A Bay Area native and 12-year resident of District 8, Laura's commitment to our park and recreation centers, libraries, and schools earned her accolades as the 2007 District 8 Woman of the Year.
Independent of the factions at City Hall, Laura is committed to open, responsive government. She will not take contributions from PACs and is the only candidate to limit her contributions to $150.
Laura has a long record in public service. Her experience includes working with MUNI to improve transit; and helping the SFPUC expand water conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy: solar, wind, biofuel and geothermal. She also ensured local hiring for the many green jobs created. Some of her public service includes:
Laura Spanjian, a second generation Armenian-American, was born in the Bay Area and has lived in District 8 for 12 years. Laura moved to San Francisco in 1995 and for the past 15 years she has worked for civil rights, social justice, environmental stewardship and government efficiency.
As a legislative aide to Supervisor Leslie Katz, she fought for homeless LGBT youth, ensured implementation of the domestic partners equal rights bill, and advocated for bike facilities to encourage biking to work. During that time she worked closely with Community United Against Violence (CUAV), becoming chair of the Board, connecting hundreds of San Francisco LGBT members with domestic and hate violence services.
Laura then worked at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, fighting to improve Muni’s levels of service, adding an extra train line from the Castro to Downtown, and expanding Muni’s clean-fuel and hybrid bus portfolio. Laura worked closely with groups such as Rescue Muni to build consensus.
After focusing on transportation, Laura worked for what is now the City Fields Foundation, a program that builds new ballparks and open space for youth in San Francisco.
In 2004, Laura joined the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, where she manages 40 people and a $6 million dollar budget. Laura has fought to make renewable energy more affordable, helping to create the GoSolarSF program, reducing the cost of solar by half while ensuring that disadvantaged workers are hired for these new green jobs. She implemented Mayor Newsom’s ban of bottled water from City government, works with restaurants to encourage a voluntary bottled water ban, and works with other City governments across the nation to encourage their bans.
She also passed landmark water conservation legislation, accelerating the installation of water efficient fixtures, saving millions of gallons of water annually. And she successfully advocated for federal stimulus dollars for much needed seismic infrastructure and renewable energy projects that will create hundreds of green jobs in San Francisco. She also helped implement SFGreasecycle, a program that turns restaurant grease into biofuel. Coming full circle, she hopes to have French fry grease power Muni buses soon.
In all these roles, Laura has focused on making City government and the budget work for the people of all the City’s neighborhoods. She consistently works with people to make San Francisco a better place to live, work and play.