A San Francisco Democrat district supervisor – who the city’s mayor had called a “bridge builder” and “problem solver” — has resigned after only one week on the job after facing allegations of keeping deplorable conditions in a pet shop she used to run.
Isabella ‘Beya’ Alcaraz, 29, resigned as District 4 supervisor this week at the request of Mayor Daniel Lurie after it came to light that she had stored dead animals in a freezer alongside hundreds of dead rodents, according to several news outlets.
The resignation followed reports about the condition of The Animal Connection, a Sunset District pet store that Alcaraz formerly managed before taking the high-paying government job.
“The scandal began in the back rooms and freezers of the neighborhood pet shop after Julia Baran, 26, the woman who took over The Animal Connection from Alcaraz,” shared stunning photos and videos of the shop with the digital news outlet the San Francisco Standard.
“It smells like death,” Baran said in a video she gave the Standard after discovering hundreds of dead mice beneath the shelving on the sales floor.
“There was a layer of pee and dust and poop on everything,” Baran also said. “On the walls. On every cabinet. On a lot of the inventory, so I couldn’t even sell it.”
Baran said that she and her brother ultimately buried the animals they found.
The mayor appointed Alcaraz to the supervisor’s position though she had no prior political experience, the Daily Mail reported, “with Lurie citing her work as a businesswoman and pet store owner as examples of her credibility.”
A district supervisor serves on the 11-member County Board of Supervisors, which governs like a city council as well as a being a county body. Members are reportedly paid more than $175,000 a year and conduct typical legislative and representative duties.
Baran, however, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Alcaraz couldn’t even properly run a neighborhood pet store.
In November, Baran also released text messages she’d obtained in which Alcaraz said she paid workers under the table and wrote off “dinner and drinks” with friends to lower her income tax.
“To say you’re a successful businesswoman is not true,” she told the paper.
Alcaraz was sworn into office only last Thursday on her 29th birthday. She reportedly never attended a local government meeting and has no college-level education credentials, according to the Chronicle.
“The appointment of Alcaraz just one week ago rapidly became the biggest misstep of Lurie’s first year in office,” the newspaper wrote.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
