Mayor Daniel Lurie and Sup. Rafael Mandelman want to update and reform the City Charter, which is a fine idea: Under the current charter, the mayor has too much power and elected officials are able to refuse or duck sunshine requests with impunity. The city desperately needs to address economic inequality. Among other problems.
Yes, it’s big—in part because progressives have pushed for changes over and over since the last full revamp in 1995, and many have been efforts to increase community participation and limit executive power.
There are, of course, problems with contracting and bureaucratic procedures, some designed to prevent the kind of corruption and fraud that we’ve seen under the last administration.
But Lurie and Mandelman apparently have a very different idea of what the Charter should include—and their goal seems to be more centralized power and less community participation.
A “working group” launched those efforts Dec. 8, which Lurie’s Office in a press release called “a broad group of experts and community leaders from across San Francisco to evaluate and consider charter amendments that will help the city and county operate more effectively and advance policy that is more responsive to and aligned with residents’ priorities.”
But the list of people involved makes very clear that this is driven by big business, billionaire, and conservative organizations. Check it out: Other than one representative from labor, there is almost zero participation from any progressive community organization:
- Rafael Mandelman, Board of Supervisors (President, District 8)
- Bilal Mahmood, Board of Supervisors (District 5)
- Chyanne Chen, Board of Supervisors (District 11)
- Carmen Chu, City Administrator
- Greg Wagner, Controller
- Alicia John-Baptiste, Mayor’s Office
- Sachin Agarwal, GrowSF
- Josh Arce, California Alliance for Jobs
- Katherine August-deWilde, Partnership for SF
- Larry Baer, Advance SF
- Dan Bernal, UC-San Francisco
- Fred Blackwell, San Francisco Foundation
- Anni Chung, Self-Help for the Elderly
- Meredith Dodson, San Francisco Parent Coalition
- Bob Fisher, Pisces Foundation
- Rodney Fong, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
- Susan Hirsch, Third Plateau
- Lynn Mahoney, San Francisco State University
- Missy Narula, Crankstart Foundation
- Shola Olatoye, San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation
- Tim Omi, San Francisco Council of District Merchants Associations
- Michael Pappas, Interfaith Council
- Andres Power, Abundant SF
- Anna Marie Presutti, San Francisco Travel Association
- Ben Rosenfield, SPUR
- Natalie Sandoval, Urban Land Institute
- Shakirah Simley, Booker T. Washington Community Service Center
- Kim Tavaglione, San Francisco Labor Council
Who are the “community” groups? Abundant SF (billionaires). SPUR (downtown businesses). California Alliance for Jobs (the construction industry). GrowSF (billionaires). The Chamber of Commerce (big business). Advance SF (the city’s biggest employers). You get the picture.
Yes, Self-Help for the Elderly is represented, but that wonderful organization is not terribly political. The San Francisco Foundation is also a wonderful organization (full disclosure, in the past 48hills has won modest grants for SFF), but again: Not terribly political.
The Labor Council gets one rep out of 28.
This is not a “broad group” of anything. It’s the rich and powerful controlling the show. (One sign: Someone is polling right now on the concept of weakening district elections of supervisors, which is in the charter, by turning some seats into “at large” positions, open only to those who can raise millions of dollars from big donors.)
The city is full of more progressive policy experts and community groups. Their advice is not going to be part of the project. Instead, we will get a charter proposal that advances the billionaire agenda—and will have to take it or oppose it.
One of the people who attended the meeting noted the following:
The group kept rounding the page number of the Charter to 500 and 600 (Together SF used poll on numbers, wondering if this is why they use numbers to get public for approval).
Kept comparing “bloated charter” page numbers to Los Angeles and Oakland, even though we are a city and county.
Members of the public were not given the handout for slide deck presentation.
Members of the public could not give public comment, only by email to:
CharterReform@sfgov.org
MTA and PUC did not have seats at the table, even though they have their own budget and are very public bodies, while AbundantSF and GrowSF that run as C4’s and politically aligned to one side narrative were.
This does not bode well for serious, consensus charter reform.
