The Weekly Digest (March 2, 2025)

Written By Bill Jackson

Happy Sunday, Brionies! Here’s what you need to know about local politics this week and beyond:

San Francisco City Hall 

  • Tuesday, March 4 at 2pm: Regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda here):

    • Item 17 – Ordinance amending the Planning Code to exempt certain downtown commercial-to-residential conversion projects from development impact fees and requirements. This measure, which we highlighted last week, will aid the City’s housing and recovery crises. It is up for its second reading and is expected to pass. Only two supervisors, Shamann Walton and Jackie Fielder, voted “no” last time around. 

    • Item 27 – Resolution affirming San Francisco’s commitment to birthright citizenship as a constitutional right. President Trump’s day-one executive order revoking birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants or legal temporary visitors was immediately blocked by a federal trial court and will likely go up to the Supreme Court for review, which is to say: it is not a matter currently pending before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. No matter! The Supes have an opinion, and they want you to know it. The Board’s obsession with meaningless measures on national or international issues beyond their jurisdiction is an obnoxious exercise in navel-gazing, and we wish they’d give it a rest. 

Happenings around town

What we’re reading

  • Imagine you’re out in public, and a violent and armed psychopath attacks you. You could run away, but – with seconds to decide – you defend yourself. You use reasonable but serious force that results in your attacker’s death. Should you go to prison because you didn’t run away? Current California law holds that assault victims have no duty to retreat: they may stand their ground. California Democrats, of course, want to change this. State Assembly Bill 1333 provides that an assault victim cannot use deadly force if the force “could have been avoided . . . by retreating.” Let state reps know that you want criminals – not victims – to go to jail. Register your opposition to AB1333 here. 

  • In a rare triumph for good sense, the Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 to dismiss Max Carter-Oberstone from the San Francisco Police Commission last week. Mayor Lurie, who sought Carter-Oberstone’s removal, said he wanted someone he could work with on public safety. Carter-Oberstone argued that his removal would establish a terrible precedent for the “independence” of City commissions. In other words, Carter-Oberstone believes commissioners should operate without regard for their appointing authority. We find this argument not just insane, but dangerous: City commissioners – particularly those who oversee armed paramilitary organizations like the Police Department – should be subject to the check of the political class and the voters who put them in office. The Board was right to reject this absurd argument.

  • Speaking of commissions, San Francisco voters think we have too many. So, in typical San Francisco fashion, we established a commission to . . . study commissions. Broadly, we support reeling in City commissions: they serve as a way for elected officials to avoid making difficult decisions by farming them out to unelected appointees in a Tammany Hall-style patronage system. They contribute to a bloated and byzantine bureaucracy that arrests or prevents meaningful change. They put people in power who have no idea what they are doing (you would be right to wonder why a commission full of people who think children should have guns should set policy for the Police Department). We are hopeful our new “commission on commissions” will make meaningful change in these areas. But we aren’t holding our collective breath.

Quick hits

Palate cleanser

This week in San Francisco history

Bill Jackson
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