The Weekly Digest (October 29, 2023)
Happy Sunday, Brionies!
Here’s what you need to know about San Francisco politics this week and beyond:
City Hall
Monday, October 30 at 10am: Regular meeting of the Government Rules Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Item 1 – A hugely important initiative from 2.5 of our worthwhile BoS members: “amend the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco to establish minimum staffing levels for sworn officers of the Police Department, requiring for a period of five years that the Mayor and Board of Supervisors appropriate funds to meet staffing levels, establishing a Police Full Staffing Fund for a period of five years for purposes of facilitating minimum police staffing.” It cannot be overstated how important this initiative is; it supports a core pillar of our policy platform!
Tuesday, October 31 at 2pm: Regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Item 6 – Not satisfied with having established “a model process to identify and select Poet Laureates” (individuals who receive a stipend and recognition for their cultural contributions), the San Francisco Public Library seeks to replicate that program through the selection of a “Drag Laureate.” It is baffling that our esteemed supervisors see fit to use government time and money to declare which creative talents are deserving of merit.
Item 8 – Graffiti is complicated. Like, very complicated. In fact, it’s so devilishly nuanced that the problem requires – and this will come as a shock to long-time observers of San Francisco politics – a Graffiti Advisory Board. Long on time and taxpayer funds but short on self-awareness, the Board of Supervisors has decided to establish yet another committee to manage a problem that most large urban population centers seem to address through the usual channels of law enforcement and public works.
Item 9 – Baby steps towards sanity about how our oh-so-precious (privately owned, of course) buildings are used, but nevertheless: Mandelman and Dorsey are stepping up with a tidy proposal to reduce restrictions on landmarked buildings in the Castro. Of course, one can only wonder what promise removing the concept of a “landmark” offers, but hey, we have got to have something to dream of!
Thursday, November 2 at 10am: Regular meeting of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)
Item 5, Item 6 – Encouragingly, the committee has seen fit to allocate time to discuss the fate (plight?) of small businesses in San Francisco, prompted by this report by the Civil Grand Jury. The report makes some seemingly worthwhile recommendations, but Finding 9 sums up: “Despite recent reforms, there remains a prevalent perception that San Francisco is inhospitable to small businesses, and City agencies have not deployed the resources required to effectively counter that perception.”
Action items
Contact your supervisor about any of the aforementioned nonsense by emailing him or her directly.
Express support for Supervisor Dorsey’s charter amendment to fully staff the SFPD.
Consider joining organizers of neighborhood groups SOAR, D2Unite, Iconic D3 and Advocates 11 to make public comment at meetings of the Police Commission.
Happenings around town
Tuesday, October 31 at 5pm, Mission Station
Tuesday, October 31 at 6pm, Tenderloin Station
Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott: The Canceling of the American Mind
Thursday, November 2 at 5:30pm, the Commonwealth Club
Wednesday, November 8 at 6pm, Lincoln High School
What we’re listening to
Check out our latest podcast episode featuring JConr B. Ortega, City Hall public commenter par excellence and co-president of IconicD3.
What we’re reading
The Chronicle’s loss of Heather Knight to The New York Times has borne some fruit: she penned this article documenting the state’s dissatisfaction with San Francisco’s efforts to build housing. We enjoyed this choice quote from Gustavo Velasquez, director of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development: “It is egregious, the enormous amount of constraints and barriers they impose on new housing development … The cost of housing is exorbitant because there isn’t enough of it.” Good to see a few Democrats who understand supply and demand!
Chesa a.k.a. “The Gift That Keeps on Giving” Boudin has popped over from the University of California at Berkeley to inform us that San Francisco democracy is in jeopardy. He appeared at the premiere of a documentary about his life, where he took a break from self-admiration to lament that the state of San Francisco’s governance is a “dictatorship.” Clearly, Boudin is an expert in the trajectory of democracies, exemplified by his 2009 article in The Nation with the subheading “There are at least three reasons why the world should congratulate Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez on his recent success abolishing term limits.” Don’t stop, Chesa, please.
San Francisco supportive housing doesn’t seem to be providing much in the way of support, with an average of three deaths per week, according to the SF Standard. Recall that attempts to tie housing to abstinence have been met with stone-walling from the relevant agencies, as documented in this excellent piece in The Chronicle at the backend of last year.
Quick hits