The Weekly Digest (November 5, 2023)

Written By Bill Jackson

Happy Sunday, Brionies!

Here’s what you need to know about San Francisco politics this week and beyond:

City Hall

  • Monday, November 6 at 10am: Regular meeting of the Government Rules Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)

    • Item 3 – Composition of the Behavioral Health Commission. Supervisor Matt Dorsey continues to beat the drum for sensible governance by sponsoring an ordinance to reduce the number of members on this commission from 17 to 11. While we aren’t usually fans of seatholder-requirement checklists (e.g., “one seat must be held by a left-handed, brown-eyed SEIU member of Innuit heritage”), we applaud the requirement that one seat on this commission be filled by a veteran or veteran advocate. 

  • Tuesday, November 7 at 2pm: Regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda and call-in instructions here)

    • Item 5 – Charter Amendment to require the mayor’s approval of certain SFMTA proposals, such as parking rates and meter hours. Supervisors Ahsha Safai, Aaron Peskin, and Hillary Ronen want you, dear citizens, to decide whether the buck should stop with the mayor or SFMTA for parking and transit policy. This proposal appears to be a reaction to a brouhaha back in May when SFMTA attempted to extend parking meter hours from 6pm to 10pm. While we weren’t in support of the parking meter hours increase (which has been postponed for the time being) this proposal to kick the question of decision-making authority back to the voters isn’t the answer. Making tough decisions about the laws of our city is what we elect our supervisors to do.

    • Item 19 – Ordinance amending the Health Code to require that sites collecting medical specimens adhere to HIPAA. The language of this ordinance specifically mentions COVID, and refers to entities that would collect samples on, say, a sidewalk. Quite timely! Next week, it’s rumored the Supes may take up changes to parking rules at Candlestick. 

  • Thursday, November 9 at 10am: Regular meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)

    • Item 3 – Hearing on treatment on demand.

Action items

  • Oppose Supervisor Ahsha Safai’s cynical plan to foil a proposal to fully staff the SFPD. 

  • Consider joining organizers of neighborhood groups SOAR, D2Unite, Iconic D3, and Advocates 11 to make public comment at Police Commission meetings. Think of the fun you could have calling out the PoCo for its inane propositions. Just last week, one commissioner blamed the police for an increase in overdose deaths.

Happenings around town

What we’re reading

  • Lowell High School is back in the news. Relying on a controversial $500,000 report, Schools Superintendent Matt Wayne is considering a move away from the current admissions criteria of a special test and admissions essay to a lottery for applicants with a GPA above 3.0. “Wayne said that with a minimum 3.0 GPA, a more diverse group of students would meet the criteria for admission, ideally increasing the overall diversity at the school, which is disproportionately white and Asian American.” Those of us who came of age before rampant grade inflation may think a 3.0 (B) average is pretty good, but a majority of applicants meet those criteria, so in practice, a 3.0 cutoff is hardly “selective.”  Recall that when Lowell dropped merit-based criteria in favor of a pure lottery system, students suffered greatly: the number of ninth-grade students earning D or F grades tripled. 

  • San Francisco operates under a “strong mayor” form of government, rather than a council-manager form, and the mayor is expected to act as the city’s chief executive officer. Critics argue that San Francisco is a “strong mayor” city in name only because the mayor “can’t fire the Police Chief, can’t direct land use and zoning, doesn’t control the MTA or Public Works, and has no recourse against a DPW director that can’t keep streets clean.” To remedy that, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is proposing changes to the City Charter that would expand the mayor’s authority by, for example, extending the power to terminate department heads. Additionally, Mandelman proposes reforming the process for initiating ballot initiatives (see Item 5 on the Board agenda above). The supervisors often use ballot initiatives as a way of getting around the mayor, but the result is long and complicated ballots with rosy-sounding, unobjectionable names. Ironically, this particular item would be decided by a ballot initiative. Next year, be on the lookout for the Stop Kicking Puppies Act of 2024.

  • San Francisco Supervisors Sure Do Expense Some Weird Stuff. This isn’t a hit piece, and we don’t include it in the Digest for such purposes – the grand total of the expenses would barely cover a single payment on socialist Supervisor Preston’s mansion (not to imply that the multimillionaire Marxist ever needed a mortgage!). As the title suggests, it just shows some of the ways the supervisors use their expense accounts. Among other things, we learned that Supervisor Ronen wants a phone charger in every room, which is actually the most relatable thing we’ve ever heard about her.

  • In a rarity in San Francisco: an incumbent Superior Court judge will face a challenger on the March 2024 ballot. We welcome more attention to the critical role of lenient judges in creating our public safety crisis and hope this the first of many challenges to incumbent judges. Since judges don’t even appear on the ballot if they are unopposed, this is the only way many of us would even know who they are.

  • We harp on Scott Weiner in this space now and again, and rightfully so. We also recently made a less-than-serious mention of his attempt to decriminalize psilocybin, the compound in “magic mushrooms.” But, we must give credit to Weiner for persistence. After Governor Newsom vetoed his bill, Weiner teamed up with Republican Marie Waldron to try again. He has gathered support from combat veterans and first responders to bolster his argument that the compounds help with PTSD and severe depression. These arguments are gaining traction, even in august medical journals.

Quick hits

Bill Jackson
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