Taxes, Recalls, Parkmerced, Trump and Other Outrages
• • • • • • • • • • October 2025 • • • • • • • • • •
Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle. Can we attribute the recall of Stupidvisor Joel Engardio as an example of gargling, then excreting by District 4 voters, must live without the $175,370 per year salary, membership in the Retirement System of the City and County, one-month paid vacation, and four aides to keep taxpayers away. That's what it costs us for the 11 beauties on City Hall's second floor. Allow me to reminisce again: I was elected by local voters at-large in 1971 to serve San Franciscans for $9,324 per year without being eligible for the Retirement System! I didn't need to serve just 1/11th of San Francisco; I serviced all 49 square miles of citizens, and that salary was increased by the cost-of-living rise since 1966 to 1981 — after I was chosen as Board President. Two elections later, voters restored at-large elections and deemed the highest vote-getters as Board President until the next election two years hence. Moreover, we had no monthly vacation, we met every Monday at 2 pm.
Engardio’s recall reminds me of his disregard for his constituents, who voted against the Great Highway closure by 65%-35% last November. Isn’t one of the battle cries for eliminating at-large election of supervisors in favor of 11 geographical districts was enabling taxpayers to depend upon one Supervisor to ensure their desires were met, instead of attending to citywide problems?
Engardio put the other neighborhoods like Pacific Heights, Seacliff, Telegraph Hill, North Beach and the Mission first. Last November, their votes for Proposition K ensured the closure of the Great Highway miles from their homes and businesses. What did they care? Once again, we must give the last rights to district supervisorial elections!
The “Build More Housing” Incantation continues. The proposed project at 2700 Sloat Boulevard, across from the SF Zoo, unveiled plans to build a 24-story high-rise for units composed of 682 units — 100% “affordable” (say the builders) and comprised of 427 studios, 196 one bedrooms, 33 two bedrooms, and 26 three bedrooms.
Meanwhile, Parkmerced, as of 15 September, had 3,221 vacant units, and Stonestown’s owners haven’t yet, after two years, begun construction of any of the 350 units for which it has had building permits. And, Mayor Lurie (Who did oppose Prop K last November) formulates “upzoning” opposition. Yet in 2022 alone, over 800,000 left California.
Mr. Trump won’t stop desecrating our national practices or customs, announcing last month he’d award one-time New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani the highest US civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Honor. He foolishly dubbed Giuliani “greatest mayor in New York City’s history” and a “great American Patriot.” What Trump omits is that Giuliani was the Draft-Dodger’s personal attorney in Trump’s baseless attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Biden. Moreover, last year, the State Bar of California disbarred Giuliani “America’s Mayor,” from practicing law after a New York court concluded he made false claims about the election.”
Vexation is thy name regarding illegal immigrants (or “undocumented” immigrants as the mainstream media like the SF Comical describes them) as the National Immigration Law Center last month reported California gives almost 103,000 unlawful immigrants free (or “tuition-equity”) enrollment. Texas follows with 73,000, and Florida’s 49,000 per the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah (surprisingly), New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York also grant illegal aliens free tuition at both private and public colleges and universities. Their funding emanates from state income and sales taxation of legal residents of such states. Meanwhile, the Epoch Times reports Senator Rick Scott and Rep. Nancy Mace, both Florida Republicans, introduced legislation called “American Students First Act” to bar federal funds from states that grant financial aid or lower tuition to illegal aliens.
Mr. Trump won’t stop desecrating our national practices or customs, announcing last month he’d award one-time New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani the highest US civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Honor. He foolishly dubbed Giuliani “greatest mayor in New York City’s history” and a “great American Patriot.” What Trump omits is that Giuliani was the Draft-Dodger’s personal attorney in Trump’s baseless attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Biden. Moreover, last year, the State Bar of California disbarred Giuliani “America’s Mayor,” from practicing law after a New York court concluded he made false claims about the election.
My friend John Horgan, San Mateo Daily Journal columnist and founder of the San Mateo County Sports Hall of Fame, reminded me in an August 13, 2025, column of San Mateo County’s historical relationship with the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, aka “BART.” In that column, he discussed a pending State Senate bill, number 63, introduced by Scott Weiner, the home-builder’s Sacramento waterboy, which, if enacted, would allow San Francisco to raise its sales tax by 1% from 8.625% — but only if voters and taxpayers approve by a 50% plus one vote next November 5th.
Meanwhile, San Mateo County’s sales tax is 9.38%, of which only 3.38% constitutes the county’s share and the remainder the state’s. SB63 awaits gubernatorial approval or veto by October 13th, 2025. If the governor signs the bill (and he loves taxation), proceeds of increased sales taxation will be divided by Muni Railway, AC Transit (Alameda County), BART in SF, Contra Costa County, Alameda County and San Mateo County, assuming the counties’ voters approve it by 66 ⅔%. San Mateo taxpayers provided no money for the BART Daly City station, but used it specifically after it opened.
In the 1980s, I led the effort to extend BART into San Francisco International Airport, together with the late Ed Nevin, who was then a San Mateo County Supervisor after serving as mayor of Daly City. The SFO executive director fought to stop us. He wanted no other entity at SFO as it was his turf and he was the emperor! We were thus compelled to qualify a ballot measure in our city to mandate “Bart-To-The-Airport.”
Airlines and tax companies spent thousands to beat us. We won by a large margin, and San Mateo County secured additional BART service to Colma, San Bruno, South SF, and Millbrae, en route to SFO’s International Terminal in 2003. That turned out to be BART’s most-used station after San Mateo County (and Marin County) rejected BART’s initial plan to include them in 1960.
Now, Caltrain, composed of Santa Clara County, San Mateo County and San Francisco, will also receive tax goodies if voters approve the ballot measure on November 6, 2026, because Newsom’s never seen a tax he’d bury and will sign SB63.
Speaking of our leader in Sacramento, our 58 cents a gallon and overall cost of gasoline tax is now the highest in the US, 45% higher than the national average. In the 1970s, California possessed 43 operating refineries. As of 2024, we had but 14, a decrease of 67%; 2 more refineries will close in 2026. Some experts think that, as a result, gas prices could increase to $18 per gallon, and new drilling permits for oil and natural gas are already limited by state regulations.
Incidentally, you taxpayers may be interested to know the California Taxpayers Association asked Newsom to veto SB63, as did the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The San Francisco Taxpayers Association will consider the sales tax increase early in 2026.
Speaking of politics, consider our potential three-term president (no FDR is he!) and Kamala “The Cheater” Harris’ announcement declining to run for governor in the
Golden State next year.
Harvard Magazine published a reader’s letter on “Viewpoint Diversity,” revealing that a Harvard Crimson (the student daily newspaper) survey discovered they were politically conservative. The survey asked if students could expect “real dialogue and exchange of thought on political philosophy under those circumstances?” You, of course, cannot.
That creates an understandable opening for Trump’s attacks on institutions of higher learning like Columbia, Brown, UCLA, Cal and Northwestern. Diversity, inclusion and equity still reign in some academic circles.
I’m glad former State Senator Tom Campbell, then a Republican, and I, an Independent, barred “affirmative action” in the California Constitution through Proposition 209, which was approved by voters in 1996 while we served in the State Senate, with help from Californians from all “walks of life,” and subsequent efforts to delete it have failed.
We can, however, as San Franciscans, exult in the University of San Francisco’s success in reporting enrollment last month of more than 1,600 new undergraduates from 47 different US states and territories, including the District of Columbia, and 59 countries! (I recall my best friend on our Board of Supervisors from 1971 until 1977, John J. Barbagelato, complaining that USF’s admission of foreign students was preventing local students from “getting in” to USF!) Also, 42 percent are first-generation college enrollees, and over 1,717 new graduate students are at “The Hilltop.” Moreover, US News and World Report ranks USF No. 1 for ethnic diversity among national universities, a validation of the Dons’ status in academia. Congratulations!
To all Jewish San Franciscans, I wish a healthy and loving Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and I remind readers of my hero Theodore Roosevelt’s April 14, 1906 pronouncement in Washington, DC:
”The foundation stone of national life is and ever must be the individual character of the individual citizen.” And, remember: “Democracy is a wonderful system. It permits you to vote for a politician, and then sit on the jury that tries him.”
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 2025
