The Weekly Digest (September 29, 2024)

Sep 29

Happy Sunday, Brionies!

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

San Francisco City Hall

Monday, September 30 at 1:30pm: Regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee (agenda here):

Item 2 – Ordinance providing that newly-constructed dwelling units (those that first received a certificate of occupancy between June 13, 1979 and November 5, 2024) shall be generally subject to rent control. This ordinance aims to get ahead of November’s Proposition 33 by expanding rent control to cover newer units. Proposition 33 would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995, which currently limits the kind of rent control that cities and counties can have.

Tuesday, October 1 at 2pm: Regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda here):

Items 16-19 – Consideration of reports by the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury on flood management, commissions, infrastructure, and budgets. The Civil Grand Jury is a government oversight panel of 19 volunteers. In reports made available to the public, the Jury documents findings and makes recommendations based on its investigations. The Government Audit and Oversight Committee (Supervisors Preston, Stefani, and Chan) has reviewed these reports and has accepted some, but not all, of the Jury’s recommendations.
Item 24 – Public hearing to examine $20,000,000 in unaccounted funds in the San Francisco Unified School District’s budget for special education and unfilled positions that support SFUSD’s special education work.

Happenings around town

Wednesday, October 2 at 6:30pm, location provided upon registration. Space is limited.
The Briones Society just published our full list of local endorsements, and for a deeper dive, we are hosting an in-person ballot briefing to answer your questions, like: How does ranked choice voting work? Which candidates should you rank (and in what order)? Why do some of these propositions seem identical? Join us on October 2 and we’ll answer these questions and more so that you can vote your values with confidence.

During Saturdays in October, members of the Briones Society will gather to support our endorsed measures and candidates. Our mobilizations begin with coffee and bagels, after which team members fan out to drop door hangers or make phone calls together. Please join us! Location provided upon registration.

Screening of GOTHAM: The Rise and Fall of New York, Monday, September 30, 7-10pm, location upon RSVP
Campaign events with Briones-endorsed candidates

What we’re reading

Another week, another round of shady disclosures about Mayor Breed’s signature program to combat systemic racism, the Dream Keeper Initiative. Your pals at the Briones Society covered this in a podcast interview with Pirate Wires reporter Sanjana Friedman back in April, but it keeps getting worse for Breed and Co. The SF Standard reported on Wednesday that Collective Impact, an organization that received $7.5 million from the Dream Keeper Initiative, repeatedly failed to disclose a significant conflict of interest: its executive director, James Spingola, shared a home with DKI’s key decision-maker, Sheryl Davis. Spingola also signed off on first-class airfare, luxury chauffeur service, and high-end meals for another nonprofit group, Both Sides of the Conversation, relating to a project called “Narrative Shift,” which was intended to create “storytelling narratives for minority residents in the most underserved and underrepresented communities in San Francisco.” Wait, there’s more! Today, the Chronicle reported that Davis’s connections to Collective Impact go even deeper, as her mother, sister, and son have all worked with the nonprofit. John Pelissero, director of government ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, told the Chronicle that Davis’ family ties to Collective Impact presented a “hornets’ nest of conflicts of interest that are real or appear to be present.”

Quick hits

Bill Jackson

The Weekly Digest (October 6, 2024)