VOTER GUIDE

This $790 million bond provides much-needed money to finance critical repairs and improvements for San Francisco public schools, which the school district can’t fund at the moment due to its budget deficit. The money from this bond can fix school buildings, but it needs to be paired with strong leadership and direction from the Board of Education to fix SFUSD’s larger issues. We’re voting yes on Proposition A because without dedicated funding for repairs and improvements, SFUSD will fall even further behind other Bay Area school districts, leading to disastrous long-term consequences.

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Mayor London Breed’s infrastructure bond aims to improve and retrofit San Francisco’s aging healthcare facilities, while also putting money toward road repairs and safety improvements, and improving shelters for unhoused people. Ongoing maintenance is crucial to keep cities functional, but infrastructure maintenance and repairs often get the short end of the stick from elected officials—it’s more exciting to announce new projects than repair existing ones. We’re voting yes on Prop B because it’s more cost-effective to maintain our infrastructure, rather than repair it after it breaks.

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Supervisor Aaron Peskin is trying to sell his measure to create a new Inspector General position in city government as a fix to the seemingly endless corruption scandals that pop up in San Francisco seemingly every month. But the measure actually creates a political bludgeon: an unaccountable, unelected city official with no clear end to their power. It’s the equivalent of using a bazooka to light a candle. We’re voting no on Proposition C because this position consolidates far too much power in a single position, without making sure that position will effectively reduce corruption.

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Wondering why some normal problem hasn’t been fixed in your neighborhood? It’s probably because there’s a commission in the way of progress. Commissions are groups of appointed citizens that are supposed to provide helpful oversight for the city, but San Francisco’s version (surprise!) is overly complex and bloated. San Francisco has over twice as many commissions as comparable cities, so it has become totally unclear who’s in charge of what problems in City Hall. Our elected officials appoint their friends to commissions in exchange for political favors. Those friends, despite having few qualifications, weigh in on key citywide decisions. When residents ask “why hasn’t my issue been fixed?” electeds point the finger at the commissions, saying it’s all terribly complicated. That’s why TogetherSF Action is sponsoring Prop D, which reforms this system through a public process. Supervisor Aaron Peskin is putting a nearly identical measure on the ballot, Prop E. But Peskin isn’t trying to fix our system. He knows when two similar measures appear before voters, they both fail. He’s trying to stop us from challenging the status quo. And why shouldn’t he? He’s enjoyed the status quo for all 16 of his years as a supervisor. We’re voting yes on Prop D and no on Prop E so we can make real change to our ridiculously bloated bureaucracy.

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Supervisor Matt Dorsey’s amendment attempts to solve SFPD’s serious staffing shortage by incentivizing older officers to put off retirement for a few more years. That helps bridge the gap until San Francisco can recruit and train new officers to bring SFPD up to its recommended staffing levels. Plus, this program has key safeguards to make sure officers are actually working, not just drawing extra benefits until retirement. We’re voting yes on Proposition F because it’s a relatively low-cost, high-impact way to keep experienced police officers in the field.

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Proposition G aims to expand an existing fund that subsidizes rent payment for seniors that was created by the Board of Supervisors in 2019. But this money would be a “set-aside” in the city budget, meaning it can only be used for one specific purpose—that puts stress on the city’s budget. We’re voting no on Proposition G because it’s not good fiscal policy, especially during San Francisco’s current economic downturn.

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This measure lowers the retirement age for firefighters from 58 to 55. This is an attempt to reduce the high rates of cancer among firefighters by reducing the amount of time they spend exposed to carcinogens in their equipment and environment. More than 300 current and former San Francisco firefighters have died in the past decade from cancer, another 200 have been diagnosed in the past six years, and San Francisco’s women firefighters are diagnosed with breast cancer at a rate of six times the national average. We’re voting yes because the health of our first responders should be a top priority.

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San Francisco’s nurses and 911 dispatchers are seriously understaffed, and it’s damaging the city’s ability to respond to emergencies and provide care in hospitals. Supervisor Ahsha Safaí’s measure tries to fix these staffing shortages with extra retirement benefits to incentivize more people to enter and stay in these fields. But these new benefits don’t address the reason for the problem—that being the sheer amount of time it takes to hire new employees. We’re voting no on Proposition I because it’s not the right approach and it might not even improve staffing levels that much.

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San Francisco spends a lot of money in almost every city department on children and families, but the city doesn’t do a great job of tracking whether that money is being spent effectively. Supervisor Myrna Melgar’s measure seeks to fix that, by enhancing the fiscal transparency around youth spending and forcing city departments to work together to spend existing funds more efficiently. We’re voting yes on Proposition J because we want to make sure the money we’re spending on San Francisco’s kids is actually getting results.

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The Great Highway is slowly being swallowed by Ocean Beach—San Francisco either needs to spend money to turn it into a park, or spend money on neverending maintenance to clear sand off the roadway. That decision should be made by the Board of Supervisors, but members of the board gave the decision to voters to allow voters to have a say. Land use and street safety are hotly contested issues in San Francisco, with drivers battling urbanists on any change that might slow traffic or take away street parking. And since there are still open questions about what impact turning the Great Highway into a park will have on surrounding neighborhoods, that’s a decision San Franciscans don’t have enough information to make. We’re not endorsing Proposition K because we can’t support this kind of flawed governance.

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San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is heading for a fiscal cliff in the next several years, and some transit advocates are trying to fill Muni’s budget gap with a new tax on rideshare operators like Lyft, Uber, and Waymo. Taxing rideshare to fund transit sounds like an elegant solution, but this measure could derail more robust funding solutions that are already in the works. We’re voting no on Proposition L because it’s an unnecessary, duplicative tax measure that won’t meaningfully fund public transit operations.

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Repeated tax increase ballot measures have warped San Francisco’s business tax structure into an unrecognizable mess, making the city budget incredibly reliant on a few large employers to fund city services. Proposition M is an attempt to reform the city’s business taxes to compensate for those previous ballot measures, and bring back some kind of order to our tax structure. This isn’t a cure-all, but it’s a very good start. Plus, small businesses will be the big winner after this change, and we’re always happy to support that. We’re voting yes on Proposition M because San Francisco needs this business tax reform to pull out of our economic downturn.

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Supervisor Ahsha Safaí’s measure tries to fix the severe staffing shortage at San Francisco’s first responder departments by paying off first responders’ student loans. That’s a nice incentive, but it doesn’t solve the real reason why so many departments are understaffed, and this measure would duplicate federal student loan forgiveness programs that already exist. We’re voting no on Proposition N because this is a redundant program that doesn’t fix the problem it’s trying to solve.

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San Francisco is a leader for liberal values and Democratic governance in the United States. With women’s right to choose under attack in a number of states across America, we have a responsibility to set the tone and ensure reproductive rights are protected in this city. We’re voting yes on Proposition O because it ensures that access to reproductive healthcare will be readily available for San Franciscans who need it.

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Proposition 2 is a bond measure that would allow the state to borrow $10 billion to help fund repairs and upgrades at thousands of public elementary, middle and high schools, and community colleges across California. Given that statewide bond funding for school repairs and modernization is entirely depleted and we know kids learn better in higher-resource environments, we’re voting yes.

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In 2008, California voters approved Proposition 8, which added language to California’s constitution that reads, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Despite being invalidated by the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015, Prop 8’s language still exists in the California charter. Prop 3 would erase that language. Because marriage equality is a fundamental civil right that San Francisco politicians and residents have a history of fighting for, we enthusiastically support Prop 3.

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This measure provides billions in climate change resilience funding—which seemingly becomes more urgent on a daily basis—by restoring what was cut from the state’s budget by Governor Newsom amid a massive shortfall. While we wish that the state’s budget could account for these essential climate programs, we recommend voters pass this alternative funding solution.

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A bond is a loan to the government that taxpayers pay back over time. Currently, most local bond proposals need to get two-thirds of votes to pass. Proposition 5 would lower that threshold from two-thirds to 55 percent for housing and infrastructure bonds only. We support Proposition 5 because making it easier to pass bonds would help expedite housing and infrastructure projects the city sorely needs.

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Our state constitution prohibits slavery and prohibits “involuntary servitude,” except as punishment to a crime. This measure would prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude under any and all circumstances, and prohibit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from disciplining any incarcerated person for refusing a work assignment. We’re voting yes because using prisoners for forced labor is an outdated, inhumane practice that allows the prison system to perpetuate modern-day slavery instead of what it is supposed to do: keep our communities safe.

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The current minimum wage in California is $16 an hour and adjusts for inflation. Proposition 32 will ask California voters if the statewide minimum wage should be increased to $18 an hour. The new proposal would increase pay gradually depending on how many employees a company has, with all workers in the state set to make $18 an hour by 2026. While raising the minimum wage has a chance of increasing the cost of doing business and thus the overall cost of living, this attempt to alleviate workers’ experience of income inequality and rising inflation sets a good example for corporations, who should be doing more to ensure workers make a living on which they can support themselves and their families. We’re voting yes on Prop 32 because working people deserve to earn a living wage.

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Proposition 33 is a third attempt by Michael Weinstein, head of the LA-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, to repeal statewide rent control restrictions and allow cities to impose rent control more widely and comprehensively. While rent control is often a well-meaning attempt to make housing more affordable, this particular avenue is widely understood to be nothing more than a bizarre attempt by one man to misuse funds earmarked for fighting HIV/AIDS for a pet political project—which, by the way, has the discrete possibility of making it even harder to build housing. Proposition 34 is a competing organization’s bid to stop Weinstein from using his foundation’s funds for this type of thing. We’re voting no on Proposition 33 and yes on Proposition 34 because these ballot-box fights are a waste of voters’ time and money and erode confidence in government’s efficacy.

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Proposition 35 would permanently secure the revenues from a tax on health insurance providers like Anthem Blue Cross and L.A. Care based on monthly enrollees, designating how the money generated by it can be used. It’s a bipartisan effort to ensure that Governor Newsom and the Legislature cannot use funds dedicated to Medi-Cal for other budgetary purposes, and comes as California lawmakers have expanded the pool of people eligible for Medi-Cal. We’re voting yes on Prop 35 because it will help ensure adequate funding for an expanding pool of Medi-Cal participants and ensure that funding is spent for that purpose.

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In 2014, Prop 47 decriminalized petty theft under $950. In 2020, fentanyl exploded onto city streets and the pandemic decimated the economy. As a result, petty crime, drug addiction, and homelessness have afflicted our society’s most vulnerable and affected San Franciscans’ quality of life. Now, in 2024, we’ve seen that the criminal justice reform that seemed so crucial in 2014 has had unintended consequences. Prop 36 aims to account for those consequences by increasing accountability for those convicted of drug-related and petty theft crimes, as well as helping drug users get treatment by classifying certain drug offenses as “treatment-mandated felonies.” We’re voting yes because while the issue is thorny, San Francisco’s drug crisis and economic outlook are too acute to ignore.

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