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Fiona Ma for Supervisor

My roots are still deep in the Chinese American community. My roots are more than 35 years deep in the Sunset, where I lived, attended church and school, and folded laundry in my father’s Noriega Street business as a child.

My political roots are just as deep. In 20-years of public service, I once served as president of the Chinese American Democratic Club, where we laid the groundwork for a federal court decision that eventually forced the school district to not discriminate against Chinese American students.

Six years ago, I was asked to write, on behalf of then-Independent publisher Ted Fang, snapshot profiles of community leaders who could serve as commissioners under a new mayoral administration.

In one profile, I described Fiona Ma as an “up and coming political star,” having worked with her on various business and civic boards. Today, I still stand by that statement by supporting her for Supervisor in District 4.

FINANCIAL EXPERIENCE: Today, we are at a juncture where this city faces another $150 million deficit, after slashing this year’s budget by $300 million. Despite cutbacks, City Hall still has doubled its budget from $2.6 billion to $4.9 billion in six years.

To finance this profligate spending, District 4 homeowners and tenants could receive a major shock on this ballot, which proposes over $3 billion in revenue and general obligation bonds. Residents face a doubling of the transfer tax and loss of their right to vote on revenue bonds to the supervisors.

To rein in the city’s byzantine budget, Fiona Ma is the only certified public accountant with a Master’s Degree in Taxation and an MBA, who has worked for both major (one of the “Big Six”) and small accounting firms. Complementing her private sector experience, she has equivalent accounting experience in the public sector.

¡or a city that’s obsessed with political campaign reform, she has served as a campaign treasurer — keeping candidates honest with the local Ethics Commission.

As a S.F. Tax Assessment Appeals Board member, she supported a roll-back on high property tax bills for homeowners. In the past four years, she’s helped thousands of seniors obtain state homeowner and renter tax rebates that could total in the hundreds of thousands.

Earlier this year, she worked the bureaucracy on behalf of retired restaurateur Roger Tuan to secure a $20,000 refund from the Board of Equalization just weeks before he died of pancreatic cancer.

EFFECTIVENESS: While she brings badly needed accounting and business skills to the Board of Supervisors, Ma also adds political skills that the outgoing supervisor has lacked. Those same skills obtained $35,000 for the Sunset Community Festival and $15,000 for a playground at Lawton Alternative Elementary School.

For five years, current Supervisor Leland Yee has allied himself with opposite ends of the political spectrum — Board President Tom Ammiano and Mayor Willie Brown — and ended up on the short end of many losing votes.

Ma has demonstrated through her numerous endorsements that she has the skills to put together the votes to pass legislation on behalf of Sunset residents, especially with supervisors unfriendly to the district’s Asian Pacific American community issues.

For example, she received an independent-minded S.F. Democratic Party endorsement by combining support from its liberal, centrist and conservative elements. Today’s party is less connected with the political establishment of Willie Brown or John Burton.

INDEPENDENCE: It’s Ma’s endorsements from differing ends of the political spectrum that accentuate another of her virtues — independence.

Despite the fact she has worked for liberal State Senator John Burton — of the mythical Burton Machine — she hardly walks in lockstep with her boss. She opposed him by supporting Proposition R (HOPE). Her endorsements set her apart from the “Burton machine”: Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Treasurer Susan Leal, former Board of Supervisors President Barbara Kaufmann, former Supervisor Tom Hsieh and county Democratic Central Committee member Frank Jordan, Jr.

Further insulating herself from special interests, Ma is taking public financing of her campaign. Another critic, the leftist S.F. Bay Guardian, wrote that Ma “came across as an appealing candidate — a little too moderate on some issues for our taste, but bright and experienced.” They refused to support her because she wouldn’t cave in to their litmus test — support public power.

At the same time, she has the support of the Bay Area APA leadership — Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan, Congressman Mike Honda, Daly City Mayor Michael Guingona, College Board president Rodel Rodis, California Democratic Party vice chair Alicia Wang, the Westside Chinese Democratic Club, Asian Pacific Democratic Club and Insurance Commissioner Harry Low.

Honda’s endorsement is particularly telling about his personal, not political relationship with Ma. Two years ago, then-Assemblyman Honda was running for one of the country’s most heated congressional seats. But with only one week remaining before the election, he stopped campaigning to personally drive from San Jose to San Francisco to see Fiona.

Was it for a campaign event? No. It was to attend the church service of Fiona’s marriage to Philippe Anav. If you know Honda, then you’ll know Ma — two who put friends and family before politics.

SPAM FOR SAM: Reach Samson Wong at samson@sfindependent.com.