In July, I authored an article questioning where District 7 Board of Supervisors candidate Vilaska Nguyen resides. Vilaska, a San Francisco public defender, and his wife have resided on District 11’s Otsego Street since at least November 2010. A San Francisco Department of Elections records check revealed that after the November 2019 election, Vilaska moved into a rental unit off Brotherhood Way and registered to vote in District 7. Only a couple of months later, Vilaska registered to represent a district he had never previously voted in.
In my original article, I noted that when I visited Vilaska’s Otsego Avenue property, there were children’s voices in the background and children’s political drawings chalked onto the driveway. At his new Summit Way address, Vilaska answered the door, and a dog barked in the background, but there was an absence of the sounds of any children. A friend of mine who lives on Summit Way says that while they don’t see many children in the neighborhood, they have never seen children around Vilaska’s rental unit. Which raises the question: Where do Vilaska’s children reside?
When I wrote my original article on Vilaska’s residency, I was unaware that he actually owned his Otsego Avenue home.
Over my prior career of preparing and reviewing thousands of tax returns, it was common to see clients move from a rental to a rental, move up from a rental to purchasing a first home, or moving from one home to another. However, a transaction I never saw was where a client moved from a home they continued to own to a rental unit 3.1 miles away. The exception being clients who rented a home nearby while they orchestrated a major remodel of their principal home ⎯ but that was a temporary situation.
Which raises another question: Why has Vilaska made such a temporary commitment to rent in District 7 but hasn’t traded out of District 11 home?
WHICH DISTRICT?
Vilaska has dotted his “i’s” and crossed his “t’s” in an effort to window-dress his District 7 “street creds.” By continuing to claim to the San Francisco Assessor’s office that Otsego Avenue is his principal residence, while simultaneously telling the Board of Elections that Summit Way is his principal residence, Vilaska appears to have violated the law.
California and San Francisco laws provide a homeowner with a reduced property tax bill: “If you own and occupy your home as your principal place of residence.” Thus, Vilaska is receiving the benefit of property tax savings from the city assessor, but simultaneously achieving the benefit of running in District 7 from the Department of Elections, by selling two different stories to two different city departments. Which raises another question: Which one of the city departments is Vilaska lying to?
Concerned about the validity of Vilaska Nguyen’s residency, former state senator Quentin Kopp and I sent letters to Chesa Boudin asking the district attorney’s office to reconcile Vilaska’s conflicting representations to city departments. Our letters also pointed out that because of Boudin’s maximum political contribution to Vilaska’s campaign on June 29, Boudin created a conflict of interest requiring an outside county’s district attorney to take over any Vilaska residency investigation. As expected, Boudin exerted his usual prosecutorial energy and didn’t respond to our letters. Which raises the question: When Vilaska is representing a defendant, isn’t the assistant district attorney’s prosecution for any victim compromised because their boss (Boudin) sent his personal money to an opposing attorney?
PACKING THE BOARD
Vilaska is part of an organized effort by progressives to spread their city-destroying policies to District 7. Vilaska is the only District 7 candidate who wants to build a homeless shelter in a district he hasn’t even lived in for a full year. He supports closing Juvenile Hall despite an increase in juvenile crime. And Vilaska supports defunding the police department despite skyrocketing homicides, burglaries, arsons, and car thefts.
Other significant financial contributors to Vilsaka include John Avalos, Hillary Ronen, Matt Gonzalez, and the mayors of the tent camps — Matt Haney and Dean Preston. More than 50 percent of Vilaska’s contributions are from outside San Francisco, and per my calculations, 94 percent of his donors don’t even reside in District 7. Talk about an outside invasion!
I really have nothing against Vilaska personally. I called his cell phone regarding this article, but he hasn’t returned my call. It seems Vilaska is running on a “families first” campaign slogan, yet he has positioned his own family second to carpetbagging District 7.
Interestingly, in a Westside Observer questionnaire, Vilaska danced around his residency: “I lived in or right near D7 for over a decade.” According to his flawed logic, we are all eligible to run to be prime minister of Canada because we live in an adjacent country.
Which raises a final question: Does an Airbnb stay establish Canadian residency?
Lou Barberini is a CPA. Send feedback to [email protected]
