn’t contact Baran before picking Alcaraz as District   
   4 supervisor.   
      
   Baran said she “felt sick” when she learned of Alcaraz’s appointment on   
   Nov. 6 and called the mayor’s office the next day to share what she knew,   
   texting photos and videos of the infestation to the mayor’s public affairs   
   director, Han Zou.   
      
   “Is there anything that you would like our office or the Mayor to do?” Zou   
   texted back.   
      
   “It should be up to the Mayor and your team to figure out how to remedy   
   the situation of appointing someone like this without doing any proper due   
   diligence,” she responded.   
      
   Disappointed by the response, she told everything she knew to a San   
   Francisco Standard reporter, then a Chronicle reporter. The mayor’s office   
   declined to comment on the text exchange, stating it shared Baran’s   
   evidence with “the appropriate people.”   
      
   Baran was raised in the Richmond District by a Polish immigrant father and   
   Chinese American mother. She grew up working at her dad’s auto shop, which   
   inspired her to run her own small business.   
      
   “I understand that once you pick up a small business, this is your life,”   
   she said.   
      
   Her mom was a “badass lady” who worked in finance and real estate, she   
   said, but struggled with schizophrenia. When her parents’ marriage started   
   disintegrating in her teens, she felt she had to fend for herself and her   
   younger brother, both financially and emotionally, not wanting to add to   
   her parents’ stresses.   
      
   “That’s when I developed empathy,” she said. She started working at an   
   ophthalmologist’s office as a 15-year-old sophomore at Lowell High School.   
      
   Later, as a City College student, she started working as an operations   
   assistant at an executive search firm. Over four years, sitting in on   
   hours of interviews with potential nonprofit executives, she said she   
   learned what it took to be a good leader.   
      
   She also saw how many talented people weren’t hired for top jobs, she   
   said. That insight added to her bewilderment when she saw Alcaraz was   
   appointed without anyone from the mayor’s office contacting her.   
      
   “It’s such basic hiring practices,” she said.   
      
   This wasn’t the first time Baran had to grapple with the consequences of   
   going public with potentially damaging accusations. She accused a man she   
   knew from high school of sexually assaulting her after keeping quiet about   
   it for a year. She’d get panic attacks when he showed up at social events.   
      
   Finally, she decided to go public with it, posting a video on social media   
   that named him and making a police report, though he was never charged.   
   The backlash was swift. She said the man’s friends said she was being   
   vindictive. She started carrying a knife everywhere. The pandemic was in   
   full swing, and feeling overwhelmed, she dropped out of UC Berkeley, where   
   she’d transferred.   
      
   But speaking publicly about the alleged assault led to dozens of sexual   
   assault survivors reaching out to thank her for speaking up.   
      
   “It felt so free to just let people know,” she said. “I think that applies   
   here too. I could have just turned a blind eye, but who knows how much   
   damage she could have done.”   
      
   After dropping out from college, Baran continued working, including at an   
   aquarium store and as an executive assistant. Then, last summer, she was   
   staying at her mom’s house in Pacifica with her brother when her mom had a   
   psychotic episode.   
      
   It was her brother’s birthday. They got cake. But when her mom got home at   
   9 p.m. from work as an Uber driver, she showed Baran a handgun she just   
   bought. Baran was angry and argued with her mom before they went to bed.   
   The next morning, Baran headed to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription   
   and left her brother sleeping in bed.   
      
   While she was gone, her mother entered the room and shot her brother twice   
   in the arm then walked out. Her brother locked himself in the bedroom and   
   called 911. Police arrived and found Baran’s mom in the driveway in her   
   sport utility vehicle. One officer got close enough to see that her mom   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)