Theresa Sparks Moving to District 6 This Weekend, 'Leaning Very Heavily' Toward Running for Supervisor

Theresa Sparks

​After weeks of speculation about whether Human Rights Commission director Theresa Sparks is about to move to District 6 and run for supervisor, Sparks tells us she signed a lease on an apartment at Turk and Van Ness last week. She says she is moving from her current Nob Hill flat this weekend.

Does this mean she'll definitely be competing to replace Chris Daly next year? "I'm leaning heavily towards doing it," Sparks says. "I've been having a lot of meetings with a lot of people and gotten a really positive response."

Sparks says she'll announce one way or the other in the next month. "If I'm not that person that people want to support, I want to give them the time to find someone else. They're not too impressed by the current candidates." Sparks said she wouldn't out exactly who "they" are.

SF Weekly reported earlier that Sparks was recently seen making the rounds in District 6 with Jason Chan, Mayor Gavin Newsom's appointment secretary. A city Democratic Party higher-up also told us that Sparks told him she was considering a supervisoral run -- and his colleagues reported the same. "I've heard it from other people, too," said the source. Sparks "has obviously been making calls."

Now 60 years old, Sparks says, if she would win the seat, it would likely be her final job and not a stepping stone to higher political office. It also would cut her current $167,000 salary in almost half. But she says she thinks she can bring some needed balance to the district.

"I think this board needs more balance, needs more independent thinkers as opposed to people who have one or another ideology. ...When I was on the Police Commission, I was able to mediate and compromise and help bring people together and I think the city needs people who could do that. I'm starting to sound more and more like a candidate and it's
starting to scare me."

It's probably having an impact on the other District 6 candidates as well. Tenderloin activist David Villa-Lobos has told SF Weekly that he'll drop out of the race if Sparks runs. Meanwhile, Entertainment Commissioner and candidate Jim Meko says Sparks would be an interloper in the district. His campaign tactic: To hand out maps.