Indecisive Board of Supes and 15 Propositions
Editor’s Note:The Westside Observer does not endorse candidates or issues, opinions of its authors and reporters are their own, not the Westside Observer.
• • • • • • • • • • October 2024 • • • • • • • • • •
This column’s volubility will inoculate many readers, and many will explore it for blunders that render my observations and information subject to judgment and even criticism. It’s been observed that criticism from a friend is better than flattery from an enemy. I bear no malice because the person who’s criticized isn’t breathing. You might avoid criticism by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
In that spirit, I remind our City Hall geniuses on the second floor that we pay them expecting policy decisions. Instead, this month, we encounter 15 ballot measures from them, several of which—like Proposition K (forbidding motor vehicles from the Great Highway)—could’ve been enacted (or rejected) by the board of Supervisors and Mayor, plus ten from the state government which include five by the legislation and five by the initiative. It’s fortunate the supervisors empowered voters to stop any vehicle on a structure for which taxpayers (not bicyclists) paid because I think Prop K will fail thanks to residents like Judie Gorski on 48th Avenue. We may even be so fortunate with Proposition D’s approval to limit City Hall commissions to 65!
Remember George Jean Nathan’s wise warning: Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.”
For those of us who value legal immigration, Arizona voters would authorize local police (not just border patrol or state officers) to arrest illegal immigrants. (The “mainstream media,” like the N.Y. Times describes them as “undocumented” immigrants, implying such lawbreakers forgot their papers at home this morning before sneaking into the U.S. of A.) Amendments to limit voting to U.S. citizens in all local and state elections will pass or fail in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, but not in California where minors can vote for Board of Education candidates. Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and New Mexico voters can reduce or limit property taxes, and a North Dakota initiative would abolish them entirely. Stay tuned, California.
Do you recall my noting that the S.F. Bicycle Coalition has been given $5,500,000 of taxpayer money this budget year and $5,500,000 next year (July 1, 2025-June 30, 2026) for a “program” entitled “Safe Streets”? An example exists with the expenditure of over $1,000,000 as of September 11, 2024, on the configuration of Valencia Street bicycle lanes by SFMTA, which proclaims January 2025 as the “launch window” for its new abuse of motorists and merchants. If tax money can be squandered MTA will find a way to do it.
Peter Fatooh, a real estate appraiser and former Assessment Appeal Board Commissioner, invites attention to current practices in the Assessor’s Office, which should be investigated by the Grand Jury or the White Collar Crime Unit of District Attorney Brooks Jenkins. A Noe Valley native, Mr. Fatooh asserts City Administrator Carmen Chu isn’t fit to audit the Assessor’s Office because her residence’s property taxes were reduced by then Assessor Phil Ting four years consecutively without Chu even filing a reduction request! After her appointment as Assessor, she reduced her own residence property tax unilaterally without filing an appeal. Fatooh then requested relevant public records of that reduction. The City Attorney represented Chu, waited over 8 weeks, and then denied the taxpayer’s request. The Ethics Committee refused to act, claiming lack of jurisdiction.
The Assessor’s real estate appraisers now can’t be found in their office on City Hall’s first floor. The epidemic is over except in Assessor Joaquin Torris’ office, where a home-owning taxpayer can’t find appraisers to discuss real estate valuation options. And, there’ve been reductions in value (and consequent property tax reduction) of office employees without any appeal being filed. Can you imagine?
With over 115 commissions, Proposition D on the November 5th ballot demands passage. Regrettably, taxpayers must perform the Board of Supervisors’ obligation for “good government.” It’s an inanimate government that allows “vertically structured silos.” (See June 25, 2024, Grand Jury report, p. 26 et al.) It also possesses a “legislative fetish,” to quote the Civil Grand Jury again. City Hall “places more measures on the ballot than any” other of California’s 433 incorporated cities. From 2013 to 2022, “it exceeded its closest peer city by over 100%.” The Grand Jury also observed: “The duties of the City Administrator” (the aforementioned Carmen Chu) “are ambiguously defined and need more clarity.”
My friend John Horgan in The Daily Journal last month invited voters in 11 San Mateo County school districts from Bayshore Elementary (near the Cow Palace whose Grand National Rodeo was arresting as usual) to Belmont, Burlingame, Cabrillo (on the coast), to Daly City’s Jefferson, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Pacifica Ravenswood, San Bruno and Woodside to consider over $555,000,000 in borrowing plus parcel taxes of $14,000,000 totalling $569,000,000. The bond issues need a 55% “yes” vote and parcel taxes require approval by 66⅔%. With our Board of Education election of Ann Hsu, Letteris Eleftheriou and Min Chang, we can stop pupil exodus from, and closure of, public schools, which anticipate a decline of 5,000 students by 2029. The district now contains over 14,000 empty seats with plans to close 102 schools while spending $38,200,000 to ignore neighborhood schools by busing elementary school pupils from home to school and back by a private company.
Let’s hope the national election somehow can be damaged by salubrious Americans. Maybe we were better off when charity was a virtue instead of a tax deduction, but remember George Jean Nathan’s wise warning: Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.”
Quentin Kopp is a former San Francisco supervisor, state senator, SF Ethics Commission member, president of the California High Speed Rail Authority governing board and retired Superior Court judge.
October 2024
