https://sfneighborhoods.net/sunshine/civilgrandjurysunshinecomplaint.html
This complaint was submitted to the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury on October 28, 2024. For a PDF of this document click here.
Supervisor Dorsey wants city-funded nonprofits to report their lobbying efforts at City Hall.
By : sfchronicle – excerpt
Can’t happen fast enough…
Should city-funded nonprofits in San Francisco have to disclose their lobbying activities in the same way that for-profit corporations do? One city lawmaker thinks so, and he’s working on legislation to enact the idea.
Supervisor Matt Dorsey intends to propose an ordinance that would eliminate a provision in city law that exempts nonprofits from local rules requiring organizations to register their lobbyists and publicly report when they seek to influence officials at City Hall.
In a Wednesday letter to city lawyers asking for help preparing the ordinance, Dorsey said the legislation was intended to create more transparency around how city-funded nonprofits are allocating their resources. San Francisco has roughly doubled its spending on nonprofits since 2019, the Chronicle previously reported, but Dorsey noted that the city has simultaneously seen a “troubling pattern” of “ethical scandals, mismanagement” and other problems among nonprofits that provide crucial services.
Dorsey submitted the letter, which is likely to face pushback from nonprofits and their political allies, the same day supervisors sat for a marathon hearing to receive public comment about Mayor Daniel Lurie’s nearly $17 billion city budget proposal. Hours after the meeting of the supervisors’ appropriations committee began, the line of people waiting to speak still snaked through the corridors of City Hall. People sat huddled on the marble floors, some sporting matching shirts and jackets representing nonprofits and community groups… (more)
How many non-profits spend money on lobbyists? We know that some of them do, but., probably not the many.
Citizens’ Democracy Report – Massive fee increase for citizens’ ballot arguments
by Patrick Monnette-Shaw and John Crabtree
Breaking news on City Hall Proposal for 400% increases proposed for both ballot argument filing fees and per-word fees. A Citizens’ Democracy Report & Citizens’ Anti-Corruption Report Breaking News Story.
Mayor Lurie’s revised plan to increase filing fees and per-word fees for paid ballot arguments in the official Voter Information Pamphlet (VIP), which is mailed to voters in the City & County of San Francisco; and his new plan to eliminate publishing the legal text of each ballot measure in San Francisco’s VIP. Both measures will weaken democratic elections in San Francisco, and likely hand over even more power to special-interest recipient committees funded by billionaires to adversely influence San Francisco elections.
There are two companion Ordinances being heard at either the Budget and Appropriations Committee on June 17 at 10:00 a.m., or the next day on June 18 (apparently if the Committee runs out of time on 6/17). Both measures are being rushed through the Board of Supervisors Budget and Appropriations Committee without adequate public review. Although the Mayor’s Budget Director submitted both pieces of legislation on Monday June 1, it took two full work weeks until Friday June 12 before the public learned the legislation would be heard five days later on June 17… (more)
The two measures are Agenda Items 6 and 7 on the Appropriations Committee meeting agenda…
UPDATE: The issues were heard at the Appropriations Committee and were tabled by the Chair, Connie Chan. THEY NEED TO BE WATCHED AS THEY WILL COME BACK.
The second Ordinance, Board File #260604, will “remove the requirement that the Department of Elections publish the legal text of ballot measures in the Voter Information Pamphlet sent to voters before each election, and allow the Director of Elections to determine the format of the Voter Information Pamphlet without the Ballot Simplification Committee’s approval.”… (more)
In place of including the legal text of each ballot measure in the Voter Guide, voters would be forced to locate it on-line, at a Branch Library, in-person at the Department of Elections, or by e-mail or U.S. Mail. The costs of providing it by e-mail or U.S. mail — which may ultimately cost more than including it in the VIP — were not estimated for the consideration of this proposal.
The Ordinance to eliminate publishing the legal text in the Voter Guide would become effective 31 days after passage — meaning it would go into effect for the November 2026 election.
Therefore, all of the Charter Amendments the Mayor is introducing for his “Commission Streamlining” reform ballot measures will have their legal text kept out of the VIP in what appears to be a creative way to keep those ballot measures’ legal text as far from the voters as possible… (more)
Patrick Monette-Shaw will continue his breaking-news reporting on all of these developments in the Westside Observer as well.
New Melgar-Lurie plan for affordable housing is great; cutting other funding is not
By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt
Expanding the Housing Trust Fund could bring in $125 million a year. Repealing Prop. I could wipe out almost as much
Anything that adds more money for affordable housing in San Francisco is, by default, a good thing. The Council of Community Housing Organizations is celebrating new legislation, originated by CCHO and and SF Community Land Trust, that would increase the city’s Housing Trust Fund to as much as $125 million a year.
It’s not an unusual approach, by historic standards: In essence, the Trust Fund would grow as part of what we used to call “tax increment financing.” The additional property tax money that comes in from the city’s radical upzoning would in part (a fairly small part) be dedicated to affordable housing. It’s also called “value capture.”
Sup. Myrna Melgar took on the legislation to make this new approach happen, and Mayor Daniel Lurie signed on, and it will wind up on the ballot in November. The plan is to make sure the trust fund is in the City Charter, so no future mayor or supervisors can divert the money to other purposes.
Since it’s a defined revenue stream, the city could issue revenue bonds against it, bringing in immediate money for housing.
All of that is good. As CCHO Executive Director Quintin Mecke notes:
“Today, more than 17,000 approved affordable homes sit in San Francisco’s pipeline — entitled, designed, and waiting. Ready for permits. Ready on zoning. Waiting only for funding.
The Housing Trust Fund, as currently structured, falls short of what that pipeline demands.
The proposed Charter Amendment can begin to change that. This is a transformation, and we should name it as one.”…
UPDATE: Melgar told me there is no deal involving Prop. I; the only deal was to reduce the amount of required affordable housing in new projects. She said she is not currently supporting the BUILD Act.
Former Sup. Dean Preston and his allies are circulating petitions that would make Prop. I permanent–and would mandate that the money go for affordable housing. Lurie will oppose that.
Some folks will say that Preston and SF’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America are undermining the “deal” that trades away Prop. I and inclusionary housing for this new, valuable, steady income source.
But Mecke told me that in his meetings with Melgar’s Office and Lurie’s Office, nobody said that the new trust fund hinged on everyone supporting the repeal of Prop. I and the cut in affordability requirements. “I was never asked to agree to a deal,” he said.… (more)
This continues to be one of the most convoluted way to operate an affordable housing plan. No matter where you look there is a “gotcha”. Perhaps when the dust settles one may be able to look at what options remain for the voters to respond to in November.
Meanwhile, what is being done to get the people who need housing into the thousands of empty units, some owned by companies that are or will soon declare bankruptcy and may well owe the city millions of dollars in back taxes.
We hear that Parkmerced is largely empty and the owners are broke. What can’t these properties, which can’t be in worse shade than some of the affordable housing projects we hear about, be turned into a temporary housing project for the people who are already signed up for housing?
RELATED:
How a CCHO idea became a $3 billion Charter Amendment — and why the fight isn’t over. (By Quintin Mecke, SF CCHO : substack )
Lurie wants to make ballot arguments too expensive for small campaigns
By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt
EXCLUSIVE: Dramatic increase in fees would help big-money and undermine grassroots groups. It goes before the supes Wednesday.
Mayor Daniel Lurie is moving to increase by a factor of five the cost of putting an argument in the ballot handbook, undermining the most affordable way for grassroots campaigns to reach voters.
Under his legislation, which no local news media has covered, the cost of an argument would increase from $200 and $2 a word to $1,000 and $10 a word by 2030. That would mean a 200-word ballot argument that now costs $600 would cost $3,000.
Five ballot arguments, a modest number for a lot of campaigns, would cost $15,000—more than many community-based campaigns could afford.
That would give big-money operations even more clout in San Francisco.
The measure comes before the Budget and Appropriations Committee Wednesday/17 at 1:30 pm… (more)
At the June GA meeting CSFN members voted to approve a letter objecting to this action. The letter sent to the Budget and Appropriations Committee. re: Ordinances 260603 & 260604.
CSFN Oppose Ballot Fee Increase
A week of budget protests as Lurie’s brutal cuts hit everyone except the cops
By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt
Plus: Letting big institutions off the planning hook—and yet another bizarre prosecution from DA Brooke Jenkins. That’s The Agenda for June 14-19
The Board of Supes Budget and Appropriations Committee will continue hearings on the mayor’s budget proposal this week—and City Hall will be filled with protesters. The People’s Budget Coalition plans a series of creative actions; here’s a rundown:… (see the schedule here)…
A full Civic Center spectacle will show what San Francisco looks like when the city funds communities instead of cuts. Community organizations, workers and residents will fill Civic Center Plaza with cultural performances, drag, dance, music, poetry, art-making, popular education, resource sharing, picnic blankets, banners, accessibility areas, pieces of the AIDS Quilt, and political theater calling on City Hall to restore the cuts. 10am, in front of City Hall… (more)
An update from Los Altos Hills
By Lynn La : calmatters via email:
Last fall, CalMatters covered the saga of the well-to-do Silicon Valley suburb that set aside some land for denser development in compliance with state housing law, only to scale back its plans once a developer proposed a major apartment project for the site. Since then, regulators with California’s Housing Department signed off on the town’s about-face.
Now, the California Housing Defense Fund, a pro-development legal advocacy group, is suing the town, arguing that its housing plan violates state law — even if the state’s own regulators don’t see things that way.
Is it possible the legal YIMBY arm is reaching too far as it attacks the root of its support? How much is too much and when is it time to retreat? The peninsula is known for its excellent local food sources that feed fine restaurants in the Bay Area.
Who Loses By Restricting SF Ballot Measures
By Randy Shaw : beyondchron – excerpt
Initiatives Have Primarily Helped Tenants
SF also requires by far the lowest amount of signatures for measures to qualify for the ballot. This incentivizes politicians and special interests to overload the ballot with poorly conceived, divisive, and often contradictory measures. The result is a system that forces San Franciscans to fill out lengthy, confusing ballots that often result in unintended consequences.— Press release, MAYOR LURIE FILES CHARTER REFORM MEASURES TO CLEAN UP CITY HALL, March 11, 2026
Does the actual history of San Francisco ballot measures confirm the above account? Not by my research. To the contrary, gathering signatures under the current law has brought enormous benefits to the city’s non-wealthy residents. It’s been the primary strategy keeping the non-wealthy in San Francisco…
Ballot Measures Increase Economic Equity
I encourage other media to investigate which San Francisco constituencies have benefited most from initiatives secured by signature gathering. My research says the answer is obvious: tenants have far and away gained the most.
I have authored and coordinated signature gathering for two tenant campaigns. In 1992, Prop H cut annual rent increases by more than half. Its passage has saved tenants billions of dollars and kept working people in the city. People who would have eventually been priced out by the annual guaranteed 4% rent increase previously in effect.
The organization I head, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, was the chief funder of Prop H. We could not have afforded to pay for enough signatures to qualify under the proposed new rules (even grassroots campaigns rely heavily on paid signature gatherers).
Had the proposed new signature rules been in effect in 1992, landlords would have continued getting annual rent increases well above inflation. But for Prop H this would have continued for the past 33 years.
In 1994, I authored Prop G, a charter amendment to create a Department of Building Inspection. We had to collect 60,000 signatures because charter amendments have a higher requirement. We spent every campaign dollar we had on qualifying for the ballot. Had the proposed new signature requirements been in effect it would have been impossible for us to qualify.
Thanks to Prop G, San Francisco went from having terrible housing code enforcement to becoming a national model. The Housing Inspection Division was fully funded for the first time ever. The City Attorney went from only filing lawsuits against in=law apartments to targeting landlords who flagrantly violate the housing code.
These two measures alone show tenants have gained enormously from the current system. But there’s even more examples of how tenants benefit from the existing signature rules…
I have an entire chapter in The Activist’s Handbook on the strategies for using ballot initiatives to achieve progressive change. The mayor needs to rethink this part of his charter amendment…(more)
RELATED:
Why Lurie’s Charter reform would hurt tenants
By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt…
Lurie and his allies also want to make it more difficult for citizens to put a measure on the local ballot. The mayor wants to eliminate the rule that allows four supes to sponsor an initiative with their signatures—and want to raise the threshold for community-based signatures… Shaw doesn’t mention it, but the most important progressive land-use measure in San Francisco history, Prop. M in 1986, would never have made the ballot under the new rules. The proponents gathered enough signatures, but the City Attorney’s Office, apparently bowing to Mayor Dianne Feinstein and downtown pressure, produced an utterly bogus argument at the last minute saying the signatures were invalid on a technicality. So the backers found four (and only four) supervisors—Harry Britt, Nancy Walker, Willie Kennedy and Dick Hongisto—willing to put in on the ballot instead…. That would not have happened under the mayor’s proposal… (more)
California’s blockbuster legislation faces rocky rollout
By Sam Dillon : msn – excerpt
Commentary: How long can you hold a citizenry hostage to a crisis?
Mass confusion over the meaning and implementation of SB79, which amounts to unlimited growth near mass transit, is sweeping California’s largest cities that are targeted by the one of the most draconian bills ever devised. After turning over the Pacific coastline to developers, and blaming cities for the housing shortage, Senator Wiener, has managed to make almost everyone mad at him. Now it turns out his penchant for writing long, detailed, prescriptive bills is not playing well with the public or city officials who are charged with enforcing what has been described as developer wet dreams.
Give the anger and confusion over SB79 in his district is giving Scott Wiener’s competitors a boost. He is rumored to be considering a delay in implementation of the bill as he seeks support for his new power move to Washington to replace Pelosi.
In his haste to divide and conquer Wiener has succeeded in dividing both his friends and foes, often referred to as YIMBYS and NIMBYS. Wiener is not enjoying a lot of support from the press either. He relies heavily on the Abundant crowd in Silicon Valley, that his constituents are being hammered by. If you were not recently laid off by a high tech firm, you may have lost your income to Waymo or been evicted from a gentrified neighborhood.
Wiener is fighting a Dead horse that is obvious to everyone but him and people are ready to fight back.
There are some gems in this article that covers a lot of the history of how we got here and where the Wiener of the world want us to go. Here are a couple of pull-quotes from the article:
S.F. housing is hottest topic in first debate between District 2 supervisor candidates
by
In the first debate between the two candidates for San Francisco District 2 supervisor on Tuesday evening, housing was the most contentious topic.
Though candidates Stephen Sherrill and Lori Brooke also spent large parts of the debate talking about cars and public safety, their answers on housing drew the most audible response from the crowd of about 200 people gathered at Convent & Stuart Hall, who leaned older and whiter…
Brooke, a longtime neighborhood organizer, criticized the city’s recent upzoning plan, which allows taller, denser housing in the city’s north and west, including on commercial corridors like Lombard and Chestnut streets in District 2…
Neighborhoods United SF, which Brooke co-founded, is part of a coalition currently suing the city to block the upzoning plan.
Sherrill, who was appointed District 2 supervisor by outgoing Mayor London Breed in December 2024, voted for the plan. But at the debate, as he has previously, he distanced himself from it, pointing out that the upzoning was mandated by the state.
If he hadn’t voted for it, he said, the state would have taken over San Francisco’s ability to approve new housing, essentially allowing buildings of any height to be built anywhere…
Brooke pushed back on Sherrill, saying that state takeover wasn’t the “real issue.” That, she said, is YIMBY state laws — the ones that required upzoning and allowed a 25-story buildingto be proposed on the current site of the Marina Safeway right by the waterfront.
This did not let Sherrill off the hook. “My opponent says he doesn’t like [the Marina Safeway development], which is good, but he is endorsed by the very senator and the YIMBY organizations that wrote and championed the laws that made it possible,” Brooke said.
Unlike Sherrill, she said, she would push back strongly against Sacramento.
Sherrill, for his part, said, “I absolutely urge our state representatives to reform some of these laws.”…
Other questions focused on street safety and drugs.
Both Sherrill and Brooke said they think drug dealers with prior convictions should serve mandatory jail time. (“Thank you,” said Moriarty.) Both also agreed that fully staffing the police department was a high priority…
Another big topic: Transportation. Both candidates agreed that Market Street should be reopened to cars (a few people booed, then some cheered). They also both agreed that new housing developments should include more parking.
The city should not prioritize any “single mode” of transportation and should give “appropriate” weight to other forms of transportation, Brooke said, pointing to frustrations over traffic and parking. The city’s “transportation decisions,” she said, have become “less about neighborhood actual function and more about transit ideology.”… (more)
I love the way the media keeps harping on some districts for building less new housing than other districts. There is a good reason for this. Some districts are already built out, and some districts have a large amount of open space or old industrial uses that can easily to converted into new neighborhoods. There is also a different in seismic stress that we saw during the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Marina had heavy damage. Is this the place to build a 25 story housing project?
New Bombshell story from NY Post: Ex-San Francisco mayor appointed Bloomberg pal to key seat in hopes of landing a job. People ask, is that legal or is that a bribe? Could this effect the election?
