Hillary Ronen

Ronen's father immigrated to the United States from Israel in his twenties. Her mother was a school teacher and lifelong member of a union.[2]

Ronen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego and her Juris Doctor from University of California, Berkeley.

After graduating from law school, she moved to the Mission District, where she joined La Raza Centro Legal.[3] She worked as an immigrant rights attorney.[4]

Ronen was a legislative aide and chief of staff to Supervisor David Campos. She succeeded him on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors after winning election in the November 2016 election.[4][2] Ronen was sworn in on January 9, 2017.[5] Her election created a female majority on the board for the first time in 20 years.[6]

In 2018, Ronen fought to prevent the construction of a 75-unit building on the site of a laundromat. She argued that an environmental review of the building did not consider the impact of a shadow on a nearby schoolyard, even though an environmental review conducted by officials at the San Francisco Planning Department showed that the new construction, including its shadow, would not have an adverse impact on children at the schoolyard.[7] In October of that same year, Ronen dropped her opposition, stating that the appeal process seeking to halt the project had been exhausted, thus allowing the project to proceed.[8]

During the 2018 San Francisco mayoral special election, Ronen voted with the majority to remove London Breed as interim mayor. Ronen explained her vote by stating her belief that Breed was being supported by "white, rich men" and "billionaires" such as Ron Conway who "have steered the policies for the past mayoral administrations . . . that have gotten us into the absolute mess that we are in today, where poor people and people of color cannot afford to live in the city."[9] Ronen's choice for interim mayor, Mark Farrell, was a white male venture capitalist whose firm Conway had invested in.[10] Breed was ultimately elected as mayor on June 5, 2018.

In 2019, she co-sponsored a resolution opposing California Senate Bill 50 which would have mandated denser housing near public transit stations and jobs centers in order to reduce the housing shortage in California.[11]

Ronen is married to attorney Francisco Ugarte. They live in the Bernal Heights neighborhood with their daughter.[12]

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