You Can’t Fool San Franciscans When It’s About Our Local Democracy

Streamlining Task Force’s Double-Cross Continues

by Patrick Monette-Shaw

A Streamlining Task Force Member Is Concurrently Appointed “Director of Government Legal Reform” in the City Attorney’s Office, Hired the Same Month the Task Force Was Convened. Go Figure!

• • • • • • • • • • November 2025 • • • • • • • • • •

When it comes to trashing elements of San Francisco’s democratic form of government, changes recommended by the Prop E Commission Streamlining Task Force are as pernicious as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 on behalf of President Donald J. Trump.

The Streamlining Task Force has become Mayor Lurie’s own “Project 2025.”

Start with eviscerating our constitution — the City Charter — and work out from there, chipping away bit by little bit. Think death by a thousand paper cuts.

For good measure, toss in perpetuating unlawful text in the City Charter. Then, add a substantial dollop of weakening the powers and duties of San Francisco’s boards and commissions.

Our “Commission Streamlining Task Force,” created following the November 2024 election, is nearing the end of its duties. It is scheduled to issue its draft recommendations on December 3, just a month from now.

The last of five scheduled meetings — grouped by policy area — to evaluate body-by-body outcomes, and recommend disposition of all 150 boards and commissions, will be held on November 5, when it tackles the “General Administration and Finance” category of 23 bodies.

Of the remaining 23 bodies to be considered on November 5, the Task Force recommends keeping 17; eliminating three others; and maintaining, combining, or eliminating another three bodies. Among those are the Citizens’ General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee, the SFMTA Bond Oversight Committee, and an unlawful Strike Committee (initially created to prevent City employees from striking). This article examines all those changes, along with the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force — which is recommended to be kept. Still, it faces potential elimination or being combined with the Ethics Commission.

Then, at its following meeting on November 19, its agenda is set to focus on so-called “complex and deferred decisions,” and other “operational improvements” for boards and commissions not addressed or resolved during the five policy body topic area decision-making discussions that began on September 3.

After presenting their draft report on December 3, the Task Force will meet on December 18 to address other as-yet unnamed “operational improvements.” Why it will take two meetings to address operational improvements hasn’t been explained, nor has it been explained why some “improvements” will be announced after the draft report.

What operational improvements are even being considered? Will they be announced publicly a week and a half before the meetings? The recommendations for the five policy areas were released a week and a half before those meetings. Why those improvements will be discussed after presenting their report two weeks earlier appears to have the horse behind the cart, again.

A consistent theme and constant refrain expressed during public comments during meetings and correspondence submitted to the Task Force has been:

“We the people who reside and work in San Francisco want our boards, commissions and citizen advisory committees maintained. The top-down Trump paradigm must not be shoved down our throats.”

Unfortunately, the Task Force has largely ignored those entreaties.

Make San Francisco Great Again

Unfortunately, the “Commission Streamlining Task Force” voters created by passing “Proposition E” last November to derail the astroturf network’s competing “Proposition D” is nearing the end of its work. And just as voters feared, the Streamlining Task Force has largely voted to centralize more power under a “strong mayor” — Mayor Lurie — and simultaneously hollow out our local checks and balances. They’re concentrating authority, weakening citizen involvement — labeling it as efficiency.

Exavier Morrison Wells authored a terrific piece on October 8 for the Phoenix Project titled “When Moderation is Not Moderate.” It’s very compelling — must reading.

Wells began with a premise — San Francisco’s most influential political export, couched as “moderation,” is a lurch towards a fascist tendency. The alibi? Cutting regulatory steps in the name of “efficiency” to help the City “move faster.” It’s a pretext to drastically alter Boards and commissions and change the City Charter.

Obsessed by whether San Francisco has too many boards and commissions, the proponents of “Proposition D” whipped up hysteria to create a public panic out of thin air, taking a meat axe to the law known as our City Charter. Chop boards and commissions out of the Charter, and control would be restored, so the argument went. Problem solved.

To date, the Streamlining Task Force has fanned the flames of the crisis by alleging that our democratic governance leads to too much “slowness,” which was somehow the true emergency. As Mr. Wells observed:

“When ‘pragmatism’ means suspending the very procedures that make democracy slow, we are not solving a crisis — we are capitulating towards the authoritarian capture of our local democratic system.”

Wells concluded: “If we do not name it here, we will not stop it anywhere,” referring to the disguise of “moderation” being exported to the rest of the nation. From my perspective, that has only emboldened the Trump Administration, which is likely watching San Francisco for lessons to be learned from slashing and burning our City’s constitution.

Under the pretext that the City needs to “move faster,” the Streamlining Task Force has taken the lead on this crisis. That mantra, sung in chorus by the three amigos on the Task Force — Sophia Kittler, Jean Fraser before her, and Andrea True (née Bruss) — cheerleaders for “Make San Francisco Great Again”!

Fishing Expedition Metrics

“Proposition E” has backfired on voters. The Task Force has essentially ushered in failed “Proposition D” reforms, ignoring the voters who passed “Proposition E.”

Voters were wary of the “strong mayor” issue. As they wind down their work, the Streamlining Task Force has made Mayor Lurie stronger by deliberately making boards and commissions weaker. Voters were duped.

Take the argument that the 150 boards and commissions cost too much. Although “TogetherSF Action’s” co-founder, Kanishka Cheng, made claims they cost too much and were ineffective when she placed “Proposition D” on the ballot in 2024, the Task Force appears to have reduced costs by just 8.4% (of $33.9 million) — a mere potential savings of approximately $2.8 million in “soft costs” from the City’s $15.9 billion annual budget. Given it involves a paltry $105,482 in actual “hard costs” savings, Cheng and her streamliners duped voters into believing commission reform would yield significant dollar savings. Ain’t gonna’ happen!

It may leave the “Prop. D” backers and proponents flummoxed that the Task Force is recommending keeping 80 boards and commissions, 15 more than Kanishka Cheng and her backers wanted retained.

Here are the details:

Minimal Cost Savings

Following releasing the City Administrator’s Support Staff recommendations memo to the Streamlining Task Force for the final “General Administration and Finance” policy area category on Friday, October 25, we learned the probable final costs of the “commission reform” effort. The outcomes analysis shows that the Task Force is taking its wrecking ball to 65 bodies (just what proponents of “Proposition D” had requested). Eliminating those 65 bodies could potentially eliminate $2.85 million of the total $33.8 million the “Financial Analysis” report tallied.

After Cheng and her group wailed bitterly, explicitly citing the high costs associated with supporting commissions, it’s unlikely to be any real net savings to the City. The BLA noted that the part-time staff “soft costs” for departmental support to boards and commissions will not lose their jobs; they’ll just be returned to their other work duties, rather than duties supporting a board or commission. The $105,482 in hard cost savings is just laughable.

Shakespeare said it best 425 years ago: Much ado about nothing!

The lion’s share of the $33.9 million across all 150 boards will continue — still needing $29.7 million in hard and soft costs.

Bloated City Charter

Not only was Kanishka Cheng obsessed with putting the City Charter on a strict Grapefruit, Master Cleanse, Carnivore, or Keto diet, or giving the Charter a haircut with a bowl, so too were the five members appointed to the Prop. E Streamlining Task Force, whining incessantly that at 769 pages, our City Charter — essentially San Francisco’s constitution and “Bill of Rights” — was too overweight.

Of those 46 bodies, the Task Force has so far recommended that only 16 Boards and Commissions be moved to the City’s Administrative code through their meeting on October 5.

By contrast, the Administrative Code provides the specific laws and regulations for day-to-day operations. No fuss and bother of voters being involved. It’s so much easier to change and eliminate things that way!

Task Force’s November 5 meeting will determine how many of the last 10 bodies discussed on November 5 are forced out of the Charter and into the Admin Code.

Keeping Illegal Text in Charter

In its rush to “streamline” the City Charter, the Streamlining Task Force may entertain keeping 1,656 unlawful words. Wait! What?

In 1976, Mayor George Mascone and then Board of Supervisors members Dianne Feinstein and Ron Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law) convinced voters to pass “Proposition B” on the November 1976 ballot to make it illegal for City employees to go out on strike. It was entombed in the Charter for good measure.

The illegal text sat in the City Charter for 47 years, until an unfair labor practice was filed by City unions. City employee unions eventually prevailed successfully.

In PERB Decision No. 2867-M (July 24, 2023), the California Public Employment Relations Board determined that City Charter §A8.346 was unlawful, and ordered the City and County of San Francisco to cease and desist from maintaining and enforcing Section A8.346 and any references to that section in the Charter.

The Staff Recommendation memo (on page 40) is to consider keeping the Strike Committee, “given its sensitive nature.” There was no reason to eliminate it, because it is inactive by design and only meets when City employees strike. The memo offered a caveat that the Task Force could consider eliminating the Strike Committee, because the authorizing section of the City Charter had been deemed unlawful by the California Court of Appeals in May 2025.

“The Task Force may consider eliminating the Special Strike Committee … to bring City law into compliance with state labor law,” the memo notes. Still, members will probably quibble it out on November 5.

Mayor’s Hiring Authority

As we reported on October 4, the Streamlining Task Force appears hell bent on handing the Mayor sole authority over picking and hiring all City Department heads, perhaps complicit with SPUR (SF Planning and Urban Research Association).

We noted that a chart prepared by SPUR shows the Mayor currently has “complete authority” over hiring only four department heads. The Mayor must pick from three-nominee “shortlists” for 23 City department heads developed and submitted by Boards and Commissions. The mayor can appoint two other department heads, but must face the Board of Supervisors’ confirmation. Perhaps most irksome to the Mayor, “Prop. D” proponents, SPUR, and other “reformers” is that the Mayor has no authority over 17 Department Heads picked by Boards and Commissions.

It’s become clear that the “Prop. E” Streamlining Task Force has decided to deliberately change all of that, voters be damned. These “streamliners” want to streamline by handing the Mayor sole authority to hire all City Department heads, and to remove appointed members of almost all boards and commissions “at will,” rather than “for cause.” And they’re quibbling over the definition of for cause and trying to define another middle-ground category. More below.

Stronger Mayor, Weaker Commissions

Proponents of “Prop D” complained bitterly that too many commissions nominate candidates to serve as department heads. The Mayor has the authority to appoint a department head solely from a short list of three candidates that a commission nominates. Generally, only the commission has the authority to remove the department head.

“Prop D” backers and proponents also wailed bitterly that the Mayor and Board of Supervisors could only remove some commission members for official misconduct. “Prop D” sought to require that any commissions could only provide advice and not have decision-making authority, except as state or federal law requires.

Finally, “Prop D” sought to hand the Mayor sole authority to appoint and remove most City department heads, and the Mayor could unilaterally dismiss any board or commission appointees.

The goal of “Prop. D” was to weaken boards and commissions by handing the mayor stronger powers and almost all authority. Voters soundly rejected the “Prop. D” wish list, but the five-member Streamlining Task Force that the voters installed through “Prop. E” has primarily implemented most of what “Prop. D” backers wanted done.

The “Prop. E” Task Force is hell-bent on doing just that.

Fortunately, a two-page preliminary draft chart (by name of board and commission) created for the Westside Observer — summarizing 535 pages of Task Force recommendations and meeting minutes — illustrates that of the first 65 bodies the Streamlining Task Force has recommended be kept at least:

1. 3 bodies will be combined with another body
2. 16 will be kept in the City Charter
3. 16 will be moved from the City Charter to the Administrative Code
4. 12 will be kept as governance bodies
5. At least three will be converted to an advisory body only
6. 1 will have its functions transferred to department staff
7. 7 will be stripped of authority to submit three-nominee short lists for department head selection; they’ll be reduced to having “consultative roles only.” The actual motions made by Task Force members seem oblivious to Robert’s Rules of Order.
8. 21 will lose their authority to hire and fire department heads, and will be reduced to having “consultative roles only”
9. 6 will retain authority to hire and fire department heads
10. 18 bodies are recommended for the removal of commission member appointees from for-cause only to at-will removal
11. At least three bodies will have their budget approval and contract approval authority removed.

How many of the first 65 boards and commissions that were kept or combined will lose their ability to actually set policies and retain their decision-making authority? How many will transfer all decision-making authority to the head of the City department that the commission oversees?

23 bodies will receive initial Task Force decisions on November 5.

Once the first 16 bodies are moved from the City Charter to the Admin Code, they will have sunset dates established. This will make it easier to get rid of by a future Board of Supervisors. Just like what happened to the SFPUC’s Revenue Bond Oversight Committee (SFPUC RBOC) last January, when it was unceremoniously sunsetted by the Board of Supervisors.

Efforts to keep weakening our boards and commissions can be stopped, either by the Board of Supervisors when the Task Force’s recommendations reach review, or by voters’ rejection of any future ballot measures introduced by the Commission Streamlining Task Force.

Two Bodies of Concern November 5

In addition to the scheduled November 5 discussion about keeping the unlawful “Strike Committee” in the City Charter, the Streamlining Task Force is considering the other 21 bodies. Two of the most troubling policy bodies to be discussed on November 5 include the Citizens’ General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee and the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.

Written testimony is urgently needed to help protect both bodies. You can submit letters of support to Task Force Chair Harrington and the other four Task Force members via e-mail to CommissionStreamlining@sfgov.org and Rachel.Alonso@sfgov.org, the City Administrator’s project director.

Sunshine Ordinance Task Force (SOTF)

The Streamlining Task Force is worried about the Sunshine Task Force member qualifications and nominating requirements.

While staff stated that it would be “overly burdensome to combine SOTF into other bodies,” it qualified that assessment by recommending that the Streamlining Task Force should:

“… also add a sunset date to allow the Board of Supervisors to confirm the purpose, necessity, and significance of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force on a regular basis.”

Applying a mandatory sunset date would place an unnecessary burden on supervisors, requiring them to revisit the SOTF’s purpose periodically. They would determine if it remains worthwhile to extend the body’s life. Without Sunshine enforcement as a deterrent, public access to public records and meetings would instantly shrivel.

The “template” evaluation criteria the Streamlining Task Force developed didn’t specifically address the basis that any Policy Body chose for appointment and nomination of members. Nevertheless, the Staff recommended:

“While the requirements were well-intentioned and designed to ensure subject matter expertise and representation from journalism, advocacy, and civic organizations, they are overly narrow and exclude individuals who could effectively serve on the [Sunshine] Task Force, [the Streamlining] Task Force should consider eliminating SOTF’s mandatory qualification and nomination requirements.”

The staff claims the qualifications are too “rigid.” Hogwash!

That’s selective reasoning, or selective prosecution and persecution, because the Streamlining Task Force has not claimed that any of the seat-level qualifications for any of the other 150 boards and Commissions should eliminate mandatory seat-level qualifications. Worse, the staff justifies the recommendation, alleging, “The specificity of the nomination and professional background criteria … limits flexibility for appointing authorities.”

Use of the word “flexibility” gives away the game. This is not about making the nomination and member selection process easier for the appointing authorities … which is exclusively the purview of the Board of Supervisors to appoint — not the Mayor — and the purview of professional associations to nominate.

City Charter §16.130(i) — passed by voters with “Prop. B” on November 6, 2018, regarding privacy, open meetings, or public records — prohibits the Streamlining Task Force from altering the Sunshine Task Force in any manner that is inconsistent with the voter-approved Sunshine Ordinance “Prop. G” on November 2, 1999. Only the Board of Supervisors can amend the Sunshine Ordinance, but only in ways that strengthen it. Significant amendments may require additional voter approval.

§16.130(i)’s clause, “ ‘not inconsistent’ with the [Sunshine Ordinance’s] intent or purpose,” essentially only allows the Supervisors to strengthen Sunshine.

The Streamlining Task Force is nefariously trying to weaken the Sunshine Ordinance by sabotaging the seat-level membership qualifications. One fear is that changing the membership composition of the SOTF as an open-government watchdog will facilitate stacking the Sunshine Task Force with members likely to let open government violators skate, and turn a blind eye to a “strong mayor” violating Sunshine, like Mayor Breed did.

Finally, the Staff recommendation to the Streamlining Task Force on page 94 acknowledges that the SOTF is a “Regulatory” body. Yet on page 96, the Staff recommendation applies its “Advisory Bodies” template to assess the SOTF. It explicitly includes a footnote saying “advisory committees are not required to have [seat-level] qualifications.”

And as Sunshine Task Force members have testified, the SOTF is, in fact, also an official policy body, by definition in Article II of the Sunshine Ordinance.

Sunsetting the SOTF makes no sense!

Citizens’ General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee (CGOBOC)

The City Administrator’s Staff recommendation memo asserts CGOBOC may be “borderline inactive,” because of the Task Force’s narrow definition of inactive, which includes a provision that any body with a member vacancy rate of 25% or more borders on being inactive. The Staff claimed CGOBOC had three vacancies of the nine seats in May 2025 (33% vacant). The Staff memo was referring to out-of-date information from May 2025, because the Board of Supervisors approved the appointment of Benjamin Tingle to CGOBOC’s Seat 3 on October 21, 2025; CGOBOC appears to now have only two vacancies, at a rate of 22%.

The solution isn’t eliminating any body due to vacancies. The solution is to expand recruitment and fill vacancies!

The Staff Discussion notes that general obligation bonds that CGOBOC oversees differ in several ways from SFMTA’s revenue bonds, and admits that combining oversight of both types of bonds into a single oversight body would only provide partial oversight of the City’s debt financing. Despite that admission, the staff recommends expanding CGOBOC’s scope to include taking over the SFMTA revenue bond oversight functions anyway.

CGOBOC already has enough on its plate — overseeing both general obligation bonds in the billions of dollars, overseeing the City Controller’s City Services Auditor functions, and the City’s whistleblower program — it shouldn’t be larded up with more duties.

The staff also recommends that CGOBOC align with the advisory committee template, establishing a three-year sunset date. That’s unnecessary, as it is highly improbable that the City will stop issuing any future general obligation bonds for voter approval, and voters will expect to see CGOBOC continue providing that oversight. In fact, City officials always place in the legal text of G.O. bonds put before voters that CGOBOC will perform that oversight, to entice voters into passing the G.O. bond measures. Sunsetting CGOBOC also makes no sense!

Indeed, the Streamlining Task Force has broken its own rules and granted exceptions to not sunset other advisory bodies housed in the Administrative Code. They should issue additional exemptions for both CGOBOC and the SOTF!

Finally, the Staff recommends converting CGOBOC’s seat-level requirements into merely “desirable” qualifications to broaden the applicant pool and give appointing authorities greater flexibility in filling vacancies. Again, this citizen oversight is not about providing appointing authorities greater flexibility, which may lead to more corruption in City government. Do they think San Franciscans aren’t attuned to corruption at City Hall?

The Mayor and Board of Supervisors must each include one appointee to CGOBOC active in a business organization representing the City’s business community, one active in a labor organization, and one active in a community organization. One of the City Controller’s appointees must be someone with expertise in auditing governmental financial statements or public finance law, and the other appointee must have expertise in construction management. The Civil Grand Jury appointee must be a current or former member of the Civil Grand Jury or a Grand Jury designee. No City employee, official, vendor, contractor, or consultant performing work funded by City-issued bonds may serve on CGOBOC. These qualifications should not be changed to offer the appointing authorities carte blanche “flexibility.”

Voters approved creating and expanding CGOBOC twice, once with “Prop. F” in March 2002 and again with “Prop. C” in 2003, so changes will require returning to the ballot.

Task Force Member Conflicts of Interest

As the Westside Observer previously reported, two Streamlining Task Force members aren’t qualified for the seats they hold. Task Force Chair Ed Harrington, in Seat 4, was appointed by the President of the Board of Supervisors and was supposed to represent organized labor in the public sector. Harrington doesn’t possess that experience.

Sophia Kittler (and Jean Fraser before Kittler), appointed to Seat 5 by the Mayor, was supposed to be an “Open Government Expert” with expertise in open and accountable government. Neither Kittler nor Fraser possesses that qualification or experience. Instead, Kittler’s employment experience has been in private sector development (given her master’s degree focus on private sector development) and public-sector budget management.

Sophia Kittler is Mayor Lurie’s Budget Director. She’s on the Streamlining Task Force to carry out Lurie’s orders.

But worse is Task Force member Andrea True (née Andrea Bruss, which she conveniently goes by, except for City payroll purposes). Bruss is one half of several power couples in actual City Hall families, married to the perennial Judson True. Judson was formerly a Legislative Aide to then-Supervisor David Chiu, close to when Adrea was a Legislative Aide to then-Supervisor Malia Cohen. Judson and Andrea also worked around the same points in time in the City’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), where Andrea was glorified as 1450 “Executive” Secretary II. It’s not known when the pair got hitched.

Judson went on to be Assemblymember Chiu’s Chief of Staff. After Chiu returned to become City Attorney, Judson temporarily became Mayor Breed’s Director of Housing Delivery, perhaps not actually located in the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development. (Strangely, Judson’s LinkedIn profile shows he worked for Mayor Breed for six years between 2019 and 2025, but the City Controller’s Payroll Database showed Judson was a 0942 Manager VII in the Department of Public Works in fiscal year 2023–2024). Andrea went on to become Mayor Breed’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Between the pair, the power couple earned $463,323 in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, excluding fringe benefits.

When Lurie roundly defeated Breed and became Mayor, both True’s lost their cushy jobs working for Mayor Breed. Judson landed his golden parachute as a 0942 Manager VII, this time in the STFMTA, which he lists on LinkedIn as Chief of Staff and Director of External Affairs at MUNI.

For her part, when Breed was forced out of Room 400 at City Hall, Andrea landed her own golden parachute as a 0932 Manager IV in the City Attorney’s Office on January 4, 2025 where she remains a City employee — oh so conveniently — she meets the “seat qualification” as a employee in the City Attorney’s Office to qualify for a seat on the Streamlining Task Force. Of note, although Bruss holds a Juris Doctor law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law and reports on LinkedIn that she’s interested in land use, environmental, and labor law, she has scant experience working as an attorney.

This appears to be Bruss’s first job in a legal setting, other than a one-year, one-month stint working as an “Associate” at Weinberg, Roger, and Rosenfield back in 2016 on a hiatus from her otherwise 17-year, 4-month City employment career. Andrea is not in an attorney job classification code in the City Attorney’s Office.

The City’s Department of Human Resources reported that True’s (Andrea’s) job title in her 10-month job at the City Attorney’s Office is “Director of Government Legal Reform.” It’s unknown whether that job title required extensive experience working as an attorney, let alone experience working in legal reform.

Which suddenly-needed “reforms” is she working on?

And of interest, a follow-up records request to the City Attorney’s Office reveals no previous City Attorney employees with a working job title of “Director of Government Legal Reform.” Was the job title dreamt up just for Bruss?

It’s suspiciously convenient that Judson’s long-time former boss, Chiu, suddenly had a job opening last January to offer Judson’s wife, Andrea, to crash her parachute. Chances are, she’s there carrying out Lurie’s old-boy network orders.

Further to whether this job title was created for Bruss’s golden parachute landing, it raises a troubling question of whether it is a conflict of interest for an employee to have that job title, and at the same time be seated as a member of the Commission Streamlining Task Force.

Something doesn’t pass the smell test when it comes to being an impartial arbiter on the Streamlining Task Force in her spare time, while simultaneously working her day gig doing government legal reforms for the City Attorney’s Office.

Who will Bruss’s new boss be once the Streamlining Task Force closes shop? And in what gig? Will she land back in the Mayor’s office?

Task Force Members’ “Efficiency” Obsession

Commentary made by Task Force members during their public meetings and meeting minutes illustrates the deep worldview biases some members have brought to their discussions and decision-making. San Franciscans must closely monitor both what they do and what they say!

They are making oversight of our democratic oversight bodies a casualty of blind “efficiency” in service to a “strong Mayor.”

Vice Chair Andrea True (née Andrea Bruss) — City Attorney’s Office “Director of Government Legal Reform”:

1. Holds the general view that governance commissions don’t need separate advisory bodies.
2. Supports moving bodies from the City Charter to the Administrative Code to allow for future “legislative flexibility.”

Sophia Kittler — Mayor’s Budget Director:

1. The former vice chair reiterated that the Charter should include fewer bodies.
2. Believes Citizens’ Advisory Committees (CACs) merely duplicate the functions of boards and commissions.

Sophie Hayward:

1. Supports moving bodies out of the City Charter to the Administrative Code and imposing mandatory sunset dates to allow for structured “off-ramps,” including potentially ending a board or commission (on an arbitrary end date).
2. Supports moving bodies from the Charter to the Admin Code to allow for easier amendments in the future.
3. Supports removing bodies from the City Charter to allow for greater flexibility in meeting the evolving needs of the City and its departments.

Former Vice Chair Jean Fraser:

1. Believes some bodies should be moved to the Administrative Code to be more easily revised by the Board of Supervisors to ensure alignment with the City’s “immediate needs”
2. Believes elected officials should be authorized and empowered to respond as quickly and appropriately as possible
3. Was concerned that prioritizing the voters’ voices may inhibit a functional government that can respond with the level of adaptability required to manage in a changing world
4. Believes governance structures created in the past “may not be fit for the current world anymore”
5. Thinks elected officials need more latitude to make “[any] changes they see fit.”

Much of their “world views” is precisely why voters rejected “Prop. D” at the ballot box. Voters didn’t want to hand elected officials — and certainly not the Mayor — unilateral authority to make changes as they see fit!

Fraser apparently believes “It’s all the fault of those pesky voters who feel entitled, but are ‘inhibiting’ functional government”? What?

Quixote’s Delusional Quest

So far, the Streamlining Task Force has been on a delusional odyssey to weaken commission oversight of City government and impose a system of effectively broken boards and commissions, which potentially opens the door to more corruption, more mismanagement, more ethical lapses, and more departments acting outside of legal limits in our City.

San Franciscans must fight back. We must insist: “No Kings!”

Monette-Shaw is a columnist for San Francisco’s Westside Observer newspaper, and a member of the California First Amendment Coalition (FAC) and the ACLU. He operates stopLHHdownsize.com. Contact him at monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.

November 2025