YES ON PROP D,
NO ON PROP E

The Context

While commissions are intended to do good, San Francisco’s commissions are totally out of control. We have roughly 130 commissions and over 1,200 unelected commissioners. Many commissions are no longer needed, or do work that other city agencies are already doing. Elected officials use this extra layer of government as a shield, passing the buck to commissions when they should be legislating, and unelected commissioners are making important policy decisions that affect city services. Electeds also hand out commissions appointments to allies in exchange for loyalty or political favors. 

It’s created the worst of both worlds, where we have so much oversight that it ends up bogging the whole city down rather than keeping electeds accountable. In fact, the lack of transparency makes it easy for corruption to fester. Take for example the members of the Graffiti Advisory board who solicited their paid services to a resident who sought help cleaning up an apartment building, the former Human Rights Commissioner who was caught by the FBI accepting a $20,000 bribe, the failure of the Human Rights Commission to hold its department’s leader accountable for giving contracts to a nonprofit ran by their significant other, or the former Planning Commissioner who took money from developers seeking permits from his office. The lack of accountability and a basic vetting process for commissioners, who aren’t elected and yet are making key governmental decisions, and on top of that are often committing crimes themselves, should trouble anyone actually interested in government oversight. 

This election, there are two ballot measures that claim to fix the system, but only one is the real deal. It’s important to understand which is which. 

Prop D, sponsored by TogetherSF Action, uses a public process to create a temporary task force to review and streamline San Francisco’s commission system, with a hard cap of 65 total commissions in the city. It creates accountability for commissioners, by allowing the authority who appointed a commissioner to remove them if they engage in bad behavior (right now, there’s no clear process for this). It makes a significant portion of commissions advisory-only, removing the groups’ ability to nominate or fire the heads of city departments so we can hold the mayor more directly responsible for that. And it sets up a regular evaluation of each commission every 10 years to ensure that the commission is still working as intended.

Prop E is typical decoy legislation from Supervisor Aaron Peskin—it sounds good on the surface, but doesn't actually fix any of the issues it's supposed to solve. In fact, Supervisor Peskin’s measure actually adds more bureaucracy to San Francisco’s already-bloated commission system, creating a new committee that would be able to make new laws about commissions. That’s completely unprecedented—a task force isn’t an elected body, they shouldn’t be making laws for San Francisco. 

Other problems? Prop E doesn’t set a limit on the maximum number of commissions, which does nothing to prevent future commission bloat. Our measure, Prop D, would cap the maximum number of commissions at 65, but Prop E has no such cap—in fact, it has no recommendations at all for a target number of commissions. Plus, Prop E doesn’t mandate regular evaluations to make sure commissions are still working as intended, and there’s nothing in the measure to create accountability for commissioners, which means unelected commissioners can continue to get away with bad behavior with no standard method for removal.

Bottom line, Prop E doesn’t actually fix the commission system’s problems at a structural level. Makes sense—Aaron Peskin has been a supervisor in San Francisco for 16 years. He created our dysfunctional city government. He’s not going to be the one to fix it.

The Money

Supporting San Francisco’s massive number of commissions takes up a lot of city staff time that could be better spent serving residents. A recent Civil Grand Jury report says as much as 10 percent of city staff time is spent on servicing commissions each year—that’s millions of dollars the city could put towards a more effective use.

Meanwhile, the City Controller’s fiscal analysis found that Prop E will have a minimal impact on the cost of government, and “any cost reductions will depend on the findings of the newly created Task Force and any subsequent eliminations or changes to existing commissions.”

Additional Details

Supervisor Peskin knows that historically, when two similar measures appear on the ballot, voters get confused and vote no on both. His measure isn’t designed to help San Francisco; it’s designed to tank real reform. Don’t fall for it.

Support & Opposition

Prop D is supported by: Former and current commissioners like former Human Rights Commissioner Abby Porth, former Police Commissioner Thomas Mazzucco, and former Airport Commissioner Mark Buell, former Mayor Frank Jordan’s Chief of Staff Jim Wunderman, and former SFPD Police Chief Greg Suhr. Neighborhood and citywide organizations like Positive Directions Equals Change, RescueSF, the Richmond Dragon League, Stand with Asian Americans, and Stop Crime SF Action have all endorsed the Cut the Dysfunctional Bureaucracy Initiative, along with industry groups like the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association.

As expected, City Hall insiders who benefit from the status quo are Prop E’s core supporters, including District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, and District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen. Former City Controller Ed Harrington is the campaign leader for the proposition’s campaign committee, called “Real Reform, a Coalition of Small Businesses, Neighbors and Aaron Peskin.”

Other Organizations That Share Our Endorsement: The Chinese American Democratic Club, the Edwin M. Lee Asian Pacific Democratic Club, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, and the United Democratic Club.