The new Board of Supes committee assignments are out, and are fairly predictable based on the unanimous board vote naming Sup. Rafael Mandelman as president.
The Budget and Finance Committee starts off with a conservative majority: Sup. Connie Chan will be the chair, but the other two members—Sups. Matt Dorsey and Joel Engardio—are from the pro-police-at-all-costs camp.
But that will change when the committee expands in February, where the real work on Mayor Daniel Lurie’s budget will begin. The Budget and Appropriations Committee will include Sups. Shamann Walton and Mandleman—who will immediately become the swing vote on contested issues.
It’s going to be a brutal budget, with a deficit that could reach $1 billion if the Trump Administration cuts federal funding for sanctuary cities. Chan comes to the job with experience—she did it last year—and her staff has handled the immense load of work in the past. None of the new supes are on that committee.
Sup. Myrna Melgar will chair Land Use and Transportation, joined by Sups. Chyanne Chen and Bilal Mahmood. Sup. Jackie Fielder will chair the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, joined by Sups. Danny Sauter and Stephen Sherrill. That committee gave former Sup. Dean Preston a platform to look into policies of the Breed Administration. Although Sauter and Sherrill are not progressives, most of the panel’s work is holding hearings.
To nobody’s surprise, the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee is completely controlled by pro-cop supes, with Dorsey as chair, joined by Mahmood and Sauter.
Walton chairs Rules, along with Sherill and Mandelman. That could be where Lurie’s package of “emergency” Fentanyl measures will wind up as it works its way through the board—and Walton has been the most outspoken critic of the proposals.
All of the men on the board are on two committees; the women each have one, although three of the five major committees have women as chair. There are seven men and four women on the board, and 17 committee positions.
