Consider the Cow Palace, Immigration and Gun Control

•••••••••• October 25, 2022 ••••••••••

It’s been observed: “How do you know when a politician is lying?” The answer is: “When he (or she) opens her or his mouth!” I observed that in person last month at the highly successful Grand National Rodeo and Junior Livestock Show at the Cow Palace. State Treasurer Fiona Ma, former S.F. Supervisor and State Assembly member and now a candidate for reelection for State Treasurer, was foolishly allowed to address the crowd of about 5,000. In May, 2019, Senator Scott Weiner tried to convey the 68-acre Cow Palace to land developers by establishing a Cow Palace Authority composed of Daly City, San Francisco and San Mateo County. His bill would have forced the state, owner of Agriculture District No. 1A, to transfer the property without compensating California taxpayers. (When exposed to such duplicity, Weiner amended his bill. It would now require San Francisco, Daly City and San Mateo County to pay for the Cow Palace, at market value, to the state. In 2008, an appraisal determined the Cow Palace was worth $147,000,000; by 2019, its value exceeded $300,000,000!) 

Fortunately, the bill was stopped, but then Board of Equalization member Fiona Ma was the very first person to testify in support of the Cow Palace’s death sentence. On October 8, 2022, just three years later, she falsely declared to the rodeo crowd she had “saved” the Cow Palace from extinction in 2009. It was, in fact, the Cow Palace governing board and staff which did so by attracting events and tenants after the 2008 recession caused the termination of state funding. The Cow Palace today possesses savings of about $6,000,000 (!) from gross receipts. Ma isn’t responsible for that surplus or for “saving” the Cow Palace, which is why it’s said: “The honesty of many politicians has never been questioned. In fact, it’s never been mentioned.”

Mark Twain once declared: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it.” Examples abound. So-called “sanctuary cities” represent one example. As illegal immigration rises nationally at our southern border, our national government countenances it. The words “illegal alien” are panned by contemporary purveyors of journalism. (On September 9, 2022, one U.S. Court of Appeal judge for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco chided his colleagues for calling illegal aliens “non-citizens” in an immigration ruling after the majority declared that readers of the court opinion might find the word “alien” to be offensive!)

 In the Wall Street Journal last September 22nd, Karl Rove of the political action committee American Crossroads, noted that in fiscal year 2022, 2,150,639 illegal aliens had been apprehended on our Southwest border, more than 25% higher than the prior year’s 1,734,686 and over four times more than 2020’s 458,098. Arizona, Texas and Florida must deal with surging illegality. As Rove observed, when Texas’ governor shipped 500 to Chicago, 7,400 to Washington, D.C. and some 1,500 to New York City, that is a pittance of the number border states receive.

Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., like San Francisco, are “sanctuary cities.” They should embrace illegal aliens, not feign indignation, and allow Vice-President Kamala Harris to proclaim “. . . our border is secure” without contradiction. Then again, the count doesn’t include the illegals who weren’t caught by the Border Patrol. Its department chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, testified at a congressional hearing that there were about 338,155 more who escaped capture in the 2021 fiscal year (October 1, 2020-September 30, 2021). If extrapolated, that would equal over 482,000 more uncaptured illegal aliens in the fiscal year.

Our state and local governments, however, ignore our sanctuary status and attack border-state political officials. And, thanks to California’s legislature and governor, as of January 1, 2023, you don’t need to be a citizen to be a California law enforcement officer. (I can’t wait for some knucklehead legislator to sponsor a bill to allow illegal aliens to be cops.)

Our Sacramento heroes in this fiscal year’s budget, (July 1, 2022-June 30, 2023), have now conferred “full-scope Medi-Cal benefits” upon California illegal aliens 60 years of age or older. This imposes a state-mandated program for local governments like San Francisco to spend an estimated $858,000,000 annually on California’s approximate 2,200,000 illegal aliens. Previously in 2015 and 2019 Medi-Cal coverage was legislatively enlarged to include illegal aliens’ children and in 2020 to adults aged 19-25 years.

The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendmen, in my legal and political lifetime, has vexed gunowners and opponents alike. In California and elsewhere the National Rifle Association once constituted a major election force. That’s now untrue in California, which, during my State Senate years, could stop bills supposedly hostile to its members. Last month, an astute Californian in La Mesa reminded national newspaper readers that “modern” gun control started in 1967, when then-Governor Ronald Reagan approved gun-control legislation as a result of Black Panthers using guns. Thus, Blacks were the cause of attempts to suppress firearm sales. Then-Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti from Los Angeles proposed broad gun registration and other controls after the gun deaths of six Stockton grade schoolers in 1987, which I supported. The N.R.A. thereafter tried to recall Roberti and failed. The N.R.A. never endorsed my two Senate re-elections and has lost power in California but not in southern states.

On the eve of an election, a candidate asked a reporter: “Did you hear my last speech?” The reporter replied: “I certainly hope so.”

I convey warm best wishes to all faithful and, even unfaithful readers for a Happy, Healthy Thanksgiving. Remember our military veterans on November 11th.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp formerly lived in District 7 — now redistricted to District 4

October 2022

Quentin's Ballot Recommendations & Other Ruminations

•••••••••• September 27, 2022 ••••••••••

Editor's Note: All election recommendations are the opinion of the author, the Westside Observer does not endorse candidates or measures and welcomes opinions to the contrary.

In 1866, a joker noted: "No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." The California legislature adjourned on September 30th, but the condescending Board of Supervisors reconvened after Labor Day, ready to repudiate good government at taxpayer expense and act imperialistically with its six-figure annual salary plus pension and medical benefits. One current example of its repudiation of civil behavior occurred June 24th with Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton who, after refusing to remove his belt entering City Hall (like all other City Hall entrants for decades), berated the Sheriff Cadet Emare Butler, asking Butler if he knew who Walton was (!) and poking at the glass window between them while loudly proclaiming ". . . its niggas like you who look like me that's always the problem, it's always my own people . . ." After a deputy sheriff tried to stop Walton's conduct by explaining the history of the rules, namely, Dan White's 1978 assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk at City Hall by a firearm, another deputy sheriff told Walton he was free to go. Walton repeated his City Hall status and threatened assault upon the cadet.

There are lessons, all bitter. It's socially acceptable for a Black person to use the so-called "N" word about another Black person; Walton's Board of Supervisors associates and San Francisco's governing board refuse to relieve him as board president or criticize him. Supervisor Peskin informed me by voicemail, he'd never vote to expel Walton as president and later criticized the unfortunate cadet as "applying the rules selectively to one supervisor."

Supervisor Melgar refused to condemn Walton while stating he should apologize to the cadet. Supervisor Dorsey refused to comment substantively and declared everyone should "maintain a harassment-free workplace." Only Mayor Breed demanded Walton apologize for the slur. Did he? No. Instead, he threatened to "take legal action." That's local leadership for you. (Did I hear "double standard"?)

Meanwhile, the November 8th general election looms. I've already noted in these pages last month endorsements of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins for election, Ann Hsu for Board of Education and John Rizzo for City College Board of Trustees re-election and Yes on San Francisco ballot measures:

A (Retiree Supplemental Cost of Living Adjustment),
B (Consolidation of Sanitation and Streets Department and Commission with Public Works Department),
I (Restoring vehicles on the Great Highway and JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park and N (Golden Gate Park Underground Parking Garage transfer from a private entity to the City and County);

I also advocate strongly a No vote on:

Proposition C, yet another new commission, a Homelessness Oversight Commission, to add to 309 (!) existing unelected local boards and commissions (our Board of Supervisors would abolish one commission, then add another).
D (an initiative from Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco also opposed by Race and Equity in All Planning Coalition).
E (Affordable Housing by the Board of Supervisors opposed by Grow SF).
F (Library Preservation Fund which means taxation).
G (Student Success, which seizes City and County money for the feckless School District and its union).
H (City Elections in Even-Numbered Years), a Democratic Socialist act which will diminish voter concentration on mayoral, district attorney, city attorney, sheriff, assessor-recorder, supervisorial and treasurer – tax collector elections.
J (a trick to undermine reopening JFK Drive and Great Highway on weekdays to vehicles – see Proposition I, increasing gross receipts taxes again).
L (a regressive sales tax on those least able to pay; unlike an income tax for example. This tax has been misused since origination as Proposition K in 2003 for boondoggles like the 1.6-mile Central Subway which was promoted as costing $647,000,000 with only $126,000,000 from local sales taxpayers and now five years late on the promised completion date. There exists about 25,000,000 square feet of vacant downtown office space, with the market value thereof declining about 43% since 2020. The entire Central Subway cost is now almost $2,000,000,000! And the Geary Boulevard subway project constitutes a fallacy. Prop L requires a 66-2/3% affirmative vote to pass. The farebox recovery ratio, of the Muni which measures efficiency and usage hasn't been calculated since 2019 by the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Ridership has dwindled. It's premature to renew this tax for 30 years. Vote "No" on L!
M (a tax on vacant residential units, represents "only in San Francisco." Don't blame City Hall; it's an initiative from tax-lovers and merits rejection)
O (imposes continuation of an additional parcel tax for mismanaged City College. The current parcel tax hasn't even expired; a parcel tax is devilish, imposing the same charge on a residential lot as on a commercial lot, which comprises money making real estate. Vote No.

Statewide ballot measures present less head-scratching. More emanate from special interest initiatives than wily legislators. I'll vote Yes only on:

Proposition 1 (a state constitutional amendment to enshrine existing statutory abortion rights approved by then Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970).

I oppose:

Prop 31 (a referendum to repeal the 2020 statute prohibiting retail sale of specified flavored tobacco).
Propositions 26 and 27 (allowing gambling on Tribal Lands (26) and online and Mobile Sports Wagering Outside Tribal Lands (27) under our State Constitution. (In 1987, then Governor Deukmejian and I led the opposition to casinos on Tribal Land).
Prop 28 (which would require the legislature to appropriate $1,000,000,000 annually for arts and music in public schools [another special interest fund ).
Proposition 29 (a two-time loser in previous elections, which requires on-site medical doctors or assistants to be present for treatment at an outpatient dialysis clinic. It'll run up patient costs unnecessarily and lacks any physician support.)

Proposition 30 raises the top tier of the state income tax basically to subsidize, for 20 years, electric vehicle owners and charging station users in a state with the highest income tax rate in the U.S.A. It benefits Lyft, a special interest which has spent over $15 million for the campaign. Vote “No.”

Of interest to me, as a longtime registered Independent (now called "No Party Preference" by the apprehensive Democratic-controlled state legislature with Republican assistance). I find relevant a national poll, taken last month. It found 68% of Americans don't believe they have a say in their government, and 62% of Americans believe a new political party is needed with a fresh perspective.

To conclude my last month's report of another Board of Education illegal act. In August it created two school holidays based upon Muslim holy days. The demand by Paul Scott, Esq., representing the S.F. Taxpayers Association, for repeal of such action, led the School District to save face — by deciding to delay any implementation this school year.

I also confess an error in representing public school enrollment at 38,000 or so pupils. Commissioner Ann Hsu informed me that enrollment is about 48,000 in a city of approximately 805,000 residents.

I conclude with the late George Bernard Shaw's 1930 observation: "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." Vote early and often on November 8th.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp formerly lived in District 7 — now redistricted to District 4

September 2022

Tammany Hall, District Elections, November and Boudin

•••••••••• August 2, 2022 ••••••••••

William F. Buckley, Jr., the 1950s and 1960s author and television commentator, once declared: "I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty." The Yale University graduate's aphorism could be applied to the Board of Supervisors, whose members are elected by districts rather than each as a candidate seeking citywide approval. I've written of voter frustration because of the legal prohibition of "at-large" voting, which is citywide, under the California Voting Rights Act effectuated by the state legislature and Governor effective in 2003.

Since the 1932 Charter was approved by voters and before then, when the Board consisted of 16 supervisors, San Francisco eschewed district supervisorial election, also called "ward politics." It possesses a pejorative connotation (see Plunkitt of Tammany Hall regarding New York City Tammany Hall's famous political boss in the early 20th century). As I noted last spring, district elections were unwisely approved by San Francisco voters in 1976 and were in effect until their 1980 repeal but then reinstated in the 1990s.

Following my last musing about the deplorable results of such ward elections and their rise under threat of California Voting Rights Act litigation in such small cities as Millbrae, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Foster City and Redwood City, I discovered a possible silver lining. Santa Monica, a population approximately 90,000 with citywide council elections since 1914, was sued in 2018 by its Pico Neighborhood Association which claims at-large councilmember elections discriminate against Latinos, Blacks and Asians. The California Court of Appeal in July 2020 rejected such contention and ratified Santa Monica's at-large system. Pico Neighborhood Association sought review by the California Supreme Court, which was granted. The case now awaits the decision of California's highest court. If Santa Monica prevails, I encourage San Franciscans to restore citywide supervisorial elections via Charter amendment approved by voters in 2023. I'm reminded of another citywide option: until this century, San Mateo County's Board of Supervisors. Members were elected by at-large voting but had to live in one of the County's five districts. A victory by Santa Monica would permit us that alternative! Stay tuned!

It's not too early to discuss the November 8th General Election, which includes the re-election of all Democratic statewide office-holders led by Governor Newsom, our 2024 presidential candidate. It'll also include such nonpartisan officers as Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, Presiding Justice and Associate Justices of the Court of Appeal (those elections ask voters to vote "yes" or "no" on their retention for another 6-year term). Plus Superintendent of Public Instruction and local offices Assessor, District Attorney, Public Defender, Board of Education (3 seats), Community College Board (4 seats), and Board of Supervisors (Districts 2, 4, 6, 8, 10). If you want to submit a potential opponent argument for city ballot measures, do so by 12 p.m., August 18. (Proponent arguments customarily receive priority authorhood). Paid ballot arguments must be submitted by 12 p.m., August 22 with a $200 submission fee plus $2 per word and cannot exceed 300 words.

There will be 8 state ballot measures and at least 5 local ones, including one to reopen the Great Highway and return its original use as an essential route for 20,000 daily users. It also includes JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park with its partial Saturday closure, plus Sunday and holiday closures as a compromise. I strongly support that citizen initiative.

The Board of Supervisors' failure to enact a law requiring competitive bidding for garbage collection and recycling contracts is emblematic of local government sloth. After voters repealed the 1932 ordinance bestowing a monopoly on Recology Inc.'s predecessors on June 7th, citizens anticipated legislation would speedily do so. Supervisor Aaron Peskin would logically have done so as supervisoral leader on the subject matter. Neither he nor any other supervisor has done so. For that, they're paid to represent about 79,000 people in a city losing population every day

Despite his defeat by voters on June 7, criminal lawyer Chesa Boudin will run again for district attorney this fall. Meanwhile, sister publication Marina Times’ ace columnist Susan Dyer Reynolds reports a source in that office disclosed Boudin gave at least five staff members official leave to volunteer in Boudin's campaign! If proven, taxpayer money must be recovered by litigation or payment by Boudin and his deputy D.A. fraudsters. The San Francisco Taxpayers Association has retained one of its members to do so.

Don't forget it's been said: "A successful man or woman is one who thinks up ways of making money faster than the government can take it away from him or her."

Happy Birthday to Mayor Breed whose natal day (August 11) is the same as mine. Yes, there's a few years age difference!!

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

August 2022

Celebrate, but there's more work to do.

In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote in his original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.”

As San Franciscans observe the 256th anniversary of the declaration of our independence from British rule, we give thanks to the successful recall of Chesa Boudin from district attorney status; the defeat of a Board of Supervisors ballot measure to diminish our authority to remove a non-performing public official from office, repeal of a 1932 ordinance conferring a trash collection monopoly on Recology’s predecessors, thus enabling next month a law requiring competitive, open bidding for such public contract; and the ignominious defeat of a $400,000,000 general obligation bond which, with interest over 30 years, would’ve cost taxpayers $1,005,000,000!

Citizen zeal cannot, however, rest. Before the June 7th election, the recalled Boudin had already filed a declaration of intent to run for District Attorney this November. The Chronicle and City Hall will assist.

MTA is stealthily planning to resubmit its rejected Proposition A again to voters next year. Let’s examine why that effort must be thwarted.

San Franciscans will regret that MTA management and other city officials ignored two reports in 2011 that, if followed, would’ve saved hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that have been, and will be, spent on an essentially useless transportation project. I’m referring to the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury report regarding the Central Subway Project, issued in July 2011, and the CGR Consultants report, issued in November 2011, regarding Muni’s track record on the completion of transportation projects.

The Grand Jury report, titled “Too Much Money for Too Little Benefit,” urged the city either to redesign the project or abandon it. They found it had serious design flaws, was likely to incur massive cost overruns, would generate an anemic ridership and create a serious drain on Muni’s operating budget.

As I informed readers in May, the CGR Consultants report, commissioned by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, found that Muni had never completed a project on time or within budget. Regarding the Central Subway project, the firm projected a final cost exceeding $2 billion!

Muni rejected the findings in those reports, insisting such a project would be delivered on time (Dec 2018), within budget ($1.6 billion), would reduce its yearly operating budget by $23.9 million and would attract ridership of 95,000 per day. In addition, the project team was “proud” to claim it has procured the majority of the funding for the project from federal and state governments and the city’s contribution would be a “mere” $125 million.

Fast forward to the present: the project is over 3½ years late and still doesn’t have a firm opening date; it is currently $350 million over budget (making city taxpayer’s contribution $475 million); Muni now admits it will increase, rather than decrease, its operating budget in the amount of $15.1 million per year and its ridership projection is now 40,000 passengers per day, not 95,000. The cost overruns have been paid by diversion of funds from other projects (thus, Proposition A’s general obligation bond was needed to pay for the Central Subway!) in the amount of $400 million. It’s believed that the current ridership estimate is vastly overstated because of the design flaws — pointed out by the Grand Jury — the fact that transfers between the Central Subway and BART and the Muni light rail lines will involve a walk of nearly 4 football fields in length which, according to a Muni study, will take a healthy and motivated passenger 7.2 minutes to complete.

Unfortunately, virtually all the individuals (3 mayors, 3 MUNI general managers, a number of MTA board members, plus some Board of Supervisors members and the subway project manager) who saddled taxpayers with this obscenely costly and essentially useless boondoggle are gone — so they’ll never be compelled to answer why they ignored the Civil Grand Jury findings and CGR Consultants. There is, however, one exception — the executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who engineered and executed a scheme whereby the project received nearly $500 million in state bond money, including $61.3 million of high-speed rail connectivity funds, for a project that wouldn’t connect to high-speed rail. That person retired from the MTC in 2019 but is now a board member of the SFMTA. Don’t trust MTA!

While discussing transportation, don’t expect the California High-Speed Rail Project to end in redemption of promises to voters. Taxpayer money from the 2008 state general obligation bond proceeds ($9,950,000,000) has been wasted on diesel (not electric) operation from Coachella to Wascoe (not Merced to Bakersfield). Bridges and viaducts are under construction, but no track has been built over the 171 miles of the route during 14 years of voter (and taxpayer) authorization. Promised private investment never occurred. The cost estimate for hypothetical electrified tracks from San Francisco to Anaheim is now $105,000,000,000. Only $4,200,000,000 of authorized bond money remains and the legislature opposes Governor Newsom’s January 2022 request to issue such bonds. As the San Jose Mercury News observed on January 30th: “That’s not what Californians approved in 2008.” Bent Flyvberg, an expert in large projects at the University of Oxford opined last spring: “This project is going to the graveyard of famous boondoggles.”

I conclude with Jefferson’s March 31, 1809 letter to citizens of Washington County, Maryland: “If in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the blood stained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

JULY 2022

Vote, Voting and Voters

An anonymous wit once declared in the 1950s; “We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.” As the days dwindle down to the June 7th primary, maybe the public defender who became district attorney based upon approximately 35% of votes cast might invoke such doctrine to preserve his thin status. A “yes” vote is necessary to recall the charlatan DA by proposition H.

Be sure to vote against proposition A, and its $400,000,000 borrowing for non-binding projects which will cost taxpayers an additional $605,000,000 over the next 30 years.

Stop the Board of Supervisors effort to prevent future recalls of elected officials by voting “No” on Proposition C.

No sooner had voters recalled three board of education members last February, than did Supervisor Hillary Ronen introduce legislation forcing the City and County to spend over millions for the School District’s current operating expenses. The City and County constitutes an agency separate from the San Francisco Unified School District, particularly since 1972 when voters amended local law to allow voter choice for Board of Education commissioners and removed appointment control from the mayor.

Meanwhile, the school district budget includes $27.8 million in 2021 for busing pupils to non-neighborhood schools, of which $22.5 million is spent for special education transportation. The School District continues to lose students as do most California public school districts. As a public school product, I intend to vote for Marco Amaral for Superintendent of Public Instruction. He’s the son of working-class immigrants and president of the South Bay Union School District, a registered Independent, teacher, and Doctoral student in Education. Incidentally, Ronen’s proposal needs 55% voter approval in November.

Speaking of supervisors, did you know that, although these district-elected legislators represent only about 75,000 residents, each is provided by taxpayers with four legislative assistants. Under the Annual Salary Ordinance for 2022-23 each assistant is paid annually $102,398 to $151,250 depending on years of service, together with lush health and pension benefits. Prior to 1982, supervisors were allowed only two assistants while representing all of San Francisco.

Unlike the other 57 California counties, San Francisco supervisors don’t exercise executive responsibilities, which are the mayor’s duties. Thus, supervisors logically are part time legislators who have private employment or wealth. The current budget appropriates $148,118 for Board salaries, plus the aforementioned benefits. Many citizens have suggested restoration of at-large supervisorial elections. We restored them in 1980 after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, but state law has changed.

In 2002, the California Voting Rights Act was passed, specifically targeting at-large election systems by prohibiting such systems from “imposition” by impairing “the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election.” If a city or county with at-large legislators tries to defend such system and loses in a non-jury trial (no jury is allowed), it will incur attorney fees of six or seven figures, regardless of the result.

Sunset District resident Robert Guichard, who led the effort successfully in 1980 to restore at-large supervisorial selection, has ascertained that Santa Monica has spent about $8 million as of 2021 defending it’s at-large city council elections, Palmdale expended $4.5 million, Modesto spent $3 million and Anaheim and Whittier spent over $1 million each.

The League of California Cities concludes that California judges have been more liberal in striking down at-large elections than federal judges. Small cities on the Peninsula like Millbrae, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Redwood City and Foster City have now changed to district elections because of threats from lawyers specializing in the California Voting Rights Act. Last month’s disputes over changes in San Francisco’s 11 supervisorial district boundaries caused even the Chronicle and Examiner to criticize inferentially district elections and suggest returning to at-large supervisors; unfortunately, it seems legally impossible to this observer. We are stuck paying for these minor-league wonders and their ineffective 44 aides!

While the Mayor recommends a 2022-23 San Francisco budget of over $14 billion (it was $13.7 billion this fiscal year and City Hall is still San Francisco’s largest employer while UCSF, no private enterprise, is second), California and Governor Gavin Newsom are drowning in taxpayer funds. At the present time California presents a surplus of $97.5 billion.

Gasoline prices, among others, break records but something as simple as a $400 per car owner gasoline tax rebate by the governor generated objections from Democratic legislative leaders.

George Skelton of the L.A. Times reminded readers on May 16, Newsom’s proposal is the first state budget to exceed $300 billion in history. In 1963, he recalled, it was the first $3 billion state budget, 100 times smaller than what Newsom wants! At $3.2 billion, that 1963 budget signed by Democratic Governor Pat Brown would be about $31 billion in 2022 dollars. California’s population was 17.5 million, today its population is 56% higher than 1963. The population, unlike the state budget, did not increase 300%!

In plainer words, state government spends but doesn’t know how to return surplus to taxpayers. Maybe it’s because we had “part time” legislators in 1963 unlike 2022, and California wasn’t a one-party state.  In 2010, Californians were paying 25 - 30 cents more than the national average. Now they pay about 70 cents per gallon in state and local gasoline sales taxes compared to approximately 20 cents in Arizona and Texas. Newsom’s proposed gas tax rebate might result in electric vehicle owners even securing a check. It probably won’t happen.

Katanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation as a Supreme Court justice reminds me of President Joe Biden’s comments during US Senate confirmation hearings to recommend confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas’s appointment 30 years ago. Biden pronounced the racial insult that if Clarence Thomas wasn’t black, he wouldn’t have been appointed by then President George Bush. How is that different from his pre-election promise that his first Supreme Court appointee would be a black female? It’s the epitome of hypocrisy and Justice Thomas is now the court’s longest-serving justice. May Justice Jackson emulate such service.

As we enter the summer season, I'm reminded that President Herbert Hoover was the first president to give his salary back to the government. Nowadays, the government would like everybody to do it.

If you haven’t already voted I recommend David Hillberg for Lieutenant Governor (he’s an Independent); State Senator Steve Glazer of Contra Costa County for controller (he’s a Democrat); Jack Guerrero, a former mayor, council member and still a certified public accountant for treasurer; Ann Marie Schubert, who has been a district attorney for 30 years and is Sacramento County’s DA, and an Independent for attorney general; and Sally Lieber, a Democrat, for yet another governmental body which shouldn’t exist anymore, the Board of Equalization.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

JUNE 2022

SF's June 7th Ballot

In 1948, The Complete Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman contained his utterance: “I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive, proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.” That surely applies to us in San Francisco on June 7. I am sufficiently egotistical to believe voters await my local ballot measure recommendations which mirror San Francisco Taypayers Association positions in applicable ways. For example, I strongly urge rejection of Proposition A, which authorizes general bond indebtedness in the amount of $400,000,000 for unspecified grandiose projects such as “cost of construction, acquisition and improvement of certain transportation, street safety and transit related capital improvements and requiring certain funded projects to be subject to a Project Labor Agreement.” A California Court of Appeal decision relating to the 2008 California High Speed Rail Authority General Obligation Bond of $9,000,000,000 dollars effectually means general obligation bond money can be used any way the issuer wants. Labeled “MUNI Reliability and Street Safety”, the sponsor (“MTA”) ignores the Controller’s Statement that interest on the 30-year bond will approximate $600,000,000 dollars. That is born by homeowners who usually pay double the voter-approved debt, thanks to compounding interest. The MUNI is, of course, famous for its Central Subway Project which is 30% or more overbudget in taxpayer expense and over three years late in completion. A study by an outside non-governmental-entity found earlier this decade that MTA has never completed a project on time or as promised to taxpayers in cost. The obedient Chamber of Commerce supports Proposition A, realizing that homeowners and renters will pay most of its costs. Vote “No” on Proposition A.

Proposition B, a Charter amendment, applicable to the Building Inspection Commission, changes Commission composition, which comprises four mayoral appointees consisting of a structural engineer, a licensed architect, a residential builder and a nonprofit-housing development corporation representative and Board of Supervisors presidential appointees consisting of a residential tenant, a residential landlord and a member of the general public, all of whom serve two year terms, Proposition B eliminates Commission membership based upon designated profession, background or industry affiliation. The Commission represents the result of conniving by a Residential Builders Association City Hall “fixer” and a then board of Supervisor member and never should have been created in 1994. It was previously part of the Department of Public Works with one honest head of the Bureau of Building Inspection, the late Robert Levy, after whom the Broadway Tunnel was renamed. Proposition B is unnecessary because the Commission is useless. I’m voting “No”.

Proposition C represents City Hall intrigue to reduce the efficacy of recalling elected officials it’s a reaction to the recall of three Board of Education members last February and the imminent District Attorney recall next month. It prohibits recall petitions before 12 months after the politician has assumed office and a recall petition if the subsequent recall election would occur within 12 months of a regularly-scheduled election for the office in question. It also prohibits any interim officer appointed to fill the vacancy created by a recall, from running in the subsequent vacancy election, thereby depriving Mayor Breed of her authority. Board of Supervisor efforts to thwart voters mustn’t prevail. Vote “No” resoundingly on Proposition C.

Proposition D establishes another bureaucracy, an Office of Victim and Witness Rights, plus a free lawyer for domestic violence victims. We’ve had an office to provide services to domestic violence victims and other crime victims for decades starting in the 1980s. Disregarding free lawyers, passage of Proposition D will yield more public employees to supplement over 38,000 now on City and County payroll as the largest employer in San Francisco. Vote “No”.

Proposition E amends an ordinance to expand the ban on solicitation of behested payments by including City contractors seeking Board of Supervisors approval of their contracts and requiring Ethics Commission approval plus super-majority approval by the Board of Supervisors for future amendments to such corruption sometimes called “pay to play”. I recommend approval.

Proposition F constitutes an historical effort by Supervisor Aaron Peskin “finally” to repeal the 1932 electoral ordinance which granted a monopoly for garbage collection. Recology, Inc.’s long time monopoly has resulted in the highest refuse rates in California. Garbage collection in 1932 was effectuated by individual collectors later merged into Sunset Scavengers for residential property owners and Golden Gate Disposal for commercial property owners before Recology combined them. Instead of also providing for competitive bidding, as occurs in almost all other local governmental contracts, this theoretically enables the Board of Supervisors to amend the Refuse Ordinance to require competitive bidding for trash collection. Proposition F is supported by the Mayor and all supervisors, but requires any refuse ordinance amendment to pass by an eight-vote “supermajority.” To mollify rate-payers, it additionally replaces the Controller on the Refuse Rate Board, “historically controlled by Recology” with an appointed “rate payer representative.” Our City Controller has saved rate-payers and tax-payers millions of dollars, I don’t trust any “rate-payer representative” who will probably remind us of the former Director of the Department of Environment, forced to resign last month after revelations of her City Hall corruption, once again ignored by the “fighting” DA.

Proposition G amends the Police Code to require private employers with more than 100 employees worldwide to provide public health emergency leave to San Francisco employees during public health emergencies, while exempting certain non-profit organization from same. Such emergencies include contagion infections, communicable diseases and air quality emergencies and mandate two weeks leave with pay. I’ll probably vote for it to annoy the downtown Chamber of Commerce.

Proposition H is the most important ballot measure next month. It recalls the criminal defense lawyer form the Public Defender Office who because of ranked-choice voting, was elected in 2020. Chesa Boudin represents a legacy, with parents who were leaders in the Weatherman Underground and convicted of murder in a bank robbery in New York State. His grandfather was widely known after World War II for representing Socialists and Communists. His notions of “reform” stem from his assertion that our criminal justice system criminalizes “poverty, addiction and mental illness; while failing to hold violent police accountable.” He ignores city government corruption, which, thankfully, is pursued by the United States Attorney’s office, even though his 2021-22 budget contains a Criminal Division White Collar Unit with many investigators and lawyers, at an estimated taxpayer cost of $4,200,00-$6,300,000. Vote “Yes” on Proposition H as many times as the law allows, but don’t worry about violating the law while Boudin is District Attorney.

For those readers accustomed to my state ballot measure recommendations, be advised the legislature and governor changed the rules last decade so that state ballot measures are only presented to voters in the November general election, not the June primary election.

Meanwhile, as national government increases federal debt and state government collects income taxes while building an herculean surplus, I’m reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson in a 1929 essay declaring; “Of all debts, men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money’s worth, except for these.” Remember our military veterans on May 30th, vote on June 7th or before and remember and grieve for the late Peter Keane who died Easter Sunday after an extra life of achievement, including chairmanship of our Ethics Committee and deanship of Golden Gate Law School.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

APRIL 26, 2022

Garbage, Redistricting, and Gas Taxation

“The phenomenon of corruption is like the garbage. It has to be removed daily.”

So stated Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza, Comptroller of Mexico on April 17, 1987 in the New York Times. Because of persistent disregard of the vox populi, the three new Board of Education commissioners were appointed last month by Mayor London Breed who promises implicitly that the San Francisco Unified School District will somehow conquer a budget deficit of over $125,000,000. Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan, predicts the recall of those commissioners “will have major national repercussions” adding that a cultural rebellion within the Democratic Party has begun. A letter writer then speculated that maybe the recall occurred because of pandemic virtual teaching which showed critical race theory curriculum to parents. Public school enrollment continues to dwindle below 50,000 although the City’s population increased from 805,235 in 2010 to 873,965 in 2020. As a knowledgeable San Francisco native, David Cuadro of Midtown Terrace, has observed, there may be more dogs in our metropolis than children. As I’ve reminded readers, before busing pupils from neighborhood elementary schools commenced in 1970, enrollment exceeded 92,000! Despite the inanity of doing so the School District continues to waste taxpayer money on busing, using a “lottery” for which parents must express their first five choices for their children’s kindergarten to high school education.

Lakeshore Acres and Merced Manor residents face termination of their historic natural unity if the current Supervisorial redistricting plan is executed. Instead of remaining unified in District 7, the long-standing geographical unity since District Supervisor Elections were adopted foolishly in 1995, those brotherly neighborhoods will be banished to District 4, which comprises the Outer Sunset. Its personality is indisputably different from Lakeshore Acres and Merced Manor, which comprise post WWII homes built by homebuilder Gellert.

Such transfer reflects the vagaries of District Elections by wannabee politicians and swallow the single-family residents who will be stranded and outvoted in an area subject to a Senator Wiener State law which encourages four units in a single family neighborhood.

On June 7, voters will decide whether to recall the “fighting” district attorney whose departure from public office may constitute a significant precursor for a November election regarding another Bay Area politician and supporter of criminal justice changes. Rob Bonta, seeks retention as Attorney General after appointment by Governor Newsom. District Attorney Boudin strongly supports San Francisco’s pretrial system despite its deplorable consequences. A comprehensive study by a respected “think tank” showed that 55% of inmates granted release while awaiting trial in San Francisco were arrested for another crime and one in six allegedly committed a violent crime. Bonta faces a competitive race, especially if Sacramento DA Anne Marie Schubert, like me an Independent, and well known for locating and prosecuting the Golden State rapist, reaches the November general election. Meanwhile, Boudin doubles down on his background, evidenced last month by Bernadine Dohrn’s appearance at his campaign rally at Alamo Square Park. For younger readers, Dohrn founded the Weatherman Underground of which Boudin’s parents were leaders before their imprisonment for bank robbery and murder of a security guard.

For those interested in recalls, be advised that Supervisor Aaron Peskin sponsored a Charter amendment for the June 7 election, “Proposition C”, which should be labeled The Incumbent Protection Act and rejected. The California Constitution since 1914 provides a method of enabling voters to remove an elected officer. The late Governor Hiram Johnson, a genuine Progressive, sponsored it. Article II, section 13 of California’s Constitution grants proponents 160 days to file signed petitions by electors equal in number to 12% of the last vote for the office except for Senators, Assembly and Board of Equalization members and appellate and trial court judges; signatures must equal 20% of the last vote for those offices. A recall election may be conducted after 6 months of someone taking office. Supervisor Peskin and comrades seek revision of our Charter which contains similar provisions by doubling the time to 12 months for officials to be free from recall and adds a new 18-month period during which they are also exempt! Another provision requires recall voting at a regularly scheduled election, which is almost always less than two years away. Therefore, for 42 months of a 4 year, 48-month term, City Hall beauties are free from recall.  The San Francisco Taxpayers Association and other civic groups oppose Proposition C.

Supervisor Peskin, however, has spearheaded Proposition F which happily begins the process of protecting garbage collection rate payers by undoing a 1932 Ordinance which effectively granted Recology, Inc.’s predecessor a monopoly on trash and recycling. Proposition F is supported by all 11 Supervisors and Mayor Breed. Once it passes and the 90-year-old ordinance is repealed, Peskin and his confederates can pass, an ordinance requiring competitive bidding for those valuable city contracts. Incidentally, a published letter to the editor in the Sunset Beacon alleges I incorrectly attributed the 2017 Recology rate overcharging to City Controller, Ben Rosenfield. Recology again is wrong. An April 14, 2021 Public Integrity Review by the Controller’s office found errors and omissions in Recology’s garbage rate increase application and approval process, resulting in criminal convictions by the U.S. Attorney, including Paul Giusti, Recology’s Government and Community Relations Manager. On March 4, 2021, Recology settled a civil suit by paying $100,000,000 in refunds to rate payers for refuse collection rates through June 2021, resulting in lower rates effective April 1, 2021. The controller recommended impliedly repeal of the 1932 Refuse Collection and Disposal Initiative Ordinance which is “Proposition F.”

Speaking of roadways built with money from state and federal gasoline taxpayers, Governor Newsom advocates refunding $400 to each such taxpayer while legislators demand limiting the $400 to those earning only $125,000 yearly or less. Refreshing memories, California’s gasoline tax is 51.1 cents per gallon plus 2.5 cents sales tax, while federal taxation adds 18.4 cents per gallon, totaling 72 cents per gallon, highest in the nation. A few blessed souls at the State Capitol advocate simply reducing state gas taxation in light of California’s surplus. I’ll bet that will never happen. Last month, three house democrats including my one-time State Senate colleague and friend, Mike Thompson of Napa County, introduced the Gas Rebate Act of 2022 to refund a $100 check to gasoline taxpayers in any month this year that the national average gas price tops $4 per gallon plus $100 for their dependents. Some rebate! “It’s a government check to pay for higher gas prices caused in large part by government.” Observed some wag, chuckling: “That’s the spectacle of climate-change warriors suddenly trying to subsidize fossil-fuel consumption.”

To readers, I transmit best wishes for Easter and Purim, and Happy Spring, remembering; “April signifies Aphrodite month, the goddess of love and beauty.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

APRIL 2022

Worries, War & Waste

So, let us not be blind to our differences - let us also direct attention to our common interest and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.” Thus, spoke President John F. Kennedy at The American University in Washington D.C. on June 10, 1963, at its commencement.

Inescapably true as we confront Vladimir Putin who wants restoration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and lies in claiming Ukraine was historically part of Russia and that Kyiv and Moscow are sister cities of the same country! His closest American counterpart, Donald Trump, disregards 42,000,000 Ukrainians by lauding Putin’s “genius” in invading Ukraine last month. Having lived through World War II, the Korean War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan hostilities, I urge readers to divest themselves of any reverence or respect for Trump, a draft-dodger, who could demolish the Republican Party in 2024.

While local general circulation San Francisco newspapers ignore the wasteful project California High Speed Rail project has become, the High Speed Rail Authority published last month its latest bi-annual business plan, admitting a cost of $105,000,000,000 to build an electrified route from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I’ve publicly and angrily conceded guilt for creating the Authority as State Senator in 1996 and chairing the 2008 ballot measure campaign to authorize $9,950,000,0000 for state general obligation bonds to commence construction. I served as Authority board of directors’ chairman from 2006 until 2009 to ensure taxpayer approval which includes a ballot measure prohibition of any subsidization by taxpayers of operating costs after commencement of service from here to Los Angeles and thereafter to San Diego on the south and from Merced to Sacramento in the Central Valley. Under successive governors, the Authority governing board approved construction from Merced to Bakersfield early this decade without electrification. No track has yet been laid and 10% of land parcels needed for such segment have not been purchased. Moreover, $4,200,000,000 of the voter – approved GO bonds have not been authorized by the legislature for sale. Former President Barack Obama provided about $3,500,000,000 for the project. Trump then revoked roughly $1,000,000,000 thereof, which has been restored by President Biden’s administration. Will Mr. Biden throw more money at the project? I doubt Congress will authorize that.

Locally, voters on June 7 will finally be furnished an opportunity to begin the demise of the Recology, Inc. garbage collection monopoly. I praised Supervisor Aaron Peskin last month for introducing two alternative ballot measures to repeal a 1932 voter-approved ordinance which ultimately enabled Recology’s monopoly. One measure would allow voters on June 7 to repeal the 1932 ordinance and require a competitive bidding process, like all other Peninsula cities do. The other ordinance, supported by all Supervisors and the Mayor would only repeal the 1932 ordinance, thus allowing the Board and Mayor later to effectuate a competitive bidding ordinance. Instead of proceeding with the first such measure, the author elected to proceed with the second, claiming to your faithful writer that otherwise Recology with its billions of dollars would outspend monopoly opponents and simple rate payers who are being overcharged every month. The full board of supervisors will vote on March 1, 2022, probably by the time you read this column. Supervisor Peskin defensively declared to this columnist that if that ballot measure is approved by voters, the board of supervisors could, as soon as ten days later, enact an ordinance to require competitive bidding for garbage collection, recycling and so called “organic” pick up. I encourage readers to join the San Francisco Taxpayers Association and me in so advocating after approving the ballot measure.

Last month President Joseph Biden, a Syracuse University Law School graduate, announced his appointment of a replacement for Justice Stephen Breyer, another distinguished Lowell Highschool graduate, on the United States Supreme Court, namely, Judge Ketanji Jackson. President Biden, an evident expert at “identity politics,” had announced during his presidential campaign that he would appoint an African American woman to the Supreme Court. That means exclusion of Jews, Asians, Native Americans, Hispanics, Whites, and males of any type. While Judge Jackson, based upon her education at the same law school from which I graduated and her record as a former US District Court judge and presently a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, appears extremely well qualified, it’s regrettable to national principles and history that the President had to make a campaign promise to nominate only a Black woman to the Supreme Court. The Week, February 18 addition, described Georgetown Law School students requesting a specific place to “break down and cry” after a lecture questioned the wisdom of President Biden vowing to nominate only a Black woman to the Supreme Court. Black students told the law school’s dean the suspension of the lecturer, Llya Shapiro, wasn’t enough and that “reparations” should include a crying center. “I kid you not.”

Current City Hall staff have a multi-page budget analyst report which, to satisfy board of supervisors claims that electrifying homes now using natural gas must be implemented to reduce San Francisco’s gas emissions. The cost to homeowners and other property owners is about $6,000,000,000. Two Richmond District residents, Jeff Wayman, of whom I was once a neighbor, and Brian Adler, have organized San Franciscans To Save Natural Gas In Our Homes, a grassroots organization. They note unavailable “clean” energy sources, infrastructure improvements and physical limitations if such a policy is created and expose the need for PG&E to provide at least 260% more electricity. Their goal is to provide essential facts to working class families and develop rational policies about natural gas if City Hall tries to ban it. Contact them at www.savemygasssf.com

Archibald MacLeish on May 30, 1960 in an essay in Life Magazine and The New York Times.
“There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.” So stated.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

MARCH 2022

Recology's About Face

Then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed in June 1901 to Harvard and Yale undergraduates invited to his palatial home in Oyster Bay, Long Island: “The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.”  That encompasses treatment of constituents who paid the taxes which produced schools, streets, legal protection, fire safety, community centers, and subways. As readers of this column know, I have advocated for two decades the repeal of the monopoly bestowed unwittingly by San Francisco voters upon garbage collection in 1932, that ultimately led to a monopoly, now dubbed Recology, Inc. Among other realizations of City Hall corruption prosecutions by the U.S. Attorney’s office upon two criminal cases against Recology executives and the conspiring one-time director of Public Works, who has now admitted this criminality in hopes of avoiding lengthy imprisonment. Over a decade ago an initiative to abolish the 1932 monopoly for garbage collection had qualified for the 2011 municipal election. At that time costs to residential and commercial ratepayers exceeded $220,000,000 annually. Commercial rates were unregulated by a Rate Board composed of the Chief Administrative Officer, the Controller and Manager of Utilities. After the chief donor to the initiative campaign, a Port of San Francisco tenant, was threatened by Port staff with loss of his lease, initiative proponents were overwhelmed by the well-financed Recology opposition campaign. The initiative failed and Recology continued to fleece ratepayers with increased rates..

After years of inaction, City Hall was embarrassed into acting, although not quickly. The corruption cases are now three years old. Instead of presenting voters last year or in 2020 with the ballot measure repealing the 1932 monopoly ordinance, City Hall blithely ignored the public last month. Last March 2021, after City Controller Ben Rosenfield, the unsung taxpayer hero, audited Recology and told the then City Attorney that Recology had lied to the Rate Board by inflating alleged costs and ignoring anticipated revenues to obtain a 14.4% rate increase in 2017, a 5% increase in 2020 and another 1% in 2021 (without the disregard of revenue, the rate hike would have been above 7% in 2017. Recology surrendered, reimbursing residents about $94,500,000). In 2020, for example, San Franciscans were paying $59.70 per garbage bin to the monopoly while San Mateo ratepayers under competitive bidding $24.93 per month, Colma ratepayers pay $25.67 per month and Daly City ratepayers were charged $31.31 per month. Not a single city in the Peninsula with competitive bidding paid as much as San Franciscans and almost all paid about half except Atherton and Hillsborough which paid $50 monthly.

Into the bridge step Supervisor Aaron Peskin with a ballot measure ordinance for June 7, 2022 which changes the deck chairs by substituting of “ratepayer representative” to replace the Controller on the Refuse Rate Board. Happily, a second version sponsored by the Mayor and all eleven supervisors, including Peskin, introduced last month a ballot measure to require a competitive bidding process for all garbage collection permits, including commercial ratepayers. That proposal also would free city government from the 1932 ordinance and not require a ballot measure to amend the refuse collection ordinance, with all the time and costs involved in such electoral process, and utilize normal legislative action in the future (as a footnote, be advised that Recology last month, after commencing a ballot measure initiative and collecting signatures therefore, withdrew such effort on January 20, whether from futility or, horrors some corruptive ingredient like a bathroom deal was the cause.)  Meanwhile, on November 16, 2021 the impeccable City Controller began another investigation of Recoloy’s annual rate report for the year ending June 30, 2021. That includes Recology’s professed expenses and revenue, including audited financial reports for fiscal year 2016 to 2020. Perhaps ratepayers will receive another rebate this year.

 Besides the recall of Board of Education members Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez, and Faauuga Moliga, there’s also a contested election with four candidates to replace City Attorney David Chiu in the California Assembly. The District includes Twin Peaks and other westside neighborhoods. The candidates include supervisor Matt Haney, former supervisor David Campos, scientist Bilal Mahmood and Thea Selby a City College and California High Speed Rail Authority member who claimed to The San Francisco Chronicle “. . . varied life experiences made her the strongest candidate in the race.”  She’s dangerous. She wants to change Prop 13 regarding property taxation after California voters rejected such ballot measure in 2020. She apparently doesn’t tell voters that the high-speed rail project violates promises to voters in 2008 because the alleged “segment” from Coachella to Wasco (NOT Merced to Bakersfield) isn’t electrified, duplicates Amtrak’s service in the Central Valley and legislators refused to release $4,200,000,000 remaining in the $9,000,000,000 general obligation bond issue passed by voters in 2008. She claims she’ll “educate” Assembly members on the subject and is endorsed by Oakland’s Mayor which ought to influence thousands of voters on February 15.

A professor of public policy at U.C. Berkeley David Kirp, last month commented in the Morning Fix about the aforementioned school board recall election, which will cost taxpayers approximately $3,250,000 presented opposition to Mayor Breed’s publicized plan to empower City Hall to cancel taxpayer donations to the School District, pointing out such a plan punishes pupils by upholding millions in public schools and that the solution is law revision to allow the Mayor to appoint school board members, as in many other big cities. Professor Kirp notes such procedure “. . . makes the Mayor accountable for what happens in the schools.”  Shamefacedly, I admit responsibility with the late one-time supervisor John J. Barbagelata, for effectuating election of school board members in November 1971. We did so to stop the busing of public school pupils from their homes in contradistinction to nearby neighborhood schools. It hasn’t worked. Current political experts advise me that those elections are controlled by the teachers union and Democratic Central Committee. Fewer San Francisco voters are interested. Those recall leaders should next persuade the Mayor to submit a charter amendment to restore the appointment power to future mayors and her.

In case you’re despondent or disquieted by national, state or local civic affairs, remember President James Madison’s August 1820 letter to a friend:  “Equal laws promoting equal rights . . . the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

FEBRUARY 2022

Persistent Corruption, Incompetence
& Some Good News

It’s the New Year and many Americans no longer celebrate the arrival of it – they celebrate survival of the old year! San Franciscans have much to forget about 2021 with the advent of the Omicron strain of COVID-19, further federal court criminal actions for City Hall corruption by a superb, enlightened United States Attorney and recall plagues for the Board of Education members and a strident, dystopian District Attorney. Speaking of “fighting” District Attorney Chesa Boudin, voters can confront and recall on 7 June 2022.

I confess an error last month: I stated supervisors were paid by taxpayers $140,000 annually. I overlooked their obtaining $160,000 annually as of this month, plus fees for attending meetings of various Bay Area multi-county governmental districts like Air Quality Maintenance District.

These are the people who encourage illegal aliens indirectly by enacting an ordinance which allows supposedly legal immigrants to vote in the school district recall election February 15, 2022. Evidently, they want to emulate New York’s City Council and its fatuous departed mayor, Bill de Blasio, who approved a bill to enable about 800,000 non-citizens to vote in New York city elections, in face of the state constitution guaranteeing only citizens the right to vote, “provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age” and a New York city resident for 30 days. As a protesting city councilman warned, that enabled “a transient,” who’s “coming in for the duration of [a] job or . . . . project and going back to their home country,” to vote. Those who argue that legal immigrants pay taxes disregard the fact that second homeowners in Sonoma County and international students also pay taxes but can’t vote. Another New York councilman, also a Democrat, observed that non-citizens can’t hold public office, meaning “they’re good enough to vote for Mayor but not be the Mayor.” Granting non-citizens voting franchise sounds like our supervisors (our Board of Education members confronting recall must figure aliens can vote for them but don’t have a chance to run against them.)

I discovered last month another heuristic Charter amendment (2008) which requires appointees to the 129 city commissions “to reflect the diversity of San Francisco in “ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and types of disability.” The Commission on the Status of Women must conduct an analysis of all appointments “in the second and fourth year of each mayoral term” to enforce such law. Fortunately, the law only requires “voluntary disclosures” of ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation and any other relevant “demographic qualities.” Appointed last summer to a commission, I refused to engage in identity politics, consistent with the teachings of an immigrant father who served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France (1917-1918) and later on the American Mission to Armenia (1919) investigating genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Gone, apparently is the “melting pot.” Capability certainly isn’t the controlling factor.

Despite City Hall corruption, our Board of Supervisors ignores the civic need to end Recology’s garbage monopoly, enshrined by a 1932 ordinance approved by voters as part of Charter revision. Approximately a year has passed with a minor refund of rate overcharges by Recology caught by the most competent and most trustworthy City Hall officeholder, our Controller Ben Rosenfield who rendered, on April 14, 2021, a report last year highlighting the monopoly’s highest rates in California. A study committee was created initially by Supervisor Aaron Peskin to secure “expert opinion” on future trash collection or “best practices,” the current lexicon (whenever politicians want to avoid action, they create “study” committees). Last fall, to its credit The Examiner published two pieces, including an editorial which understandably pronounced an “urgent need for reform” of garbage disposal. The Chronicle couldn’t care less. Recology constitutes to be the only private business empowered by a Board of Supervisors ordinance which can place liens on a homeowner or business property for nonpayment or even late payment of charges. A genuinely dedicated Board of Supervisor will place on the June, 2022 ballot a measure to repeal the 1932 monopoly ordinance and compel competitive bidding which is why all San Mateo County cities pay less than our property owners for garbage collection, even half thereof in some cities.

Finally, I’m delighted to report that on January 3, 2022, founders of the Common Sense Party, a new California political party of which I’m a co-founder, has submitted to the California Secretary of State over 60,00 voter registrations. Certification by the Secretary of State requires 56,000 registrations. She has until January 24, 2022 to certify the new party for participation in the June 7, 2022 primary elections statewide and locally. After certification, of which I’m confident, I’ll summarize next month the party’s principles of fiscal discipline and social liberalism.

No wonder Ralph Waldo Emerson declared in 1929: “Of all debts, men are least willing to pay the taxes.” Next month we may get our money’s worth with three Board of Education members!

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

JANUARY 2022

Saved by the Recalls & a Rebate

In 1874, House of Commons member Benjamin Disraeli declared: “Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.”  In the November 9, 2021 WallStreet Journal, columnist Gerard Baker contemplated “sanity re-asserting itself” in the United States. He identified “lunacy” in our country as: “The capture of the public discourse by the lunacy of righteous wokery, in which math is racist, logic is a tool of white supremacy, merit is privilege and mothers are ‘birthing people’.”

On February 15, 2022 San Francisco voters will have the opportunity to recapture the Board of Education by recalling Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez and Faauuga Moliga. A stirring campaign to do so is led by such eminent San Francisco public school graduates as former University at San Francisco School of Law dean and Harvard College alumnus, John Trasvina and Autumn Looijen, who with others deserve plaudits for their unsung demonstration of civic pride and rectitude in the face of elected officials who display lack of fealty to the law. I refer to all eleven members of the Board of Supervisors who enacted an ordinance, signed by the Mayor last month, allowing non-citizens to vote in recall elections regarding members of the Board of Education. These are the same supervisors who represent only 1/11 of City and County residents but are paid a $140,000 per year by taxpayers and are rarely found in their offices. They also, despite paucity of residents in supervisorial districts, hired at taxpayers expense, five so-called administrative aides who receive $129,000 per year from the same taxpayers who, if telephoning a supervisoral office, must leave their name and contact information by voicemail because the aides, like their bosses, are rarely at City Hall or elsewhere available to local taxpayers. The aides incidentally did not qualify through civil service regulations but garner retirement and health benefits like civil service employees who must pass examinations and demonstrate prior good conduct.

Additionally, more criminal charges were brought last month in the U.S. District Court by the United States Attorney against a Department of Building Inspection commissioner and former building inspector because the misplaced District Attorney (Chesa Boudin) won’t do it. His misconduct as a prosecutor contributes to surges in burglaries and car break-ins and he will also face irate voters for recall from office on June 7, 2022.”

Additionally, more criminal charges were brought last month in the U.S. District Court by the United States Attorney against a Department of Building Inspection commissioner and former building inspector because the misplaced District Attorney (Chesa Boudin) won’t do it. His misconduct as a prosecutor contributes to surges in burglaries and car break-ins and he will also face irate voters for recall from office on June 7, 2022. Over 83,000 San Francisco voters signed petitions this year to do so. The recall is led by Mary Chung, former Democratic County Central Committee chairwoman, and Andrea Shorter, a Democratic Party leader and former Chair of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. At press time, justice has still not been done, incidentally, concerning the woman arrested on June 26, 2021 by Taraval Station police officers for battery, terrorist threats, malicious mischief and vandalism on St. Francis Boulevard and San Leandro Way while the female victim was collecting voter signatures to recall the “fighting” D.A. Because the deplorable incident occurred in pursuing the recall, Boudin referred prosecution to the California Attorney General. The requisite preliminary hearing in San Francisco Superior Court for alleged felonies has not even occurred five months later, which may be a blessing because, assuming a preliminary hearing finding that the aforementioned felonies were probably committed, the trial may occur before the recall election. Even the left-wing Chronicle and Examiner might then publicize the trial. A conviction would aid recall supporters on June 7.

Speaking of taxes, be advised the State of California now possesses a $31,000,000,000 surplus, exceeding the amount permitted by California’s Constitution which will result in rebates to taxpayers under Article XIII of the State Constitution. After Proposition 13 was passed by voters in June 1978, a government spending limitation was also enacted by taxpayers in 1990, requiring 50% of all revenues received by the State in excess of the amount which may be appropriated to be returned by a revision of tax or fee rates within two subsequent fiscal years. Can you imagine the consternation at the State Capitol? California isn’t alone. Last month, Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment to reduce individual and corporate tax rates and simplify the tax code. A certified public accountant in Florida notes in a letter to TheWall Street Journal that a Florida county generated $100,000,000 surpluses which will be returned as a tax credit in some percentage of it to taxpayers who will, thus spend it locally. That’s a better return on the money (compare sales taxation) than stagnating in a governmental-controlled money-market fund, making 1/10th of 1%. Another magazine writer observed in September that earmarks in the “infrastructure” Congressional bill include deduction of union dues from members’ income, a 15% tax credit for buying an electric bicycle, a $7,500 credit for buying an electric car, a $2,500 credit for buying used electric vehicles (meaning a tax break when you buy a Tesla and then when you sell it) and exempting “local news journalists” from the employer’s payroll tax (every other worker must pay the payroll tax).

Incidentally, Alabama, Iowa and Louisiana are the only states allowing taxpayers to deduct 100% of their federal income tax payment from state taxes. California’s state sales tax is the highest in the country. So is the gasoline tax at 67 cents per gallon. California business taxes are the third highest in the nation. I’m reminded of President Thomas Jefferson’s 1808 letter to a friend: “The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public monies.”

Note that last February the Oregon Department of Education told teachers to take the course “Dismantling Racism in Mathematics.”  The course counsels teachers that the “focus in getting the ‘right answer’ and requiring students to show their work” are “toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture.”  Teachers must not “perpetuate objectivity” by “upholding the idea . . . there are always right and wrong answers.”  That reminded me of the ACLU in October deciding that “women” should be replaced by the word “people” because mother is a “bad word.”  The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has adopted such degenderizing, calling pregnant women “pregnant people,” “persons” or “individuals.”  A medical doctor wag then informed readers that in 50 years delivering more than 10,000 babies he’s “yet to see one born to a biological male.”

As president of Princeton University in 1907, Woodrow Wilson stated at a time I thought was different from 2021: “We live in an age disturbed, confused, bewildered, afraid of its own forces, in search not merely of its role but even of its direction. There are . . . few voices of vision; there is much excitement and feverish activity, but little concert of thoughtful purpose. We are distressed by our own ungoverned, undirected energies and do many things, but nothing long. It is our duty to find ourselves.” 

As I conclude my humble but not always obedient 2021 commentary, I do so hoping that Chanukah, then Christmas and then 2022 will be happy, healthy, spirited and vigorous with New Year freshness to alleviate our troubles and restore respect for our nation’s history and future.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

NOVEMBER 2021

A Lawsuit, a Recall and Railway Impasse

Professor William Shughart of Utah State University described accurately the inaccuracy of “characterizing government spending as investment.” He reminded us public entities don’t “undertake projects based on expected rates of return, payback or any other sound financial criteria.” And that spending of taxpayer money on highways – doesn’t represent investing but rather “spending by another – misleading – name.” I’ll leave the highway issue to a later column as Richmond, Sunset, Lakeshore Acres and other West of Twin Peaks neighborhoods await decisions on closure of the Great Highway and John F. Kennedy Drive to motor vehicles.

The recall of three Board of Education members, having qualified for the ballot with ample voter signatures, Mesdames Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez, and Mr. Faauuga Moliga face those same voters in a February 15, 2022 special election which needs every San Franciscan to complete the meritorious task of rebuilding respect and enrollment in a wretched school district. Last month the physical state of Buena Vista Horace Mann School, which should have been maintained the last two decades by the School District general fund operating expenses inspired school board votaries to instigate attempts to utilize remaining general obligation bond funds to pay such operating expenses while also voting last month to use $100,000,000 of bond money approved by voters to restore the former Commerce High School location at 135 Van Ness Avenue for the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts with a modern building. The Buena Vista Horace Mann school renovation will cost at least $15,000,000. Public school enrollment declined by 3,459 students the past two years, thus portending a decrease of $35,000,000 in state funding. You can bet a box of pandemic masks that taxpayers will sue the School District for violating Article XVI, section 1 of the California Constitution if the School District uses general obligation bond money for the aforementioned operating expenses without gaining voter ratification of changes. Public school enrollment for 2021-2022 has declined to 49,435 and the Board of Education estimated last month a deficit of $100,000,000, while, simultaneously, voting to appeal the award of six-figure attorney fees to the successful George Washington High School Alumni Association which sued successfully to stop the folly of removing the school’s murals depicting President George Washington.

It’s also pertinent to remind readers that despite falling enrollment the Board of Education continues to force parents to participate in a capricious “lottery” system for their children’s school assignment. Commentators like The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley have written of “social activists who are trying to remake public education to their liking” (October 13), recalling school board disputes and court ordered busing which began in San Francisco in 1970 when enrollment exceeded 92,000 pupils. Riley recalls the objective of achieving racial balance in public schools by a controversial practice. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 stated specifically that children’s school assignments must be “without regard to their race” and that “designation” didn’t force students to be assigned to schools to “overcome racial imbalance.” With a drop of about 40% in San Francisco public school enrollment, why would rational school board members prevent students from attending their neighborhood schools, thereby saving taxpayer money by obviating school busing costs. Incidentally, the cost of streets, sewers, waste water treatment, libraries, parks, rapid transit, high speed internet, protection against “sea level rise,” police and fire protection, emergency response and hospitals constitute most local responsibilities and property owners will soon pay 90% of local government spending, just as they did before 1978’s Proposition 13.

At press time, Governor Newsom and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon argue over the disenchanting California high speed “bullet” train. I plead guilty as then Senate Transportation Committee chairman, of introducing the High Speed Rail project to California with legislation creating it in 1996 and later serving on its governing board as president after retiring from the San Mateo County Superior Court. Blame me for presenting successfully a $9,950,000,000 state bond issue to voters 13 years ago with a $33,000,000,000 cost to link San Francisco to Los Angeles. I guaranteed taxpayers in specific bond issue language they would not subsidize operating expenses because there’d be enough private investment and farebox recovery to prevent that. After I left the Board in 2010, the original plan was scrapped by a decision to build the first segment in the San Joaquin Valley. It’s supposedly from Merced to Bakersfield; it’s actually from Coachella (south of Merced) to Wasco (north of Bakersfield). There’s $4,200,000,000 unspent in the 2008 voter-approved general bond. Rendon stopped such bill in the Assembly; others and he want the $4,200,000,000 divided between the Caltrain system on the San Francisco Peninsula and Metrolink in the Los Angeles Basin. That would require voter approval to change the bond purpose. Now, two contractors building diesel, not electrified, tracks in the San Joaquin Valley demand an extra $1,000,000,000 which would increase the cost of that non-high speed rail line to almost $25,000,000,000. The Authority flacks continuously falsified facts to anyone who’s still interested in this project which supposedly “broke” ground over six years ago but has only constructed large viaducts and overpasses without laying any track as of last summer. (The project was expected to be completed in 2020.)  Estimated cost has increased to $95,000,000,000 and the first segment now won’t start until 2029 or later. Authority “officials” claim electrification “essential,” which everyone in the project has known for 30 years. They want to hire in 2022 a firm to design and build an electrified track and maintain it for 30 years, but they have no money to do so. Reluctantly, I agree with Speaker Rendon:  ask voters next year to approve dividing the $4,200,000,000 bond money balance between the Bay Area and Los Angeles County.

As someone said: “the quickest way to get a lot of individual attention is to make a big mistake.” Someone also claimed: “You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.” I return to Professor Shughart’s observation about spending taxpayer money as alleged governmental “investing.” That’s a counterfeit utterance.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

OCTOBER 2021

Spending, Taxes, Political Differences and Indifference

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administrator of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) proclaimed in September, 1938: “We are going to spend and spend, and spend, and tax and tax and tax and elect and elect and elect.” That characterizes federal policies of the Biden administration with allurement before the 2022 Congressional elections and California’s executive and legislative branch campaigns. (The latter were lessened considerably in theatrics by the Governor’s meticulous rebuff of a proposed recall last month.) Suddenly, however, anti-populist politicians, academics, and journalistic savants have decided Article II, sections 13, 14 and 15 of the California Constitution, approved by forebearers in 1914, must be drastically changed to stop recalls of feckless public officials. I would call it “mendaciously neutered.”

While our country’s debt limit allegedly must be increased precedentally to over twenty-two trillion dollars to preclude closure of federal departments, board of supervisors members find new ways and new objects of government gifts. City Hall established another “feel good” program dubbed Risk, Intervention, Support Enforcement, aka RISE while even the left-wing Examiner reported increased San Francisco gun violence, City government will bestow residents with proclivity for using guns in criminal activity up to $500 per month to participate in some ridiculous program beginning with 10 recipients this month and adding 30 shortly thereafter assertedly to persuade recipients from using their guns for crime. The Human Rights Commission’s Executive Director, Sheryl Davis, has the nerve to state publicly that “… $500 in San Francisco is not a significant amount of money, although perhaps it’ll encourage criminals to secure guns in return for $6,000 of taxpayer money per year. A grant from the California Violence Intervention Program will supposedly subsidize some of the giveaways. We’re told other cities have offered cash to cut gun crimes such as that paragon of peace, Oakland, and Richmond. The Board of Supervisors president openly proclaims a policy of diversion of law enforcement funding to African-American San Franciscans. By July, approximately twice as many people had been gun violence victims in San Francisco than in either 2019 or 2020. There used to be a pithy saying: “Commit the crime, do the time.”  Now, it will be: “Violate the law and put money in your paw.”

That’s not all at City Hall. Another product of the Carlton B. Goodlett Place standard bearers establishes a new city department to spend $2,000,000 for monthly $1,000 payments to San Francisco’s transgender occupants. The supervisor representing the Tenderloin and Transgender District South of Market claims “direct cash assistance can be a very effective program especially for vulnerable groups and … a critical tool in helping us end poverty in
San Francisco … .”

While our City Hall heroes lavish abundance on chosen recipients, Ohio in July decreased its income tax in the face of the American Rescue Plan enacted by the Congress and President Biden last March and containing $350 billion in state aid but with a bar to using such money to “either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the (state’s) net tax revenue.”  A federal judge ruled that the provision was unconstitutional as violative of states’ rights and “sovereign powers.”  Fourteen other states filed suits in March challenging the tax-cut restrictions. California is spending the aptly-named “windfall” (Wall Street Journal). When will we receive a State income tax cut?

Wonder why San Francisco’s Police Department can’t fill its ranks with incoming recruits and why cops retire, resign, or transfer to other cities? As a July 13, 2021 article in City Journal reports, police officers believe they lack public support, elected officials side with protestors, and they are never protected by public officials and feel punished. Why would anyone want to be a police officer in S.F. when you’re discriminated against by the Board of Supervisors, Police Commission, Police Accountability Department, and Human Rights Department?  Our City Family has themselves to blame while our homeless population approximates 18,000 and the annual San Francisco budget approaches $14,000,000,000. Yet, panicked mayors of Portland and Seattle now seek restoration of $15,000,000 and $7,500,000 respectively to police budgets they slashed last year!  

The recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin will be certified this month for the ballot in early 2022. I predict the same sequence occurs with Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón who seeks shorter sentences to further “public safety,” asserting social science support for lessening sentences. It’s almost as if progressive prosecutors seek to make us believe cops and prosecutors represent a larger problem than criminality, according to Jason Riley in the May 19 Wall Street Journal.

Finally, I note California’s Attorney General has not prosecuted the woman who assaulted a female signature gatherer on West Portal Avenue one Saturday (June 26) after Boudin referred the charges to the Attorney General on grounds of conflict of interest. Crime obviously does pay in San Francisco although maybe we can eliminate one criminal sympathizer after signatures are counted later this month. We’ll also have a chance to replace three Board of Education members in a school district which now enrolls for the first time in 90 years less than 50,000 pupils.

It’s been said: “Political differences are wholesome. It’s political indifference that hurts.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

September, 2021

Incompetence, Nepotism, Corruption, Scott Wiener and Some Good News (Sort of)

Newsom, Boudin, Herrera, Kelly, Collins, Lopez, Moliga, Chiu, Scott Wiener and London Breed

In a 1958 book about Sir Winston Churchill, the author described a woman who gushed to Churchill: “Doesn’t it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to know that every time you make a speech the hall is packed to overflowing?”  “It is quite flattering,” Mr. Churchill replied, “but whenever I feel your way, I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.”

District Attorney Chesa Boudin won’t be hanged, but the prospective recall of this criminal defense lawyer in sheep’s clothing continues to attract voters signing recall petitions. Approximately 57,000 signatures have been obtained by citizens. The deadline for 51,500 legally required ballot voter signatures is October 25, 2021. Recall sponsors, San Franciscans for Public Safety, who also welcome campaign contributions at 393 7th Avenue, Room 301, San Francisco 94118, plan to collect 70,000 voter signatures to ensure success. Meanwhile, the ineffective District Attorney who wouldn’t prosecute the woman and her husband charged with battery, malicious mischief, vandalism to property and terrorist threat last June 26, 2021 while a recall campaigner was securing voter signatures at West Portal Avenue near Vicente Street, haven’t been prosecuted in San Francisco Superior Court, shirking responsibility, he referred the citations to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Most Californians don’t realize the Attorney General’s office rarely prosecutes accused law breakers in Superior Court. The Attorney General represents the People of California in appeals from Superior Court verdicts in criminal cases. Maybe that’s why we’ve heard nothing about Bonta filing a criminal action against the undemocratic perpetrators.

Another recall of three senseless Board of Education members also proceeds successfully. Nearly 70,000 signatures have been recorded for recalling Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez and Faauuga Moliga. As with Boudin, about 51,500 valid voter petition signers are needed with a September 7, 2021 (The other four Board of Education members can’t legally be recalled until next year). After resolving to change the names of 44 public schools for politically incorrect lives (Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and others) and suffering a Superior Court decision predicated on disobeying California’s 70-year old Open Meeting Act, the miscreants now face a court order for payment of attorneys’ fees and court costs plus an April suit by the Lowell Alumni Association to repeal another violation of the Open Meeting Act in which this Board abolished Lowell High School admission based upon middle school grades in favor of a lottery. That case will be heard this month.

Although the next municipal election isn’t until June 7, 2022, state election law provides for a special election for the San Francisco Assembly seat held by David Chiu who is slated for mayoral appointment as City Attorney after incumbent Dennis Herrera becomes general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to replace Harlan Kelly, now awaiting trial in U.S. District Court by the U.S. Attorney for City Hall corruption. That array of City Hall “musical chairs” will probably occur after the California Legislature adjourns on September 10, 2021. Chiu, understandably, wants to finish this legislative session. Once Chiu resigns, state law requires a special election for his successor, meaning late November or early December 2021 for the primary and February 2022 for the general election. In that case, it makes taxpayer’s sense for the Boudin and Board of Education recalls to occur.

Another example of Boudin’s imperviousness to City Hall corruption occurred August 20, 2021 when the U.S. Attorney filed wire fraud charges against former San Francisco building inspector Bernie Curran and former City commissioner Rodrigo Santos who already had been indicted last July. Boudin’s current office budget is about $80,000,000, 8.6% over his prior budget with 278 full time positions representing 11 more than last year. The aforementioned Santos was a permit “expediter,” a City Hall “insider” to get developers permits and, naturally, was appointed by Mayor Willie Brown to the Building Inspection Commission in 2000 and to the City College Board of Trustees by the late Ed Lee in 2012. If not for the U.S. Attorney on Golden Gate Avenue, corruption would be even more contagious in Civic Center.

At least one neighborhood semi-victory occurred last month with Mayor Breed ordering the Great Highway re-opened on weekdays to motorists after closure for almost 18 months which generated traffic congestion on adjacent avenues. Leave it to nonprofit organizations Walk San Francisco and San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, whose members logically don’t drive automobiles and, therefore, don’t pay gasoline taxes, revenue from which the Great Highway was built and is maintained, to claim “super” shock. But beware Great Highway users:  the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is evaluating five options, including permanent automobile prohibition, for presentation to the Board of Supervisors in November. Meanwhile, motoring gasoline taxpayers still can’t use the Great Highway on weekends.

Finally, be sure to vote by September 14 on the gubernatorial recall election. This “fearless spectator,” to borrow The Chronicle’s late columnist Charles McCabe’s self-description, predicts the governor will prevail narrowly because of California political party imbalance. After that, look for a new California political party to arise. And urge state legislators to defeat Scott Weiner’s Senate Bills 9 and 10 which would destroy single family housing neighborhoods in San Francisco and elsewhere and abolish local control.

A mugging victim who carried no money on him ask his mugger: “Can I give you a check?”  The criminal replied: “Think I’m stupid?  I don’t even know you!”  Thanks to The New York Post Cindy Adams for that yuck. Remember Mark Twain who recounted: “So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldn’t find honest employment.”
                                                           

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

August, 2021

Great Highway needs to reopen

... and Boudin needs to learn to prosecute

John Adams once observed that “Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other: if wise men decline it others will not; if honest man refuse it, others will not.” And, someone else quoted: “Nothing intoxicates some people like a sip of authority.”

            That’s currently the problem affecting residents and business owners in the Sunset and Richmond Districts regarding the Upper Great Highway, a four-lane divide highway running north-south for two miles between Lincoln Way and Sloth Boulevard where immediate east is in adjacent, paved multi-use recreational path paralleling the Great Highway. Immediate west lies a parallel dirt path with sand dunes above an expansive sandy beach which feeds into the Pacific Ocean. No four-way intersections exist on the entire Great Highway, meaning no ability for automobiles to turn right or left and no cross-traffic. The Great Highway constitutes the shortest, most efficient route for commuters travelling to or from San Francisco’s Sunset and Richmond Districts and the Peninsula or other destinations south and the most efficient route for San Francisco residents and others travelling to and from Ocean Beach, the Zoo, Fort Miley, Veterans Hospital, Golden Gate Park, the Legion of Honor, the Beach Chalet and adjacent soccer fields, Lakeshore Plaza, schools and parks in the Richmond and Sunset. Before COVID-19, 17,600-19,900 drivers travelled the Great Highway daily.

            In April, 2020, however, City Hall closed the Great Highway to motor vehicles temporarily to provide additional space for recreation while maintaining social distances. Social distance necessity has subsided, but a closed-door effort never to reopen the Great Highway to automobiles fostered by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the allied groups inveigh willing collaborators like Muni Transportation Agency chief executive Jeffrey Tumlin, the Recreation and Parks Department, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, and Supervisor Gordon Mar behind permanent closure despite a petition with about 8,100 signatures urging reopening. Led by such great San Franciscans as Concerned Residents of the Sunset, Geoffrey Moore, Patricia Arack, retired City College professor, and Ignacio Orellana-Garcia and Alyse Ceirant, it understandably alleged that the County Transportation Authority report presented on March 27, 2021 to Sunset and Richmond residents about the Great Highway future was “manipulative, grossly incorrect and insulting to hundreds of residents.” Peter Pirolli, Ph.D., wrote a scathing evaluation of such report as a scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition relative to human psychology, artificial intelligence and data science in which he characterized such report as “unjust and awful insult to the intelligence of the audience.” The worst aspect of the report is its preparation during a pandemic, with the manifest purpose to close the Great Highway forever. The County Transportation Authority alleges overwhelming support for permanent closure despite its data at 52% in the Richmond want opening, with the rest favoring partial opening on weekdays. Another CTA finding that 4,000 walkers/bikers use the Great Highway every weekday and 6,000 weekends is an impossibility. Dr. Pirolli notes the 4,000 member derives from a small sensor close to Lincoln Way and Judah which has the most foot traffic. That ignores over-counting because of a roundtrip. How many of the “4,000” were walking on the bicycle path? Or, just looking and returning to Java Beach for coffee? CTA produces no data on the number of cars travelling on Lincoln Way, Sunset Boulevard and 19th Avenue. Meanwhile, single family neighborhoods on 46th Avenue, 47th Avenue, and adjoining streets whose construction and maintenance, like the Great Highway were paid for by vehicle users through gasoline taxes since 1922 (bicycle owners and walkers use a “freebie”). Also ignored by City Hall is the lack of police officers in the Taraval Police Station to enforce enumerable traffic violations occurring in the area. Scofflaws abound. Many residents would accept a compromise with the Great Highway opening during the week to relieve gridlock and close to automobiles on the weekends. A bicycle path has existed for years and was repaved. A sewage line exists under the Great Highway. Yet an environmental evaluation pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act has been rejected by Tomlin and his bureaucrats which means litigation, once the Board of Supervisors and Mayor authorize permanent Great Highway closure. It’s already galvanized citizens into a petition to save the Great Highway, pursued online for signature. Readers can also visit its website to help the cause.

            Meanwhile, the beat to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin continues with probability of qualifying the next municipal election in 2022. Money spent by anti-police moguls like George Soros who despise the police, will not save a district attorney who The San Francisco Examiner reported last month prosecutes “far fewer shoplifting cases than his processor.” (His predecessor, George Gascon, faces his own recall as Los Angeles County District Attorney.) Boudin told The Examiner that his office declines to prosecute such cases based upon resources or desire to pursue different types of crime. As San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe remarked, his office doesn’t prosecute because of other priorities in types of crime or resources in an epidemic, but on whether the prosecution can prove a case. Maybe Mr. Wagstaffe can give feckless District Attorney Boudin lessons which Boudin ignores as a public defender at heart. Lest society be accused of dehumanizing someone charged with a crime, I’m reminded of an anonymous quip: “Most reformers insist that their conscience be your guide.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

June, 2021

Time to Replace Chesa Boudin

... and get rid of Rank Choice Voting

Crime seems to be the only San Francisco big business that escapes city government meddling which is why District Attorney Chesa Boudin must be recalled. Like his predecessor, George Gascon, currently the subject of a recall campaign in Los Angeles County, Boudin acts as if it’s not among his responsibilities to prosecute criminals as he protects lawbreakers rather than criminal victims.

Recalling Boudin might not reduce crime in San Francisco, retired Judge Tomar Mason declares in an April 18 Examiner column, but it would restore prosecutorial integrity and citizen confidence in our judicial system. Boudin’s election resulted from the iniquitous “ranked choice” voting system enacted two decades ago. With four major opponents, Boudin benefitted, not from first choice selection by voters, but from the system’s elimination of some candidates who would’ve provided strong, successful prosecution of those accused of crime. Instead of a runoff between the two top candidates in a June primary, San Franciscans are now stuck with a career assistant public defender whose zeal bespeaks failure to realize he’s no longer a public defender, but instead a protector of the rule of law and crime victims. His tepid reliance on facts obtained by San Francisco’s police, whom he treats as ideological ignoramuses and frustrates and insults, demonstrates his personal sympathies. The United States Attorney’s office continues to prosecute City Hall corruption while Boudin hasn’t filed a single such case, as if City Hall is free of illegality and he lacks the special unit of attorneys and investigators given him to do so.

I’ve been a San Francisco trial lawyer, mostly in civil cases but also criminal defense, since 1956 and a Superior Court judge presiding over criminal cases and civil disputes in San Mateo County Superior Court between 1999 and 2009. I’ve conducted arraignments, set bail or permitted release of a defendant without bail pending trial, presided over jury selection, ruled on objections by defense lawyers and prosecutors, instructed jurors on the law pertinent to evidence and closing arguments of the prosecution and defense and determined sentences if the defendant is convicted by a jury of peers. Bail, for example, is authorized by the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 12(c) of California Constitution. Those who, like retired Judge Mason and David Markoff, head of the S.F. Pretrial Diversion Program, another bail antagonist paid by taxpayers, oppose jail detention of most defendants before trial, ignore California’s constitutional law which expressly declares: “In fixing the amount of bail the court shall take into consideration the seriousness of the offense charged, the previous criminal record of the defendant, and the probability of his or her appearing at the trial or hearing of the case.” Our State Constitution also provides rights to crime victims in setting bail for persons accused of serious crimes. Boudin, however, abhors pretrial jailing to prevent additional serious crimes before trial or non-appearance of the accused at pretrial hearings.

At press time, recall group San Franciscans for Public Safety had collected about 20,000 voter signatures and secured campaign donations totaling approximately $400,000. The necessary 51,000 recall voter signatures must be filed by October 25, 2021 for placement on the next municipal election ballot.

            Contrary to Retired Judge Mason, it isn’t “more costly to house a misdemeanor or pretrial defendant” in San Francisco than “to put a student through Stanford.” The daily cost is approximately $250 (try that number at Stanford University!) and every defendant is entitled to a speedy trial within 30 days after pleading “not guilty.” While I agree that a single prosecutor doesn’t create crime, Boudin’s legal background and 18-month post-election conduct demonstrate more than crime statistics that victims can’t rely upon him to run the District Attorney’s office like a prosecutor, not a public defender. That’s the reason for two recall campaigns against him, one led by Mary Chung, former chairwoman of the Democratic County Central Committee, Andrea Shorter, Leanna Louie, David Troup, Kenny Lin and Dena Aslanian-Williams, the other by a well-meaning Republican voter. I’ve signed both recall petitions and recommend you do so, too. Call Mary Chung at (415) 305-4999 to recall Boudin.

Meanwhile, the POA tries “to . . . ensure . . . the public stays informed about the dangerous plea bargains [Boudin] is offering and the free passes he hands out like candy at Halloween to violent criminals”. POA President Tony Montoya wrote last month: “His disdain for crime victims is rooted in his criminals first policies and actions.” Ray Shine, POA Journal editor, asks: “Should we defund the DA?” Then, let’s eliminate ranked choice voting and stop police officer attrition.

Remember: A criminal doesn’t care who makes state and city laws so long as they aren’t enforced.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

June, 2021

The Real Politicians of San Francisco

Musical Chairs at City Hall and Other Public Breaches

Awag has observed: “two good reasons for a change in government: first, too much overhead; second, too much underhand.” As the beat goes on at City Hall, the “City Family” has already begun to arrange office exchanges. Lack of professional experience is no impediment Dennis Herrera, Esquire has been nominated by Mayor London Breed to replace Harlan Kelly as general manager of the Public Utilities Commission, without experience in managing a municipal water system or other public utilities. Kelly, of course, has been taken out of action by the United States Attorney Criminal Corruption division and awaits trial in US District Court. Assemblyman David Chiu, at press time, awaits appointment by the Mayor to replace Herrera as City Attorney, despite inexperience. Substituting for Chiu in the Assembly will be Supervisor Matt Haney. Mayor Breed will appoint his successor, who must run in the next local election in his/her own stead. That omits former supervisor David Campos, presently Vice President of the Democratic Central Committee and Chief of Staff (without criminal law trial experience) to District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Boudin, himself is the object of two or three voter recall petitions because he’s really a shining public defender not a prosecutor! Also facing voters for the first time is Joaquin Torres, appointed Assessor by the Mayor after she appointed former supervisor Carmen Chu to replace Naomi Kelly, City Administrator and wife of the accused Harlan Kelly. Torres, a likable fellow and son of my one-time State Senate colleague, Art Torres, former mayoral appointee to PUC and then SFMTA governing boards, emanated from the Mayor’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development. It doesn’t matter that Joaquin Torres has no experience as a real estate appraiser. In fact, the last professionally qualified Assessor in City Hall 1979–1991 was Sam Ducca, a career professional appraiser before and after Proposition 13.

The Board of Education continues to flout integrity, common sense and public school pupils’ educational well-being. After violating California’s open meeting law and suffering a swift Superior Court order commanding repeal of a deplorable resolution renaming 44 public schools, the Board of Education received California taxpayer money resulting from Assemblyman Phil Ting’s legislation, which contained funding requirements of in-person instruction by May 15, 2021. Instead, the San Francisco Unified School District ignored legislative requirements by not reopening all classrooms for instruction, just a few high schools and some just one day before graduation. Legislative intent, according to Ting, required the District to bring “everyone in that grade” back by May 15, 2021, not just a few students. In most people’s minds, that is lying to obtain taxpayer money, but the President and Vice President of the Board of Education claimed complete high school senior returns for instruction. They are blatant liars; the taxpayer money should be reclaimed by the State or yet another lawsuit will confront the District’s thievery. And don’t forget to sign the recall petition to hoist them out before they do more damage to public school children and their education.

Meanwhile, University of California settled a 2019 lawsuit from “students of color and disabilities” by ending use of SAT (Student Aptitude Test) or ACT (American College Testing) scores in admission and scholarship awards. An Alameda County Superior Court judge, last September enjoined UC from using such tests. Educational dumbing down continues.

California enjoyed a boost from the Biden Administration arising from the $1.9 trillion dollar congressional spending bill in April. The Governor, had previously announced a $75 billion dollar surplus. Taxpayers earning less than $75,000 will receive $1,100 dollars and $600 if they don’t have children, including illegal aliens. That amounts to $12 billion dollars of California’s surplus while the Governor proposes spending $4.2 billion on California’s high- speed rail project, $3.2 billion on electric vehicles, and $12 billion dollars on homelessness.

For those interested, electric automobiles constitute less than two percent of the nation’s automotive vehicles today, but owners don’t need to pay gasoline taxes (68.5 cents per gallon state and federal in California) like those whose taxes built the roadways upon which all cars drive. City Hall, however, can match the Governor. Its current budget includes $10,300,000 in salary and benefits for “Public Information Officers” and associated positions. Except for a campaign, it’s difficult to remember the last time I heard public comments directly from Chief Executives wealth of municipal departments!

Meanwhile, in the Sunset District, as part of a continuing campaign to overwhelm single family home owners in RH-1 neighborhoods, developer Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation proposes a 100-unit, 100 percent affordable, housing project, seven stories high at 2550 Irving between 26th and 27th Avenues. With only eleven parking spaces! That will exclude teachers, nurses, and firefighters who can’t meet the extreme low-income criteria. A maximum 40% of units would be reserved for Sunset residents. There’s no minimum. And, it’s the first time this developer tries to include a 20 percent homeless population in a residential neighborhood. Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association, San Francisco Community Alliance, and Irving Street Merchants Association are just a few of the opponents. Low-income housing projects cause decline in property values if incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood in size, scale, design, and amenities. If you wish to add your opinion, email 2550irvingcommunity@gmail.com.

I’m reminded of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch’s comment after he was defeated in the 1989 democratic mayoral primary by David Dinkens; “the people have spoken, and they must be punished.” An unknown commentator added; “any government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you’ve got.” 

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

June, 2021

Results of Failed Public Education

Last fall writer Andrea Gaber observed: “America has entered a dystopian dark age, one fueled by bigotry and a celebration of ignorance. Schools must promote the love of knowledge and intellectual exploration over hate and philistinism. And they must relight the flame of democracy via classroom curricula and their governance structures.” In The American Legion Magazine last month, Arizona State University Professor S. Adam Seagrave described teaching his undergraduate course – “Race and The American Story,” noting: “The storm clouds of polarization, fragmentation and threatening disintegration of American society have been building for quite some time.” Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor called it a “quiet crisis” which the professor believes “has become a deafening one.” Public education in San Francisco and elsewhere has failed; “dumbing down” is an epidemic. The San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District proposed in April putting all sixth graders into one mathematics class and eliminating accelerated mathematics, claiming it’ll result in more “equity” because accelerated mathematics decreases “diversity.” One abomination of hand-wringing modernists emanates from turning definitions on their head. “Equity” has unwittingly supplanted “equality” in public institutions like schools. The word “equal,” however, means the “quality or state of being equal,” according to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition. “Equity,” on the other hand is defined as a “system of law originating in the English chancery,” “. . . a body of legal documents,” “justice according to natural law or right,” “the money value of a property or of an interest in a property in excess of claims or liens against it,” and “the common stock of a corporation.” The language destroyers decry “equality” as in “equality of opportunity” (long an American virtue), replacing it with “equity,” which means a result, not simply opportunity.

Thus, the San Francisco Board of Education, already sued successfully by attorney Paul Scott for repeal of its January 26 resolution renaming 44 public schools, adopted last month a deceitful resolution characterizing Scott’s lawsuit as “frivolous.” It now faces a similar lawsuit by Friends of Lowell Foundation, the San Francisco Taxpayers Association and Lowell Alumni Association to compel repeal of another flawed resolution abolishing Lowell High School admission upon the basis of grades and examination scores and substituting a lottery! Diamond Heights lawyer Christine Linnenbach, Bradley Hertz and this columnist represent petitioners, alleging another Board violation of California’s open meeting act and due process on February 2, 2021. COVID-19 isn’t the only cause of declining public school enrollment.

Similar insults to the vox populi occur in Washington, D.C. President Biden’s “Infrastructure Bill,” characterized by The Wall Street Journal  as “Biden’s Multitrillion-Dollar Gamble,” only includes $621 billion for infrastructure, with $400 billion increases for disabled and aging care; $580 billion is bestowed upon manufacturing and $300 billion for affordable housing, paid by tax increases on corporation profits and foreign earnings, plus individual tax increases. Calling it an “infrastructure” measure constitutes deceit like replacing “equality” with “equity” in the new lexicon of presidential executive orders.

This column has long reminded readers that our national and state highway systems were financed by “user” fees, meaning the gasoline tax, presently 18.5 cents per gallon federally since 1993, plus California’s 55.5 cents per gallon. With development of electronic vehicles, many more motorists, nationally and statewide, avoid any user fee. More Americans evidently realize the advantage of a mileage tax replacing gasoline taxation. The Mineta Transportation Institute started polling support for a mileage tax in 2010. Only 33% supported it. By March 2021, dubbing it a “green mileage fee” and representing about 3 cents per mile travel as the cost, 53% of respondents supported it. Bicyclists, increasingly preventing cars from using San Francisco streets, would pay a mileage tax for repair and maintenance of San Francisco streets they use (I can hear the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition wailing about such common sense.)  I realize bicyclists and electric vehicle operators will have epilepsy over automatic mileage calculation by a GPS since they’ve been using city streets paid for by other people. Let’s hope environmentalists realize the logic of mileage taxation.

City Hall continues to reek of criminality with a supine District Attorney, now the subject of two recall movements. Another Recology vice president was charged with bribing the shameful former Director of Public Works with $20,000, marking the eleventh person sued criminally by the United States Attorney since January, 2020. Meanwhile, neither the Board of Supervisors nor the Mayor acts to repeal the voter-approved 1932 law granting Recology a monopoly on trash collection, later extended to recycling. City Controller’s report, buried by mainstream media last month, recommends consideration of changing the 1932 Refuse Collection and Disposal Initiative Ordinance, yet the Board of Supervisors refuses to act. Instead, Supervisor Aaron Peskin advocates municipalization of garbage collection and suggests forming a “study” committee to advise City Hall!  It’s axiomatic the best way to avoid action at City Hall is formation of a “study committee.”  A February 2021 City Controller report highlighted Municipal Transportation Agency waste of money and time in projects such as the Twin Peaks Tunnel, Green Light Rail Center track replacement and 5-Fulton Outer Route Fast Track “enhancements.”  That doesn’t include the MTA’s Van Ness Avenue or Central Subway boondoggles. Yet, Peskin who demanded “marked improvement in MTA’s performance, “seeks municipalization of garbage collection, not private enterprise competitive bidding to benefit ratepayers with lower rates. President Abraham Lincoln declared in 1860 “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the constitution but to overthrow the man who would pervert the constitution.”  It’s regrettable San Francisco ratepayers and taxpayers must suffer City Hall “masters.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

May, 2021

Recall, Rescind & Recapitulation

Will Rogers observed: “If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in the State of the Union speeches, there wouldn’t be any inducement to go to heaven.”

In San Francisco, we’re hardly able to qualify the School District for heaven with an elected Board of Education which hates American institutions and practices history revisionism. The Board’s violation of the Brown Act at its January 26 meeting demonstrates its stultifying deception of constituents and taxpayers. Its January 26 meeting agenda notice referred to discussion of an advisory committee’s report on 44 school renaming recommendations. That’s what citizens would’ve expected at the public meeting. Instead, the Board adopted, 6-1, a resolution instantly requiring obliteration of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Lowell, among others, from taxpayer-supported public schools. Initiated by Paul Scott, a North Beach attorney with two public school pupils, the George Washington Alumni High School Association, Lincoln High School Alumni Association, Lowell Parent-Teachers Association, San Francisco Taxpayers Association, Lope Yap and John L. Burton, former congressman, state senator, assemblyman, State Democratic Party Chairman and Lincoln alumnus, sued the School District and Board for violating the 1953 Brown Act, which controls all public entities. The San Francisco Superior Court swiftly acknowledged the suit’s validity, issuing an alternative writ of mandate ordering the Board to repeal the illegal resolution or show cause on April 29 why it hadn’t done so. The suit also discloses incorrect history was cited by the advisory committee and utilized by the Board in adopting its January 26 resolution. The plaintiffs are entitled under California law to recover their attorney fees and court costs once a writ of mandate is ordered by the Superior Court this month. Concomitantly, a group of San Francisco voters began last month the recall of three of seven Board members, President Gabriela Lopez, Vice President Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga, which, if successful, should send a message to the other four. A lawyer representing George Washington High School Alumni Association notified the Board February 17 that it had violated the California Environmental Quality Act in abolishing 44 school names, adding that federal historic review may also be required, plus consideration of the affected schools’ eligibility for the California Register of Historical Resources and National Register of Historic Places “. . . due to alteration of physical features as well as removal of associations with historical persons.”  Susan Brandt-Hawley, the lawyer, reminded the Board: “Criticism of the process and import of renaming has already spread throughout California, our nation, and internationally.”  On April 8, 2021, Brandt-Hawley will appear in Superior Court to obtain a court order stopping “destructive actions,” meaning removal of a mural (“Life of Washington”) from Washington High School.

Such capriciousness by the school Board invites recapitulation of events leading to the 1971 San Francisco Charter amendment changing mayoral appointment of seven members to electing citywide all members. I plead guilty. In 1970, the Board unilaterally decided San Francisco elementary schools were racially segregated despite no law or resolution supporting such idealogue reasoning and instituted citywide busing for elementary school pupils. I was personally involved because my two sons, who attended Lafayette School two blocks from their home, were bused. Despite litigation to stop such illogic, the Board ignored all opponents, including Chinese American parents of Commodore Stockton School and Jean Parker School students who regularly and faithfully attended Chinese language schools in Chinatown after school. As readers should know, Chinese American children had, under the California Education Code, been the objects of “invidious racial discrimination” in the 19th century and weren’t allowed to attend any but one nearby public school. (Japanese, American Indians, and “other children of Mongolian ancestry” had to attend the same school.) Such law wasn’t repealed until 1907. Thus, Chinese American children had been the object of racial discrimination and segregation and had a constitutional right to attend “desegregated” schools. They didn’t want to. I represented them, unsuccessfully, in U.S. District Court litigation to stop the School Board from assigning them to grade schools outside Chinatown.

Then-Supervisor John Barbagelata and I led an initiative to amend the 1932 Charter by electing School Board members. Supported by Mayor Joseph Alioto and public-school parents, we secured signatures for inclusion on the November, 1971 local ballot. Voters readily approved it. The first election was November 1972. Unfortunately, only three of the seven elected to the Board voted to halt busing which has cost taxpayers hundreds of million dollars since then and contributed mightily to public school enrollment decline from 92,000 in 1972 to 52,000 currently. The present Board defies a selection system I helped create 50 years ago. I prefer Mayor London Breed’s judgment to Board members whose election appears attributable to the Teachers’ Union and Democratic County Central Committee, the two most interested entities in deciding School District governance.

Although counting gubernatorial recall signatures isn’t complete, it appears that approximately 2,100,000 signers ensures a recall election in 2021. Under the Charter (Section 14.103), such a recall election permits consolidation of a recall commenced last month to remove District Attorney Chesa Boudin for dereliction of duties, waste of taxpayer money of nearly $400,000 in annual compensation, distorting criminal justice data, causing crime increases in neighborhoods, and malfeasance. To qualify the recall, sponsors need 51,000 ballot signers by August 11. Thirty proponents include Democrats, Independents and remaining San Francisco Republicans. Boudin answers by claiming he was elected to “reform a legal system that criminalize poverty. . .” and “ignored root causes of crime . . . .”  He claims this is a “Republican-initiated effort that will cost taxpayers millions of dollars.” Of course, there aren’t many registered Republicans in San Francisco so that’s a “dead horse” and such a recall can be combined with Board of Education and the gubernatorial recalls in late 2021. The recall committee email is RecallChesaBoudin.org, telephone 415-349-0106. Let’s hope it’s successful.

Ronald Reagan declared over 30 years ago: “We must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, that society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”  Boudin appears more invested in the interest of criminals than their victims.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

March 25, 2021

Recology's Mea Culpa Rings False

It's time for competitive bidding.

Since November 8, 1932, Recology Inc. and its predecessor businesses have operated a flourishing racket in the form of a legal monopoly collecting and hauling garbage and waste in San Francisco from both residential and commercial properties, together with facilities owned by the City and County.  San Francisco is, thus, an anomaly in Northern California and the United States of America. Except in Berkeley and New York City, almost all municipalities in the United States require competitive bidding for such contracts.

The unsurprising revelation on March 4 that Recology had cheated San Francisco customers since its last City Hall-rate increase in 2017, shouldn’t surprise any San Francisco real property owners who have suffered unjustified rates, which, for example, include a monthly rate of $58.70 per garbage can, almost $10 per month higher than any Bay Area city. City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued Recology on the morning of March 4. By noon, Recology capitulated and agreed to a reimbursement of $94,500,000 to overcharged ratepayers, plus a payment of $7,000,000 to City Hall. The ratepayer refund will average $190 per property. Also extracted in the settlement with City Hall was a prohibition against Recology giving money, secured unlawfully from ratepayers, to non-profit entities, City Departments for employee parties, or any City employee for four years. Recology will supposedly refund illegal charges to 160,000 past and present customers.

 A major reason for legal action by the City Attorney is the federal criminal actions against highly-placed City Hall officials and a Recology executive last year for public corruption, including the Director of the Department of Public Works, the General Manager of the Public Utilities Commission and a Bureau of Building Inspection crook. Those cases were filed in November and December 2020 by former United States Attorney for the Northern District of California, David Anderson, a true San Franciscan, who resigned on February 28, 2021 in conformance with custom and practice after the election of a new president in November, 2020. In the aftermath, Supervisor Aaron Peskin and two of his colleagues, instead of placing on the ballot a measure to repeal the 1932 monopoly ordinance and require competitive bidding for garbage collection, announced introduction of a resolution at the Board of Supervisors on March 9 to establish a “task force” to examine the matter. It’s clear the object of Peskin and his allies is municipal service rather than competitive bidding by private entities, using “experts in the field and labor leaders to ascertain whether we should be working to acquire Recology assets, including its transfer station and its fleet of specialized hauling vehicles  . . .” That’s reflective of a so-called “progressive” ideology of Peskin’s “gang of three” which ignores the history of voters twice rejecting municipalization of gas and electric service, the embarrassing cost overrun and delayed opening of the Central Subway (now uncompleted until 2022 with a cost estimate publicly asserted as over $2,400,000,000) and the Municipal Railway’s deplorable operation of public transit in San Francisco generally.

The proper course of action for ratepayers is a simple repeal of the 1932 monopoly ordinance and substitution of an ordinance requiring garbage contracts to be competitively bid. Nearly 10,000 digital respondents to an informal petition by Chinatown businessmen and women demanded last December the Mayor and Board of Supervisors and the monopoly, reduce garbage rates to the 2017 level immediately and create a bidding process for the garbage collection contract, including recycling. Led by David Lee, founder of the Chinese-American Voters Education Committee and a San Francisco State University lecturer in Government, San Francisco voters are prepared to submit such a ballot measure to voters at the next municipal election. Unlike an effort which failed in 2012 after its founding proponent, a Port tenant, was threatened by the Port Authority with loss of his lease unless he desisted and spending by Recology of about $1,000,000. San Francisco ratepayers now understand the iniquitous system ignored by the Board of Supervisors and the criminal conduct and ratepayer-gouging which has existed for decades. That’s along with City Hall’s failure even to charge the customary franchise fee other cities receive from successful garbage collection bidders and a 1960s ordinance, unlike any other municipal or state law, which grants Recology a lien on residential or commercial property if owners have failed to pay the garbage collection monthly bill. (I know of no other private entity which possesses the power of a lien on a property owner’s parcel for failure to pay a bill.)

Tell City Hall to act for ratepayers, instead of acting for City insiders, labor unions, whose members' wages depend on how much ratepayers can be gouged and nonprofit entities which never complain publicly about City Hall corruption.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

March 9, 2021

Lessons for the School Board

In his first inaugural address in New York City in 1789, George Washington, after proclaiming his desire to serve as president without pay, embraced the noble principle that “. . . office holding ought to be understood as a responsibility assumed rather than an opportunity exploited.”  That surely should be taught to at least three members of the San Francisco Board of Education, namely, Gabriela Lopez, Alison Collins and Faauuiga Moliga, now the objects of a meritorious recall effort. Despite a City Attorney lawsuit and consistent requests by Mayor London Breed, the Board of Education succumbs to the teachers’ union and spends time and uses specious reasoning to remove President Washington, President Jefferson, President Lincoln, poet James Lowell and hero Paul Revere from our public school names with inaccurate, unverified rationales while abandoning classroom teaching. It also devotes time and effort to eliminating academic achievement as predicate for admission to a historically superlative high school which has graduated U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, famed actress Carol Channing and University of Southern California Athletic Hall of Fame basketball player Ken Flower, among other achievers. Collins last fall advocated abandonment of admission standards in favor of a “lottery” and elimination of “meritocracy.”  She characterized standardized testing and grades as “. . . racist systems” that constitute “. . . the antithesis of fair, and . . . just.”  As Washington Examiner Magazine’s deputy editor observed last month, “. . . admission procedures which don’t use standardized test courses often are more discriminatory and subject to abuse.”

            Since San Francisco’s public schools have been closed for one year already, why doesn’t the San Francisco Unified School District refund taxpayers their money. The Naperville, Illinois school board announced last month it would refund $10,000,000 to taxpayers this year, meaning a typical family will receive $200 to $500. Property tax rebate checks should be sent San Francisco families and businesses, and all other property taxpayers. Meanwhile, private and Catholic schools are open for learning without demanding extra tuition. (San Francisco trial lawyer Paul Scott from North Beach has demanded School Board compliance with California open meeting law. The Board voted to remove 44 school names at a February meeting after informing the public its written agenda included only consideration of a select committee recommendation, not action on the school name changes.)  That’s why a recall of the three worst school board members has resounded with taxpayers and voters, even in liberal San Francisco. It will qualify for the next election, which may occur in September if the recall of California’s governor qualifies by March 15. That will keep the teachers’ union busy, even if members aren’t practicing their profession.

            Meanwhile, educational mediocrity and vocabulary rape continue. A retired Chico State University professor observed in the Wall Street Journal last month that 25 years ago he attended a faculty session on diversity and inclusion which recommended faculty not use the words “fail” or “failing,” and instead say “deferred excellence.” Another writer notes high schools have changed from teaching pupils how to think and how to write to “what to think and what to write . . .” and prohibit books like Homer’s Odyssey and Dr. Seuss. Similarly, the California Department of Education, rewriting the social and ethnic studies for high school students, faces opposition over its one-sided, ideological and jargon-filled recommended curriculum. The Department’s “advisory committee” wants strong criticisms of capitalism and colonialism. The State Board of Education will vote on a final draft this month, and must approve a model curriculum by March 31 as a guide to high schools with ethics studies courses, which some state legislators will try to make a graduation requirement. In the aftermath of lawbreaker Donald Trump, I’d expect educational concentration on Americanism not ethnic separation, just as I’d expect “following the science” in restoring students to their classrooms in which teachers can be safe even without vaccination. Teachers unions, however, control public schools.

            After New York State legislators discussed imposition of a statewide transfer tax on buying or selling stocks and bonds, like San Francisco’s foolish transfer tax on real estate sales, the New York Stock Exchange president stated publicly it would move to another state, if such tax were enacted. The NYSE has been in downtown New York since the early 1800s when New York City was our national capital. City Hall can’t copy New York lawmakers because the Pacific Stock Exchange on Sansome and Pine Streets closed last century, but if an industry comes to San Francisco, beware. Property taxation represents California’s historical means of financing local government, meaning counties, cities, school and special districts. Every tax should be based upon a justified rationale. Property taxation collects money to defray costs of general governmental services such as police, fire, education, welfare and public health. State government relies for general fund revenue principally from the state income tax and sales taxation. Fortunately, in 1963 state legislation banned local government from imposing income taxation. Local government may only charge such sales tax as voters now authorize. Local governments, however, can also apply a parcel tax with voter approval. Bear in mind a parcel tax unlike property taxation isn’t based upon a parcel’s market value; every parcel, whether residential or commercial, is taxed the same amount!  That means if you own some contiguous parcels, you’ll pay the same tax per parcel as Salesforce pays on its several parcels downtown. It’s as irrational a tax as a real estate transfer tax. Our rapacious City Hall geniuses could care less, particularly in these quixotic times. As my friend Bill Modahl, retired University of New Mexico professor observed last month about the state of history instruction in today’s higher education citadels, “History is now nothing more than studying the mistakes of the past.” Renaming 44 San Francisco public schools, also known as “Frisco’s Folly” in some circles, proves his point.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

February 2021

Impeachment and All Things Inconsiderate

Whether or not another impeachment of the lying, cheating, draft-dodging Donald Trump is inarguably warranted, its mootness reassures more antics by the one-time television performer who borrows money and doesn’t repay it. It’s no surprise that Trump aspired to pardoning himself; that would constitute his ultimate historical achievement. The legal logic of allowing a self-pardon astonishes this writer who was admitted to the first of three eventual State Bars in November, 1952 while in the U.S. Air Force. As an unidentifiable (to me) commentator declared: “Laws can embody standards; governments can enforce laws – but the final task is not a task for government. It is a task for each . . . of us. Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted – when we tolerate what we know to be wrong – when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened – when we fail to speak up and speak out – we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.”

As a ten-year California First Amendment Coalition Board of Directors member, I abhor lack of impartial reporting by American newspapers and electronic media. As John Steele Gordon, the author, stated in the Wall Street Journal last July, political neutrality made American newspapers valuable but most of America’s premier newspapers have abandoned “even the pretense of political neutrality.” Opinion columns belong only in editorials, not a newspaper’s accounts of events. A major problem arises from political wars on vocabulary. Words are debased. We are now importuned to “flatten the curve” and “defund the police.” What’s that mean? One NBC News reporter announced that property destruction “is not violence.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi issues 45 pages of revised United States House of Representatives’ rules, banning “father” or “daughter,” in favor of “parent” and “child.” Pelosi creates a new Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth. Why?  The words “himself” and “herself” are replaced by “themselves” because a woke generation demands gender neutral language. Pelosi and her compliant Democratic-controlled lower house of Congress replaced “mother”, “son”, “brother”, “Sister”, “uncle”, and “aunt” with “sibling”, etc. Colleges and universities enforce speech codes, so does the Associated Press which now bans medical terms such as “insane,” “crazy/crazed,” “nuts” or “deranged,” unless that’s part of a quotation essential to a story. AP reporters must avoid mental health terms and can’t say an “Award show was schizophrenic.”

Last December, Providence, Rhode Island revealed that only one in five of its public elementary-and-middle school students satisfied Rhode Island’s standards in mathematics and language. Usually, such students are so-called minorities and disproportionately poor. A Wall Street Journal reader on December 23, 2020 observed that if structural racism exists, it arises from “the government monopoly on public schools.” Meanwhile, United States residents today are almost twice as likely to speak a language other than English at home as residents did in 1980 and 48% in America’s five largest cities speak a foreign language at home, namely, Los Angeles, New York City, Houston, Chicago and Phoenix. Our Board of Supervisors announces it will assist the S.F. Unified School District educate a decreasing number of San Francisco public school pupils by soliciting local corporations for money to fund a nine-member 128th City Hall Commission to preside over yet another bureaucracy, dubbed “Department of Children, Youth and Services.” Other ostentatious local commissions like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority enhance the fragile status of city governance by considering imposition of residential street parking fees. Elimination of gasoline-powered vehicles encourages such rapacious treatments of taxpayers. The street in front of your house was built with State gasoline taxes you pay. That’s been California law since 1922. Our gasoline taxes comprise the highest of 50 states (50.5 cents per gallon!). Three decades ago, some gasoline taxation revenue was diverted to public transit, thus charging automobile drivers for public transit costs to subsidize public transit riders. Gasoline taxation affects gasoline users; it’s a user fee. That’s disregarded by advocates of prohibiting gasoline-powered vehicles in San Francisco by 2027. Those who can afford electric vehicles avoid gasoline taxation which should be based upon mileage driven. Some electric car owners demand gas tax increases while electric car manufacturers and buyers receive State subsidies.

January represented an unusual month at City Hall with no new criminal cases based upon the siren song of City Hall corruption. The District Attorney, facing a recall petition, doesn’t care. Almost 60 years ago on June 21, 1961, then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy noted: “The honesty of many politicians has never been questioned. In fact, it’s never been mentioned.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

January 2021

Recology — Meet the Rate-Payers.

A truism applicable to San Francisco declares: “Our city was in better condition when there were more whittlers and fewer chiselers.” The degraded status of city government resulting from City Hall knaves has tarnished our reputation. Streets are filthier. Homelessness seems rampant. Crime increases. Businesses close. Recent charges by US Attorney David Anderson of public corruption against highly-paid public officials reveals the improbity of City Hall. For almost two decades, “pay-to-play” has pervaded our “City Family” with bribes to obtain millions of dollars in public contracts. Presently, criminal charges have been filed only against powerful non-elected officials. Mohammed Nuru, once Director of the Department of Public Works is charged with bribery. Harlan Kelly, ousted General Manager of the Public Utilities Commission is in the dock. His wife, Naomi Kelly, City Administrator is on leave and under scrutiny. Former Mayor Willie Brown raises money for Nuru’s legal bills while people wonder how elected leaders like the City Attorney and two successive District Attorneys were oblivious to a corrupt culture. City officials have treated taxpayers’ dollars as their own slush funds, distributing public works contracts to cronies and other corrupt persons, disregarding solemn ethical duties to use public resources for San Francisco residents’ and taxpayer needs pursuant to a clear and creditable public process. Another example is the relationship between City Hall and Recology, Inc., a searing illustration of officials and practices allowing the fleecing of San Franciscans.

Since 1932, San Francisco has contracted with Recology and its previous iterations, granting it a monopoly on waste collection services, and, later, recycling. Whether you are a homeowner or a tenant you’re required to pay for garbage collection services. If you don’t, City Hall records a lien on your property for the amount due, acting as a collection agency for a private entity. 

A Recology executive was accused criminally by US Attorney Anderson last November with money laundering and giving a million dollars in bribes to Nuru. Recology financed Department of Public Works holiday parties, hired Nuru’s son and paid for a DPW employee’s funeral. Curiously, those actions occurred prior to a request for a 2017 rate increase granted by Nuru and affirmed upon appeal by a Rate Board consisting of the City Controller, the PUC General Manager’s Deputy and the City Administrator’s Deputy. One wonders why the Kellys directed their deputies to hear the appeal rather than themselves, as law allows.

Under the 1932 Refuse Collection and Disposal Initiative Ordinance, San Francisco must award a sole source contract to Recology to collect our garbage. That’s why San Franciscans pay higher rates than all 20 Peninsula cities’ residents, including tony Hillsborough and Atherton rate-payers. Recology’s monopoly must be ended by requiring the garbage and recycling contracts to be competitively bid and open to public scrutiny.

Outraged commercial property owners in Chinatown led by Dr. David Lee, a San Francisco State University political science lecturer, Richmond resident and founder of Chinese-American Voters Education Committee and Melvin Lee, a long-time laundromat owner, have initiated a petition to the Board of Supervisors to abolish the 1932 monopoly law and enact competitive bidding for garbage and recycling, after reducing garbage and recycling rates to their 2017 levels. That will, of course require voter approval. If supervisors refuse to do so, San Francisco business owners and residents will present rate-payers an opportunity to qualify a ballot measure to cure the Board of Supervisors poisonous failure in representing rate-payers. As a concomitant, our “fearless leaders” at City Hall can also cure PUC requirements in the PUC contracting process which causes certain contracts to be routed through “middle-men” and “expeditors.” DPW in those instances adds, because of such middle-men, 10% to public contracts. Clearly, that constitutes overpayment by taxpayers in the public contracting process. Of course, Supervisors Dean Preston, Hillary Ronan, Gordan Mar, Norman Yee, Shamann Walton, Matt Haney and Sandra Lee Fewer tried to stop neighborhood monthly Marina Times from receiving city advertising, because of Editor Susan Dyer Reynolds’ rightful criticism of City Hall corruption. Only Marina Supervisor Catherine Stefani, Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Rafael Mandelman and Ahsha Safai opposed such First Amendment assault, which later was reversed by free speech advocacy shaming.

An old cliché states: “Honesty pays, but it doesn’t seem to pay enough to suit some people,” particularly at City Hall.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

January 2020

Considering American Elections

On election eve November 3, 1952, the Democratic Party candidate for president – Governor Adlai E. Stevenson, Governor of Illinois, declared: “Looking back, I am content.  Win or lose, I have told you the truth as I see it.  I have said what I meant and meant what I said.  I have not done as well as I should like to have done, but I have done, but I have done my best, frankly and forthrightly; no man can do more, and you are entitled to no less.” As many Americans cogitate whether President Trump (who was bumped) will appear on 20 January 2021 for the installation of Joseph Biden as President, we should be satisfied with a customarily American national election, ignoring the pollsters and mainstream media who diminish elections.

In San Francisco, every tax increase (real estate, transfer tax, parcel tax, half million dollar (with interest), bond issue), succeeded, together with an attack on police, entitlement of illegal aliens to membership on 127 local commissions and two additional commissions for City government.

In District 7, despite Joel Engardio accruing the most first place votes for supervisor, the third place candidate, Myrna Melgar, employed ranked choice voting to win. RCV, as wags call it, fosters rapacious results without saving money from the customary runoff between the top two candidates if no one gets 50%. It doesn’t lead to a concession candidate, and fringe candidates run to manipulate the election system and not to win.  In 2011, 16 San Francisco mayoral candidates caused 12 rounds of elimination to produce the winner. In a four-candidate race, the 4th place finisher can, with his/her second choice votes, push the first or second candidates with victory, while poor number 3 is ignored.  Burlington, Vermont, hometown of its former mayor and current Socialist Senator, Bernie Sanders, adopted RCV in 2009. Voters repealed it in 2010. A runoff produces a winner with a majority, not a plurality of votes.

Transit Issues

Reiteration of Government 101 should remind readers the state and federal gasoline taxes we pay are user fees, funding construction and maintenance of city streets, county roads, state and federal highways, not summer work programs, bicycle lanes or road closures. Banning cars from the Great Highway means more automobiles on nearby neighborhood streets and consequent accidents, fines and damages. City Hall, beginning with Diane Feinstein in the 1980s, uses its state gas tax revenue for summer work programs and other City Hall projects. There isn’t a single supervisor who cares that gas taxpayers subsidize non-highway government spending. Certainly, the Municipal Transportation Agency doesn’t, while confessing to ineptitude. Last month its director admitted the Central Subway Project, commenced in 2010, won’t finish until 2022! That 1.6 mile boondoggle, created by the rapacious Rose Pak and Willie Brown, won’t cost $1,600,000,000. The cost is now about $4,000,000,000.  The Van Ness Avenue Bus Rapid Transit Project, commenced in 2012, possesses no completion date to justify its promised result, namely, saving 5 minutes on Muni bus rides. San Francisco, however, isn’t alone in ravaging taxpayers.  Honolulu doesn’t have money sufficient to finish a $9,100,000,000 20-mile rail line which broke ground in 2011 to operate from Waipahu to downtown unless it secures $423,500,000 in the next decade for the final 4 miles.

City College

City College of San Francisco is not the City & County of San Francisco, although supervisors and mayor apparently believe city government, taxpayers not the federal government, are responsible for City Colleges rapacious disregard of generic higher education. Last July, its governing board approved a new degree in cannabis studies, bragging that it's the first in the United States. Students majoring in the Cannabis Studies Associate of Arts degree will undergo 3 cannabis classes and additional electives like drug wars, magic, witchcraft, religion and criminal justice under the Behavioral Sciences Department. The trustees obviously count on President-elect Biden to provide the money. Mark P. Mills, a Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow on another subject, observed: “How long taxpayers tolerate such scale of subsidies is the pernicious question of the decade.”

State Ballot Props

State ballot measure results, however, furnishes me hope for California.  Proposition 15 (changing assessment of commercial and industrial property as a foundation to repeal Proposition 13 protection for homeowners and tenants lost. So did Proposition 16, 57% to 43%, which would have reinstated preferential treatment and discrimination on account of race, sex, or national origin in public education, public employment and public contracts. State usurpation of local rent control (Proposition 21) was rejected, U.S. and Constitutional criminal bail rights was resoundingly approved by voters who rejected Proposition 25, despite the one-party nature of California. It reminds me that Rosa Luxemburg, a Socialist in January 1919 proclaimed: “Freedom . . . only for the member of one party, is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

December 2020

The Kamala Harris We Know

It’s been said that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but politicians figure that once every four years is good enough. At press time, the presidential/vice presidential result is unknown, but in this one party state, California’s 55 electoral votes belong to Biden/Harris. In Harris’s case, that proves violation of law does pay for a Willie Brown protégé. After being hired in 1998 as a deputy district attorney by incumbent Terence Hallinan, she rewarded her benefactor by running against him in 2003. In 2002, she raised $563,000 for her campaign, much of it from high society types. On January 1, 2003, Harris signed under penalty of perjury a Department of Election form agreeing to a $211,000 campaign expenditure limit. The form stated that once signed it couldn’t be withdrawn. By July 30, 2003 she had spent $132,114.76 and could only spend an additional $79,255.24 to reach the $211,000 legal limit. On September 20, 2005, she had raised $349, 564.13 and spent $302,346, exceeding her sworn spending limit by $91,446. Legal penalties for violating the spending cap included removal from the ballot and a fine of $275,000. Instead, a feckless Ethics Commission merely abolished the spending limit for all three candidates and fined her a paltry $34,000. Harris’s false statement about obeying the $211,000 spending limitation had already been printed on September 25, 2003 in the Voter Information Pamphlet notifying voters Harris voluntarily had agreed to such limit. Harris eventually spent over $1,150,000 compared to Hallinan’s $362,000 after the spending limit was lifted in the aftermath of Harris’s lies. Moreover, she had the nerve to accuse D.A. Hallinan, now deceased, of “unethical (management) practices” and “unprofessional conduct.”  Harris herself, however, had been accused in 2000 of violating City ethical conduct law during a leave of absence to assist a supervisor’s unsuccessful reelection campaign. Her own 2003 falsehood could have resulted in criminal action against her and a 5-year ban on running for any San Francisco elective office. This is our new vice president.

 While supervisorial campaigns are still pending, we’ll watch District Attorney Chesa Boudin inaction against District 7 candidate, Vilaska Nguyen, Boudin’s deputy public defendant buddy to whom he contributed the maximum $500.

Appalling is the word best descriptive of the Board of Education which, confronting a multi-million dollar deficit and virus impediments to classroom instruction, plans to change the names of 44 San Francisco public schools, including Washington, Lincoln, Lowell, Mission, Balboa, Presidio, Alamo, Clarendon, Commodore Sloat, Ulloa, Sutro, Sheridan, Sherman, Feinstein, Lakeshore, Jefferson, Noriega, and Garfield (don’t forget El Dorado!)  A committee including one non-resident and four Native Americans, has so recommended. The estimated renaming cost is $10,000,000. Meanwhile, the Board of Education ends academic requirements for admission to Lowell High School, and continues a school assignment system which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to bus pupils. Since 1970, the School District has championed desegregation of public schools. It’s 50 years later and a Board of Education member declared last month that the District’s assignment system has “made segregation in our schools worst and nobody really likes it.”  The concept of neighborhood schools is unacceptable. A school system with about 93,000 pupils in 1970 and a citywide population of 725,000 residents now contains but 50,000 pupils with a residential population of 880,000. It’s no wonder private education and home-schooling flourishes while we pay property and parcel taxes to support a disastrous system.

With its record-breaking $13,800,000,000 budget, City Hall confronts a probable $1,500,000,000 deficit but nevertheless employs 83 public information officers (aka “flaks”) and associated positions at a cost of $10,300,000 in salaries and benefits. The pay amounts range from $142,587 to $219,962 annually. City departments with multiple “flaks” include the Airport, Art, Child Support Services, Homelessness and Support of Housing, Library, Public Defender, Port, Human Rights and DPW. But, corruption continues without district attorney action. The United States Attorney unfortunately excused himself from the DPW and PUC cases because his wife used an involved contractor and inadvertently met with DPW engineers regarding a contract resulting in millions in graft.

Although a chap once noted that Patrick Henry should come back and see what taxation with representation is like in San Francisco, California, we should be thankful for the good things we have and, also, for the bad things we don’t have. I wish you all a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving!

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

November 2020

Chasing the State Propositions

Some wag proclaimed: "A democracy is a system where a fellow who didn't vote can spend the rest of the year kicking about the candidate the other fellows elected.'

I recommended last month Dr. Emily Murase of Lakeshore Acres, Lowell High School, Bryn Mawr College, Stanford University for District 7 Supervisor, plus second and third choices, Stephen Martin-Pinto and Joel Engardio. I reiterate my recommendation of Dr. Murase as first choice. I now add in District 1, the Richmond, David Lee, an SF State professor, steady founder of an entity encouraging Asian Americans to participate in politics, and father of two college students, one of whom attends my alma mater, Dartmouth College. His contestants are products of the politics industry in San Francisco, tax-eating City Hall aides. They're in the avaricious "City Family"; David Lee is not. If I lived in The Richmond, I'd vote only for David Lee. For City College’s Governing Board, I recommend Victor Olivieri, SF Veterans Affairs Commission President and fiscal disciplinarian!

State Proposition 14 authorizes $5,500,000,000 in state general obligation bonds to continue stem cell research by nonprofit and private entities. Vote Yes. 

Proposition 15 is a Trojan Horse to repeal Proposition 13 regarding property valuation for property tax impositions. It sounds benign to increase taxes on commercial land and buildings and pour more money into cities, counties, and special districts, I note opposition by the state NAACP, the California Small Business Association, and California Senior Advocates League because it's the admitted first step in dismantling Proposition 13, which stopped skyrocketing property taxes on Social Security, pension, and military veterans in 1978. Vote No.

Proposition 16 restores quota systems in public university admissions, public contracts, and public employment. In 1996, we passed Proposition 209, which prohibits discrimination or preferential treatment based upon race, sex, color, or national origin in public employment, public education, or public contracts. That's why Californians for Equal Rights call the ban on discrimination and preferential treatment “. . . a fundamental part of the American creed."

Proposition 17 allows convicted murderers, rapists, pedophiles, kidnappers, gangsters, and human traffickers to vote before completing their sentences. In 1974, voters approved restoring voting rights to convicted felons after they complete their sentences, including parole. Leave it that way. Vote No. 

Proposition 18 allows 17-year-olds to vote in primary and special elections if they're 18 by the next general election. It's contrary to California's Constitution and federal law. A 17-year-old can't join a school field trip without signed permission from a parent or guardian, because age-related brain development relates to reasoning, analyzing, and understanding cause and effect. 17-year-olds are subject to specific restrictions on driver licenses until their 18th birthday. California's primary election includes tax and bond measures which don't create taxes for 17-year-olds. Don't change constitutional law. Vote No.

Proposition 19 abolishes constitutional provisions adopted by voters in 1986 and 1996 by removing Proposition 13 protections. It mandates reassessment to market value of property transferred by parents to children, including some transfers from grandparents to grandchildren. Parents may now transfer a home of any value without increasing property taxes. Proposition 19 compels reassessment at market value of property transferred from parents to children unless the children make it their principal residence. The non-partisan Legislative Analyst predicts this would cost California families about $2,000,000,000 yearly in higher property taxes. It's a political mistake by Sacramento politicians and isn't on the ballot by popular voter demand. Vote No.

Proposition 20 is a crime victim-initiative to restore criminal laws like felony sentences for 22 violent crimes and serial thefts by habitual criminals. Vote Yes.

Proposition 21 usurps local control of rents by permitting local governments to impose rent control on residences over 15 years old and increases in rent-controlled properties of 15% over three years once a new tenant arrives. As noted by the American Legion State Commander and California Council for Affordable Housing, voters defeated this two years ago. It does nothing to solve California's housing shortage, eliminates homeowner protections, and reduces home values by up to 20%. It's opposed by the NAACP and California Senior Advocates League. Vote “No.”

Proposition 22 constitutes an initiative statute to enable app-based drivers and others to work as independent contractors for rides and grocery deliveries. Drivers support Proposition 22. Vote Yes.

Proposition 23 represents another initiative which establishes state requirements for kidney dialysis clinics, and requires a physician or nurse to be present for such treatment. That's elemental, and I'm voting for Proposition 23.

Proposition 24 will cost $10,000,000 annually for a new state agency, California Privacy Protection Agency, requiring businesses to correct inaccurate personal information, prevent businesses from sharing personal information, and limit use of information about race, religion, genetic data, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. I'm convinced by Proposition 24’s merits to. Vote Yes. Lastly, but important,

Proposition 25 repeals a 2018 statute ending pretrial release from jail by defendants’ posting bail or on their own recognizance. Proposition 25 replaced federal and California constitutional bail with an algorithmic computer-generated modeling administered inconsistently by 58 different county Superior Courts. That's why the NAACP, crime victims, and lawyers who practice criminal law as prosecutors or otherwise recommend repeal of the 2018 elimination of bail. Proposition 25 constitutes a referendum which means a "No" vote to repeal the legislature's ignorant statute. Every accused criminal has a lawyer appointed by the court at taxpayer expense or retained privately. Defense attorneys will seek release of their clients without bail and present witnesses to support such requests in a court proceeding which permits a judge to decide whether the prosecutor's request for pretrial bail is justified. The test is whether evidence persuades the judge the defendant will appear in court for pretrial proceedings and eschew criminal conduct before trial. If an accused doesn't appear for a court proceeding while on bail, the bail provider must forfeit the bail and/or bring the accused to court to avert forfeiture of his or her money. If a defendant released without bail doesn't appear in court, county law enforcement must, at taxpayer expense, find and re-arrest the defendant. Bail represents a constitutional, practical court-ordered method in criminal cases. States which abolished bail for this cockamamie algorithm have regretted it. Vote No on Proposition 25.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

September 24, 2020

abcnews.go.com

In the 1960s, Yale University professor Allan Bloom noted ". . . the closing of the American mind," referring to grievance-mongering, identity politics, and empty sloganeering. Professor Bloom would identify easily, too many present American minds. I refer first to the heralded notion of "defunding" police. As predicted in a June 9 Wall Street Journal editorial, ". . . political drive to defund police" risks a return to the high-crime era of the 1960s and 1970s that damaged so many American cities. That applies to San Francisco, which suffers supervisors who berate police and ostracize them politically. At least half the supervisoral candidates in District 7 refuse any campaign contributions from the police and sheriffs' unions. Law enforcement remains a local obligation. Here, the defunders control. Watch crime increase.

Simultaneously, questionable police conduct has intimidated county prosecutors like those in Solano County, who requested the California Attorney General replace the Vallejo Police Department and District Attorney to investigate a potential destruction of relevant evidence regarding the killing of a male last month.

Most people don't understand the criminal law system. The Attorney General rarely appears in Superior Court, the state's trial court. If a Superior Court conviction is appealed, the Attorney General represents the People of the State of California, the plaintiff in every criminal case. That means the Attorney General's lawyers are well qualified in appeals of criminal convictions, but not actual trials. The mainstream media ignores that historical fact and nature of the California Department of Justice.

The comparable ignorance of courtroom procedure regarding bail for an accused appears also mystifying in light of dreadful 2018 legislation eliminating bail in favor of a computer-driven algorithm supposedly capable of advising Superior Court judges of the odds of an accused reoffending before trial or failing to appear for pretrial hearings. Bail is not ordered by a trial judge without a hearing if one is requested by the defendant's lawyer or the District Attorney. At such hearing, the defendant can produce testimony and other evidence to persuade the trial judge he or she will appear for pretrial court proceedings and not commit any crime before trial. It's an open process, used by any criminal lawyer worth his or her salt!

Fortunately, California voters will be able on November 3, to repeal that legislation with Proposition 25 (yes, there will be 25 state ballot measures). Together with the state chairwoman of the NAACP and United Crime Victims, I'm one of the three voter information handbook argument sponsors for passing Proposition 25. (People are befuddled to learn the NAACP supports repeal.) In San Francisco, deputy sheriffs are not police officers in the commonly understood sense because San Francisco is a City and County. We have a Police Department, unlike the 57 other California counties in which the sheriff performs police duties in unincorporated areas. Here, the sheriff manages our jail and provides bailiffs in San Francisco Superior Court, deputies at San Francisco General Hospital, and other city activities for security purposes.

Incidentally, CNN reported last month that in Florida, interior designers need 1,760 training hours for a state license, while police officers need only 770. In Louisiana, a manicurist needs 500 hours for a state license, and a police officer needs 360 hours to execute law enforcement responsibilities. Barbers need 1,528 training hours in North Carolina, but police officers need only 620 hours. Is that bureaucracy or stupidity?

A depressing aspect of American culture (besides "cancel culture," which I'll discuss next month) is our educational system and what biased teachers and left-wing college faculty have accomplished over the last six decades. The story of political party one-sidedness in universities is well-known, but the results in attitude toward freedom of expression and threats to a free press increase. A Harvard professor observed in May: "To determine what is factual and true, we rely on certain building blocks. Start with education. Then there's experience . . . above all, we rely on evidence." The idea of objective fact is undermined "all in pursuit of political gain." He identified a systematic effort "to disqualify traditional independent arbiters of fact" from court proceedings, historians, scientists (see "Bone Spur" Trump's public denunciation of Dr. Anthony Fauci), medical professionals, subject matter experts of every type.

Meanwhile, a 2020 poll found only 63% of adults contend they are "extremely" or "very" proud of being an American, the lowest since 2001. Republicans, 76% in 2019, show only 67% are extremely proud and merely 24% of Democrats are extremely proud. A November 2018 poll found that 76% of Republicans agreed that rights of the unborn should be protected, but 49% also agreed the government should not "prevent a woman from making her own decision."

The stock market appears unpredictable, but remember the advice of humorist Will Rogers before he died in an Alaskan plane crash in 1935: "Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it."

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

July 20, 2020

A wag once noted: “The only people who don’t have to pass the Civil Service exams to work for the government are taxpayers.” Last month, a lengthy Wall Street Journal article discussed the strangulation of many cities in the United States, citing the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb, and location of the Arizona Coyotes of the National Hockey League where the coronavirus pandemic compelled cancellation of a concert, a professional rodeo, and National Hockey League games while the city continued to repay $10,700,000 on arena bonds for 2020 alone. Glendale owes another $12,700,000 for Camelback Ranch-Glendale, location of a spring training field for major league baseball, which closed last March.

Another arena built with bonds repaid by local property taxpayers in Maryland Heights, Missouri for the NHL’s St. Louis Blues requires annual debt payment of $3,600,000, and the value of the bonds on the bond market has declined from 109 cents on the dollar in early March to 68 cents by May 21. Authorities in Jackson County, Missouri noted diminution of county tax revenue for debt payments on a stadium for the Kansas City Royals of the American League and the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League. The Oakland Athletics refused in April a $1,200,000 rent payment to taxpayer-funded Oakland Coliseum. That has since been resolved with a major break for Alameda County taxpayers by the sale of the Oakland Coliseum by Alameda County and Oakland to the Oakland Athletics. Oakland is probably the worst managed city in the Bay Area with high crime rates, disrespect of the law, and significant lack of creditworthiness. In 2012, a community athletics center and ice hockey arena in a Minneapolis suburb defaulted on debt payments, which incurred a reduction of its credit rating to junk and rendered borrowing expensive.

            The foregoing recitation reminds me of the attitude of professional sports team-owning billionaires that local taxpayers must provide stadiums for their professional sport businesses, an attitude that led the San Francisco 49ers to the City of Santa Clara, which succumbed to the false attraction of an NFL team, and the end of San Francisco taxpayer financing of a San Francisco Giants’ playpen. Understanding public funding rules and fundamental principles form a predicate for citizen views and public official decision-making. Besides today’s generational gap, too often private profit and nonprofit entities and officers demonstrate informational deficit, even ignorance of tax history. That’s true with Proposition 13, as exemplified by cries from teachers’ unions and others that it’s “outmoded.” Property taxation represents California’s historical means of financing, not state or federal government, but local governments, namely, cities, counties, school and special districts. Every tax should possess a rationale. Property taxes defray costs of general governmental services such as police, fire, education, public health and welfare, with the tax revenue comprising most of the entity’s general fund. Property taxes aren’t collected by the state, which relies mostly on state income tax and sales taxation. State law bars local government from imposing income taxes. Property taxation doesn’t support city streets or state or interstate highways, which should be funded by users through gasoline taxation. Of course, today’s fixation with electric vehicles and bicycles means those users pay nothing for city streets, county roads, and state and federal highways. Proposition 13 is as valid today as it was in June 1978 for fixed income and pension homeowners as it was upon passage in June 1978. Residential property generates no owner income unless and until it is sold. Beware of the effort in November to change Proposition 13 and increase and create new taxes for San Francisco taxpayers.

            The current fad and demand to remove statues in San Francisco and elsewhere was analyzed by the Chancellor of Oxford University on BBC last month in commenting upon a student demand to remove a bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes as a symbol of “institutional racism” and “white slavery.” Oxford is the world’s second oldest remaining university. In San Francisco, we witnessed last month removal of statues of Francis Scott Key, President Ulysses Grant, and Father Junipero Serra. Oxford’s Chancellor characterizes the student effort to obliterate the creator and payor of the now-called Mandela Rhodes Scholarships, utilized by such notables as President William Jefferson Clinton, as “murdering history.” He reminded his 22,000 students and us: “Education is not indoctrination. Our history is not a blank page on which we can write our own version of what it should have been according to our contemporary views and prejudice.” Discrimination at a university should be based upon intellect. Dostoyevsky observed: “Facts aren’t everything; at least half the battle consists in how one makes use of them.”

July 2020

President Calvin Coolidge relevantly declared in the 1920s: “It is a great advantage to a president, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man.” If that reminds us of our current ostentatious President, be grateful to “Silent Cal.” Harry S. Truman was a different kind of president, without lavish hotels, golf courses, gambling casinos, and office buildings. A symbol of his non-strident greatness relates to the manner in which he lived after leaving the White House on January 20, 1952. Truman once stated: “My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a poor house or a politician, and to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.” Offered corporate directorships and positions at large salaries, he refused, noting: “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.” While President, he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food. After leaving the presidency, his income was a U.S. Army pension from World War I service in France that amounted to $13,507.72. After disclosure that President Truman paid for his stamps, the U.S. Congress enacted a bill providing him an “allowance” and later a retroactive pension of $25,000. Once President Dwight E. Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess Truman drove home to Independence, Missouri by themselves to live in a house inherited by Bess from her parents. Except for Harry Truman’s presidential years, his wife and he lived there their entire married lives.

Compare that to the Trumps, the Kushners, the Bidens with son Hunter, U.S. Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein with sales of millions of dollars in stocks after confidential briefings three months ago on the spreading pandemic.

The University of California Board of Regents voted unanimously last month to abolish for admission Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and ACT requirements. So did the California State University’s governing board. Last January, the American Legion Magazine reported that for the first time in the Gallup Poll’s 18-year history of asking how proud young people are to be Americans, less than half stated “extremely proud.” A recent survey concluded that only one in six Americans could pass a basic U.S. history quiz. Just half can identify when the Civil War occurred. Sixty percent of Americans couldn’t name nations we fought in World War II. Just 26% could name the three branches of government. Only 40% could identify any of the First Amendment guaranteed freedoms, but 43% knew the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices and merely 37% could identify their member of the U.S. House of Representatives. As noted by some writers, a democratic society can’t survive without knowledge of our history and birthright.

Because of interested questioners, I announce early my recommendations for elective offices November 3, 2020. Board of Supervisors President Norman Yee finishes his permissible terms January 8, 2021. I’ve endorsed Dr. Emily Murase, a former elected Board of Education member and Lakeshore Acres neighbor, and Ben Matranga, who demonstrated his fiscal discipline by his compelling, but futile, voter information handbook argument against Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s oppressive tax on empty stores. (I don’t know any vacant store owner who willfully refuses to rent, and if postponed enforcement of the illogical tax ends this or next year, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and San Francisco Taxpayers Association will sue its legality.) I’ve also endorsed for the Community College District Board of Trustees Alan Wong, a Lincoln High School graduate and California National Guard member, on expectation that he will initiate an investigation of wasteful, perhaps even illegal, expenditures by the recently-resigned president and his henchman, both of whom possessed records of misconduct in Southern California community colleges. City College is a marvelous educational institution, notwithstanding dismal administration and lackadaisical governance. Supervisor Gordon Mar introduced last month a charter amendment to require $20,000,000 per year transfer of money from the City and County of San Francisco’s general fund to City College, with provision for increases automatically in future years. Unknowledgeable or deliberately ignorant, City Hall officials forget that City College constitutes a separate governmental district under state law, with its own source of state law funding and its own elected governing body that resulted from a 1972 charter amendment by the late John J. Barbagelata and me. Political capitulation by City College elected trustees has resulted in ten campuses, instead of the single Phelan Avenue “Oxford on the Hill.” Selling most of those properties would restore fiscal City College strength for students, faculty, and San Francisco taxpayers.

Finally, I note another foolish effort to attack City Hall corruption, namely, creation in our charter of an elected Public Advocate, with responsibility to execute duties of the District Attorney, Ethics Commission, and even City Attorney regarding thievery already exposed by U.S. Attorney David Anderson. The proposed office would enjoy a budget of almost $1,000,000 annually, adding to the approximately $2,000,000 allocated by City Hall to the District Attorney for such prosecutions, the Ethics Commission’s $4,000,000 expenditures, and the City Attorney’s “integrity unit” appropriation of over $2,000,000. Only a lawyer could be elected Public Advocate, with a two-term limit of four years each.

Such tendentious legislation reminds me that Thomas Jefferson observed: “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”

June 2020

In a time of medical, economic, and political uncertainty, a San Diego legislator, Shirley Weber, espouses discrimination, preferential treatment, and institutional racism based upon race, sex, color, or national origin for admission to public colleges and universities, public employment, and governmental contracts. Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 awaits action this month or next in the Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting. English statesman Edmund Burke declared in 1790: “Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the position of being no policy at all.” Weber’s bill amends the California Constitution, Article I, Section 31 by repealing California’s prohibition against racial or gender discrimination or preferential treatment. In 1996, I introduced a bill, allowing California voters that November to enshrine equal opportunity constitutionally. After it failed, an initiative for voter approval qualified as Proposition 209 for the November 1996 election and was approved, 55% to 45%, “a vote for color blind government, and, especially, color blind admissions to the University of California,” as noted last month by colleague, then-State Senator Tom Campbell, my co-chairman of the Proposition 209 campaign.

The University of California has been called “the original practitioner of affirmative action” by many, who also note that today UC Berkeley and similar historical practitioners of affirmative action are hostile campuses for dissenting speech. Proposition 209 represented California propensity to strive for equality. In 2019, Asian Americans constituted 27.26% of UC applicants; 39.72% enrolled. Latino Americans represented 28.82% of applicants, with 25.45% enrolling. African Americans comprised 5.58% of applicants; 3.8% enrolled. UC bureaucrats contend practicing “benign” use of color to admit more African Americans and Latino Americans is justifiable. As former State Senator and Congressman Campbell demonstrates, if you grant preference to some applicants because of their race, that limits others of different color or race. In 1996, African Americans constituted 3.7%; today they constitute 3.87% of UC students. Latino Americans were 13.4 in 1996; they’re now 25.45%. Asian Americans were 36.1% in 1996; they’re 39.72% now, while whites constituted 38.4% in 1996, and are only 19.29% currently. Proposition 209 achieved its state constitutional purpose. In 2014, the State Senate approved a measure to repeal Proposition 209. The Assembly didn’t pass the bill after Asian American parents organized spirited opposition, which they will do again, as they have at Harvard University, if ACA 5, motivated by Democratic Party two-thirds control of both Assembly and Senate, is passed. (Asian American Harvard students and parents sued that private institution in 2018 over racial discrimination in Harvard’s admissions practices, losing in the U.S. District Court in Boston and appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals to secure a pending reversal of such decision.)

Remember that a majority statewide vote in November would still be required to eliminate Proposition 209 and institute reverse discrimination. ACA 5 may, because of the pandemic and aborted legislative session reach the ballot this year. If it does, I hope Californians will join me in rejecting it.

Amidst the pandemic, various politicians who forget history and human nature clamor for universal mail-in voting. As John Lott, Jr. reminded Wall Street Journal readers last month, “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That wasn’t President “Bone Spur” Trump commenting; it was the Commission on Federal Election Reform chaired by former President Jimmy Carter in 2005. American history reveals, states required secret balloting commencing in 1880 and concluding only in 1950 because of America’s history of vote-buying! Lott and a University of Florida researcher discovered voter turnout decreased 8 to 12% after adoption of the secret ballot. Carter’s commission noted: “Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote-buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.” In the 1997 Miami mayoralty election, 36 persons were arrested for absentee ballot fraud. The election was nullified, reoccurred, and the prior result was reversed. In 2017, a Dallas city council election investigation revealed about 700 fraudulent mailed ballots signed by the same witness using a fake name. Norway and Mexico don’t ever allow absentee ballots for their residents. Don’t be fooled by efforts to reduce ballot probity. As Thomas Jefferson observed: “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes, a propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”

May 2020

Former President Herbert Hoover responded to a 1964 interview: “Honesty is not the exclusive property of any political party.” We don’t elect local officials in California on the basis of a political party, but Mr. Hoover’s answer applies federally with an incumbent president confronting certain articles of impeachment and a predictable U.S. Senate trial January 2020. (Mr. Hoover’s opinion is undoubtedly irrelevant in California, which has only one political party for all intents and purposes.)

Besides personal pleasure over strong passage of Proposition F, which exposes name, rank, and amounts of contributions to so-called “independent expenditure” committees for city offices, the most arresting election result was the contest for district attorney. A 39-year-old radical Deputy Public Defender was elected. His name is Chesa Boudin. His antecedents are intriguing: Both parents were active members of the Weather Underground, convicted and imprisoned for felony murder in driving the getaway car for accomplices who shot dead two police officers and a security guard while robbing a Brinks truck of bank funds in 1981. He is also the grandson of a deceased New York City lawyer, Leonard Boudin, who represented many, if not most, of the Communists in metropolitan New York and other Eastern areas during my public school years, college, law school, Air Force, and beginning practice of law in California.

Our new District Attorney, who has tried to jury verdict numerous criminal cases at the Hall of Justice, unlike two of his opponents and establishment favorites, gives expression to pursuing “corporate landlords” and prosecuting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should they “kidnap” San Franciscans. The Police Officers Association expended about $700,000 in those tricky capital expenditures to defeat Mr. Boudin. A respectful relationship with police officers is indispensable for public protection. My concern with Mr. Boudin will also be his alacrity and consistency in pursuing corruption criminality in city government, which his elected predecessor (Gascon) utterly failed to do after seeking and obtaining from a compliant Board of Supervisors and Mayor an appropriation of $2,918,078 three years ago for an “Internal Investigation Bureau,” consisting of six prosecutors, six investigators, and two support staff. (The unopposed City Attorney similarly secured taxpayer money for a “Special Integrity Unit,” which has produced no court civil actions regarding corruption.) The Ethics Commission constitutes a similar waste of taxpayer funds emblemized by its inaction and burying of misconduct complaints from private citizens. I hope for aggressive action by Mr. Boudin, who will have the benefit of recommendations and aid from retired Assistant Public Defender and Ethics Commission Chair Peter Keane, Friends of Ethics leader Larry Bush, former Common Cause area president, Charley Marsteller, and others.

After adopting a foolish resolution by Supervisor Catherine Stefani last September instructing us to change our vocabulary in describing criminals, criminal proceedings, convictions, and jail and prison sentences emanating from the Hall of Justice, the Board followed with another Stefani resolution declaring the National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization and urging other cities, states, and the federal government to do the same.” The resolution also urged San Francisco to “assess the financial and contractual relationships our vendors and contractors have with this domestic terrorist organization; . . . and take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with (San Francisco) from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization.” After filing a suit attacking the resolution, the NRA decided to save its money by dismissing the case.

San Francisco Supervisors manifestly know nothing of free speech law reflected in a 27-page order by the United States District Court, Southern District of California, in a suit by a gun show operator at Del Mar Fairgrounds, the State Agricultural Association in San Diego, after Del Mar’s board of directors voted a one-year moratorium at the Fairgrounds in September, 2018. The moratorium was to study potential “safety concerns.” The suit was based upon violation of the First Amendment. The court enjoined the moratorium, declaring it accorded “preferential treatment to shows featuring speech on all issues aside from these gun-related subjects.” The court noted that attacking the content of a gun show which includes lectures, demonstrations, safety training, target shooting, gunsmithing, appreciation of guns as technological artifacts and study of historical objects, plus exchange of products related to lawful use of firearms. The Fairgrounds failed to appeal the injunction, and I predict the court early next year will grant judgment to the gun show operator.

Continuing City Hall antics, Supervisor Sandra Fewer, practitioner of public language vulgarity on election night at Mr. Boudin’s headquarters, has introduced an ordinance to establish a San Francisco “public bank.” Never mind that only one public bank (North Dakota) has successfully existed in over 100 years in the United States. City government does so well with the Municipal Railway, the Central Subway Project, the reconstruction of Van Ness Avenue, and emergency fire protection supply in local reservoirs, it surely can operate a profitable public bank. No wonder 30 people have started a recall, however futile it likely will be, of Supervisor Fewer, the lady with the potty mouth.

Enough already. Let’s hope for the best in 2020, and a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah for all.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

December 2019

Upon his August 19, 1977 death, commentators recalled comedian Groucho Marx’s alleged observation: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” Local taxpayers experience the dysfunction of 11 Supervisors (each paid over $140,000 per year) and one Mayor (paid nearly $336,000 annually) unable to enact an ordinance “reforming” an allegedly ineffective mental healthcare system. Instead, each wants to force voters to enact an ordinance by two competing ballot measures next March. A Charter amendment requires voter approval by a ballot measure; an ordinance does not. Instead, Supervisors Matt Haney and Hillary Ronen eschew an ordinance in favor of passing the buck to voters. So does Mayor London Breed. What do we pay them to do?

Additionally, city government already contains 122 boards and commissions. I don’t just mean the Planning Commission, Fire Commission, Police Commission, Public Utilities Commission, Recreation and Park Commission, and Civil Service Commission of the 1932 Freeholders Charter revision. I mean continuing establishment of costly commissions. Last month, Supervisor Shamann Walton proposed a March 2020 Charter amendment to create a Sheriff’s Commission. The same Supervisor Haney plus Supervisors Walton, Hillary Ronen, Gordon Mar, and Aaron Peskin espouse a “Commission on Homelessness and Supportive Housing!” Why? Maybe because it makes them feel better to add bureaucracy.

As I write, local election results are unknown, including the sickening process of replacing the former district attorney who resigned last month to take his prosecutorial ignorance to Los Angeles County to oust a two-term incumbent, Jackie Lacey, who’s actually tried and convicted hundreds of criminals in her stellar career. We do know more public funding has been given San Francisco politicians, which Columnist Dan Walters noted three years ago is the “holy grail for Common Cause and other political reform advocates.” No study has ever shown public financing reduces private campaign contributions, or those understandably bewailed “independent expenditure” committees whose identities mystify voters. In 1988, two other California legislators and I successfully sponsored Proposition 73, banning taxpayer money for state and local elected office candidates. The California Supreme Court later ruled that charter cities like San Francisco are exempt from such prohibition. (Six California charter cities have adopted public financing.) In 2016, legislators passed a bill to allow non-charter cities and the state itself to adopt public financing despite a Legislative Counsel opinion that doing so “would require voter approval in order to become effective.” The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and I thereafter sued to invalidate that legislation. We won. I’m confident the California Court of Appeal will affirm that Sacramento County Superior Court decision. Instead of litigating and trying to undermine the initiative system, why doesn’t Common Cause and its allies present a ballot measure to voters next year and demonstrate belief in the rule of law?

That’s a rule repeatedly ignored by the legislature. Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom approved Senate Bill 225 by Senator Maria Elena Durazo, D.-Los Angeles, which astonishingly makes illegal aliens in California 18 years of age or older eligible for appointments to state boards and commissions. Consider that such persons can’t vote (yet!) and dodge federal immigration officers in this “sanctuary” state, but can now implement laws enacted by the legislature and governor. Simultaneously, a police sergeant in Fresno exclaimed that it’s useless to issue a citation or arrest a person who would undoubtedly be released immediately from county jail (that’s certainly true in San Francisco). Bear in mind stealing anything less than $950 is now a misdemeanor, not a felony, usually resulting in no punishment. On the other hand, the political sophisticates and “progressives” who advocate death of the bail system illuminated this past summer their hypocrisy and ignorance after a San Francisco Superior Court judge released from jail without bail a man accused of battery, attempted robbery, and false imprisonment by attacking a woman entering her apartment building on Beale Street. Such hypocrites ignore the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which grants the accused criminal the right to a speedy public trial, and the Eighth Amendment, which declares that excessive bail “shall not be required . . .,” and the California Constitution, which establishes in Article I, Section 12 the right to release on bail which must not be excessive and in an amount considering the seriousness of the accusation, defendant’s previous criminal record and defendant’s probability of appearing at trial or any pretrial hearing. When the stupidity of such no-bail release was revealed regarding this defendant who has no local address, the Mayor and several Supervisors condemned Superior Court Judge Christine Van Aken. The most “progressive” district attorney candidate last month characterized the money bail system as morally, fiscally, and intellectually bankrupt, implying “. . . wealth determined criminal justice outcomes . . .”. Contrary to that deputy public defender, the wealthy defendant doesn’t buy his/her “way out of jail regardless of how dangerous they [sic] are.” Every judge I know conducts a hearing regarding a defendant’s constitutional entitlement to release with or without bail. As Earl Newsom noted in 1963, however: “Today’s public opinion, though it may appear as light as air, may be tomorrow’s legislation – for better or for worse.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

November 2019

It was H.L. Mencken, the polemicist of my youth and before, who pronounced: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” That’s relevant to the November 5 San Francisco election with six ballot measures and a few contested public office elections. The most important is District Attorney, and I repeat my even stronger recommendation of Nancy H. Tung, Esq. for that position. The other three candidates show less than stirring dedication to enforcing criminal laws and respecting police officers who perform dangerous tasks in protecting society. These candidates have uttered policies of constraining San Francisco police in their arduous responsibilities and have miscast, like so many media commentators, the constitutional place of bail in criminal law. Moreover, they’ve ignored the subject of City Hall corruption, like the incumbent District Attorney who secured taxpayer money in 2017 from a compliant Board of Supervisors and Mayor for his new “Internal Investigation Bureau,” consisting of “six attorneys, six investigators, and two support staff” and a $2,918,078 budget! (Have you seen prosecution of even one corruption case by Gascon?)

There’s no contest for City Attorney, Public Defender, Sheriff, Treasurer, or Community College Board. There are three Board of Education aspirants for two seats. None will revitalize a governing board emblemized by disdain for reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at its meetings. I’ve endorsed Ivy Lee for the Community College Board and recommend Paul Miyamoto for Sheriff and Jose Cisneros for Treasurer. The Mayor is realistically unopposed, although I note Joel Ventresca of the Sunset and my City Hall past is a candidate. The only supervisoral contest is in the Haight-Ashbury, outside the purview of this newspaper’s mission. I don’t know the four candidates, two of whom espouse “divorcing” streets from autos so bicyclists can gain complete use!

The most important ballot measure is Proposition F, spearheaded by former Ethics Commission Chairman Peter Keane, Jon Gollinger, Friends of Ethics President Larry Bush, and members Charley Marsteller and Bob Planthold. It achieves what two Ethics Commissioners refused to do last year, preventing 2018 submission of the measure to voters and leading to Keane’s instantaneous Commission resignation. It requires reporting of campaign contributions and financial sponsors of campaign advertisements or, piquantly, shedding “Sunshine on Dark Money.” Supervisors Mar, Mandelman, Ronen, Fewer, and Haney sponsored Board of Supervisors submission to voters. Please vote “Yes” on F.

I recommend voting No on Propositions A, C, and E. Proposition A constitutes enormous taxpayer debt in the principal amount of $600,000,000, plus interest for 30 years that’ll add another 80%, for general obligation bonds which can’t be sold without approval by two-thirds of those voting. It contains the usual “citizens committee” to watch how the money is spent. Such citizen committees are ineffectual in my decades of observing them. Proposition C represents a voracious effort by Juul, a multi-million dollar “e-cigarette” business to induce youth and adults into addiction. As an opponent of “big tobacco” during my legislative years, I’ve hindered similar efforts and ask voters to do so now. I recommend “No” on Proposition E, which benefits, in complex manner, difficult to understand housing entities that constantly lobby City Hall. I think Proposition D merits support as a “mitigation tax” on giant corporations to lessen traffic congestion, which we suffer traveling downtown, south of Mission, 19th Avenue, Park Presidio, or the Embarcadero. So does Proposition B, which reorganizes a City Hall department for disabled people.

I’m pleased to report creation of a new political party in California, namely, the Common Sense Party. Onetime colleagues Tom Campbell, a former Republican, Steve Peace, a Democrat, John Pimentel, a Menlo Park wind energy entrepreneur, Julie Meier Wright, California Department of Commerce director under Governor Pete Wilson of San Diego, Dan Schnur, an Independent like Campbell and me and Director of the USC School of Public Policy, and others secured Secretary of State approval in August to begin collecting 66,000 voter signatures to qualify for California elections in 2020. It’s a party based upon fiscal discipline and social tolerance. Campbell is Acting Party Chairman, and Debbie Benray, a naturalized citizen formerly from Mexico is Acting Vice Chairwoman. We’ve amassed over 15,000 signatures. There’s no deadline, but we aspire to qualify in 2020 to run three or four legislative candidates in districts without incumbents. After qualification, the Common Sense Party will hold a convention, adopt a platform, and elect permanent officers. I cordially invite membership at jpimentel@whitehatrenew.com.

As the son and husband of legal immigrants, I laud a July letter to the Wall Street Journal noting that Congress, especially Democrats, appears “determined to provide taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants.” A 2015 Rasmussen Report demonstrated 53% of registered Democrats would allow tax-paying illegal aliens to vote. That alarms me because another writer points to local, state, and federal government costs of providing education, welfare benefits, healthcare, and detention to illegal aliens. To enforce immigration laws doesn’t make us nativists who favor native residents. We support legal immigrants, legal immigration and border control. But, as Henry Adams observed, “Practical politics consist in ignoring facts.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

October 2019

An anonymous wit declared: “Capital punishment is when the government taxes you to get capital so that it can go into business in competition with you, and then taxes the profit on your business in order to pay its losses.”

Government is surely in the rail transit business, which essentially disappeared in the post World War II era with the advent of capacious air transportation. Examples abound in California and in San Francisco, which last month endured illogical action by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) on a 4-3 vote of naming the Central Subway station at the end of the line nearly in Chinatown after now deceased “insider”Rose Pak.

MTA did so in the face of adopting two years ago a policy of naming stations only for geographical location, which is logical because, for example, who besides political “insiders” can identify Rose Pak? She was a San Francisco Chronicle reporter in the 1970s who was arrested by police after attacking physically a man whom she interviewed for a story after he failed to provide responses suiting her “storyline.” As announcer in the 1990s for the Chinese New Year’s Parade, she regularly insulted parade participants passing the reviewing stand, usually political adversaries. She violated the law regarding eligibility for low income tenant treatment in securing a nifty condominium apartment in a city project near Rincon Annex. She actively aided the People’s Republic of China in its cruelty to disfavored groups such as Falun Gong, a spiritual movement in China and now the United States, whose body parts are used by Communist China imprisonment of Falun Gong members after they’re executed. At the MTA hearing last month, written evidence was circulated that non-English-speaking Chinese people testified in support of the Rose Pak station renaming in return for lunch, beverages, and $25!

MTA’s action could be reversed by an initiative ballot measure, which I’ll happily support. Meanwhile, the Central Subway project itself won’t be completed this year and is overspending available funds, both local and federal. Hardworking Examiner reporter Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez noted the project’s federal financing appears precarious, and the MTA continues to purvey false information that is three years old about the project costing $1,600,000,000, or $1,000,000,000 per mile. The true cost estimate now appears over $2,600,000,000, but the bureaucrats stonewall taxpayers even after the resignation last month of MTA’s General Manager who will ravish Oakland taxpayers as Assistant City Manager. The project’s general contractor, Tutor-Saliba Corporation, is infamous in California and San Francisco for gouging projects with change orders and other tactics in recondite fashion, while the Rose Pak MTA avoids action to stop it.

Simultaneously, the now-misnamed California High-Speed Rail project, unelectrified, purveys its false information. It hasn’t laid a single foot of track between its alleged first segment from “Merced to Bakersfield”, which genuinely is only from Madera to Wasco, 30 miles or so north of Bakersfield, where you’d transfer to a shuttle bus. The U.S. Department of Transportation three months ago demanded return of $2,500,000,000 from the Federal Rail Administration and canceled a $929,000,000 grant for failure to perform. Last month, the Assembly Speaker, and other legislators, announced that remaining funds should best be given to Caltrain for its electrification and the Los Angeles Basin commuter train, Metrolink, for similar improvements. He proposed legislative action, ignoring the fact that the approximately $4,500,000,000 of California taxpayer-approved general obligation bonds remain from the November 2008 action of California voters, and that the law requires voter approval of diversion of such money from the high-speed rail bond issue. The legislature and governor cannot ignore voters. (That’s the subject of a pending suit by taxpayers in the California Court of Appeal on 2017 legislative diversion.)

The District Attorney’s race is the most important November 2019 ballot item. I’ve withdrawn my endorsement of Leif Bautch II after he disclosed he opposes use of tasers (instead of guns) by police officers, and believes holding police “accountable” is his highest brochure priority. (The Police Officers Association also withdrew its endorsement of him.) Our Police Department, like other cities, can’t recruit enough police officers. We have about 300 fewer police officers than our Charter requires. The last Police Academy class graduated less than half the recruits who began. Simultaneously, the establishment candidate, Suzy Loftus, as one-time president of the Police Commission, reduced public comment from three to two minutes. As author of 1996 legislation requiring public comment at local commissions on each item and at commencement of each meeting, I’m repulsed by such treatment of San Franciscans. Additionally, as legal counsel to the Sheriff, she failed to stop abusive treatment of jail inmates by deputy sheriffs. I reiterate my strong recommendation of Nancy Tung, a former San Francisco Deputy District Attorney and current Alameda County Deputy District Attorney, for election. Unlike the incumbent, Nancy Tung has tried scores of criminal cases to juries. It shouldn’t be a close choice.

Thomas Jefferson, in a November 1802 letter, declared: “If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

SEPTEMBER 2019

Poet Paul Valery declared in the Los Angeles Times last month: “Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” San Francisco voters face an important election regarding the rule of law on November 5, 2019. The incumbent District Attorney, a 2011 political appointee who, while admitted to the State Bar of California, has never tried a case in a courtroom, won’t seek another term. There are now four choices: the two best with genuine experience in criminal law and belief in law enforcement are Leif Dautch and Nancy Tung. The two worst are Deputy Public Defender Chesa Boudin, a champion of illegal immigration which results in more work for public defenders at taxpayer expense, and Suzy Loftus, the City Hall establishment favorite, weaned on the public trough as the Sheriff’s attorney, who doesn’t prosecute crimes.

DA Candidates: Chesa Boudin, Leif Dautch, Suzy Loftus, Nancy Tung

Dautch, a four-year veteran of the San Francisco District Attorney’s office and Harvard Law School graduate, is now a Deputy Attorney General in San Francisco, trying cases the State Attorney General must prosecute because of a conflicted county prosecutor. Tung, a one-time San Francisco Deputy District Attorney, has been an Alameda County Deputy District Attorney for several years, realizing that office constitutes the second best district attorney’s office in the nine-county Bay Area, exceeded in results only by the San Mateo County District Attorney, Steve Wagstaffe. Dautch neatly observes about prosecutorial failures of the incumbent District Attorney and the candidacy of a Deputy Public Defender, that San Francisco “doesn’t need two public defenders.”

Loftus last month wrote a mind-boggling column in The San Francisco Examiner that she would reverse the sorry record of the current District Attorney in failing to pursue sexual violence cases like rape and assault. Her bromide includes mental health, social services, and “crisis lines . . . community-based services, and protective orders.” She eschews “increasing rates of conviction” as solving an asserted sexual violence epidemic in San Francisco. She is afraid to identify the inept incumbent District Attorney as responsible for failures to prosecute sexual violence cases. She informs people she was president of the San Francisco Police Commission. That’s true; ask San Francisco police officers their opinion of her tenure. Proof is in the pudding: the Police Officers Association refuses to endorse her candidacy.

Meanwhile, the forgiveness of gross receipts taxes of billion dollar technology companies on Market Street has resulted in more wealth for corporate executives, but hasn’t changed upper Market Street to a desirable place to walk. Now customary homeless persons still occupy sidewalks and illegally cross Market Street, deposit excrement, and beg for alms from those brave enough to traverse the area. Every generation of politicians, including the current bunch of majority “progressive” Board of Supervisors members, has to learn you don’t build a desirable city (or county or state) by cutting deals with business barons to abolish or decrease tax responsibilities in return for locating here. It’s not only San Francisco; three months ago, New York City’s leaders finally decided not to give Amazon $3,000,000,000 in corporate welfare and billionaire socialism for building a new headquarters across the East River from Manhattan in Long Island City. The San Francisco tax cut for billionaires ends this year, fortunately. As noted in The Wall Street Journal, such political giveaways are based upon “a pernicious theory of civic welfare that presumes private development is New York’s primary goal, the truest measure of urban vitality and health, with money the city’s only real currency.”

This year also resulted in City Hall, through the Ethics Commission, changing San Francisco’s public financing system by using a 6-to-1 “matching rate”, meaning taxpayer money to candidate-raised money from private sources. Spending over $1,000,000 of your tax money this year on worthless candidates (and more next year) represents a failed proposition, namely, giving fervent politicians tax revenue to propagate their campaigns reduces overall campaign spending. Public financing doesn’t shrink the influence of large campaign contributions through independent expenditure committees. It doesn’t reduce campaign spending (see Mayor London Breed’s 2018 expenditures of $2,251,065). It doesn’t reduce advantages of incumbency. It’s false public policy at taxpayer expense. Yet San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other charter law cities in California pursue the Holy Grail. Fortunately, state law because of a voter initiative written by the late State Senator Ross Johnson, a Republican, Senator Joe Montoya, a Democrat, and me, an Independent, in 1988 prohibits all 460 general law cities from public financing of local campaigns for public office.

Remember late Louisiana U.S. Senator Russell D. Long’s 1986 wisdom: “A tax loophole is something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.”

Former Supervisor and Judge, Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

JULY 2019

The late James Byrnes, a United States Senator from South Carolina and later Secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman observed in the 1940s: “The nearest approach to immortality on earth is a government bureau.”

In 1931, San Francisco voters approved a new Charter which reduced Board of Supervisors membership from 16 to 11, elected citywide, and paid $2,400 per year, without membership in the Retirement System but with membership in the publicly-funded Health System. The Charter also barred supervisors from interfering in administrative matters or trying to influence votes of city boards and commissions. Only the voters could increase the supervisors’ salary. Voters did so by doubling it to $4,800 in the 1950s and then $9,600 in 1964. All supervisors but one in my 15 years of service from 1972 until 1986 worked in a business or profession because it was a part-time responsibility, because a Mayor and a Chief Administrative Officer devoted full-time to managing San Francisco government.

After failed supervisorial efforts to remove voters/taxpayers from setting salaries the second time I was President of the Board of Supervisors in 1982 dollars, I asked Budget Analyst Harvey M. Rose to advise me what cost of living increases since 1964 would amount to in 1982. His answer was $23,924 per year. I immediately introduced a Charter amendment to increase the salary accordingly. Voters easily approved it that November. In the 1990s, after I left the Board, a should-be-forgotten supervisor trumpeted Charter “revision,” including voter approval of supervisor salaries. The Civil Service Commission, which would supposedly survey comparable legislative entities in the Bay Area to ascertain a “prevailing” salary. Unfortunately, voters were induced to approve such nostrums.

Since that time, voters unwisely created district election of Supervisors. Instead of answering to approximately 850,000 San Franciscans, presently our heroes represent about 77,000 people, and are term limited. Nevertheless, they’re now members of the Retirement System, and last month the Civil Service Commission ignored staff recommendations and granted Supervisors a 12% salary increase to $140,000 annually, plus a yearly cost of living increase the next four years thereafter. Marvelous! Try to reach any of them or their 3 aides on a Friday afternoon

For those interested in the “land grab” legislation proposed by State Senator Scott Wiener (Senate Bill 281), be advised the bill was not heard by the Senate Appropriations Committee, and, therefore, cannot be considered until next January, at which time it’d need approval by both that committee and the whole State Senate to reach the Assembly. A similar “land grab” was attempted 10 years ago by the ignominious Leland Yee and Daly City, which obtained an appraisal of the market value of Agricultural District 1-A’s 68 acres. Over 11 years ago, it was already $149,000,000. As amended, Wiener’s measure would require payment of current market value to the state, which owns the property, by San Mateo, Daly City, and San Francisco taxpayers. Daly City, whose Historical Society fiercely opposes the bill, is reputedly near insolvency. Simultaneously, Wiener’s Senate Bill 50, which would override local zoning to encourage high-rise apartment buildings in single family housing neighborhoods, was “parked” in the Senate Appropriations Committee for 2019. A nonprofit Los Angeles group investigation showed that in his 2016 campaign for the State Senate, Wiener received $574,276 from almost 700 politico donations by developers, real estate attorneys, brokers, architects, lobbyists, and other real estate insiders. Should he ever be elected to the U.S. Congress, I’d expect Wiener to foster legislation granting the United States Government control over local zoning and planning processes!

A beleaguered Dolores Heights neighborhood taxpayer invites attention to a City Hall effort to establish a “Green Benefit District,” as a so-called “community benefit district,” levying an assessment on neighborhood property owners to fund cleaner sidewalks, streets, common areas, plus improved public safety. Each property owner will be assessed accordingly, whether residential or commercial. The 2019-2020 prospective San Francisco budget exceeds $11,500,000,000. The assessment would raise $1,000,000, of which 33% would be spent on overhead. A Green Benefit District was formed covering Dogpatch. The executive director, appointed by ex-Mayor Lee to a Board of Supervisors vacancy covering Telegraph Hill and North Beach, Julie Christensen, then promptly defeated for election by Aaron Peskin, receives $120,000 per year as the Dogpatch District Executive Director. Don’t Dolores Heights residents, who can’t deduct from their income taxes the proposed “assessment,” unlike business owners, already pay taxes for the services respecting sidewalks, streets, common areas like parks, and police and fire departments?

Let’s hope the City Hall “family” doesn’t attempt to organize a “Green Benefit District” in Richmond, Sunset, or West of Twin Peaks neighborhoods.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

JUNE 2019

H. L. Mencken in The American Mercury in May 1930 declared: “The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people; it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, . . . are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation . . . The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game . . . If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of chiropractic, astrology, or cannibalism.” That applies to State Senator Scott Wiener, who aspires to destroy our historic Cow Palace.

Last year, Wiener prosecuted legislatively a measure to ban gun shows in the Cow Palace. His bill emanated from pressure by people espousing gun control and disdain of the Second Amendment. He was thwarted by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., who vetoed his legislation, observing that the Cow Palace Board of Directors is composed of people from the community, consisting of San Mateo County and San Francisco residents only. This year, the same politician introduced Senate Bill 281, not just to render gun shows illegal in the Cow Palace, but to abolish the Cow Palace by transferring its valuable 68 acres to a “joint powers authority” composed of Daly City, San Francisco, and San Mateo County. This land grab contained no payment to state taxpayers for such real estate conveyance. All but two acres of the Cow Palace are in San Mateo County, which last month declined to pass a resolution supporting S.B. 281 despite entreaty by the Board of Supervisors member from Daly City, D. J. Canepa. (S.B. 281 was amended by the State Senate Government Organization Committee to require payment of market value by Daly City, San Francisco, and San Mateo County, one of whose supervisors observed to me that there isn’t an acre of unimproved land in San Mateo County worth less than $1,000,000!)

The legislative author has disseminated such falsehoods as “the bill is not controversial” and that the Cow Palace board members don’t represent San Francisco or San Mateo County residents. In fact, one member resides in Daly City, which has always been involved with the Cow Palace. Its police department, fire department, and “SWAT” team, plus the California Highway Patrol, the Muni, and American Medical Response all train at the Cow Palace.

A historical refresher needs recitation. The Cow Palace constitutes California Agricultural District 1A; there are 54 agricultural districts in California and another 23 county fairs and expositions. Ten years ago, the state budget, because of economic conditions, ceased funding agricultural districts. The Cow Palace, constructed under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and opened in 1941, had to generate enough revenue to cover operating expenses. It has done so brilliantly, now possessing over $4,000,000 in cash reserve. It has hosted political conventions, circuses, ice hockey, basketball, track and field, and boat shows. It now generates rent from the traditional Grand National Rodeo, Horse and Stock Show, the Junior Livestock Show, 4H shows, the Great Dickens Fair, dog shows, a reptile show, flower shows, a circus, auto exhibitions, AIDS Lifecycle fundraising weekend, Salesforce and Facebook corporate events, and cannabis events.

Despite denial that his bill would result in destruction of the improved Cow Palace and surrounding animal stalls and space, Wiener’s intent is to transfer it to wealthy land use developers under the guise of solving the “housing crisis.” Despite language in S.B. 281 which states it isn’t a precedent for other agricultural districts or county fairs, such language is precatory, easily overcome by subsequent legislation grabbing other state and county agricultural exposition properties for developers. Except for the naked land grab, S.B. 281 is moot as to its original purpose: On April 16, 2019, the Cow Palace Board voted unanimously not to re-lease the premises in 2020 to the gun show operator, whose lease expires December 31, 2019.

Those gun shows have never resulted in sale of a firearm used in a reported assault, much less a death, because state and federal laws control purchases, meaning scrupulous background checks and prevention of possession of a purchased gun at the Cow Palace for 30 days or more, without any physical transfer of a weapon at the Cow Palace.

Finally, the Cow Palace is engaged in negotiations with an adjoining private property owner and Daly City to develop jointly approximately 15 acres west of the Geneva Avenue entrance for housing and a supermarket. Wiener’s destructive approach, including another bill (S.B. 50) usurping local control over zoning ordinances by California cities, would abolish a history of not just rodeos and 4H events, but availability of the acreage for emergency shelter and rescue after earthquakes and other physical disasters, as well as legendary appearances by President John F. Kennedy, the Reverent Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Beatles!

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

MAY 2019

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote a friend: “If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.” That emblemizes San Francisco’s most wasteful (and unhappy) current transportation project, the Municipal Railway’s Central Subway Project, now 10 years in length.

MUNI tax-eaters publicly represent the current cost as $1,600,000,000, which is more than half a billion more than the original proclaimed cost. A better sobriquet is the “billion-dollar-per-mile subway” since it’s only 1.6 miles long from south of Market to Chinatown’s border through Union Square. MUNI chose California’s worst taxpayer enemy, Tutor Perini Co., to build the Central Subway. Its completion is broadcasted as December, but I’ll wager it’ll be 2021 after revelation last month of contract disputes between Tutor Perini and MUNI following revelation last year of 3.2 miles of construction using the wrong type of steel track. The time-saving over use of the #30 bus, assuming the Central Subway one day opens, is a reputed matter of a few minutes.

San Francisco is not the only repository of taxpayer abuse. Honolulu snagged about $9,000,000,000 from federal, state, and city taxpayers for a 20-mile train from suburbs west of Honolulu to downtown, with an original estimate of $5,000,000,000 in 1991. It imposed a surcharge on Oahu business receipts after the elevated train project needed more money. Federal transportation gurus concede only a 65% chance of completion by 2025. Work commenced before environmental studies and planning were completed, about 100 contracts were signed before final approval from the Federal Transit Authority occurred, and now must be re-written.

I am reminded of probably the worst Bay Area public transit project in history, propounded by Santa Clara County’s Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) over 30 years ago to institute trolley car service through San Jose. From commencement, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission staff knew VTA rail was unjustified, but was forced to recommend it to the U.S. Department of Transportation for federal funds by San Jose politicians oblivious of taxpayers. (Unfortunately, I was in the State Senate and didn’t have a vote anymore at MTC, of which I had been chairman in the early 1980s). Fare box recovery ratio measures proportion of operating expenses covered by ridership fares, typically expressed as a percentage. BART service to San Francisco International Airport, for example, obtains fare box recovery of over 70%, the highest of any public transit service in the Bay Area. In 2016-17, Caltrain reached 65% fare box recovery ratio, but MUNI’s fare box recovery was but 28%, and VTA was 10%! That means taxpayers subsidize 90% of VTA riders’ service. While BART currently has many problems resulting from homelessness, fare box cheating, broken escalators and elevators, its fare box recovery in fiscal year 2016-17 remained over 70%.

As California’s new Governor prepares for his first state budget, let’s remember that about 1% of state income tax payers pay nearly half of the total, based upon our country’s highest state income tax rate of 13.3%. As Fresno State Professor Victor Davis Hanson pointed out last month, new federal income tax law limits deductions for state and local taxes to $10,000, which constitutes an incentive for California’s 1% to move to states without a state income tax, like Nevada or Florida. Hanson further reminds us that during the drought, politicians alleged global warming meant snow and rain would be decreased and that low-elevation reservoirs for retaining water during wet years like 2018-19 were unjustified. That’s now resulted in millions of acre-feet of snow and rain flowing to the ocean. Suppose the drought returns next year. Hanson further identified California as “facing a perfect storm of homelessness.” Generous welfare benefits and warm climates attract the homeless, so nearly one third of the country’s welfare recipients live in California, where vagrancy and public health laws aren’t enforced.

Last month, three S.F. Supervisors announced planned introduction of an ordinance to close Juvenile Hall based upon declining juvenile crime and inmates. Not a word was publicly uttered by any of our three heroes about using such land to build housing for the homeless, assuming closure is justified. Instead, there were references to a park, landscaping, and “public spaces.” I wouldn’t be surprised if tuberculosis and typhus from people on the streets and sidewalks of San Francisco and other large California cities occur because health code enforcement seems politically incorrect.

I don’t know the author, but someone claimed: “There is one fixed rule in government: the less it’s worth, the more it costs.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

April 2019

H. G. Wells in The Outline of History in 1921 observed: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” Last November, a flurry of articles about the sorrowful assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk 40 years ago encouraged various theories and alleged facts. Some were educational; others were revisionist. Concurrently, another book on that subject was published. Its author, Daniel J. Flynn, a senior editor of The American Spectator, wrote Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco, but couldn’t secure a book review from any San Francisco newspaper. (Maybe the content wasn’t politically correct for liberal San Francisco.)

It’s time to record genuine history rather than historical debasement books like Season of the Witch. San Francisco’s first experiment with district election of supervisors was voter-enacted in November 1976, resulting in election of Harvey Milk in the so-called Castro Street area (he had run unsuccessfully citywide) and Dan White in the Portola in 1977. Previously, custom and practice, although not law, resulted in the highest citywide vote-getter being unanimously elected Board president for two years. With district supervisorial elections, that practice was abandoned. I secured the highest number of votes in our district, unopposed. Dianne Feinstein of Pacific Heights received about half my 20,000 total votes. Based upon my closest political friend retiring supervisor John Barbagelata’s suggestion, I agreed to allow her to be elected president in return for endorsing me in 1978 for mayor. (She never did.) She induced new district supervisors to provide her a majority. For White’s vote, she agreed to support his opposition to a zoning change in Roman Catholic Archdiocese property on University Mound to convert a home for unwed prospective mothers into a facility for delinquent boys. Most residents of that district objected to that, and appealed the Planning Commission rezoning to the Board of Supervisors.

I publicly opposed the rezoning. White told me Milk would oppose the rezoning. Knowing Milk’s predilections, I expressed skepticism to White. The following week, the neighborhood appeal failed, Milk voting against it, White, Supervisor Lee Dolson, Feinstein, and I voting for the appealing neighbors. White then ruefully admitted to me I was correct in predicting Milk’s vote.

Later, White voted against a Milk-sponsored ordinance banning discrimination in employment of homosexuals. I supported it. It passed.

Subsequently in 1978, White, a former fireman, was inveighed by the Pier 39 developer to open a potato skin food business on Pier 39. It proved difficult for his wife and him to operate the business successfully while he was a supervisor. In November, before Thanksgiving Day, White delivered his resignation to Mayor Moscone. Downtown businesses and public employee unions persuaded White to change his mind. (Additionally, state law required resignation of a county supervisor to be filed with the Board of Supervisors clerk, not the mayor.) Milk urged Mayor Moscone not to allow White’s return. White learned of such effort. As Flynn notes in a November 26, 2018 magazine column, White’s assassinations weren’t based on Milk’s homosexuality; they occurred because of his desired reappointment. Those are facts, not political revision.

* * *

Unnoticed in San Francisco and California, last summer a Pennsylvania township with surplus from increased property tax collection disgorged itself for taxpayers’ benefit. Middletown Township conveyed 14,361 checks for $68 each to all owners of improved property. It resulted from controlling expenditures and delinquent tax collections. Hallelujah. Now, abolition of taxpayer business subsidies and use of taxpayer money to settle sexual misconduct cases by state and national legislators and public officials could correct injustice to taxpayers. The Independent Institute notes that California legislators, public universities, and state agencies “secretly settled sexual misconduct claims using taxpayer money – about $11.3 million over the past three fiscal years.” Settlements ranged from $500 to $10,000,000; seven exceeded $500,000. Over the last 25 years, the Legislature has paid over $2,800,000 in 2017 taxpayer dollars.

Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to subsidize electric vehicle buyers. The federal government gives buyers a $7,500 subsidy. That began under President Obama in 2009. The Pacific Research Institute discovered from 2014 Internal Revenue Service records that 79% of federal electric car tax credits were obtained by households with adjusted gross income exceeding $100,000. California bestows $15,000 per electric vehicle on purchasers in state income tax credits. Moreover, last month the Wall Street Journal noted total carbon dioxide emissions from electric vehicles can exceed conventional vehicle emissions. Why should private corporations use taxpayer money to increase their customers, like the local property tax exemptions granted wealthy technology companies for Market Street office buildings? I think commercial property-owning businesses on Taraval Street and Geary Boulevard would like similar treatment. Maybe that’s why Lord Bryce in London in 1921 declared: “A political career brings out the basest qualities in human nature.”

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

March 2019

“We live in an age disturbed, confused, bewildered, afraid of its own forces, in search not merely of its road, but even of its direction. There are many voices of counsel, but few voices of vision; there is much . . . feverish activity, but little concert of thoughtful purpose. We are distressed by our own ungoverned, undirected energies and do many things, but nothing long. It is our duty to find ourselves.”

That’s not the mandate of contemporary political commentators and philosophers, but Woodrow Wilson, speaking at Princeton University June 9, 1907. Once upon a time, presidential campaigns were relatively short. Not now in the era of Trump, especially for Democrats like an unknown congressman from Texas who was vanquished two months ago for U.S. Senate, or another similar type unknown except in Alameda County and the San Francisco Chronicle, and rookie U.S. Senate members, including one from San Francisco.

Forgotten is Kamala Harris’ conduct 16 years ago. Before election as San Francisco’s District Attorney in November 2003, she benefited from appointment to the $97,000-per-year California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board by then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1993, and the next year to the even higher-paying California Medical Commission. The February 23, 2003 San Diego Union-Tribune observed that those two state boards were frequently condemned by taxpayers for “allow[ing] politically connected people with no expertise . . . to earn large salaries for jobs that are less than full-time.” The erstwhile Bay Guardian’s Savannah Blackwell noted that Harris had no experience at the age of 30 to “qualify her to oversee the work of 15 staff members who negotiate Medi-Cal reimbursement rates with state hospitals.” Additionally, she was paid by taxpayers as an Alameda County Deputy District Attorney. In 1998, her California Medical Commission salary soared to $99,000 a year. Given a six-figure job by then-District Attorney Terence Hallinan as a San Francisco deputy prosecutor, she rewarded her benefactor by running against him in 2003 after San Francisco adopted public financing with clear eligibility rules, including a maximum amount of campaign spending. In her case, it was $211,000.

After spending $1,150,000 compared to Hallinan’s $362,000, she was the subject of an Ethics Commission complaint (that wasn’t a new experience: in 2000, she was paid $8,000 to manage the unsuccessful reelection campaign of Amos Brown and failed to notify the public of the mailing of two political brochures within the time legally required). Eventually, in 2003, Harris was charged by the Ethics Commission with violating her promise not to spend more than $211,000 on her District Attorney’s campaign. Her violation of the public financing law was clear, but instead of fining her the maximum penalty of $275,000, the Ethics Commission assessed her a mere $34,000. The law also permitted her disqualification. As Savannah Blackwell wrote in September 2005 for the former SFProgressive.com: “By law, Harris should not even be the city’s District Attorney.”

Most recently, taxpayers funded the December settlement of a harassment suit against a top aide in her U.S. Senate office for $400,000. As California’s most knowledgeable political commentator, Dan Walters, wrote in Cal Matters on December 18, after Harris claimed ignorance of the suit or settlement, “it seems incredible that Harris would have been kept in the dark about a harassment allegation against one of her closest aides, and the secret payoff that made it go away. That’s especially true since Harris has made sexual harassment a touchstone in preparing for a presidential run.”

As a U.S. Senator, of course, Harris is eligible for Washington elite access to an obscure, lucrative Social Security alternative under which one monthly payment ($11,334) equals a whole year’s sum of ordinary Social Security payments. That’s ten times over the average Social Security payment. Including Al Gore, about 351 former congressmen and congresswomen collect such benefit. Deployment of taxpayers’ money also occurs locally. The California Fair Political Practices Commission last month fined BART a modest $7,500 for failing to file campaign expenditure statements in 2016 for a $3,500,000 bond. Public agencies a

re prohibited from using taxpayer funds for political campaigns. Unfortunately, FPPC authority doesn’t include whether such activity was legal in the first place because it can only apply sanctions for undisclosed public agency campaign spending. BART spent $7,791 of taxpayer money to produce videos and send texts to promote the bond measure, which won easily. Meanwhile, local district attorneys and the State Attorney General declined to sue agencies that use public money for political campaigns criminally. In my 27 years in elected public office, I witnessed one such criminal action by the San Mateo County District Attorney, the best prosecutor’s office in the nine Bay Area counties. State Senator Steve Glazer of Orinda has requested the Attorney General to investigate the violation and promises legislation to expand FPPC power. Last month, the FPPC also decided there’s probable cause the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors spent over $800,000 of taxpayer money to campaign for a 2017 homeless services ballot measure. The lesson? Pity the poor taxpayer.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

February 2019

In the aftermath of last month's elections, I'm reminded of the unusually effected scare tactics presented to local newspaper readers who expect accuracy in reporting and opinion-writing. As observed by a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Constitution Day this year, Thomas Jefferson in 1789 wrote: "Wherever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." Bear in mind, however, 71% of Americans can't identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, according to a 2012 Xavier University report, and 10% of college graduates, according to a 2015 American Council of Trustees and Alumni poll, thought Judith Sheindlin (aka Judge Judy) is a U.S. Supreme Court justice, while only 32% of college graduates could name all three government branches, and 33% can't name a single branch, according to the 2018 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.

As I have previously reminded readers, California's gasoline tax was instituted in 1922 as a user fee for the specific and sole purpose of employing proceeds to build and maintain state highways, county roads, and city streets. That's good government. Instead, the California legislature and governor last year collaborated to enact a 12-cents-per-gallon tax increase, the proceeds of which would also be used for public buses and other forms of transportation, which will be paid for by vehicle drivers and certainly not as a user fee. The California Attorney General wrote as deceiving a summarization of state Proposition 6, which would have repealed the use of gasoline taxes for non-highway, road, and street purposes. That summary is by law the Voter Information Pamphlet information presented to voters. California courts have been reluctant to interfere in litigation to stop the falsifying of the Attorney General's summarization. Proposition 6 opponents spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat it because they're the road construction, engineers, designers, and unionized workers who receive the taxes paid by drivers.

Regarding transportation, on August 8, 2018, the Wall Street Journal pointed out that California spends ten times more on electric car subsidies than on clearing dead trees, which result in flammable groundcover – $335,000,000 for electric car subsidies and only $30,000,000 for clearing 60,000 acres of forests. Similarly, governments use taxpayers' money to confer on massive corporations like Amazon billions of dollars, as New York City did last month for a "second headquarters" for Amazon. San Francisco waived property taxes for technology corporations on Market Street. New York City granted Amazon $1,500,000,000 in cash and property tax credits. As pointed out in The Week, Kansas and Missouri spent $500,000,000 in tax incentives for companies, thus taking money from schools and infrastructure. Once government grants corporation A property tax forgiveness, why shouldn't it grant the same exemption to corporation B, and C, etc.? It's the antithesis of good government.

So is San Francisco city government behavior. Last week, one Supervisor declared intent to establish yet another new office for curing alleged "racial" inequality. She'd call it the "Office of Racial Equity", avowedly to end alleged discrimination in employment practices at City Hall and housing policies. That means more office space, more city employees than even the current 30,000, and more taxpayer subsidization.

On the state level, legislators henceforth needn't live in the district each represents. Senate Bill 1250 enables politicians to claim residences outside their district. While the U.S. Constitution contains no residency qualification for House of Representative members, Governor Jerry Brown signed such bill after pardoning a former legislator who was elected in a district outside his residence. The honest method to effectuate such a policy, contrary to the California Constitution, would be a constitutional amendment for voters to approve. That, however, means the rule of law in a "sanctuary state" which refuses to recognize illegal immigration in jails and prisons.

As a new governor commences his responsibility next month, people ask me what to expect. I'm not a soothsayer. I can't answer. I know California has the highest poverty rate in the country, laws benefiting criminals and illegal aliens, releases of criminals from detention, erasing criminal records. That's the incentive for native San Franciscan Nina Salarno Besselman of Crime Victims United announcing institution of a 2020 initiative to reverse the public safety damage of alleged "criminal justice reform." That includes restoration of the money bail system instead of a computer-based "risk assessment" which is plainly defective. California possesses over 4,000,000 illegal aliens, and the National Economics Editorial estimates they can pay $3,500,000,000 in taxes, but cost California about $30,300,000,000 yearly. That's 17.7% of California's annual budget, with welfare, food stamps, meals, free immunization, low-cost housing, in-state tuition fees, and, potential 2019 legislation to permit candidacies for elected public offices.

Meanwhile, the Festival of Lights (aka Hanukkah) begins December 2 for eight days, and Christmas still occurs on December 25. Jingle Bells to all. Have a Happy New Year.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

December 2018

In 1921, H.G. Wells declared: “Human history becomes more and more erased between education and catastrophe.” Some readers may still be puzzled by the wealth of ballot measures and candidates, even in this one-party city and one-party state. I think it’s important to vote against Proposition 3, which was qualified for the ballot by a distasteful system of its author raising money from entities and individuals who will benefit economically if it passes. If state legislators acted in such fashion with ballot measures, they’d be denounced and maybe prosecuted for bribery. The California Court of Appeal, however, in the 1990s, decided it was constitutionally permissible for a private citizen to practice “pay to participate” in invalidating legislation sponsored by me and signed by then-Governor George Deukmejian. Also dangerous to housing construction incentive is Proposition 10, which merits a similar negative vote, and again, I recommend strong support for Proposition 6, repealing a 12-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and increased registration fees. I do so not because a gas tax increase isn’t warranted; it is warranted, but I do so because the proceeds will be spent on projects other than highways, roads, and streets. It’s a distortion of the reason we’ve paid gas tax since 1922, and it’s financed by the construction companies, engineers, building trade unions, and others who will benefit from its billions of dollars.

As a lawyer and retired judge, I was keenly attentive to last month’s confirmation proceedings respecting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Neither his opponents nor Justice Kavanaugh demonstrated good judgment and appropriate conduct. The concealing by Senator Dianne Feinstein of the accusatory letter from a woman alleging Justice Kavanaugh assaulted her at a high school gathering in 1982 when he was 17 and she was 15 resulted in the most vicious set of public hearings and closed door maneuvering in decades. Forgotten by the commentators and journalists was the case of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. On August 12, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Democratic Senator Hugo Black of Alabama to the Supreme Court. He served over 30 years and was hailed as a supporter of civil liberties and the First Amendment. Forgotten by the “talking heads” and Democratic leaders is that Justice Black, after his appointment, was exposed as a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. He joined it in September 1923, and resigned in July 1925. In September 1926, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Justice Black was given a life membership in the Klan, which was anti-black, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jewish. Justice Black later claimed he joined to prevent the Klan from being too extreme. He was a man who never graduated high school, but graduated the University of Alabama Law School Phi Beta Kappa, marched in parades, and spoke at nearly 150 meetings in the Klan uniform. He was also FDR’s first nominee to the Supreme Court and championed the Bill of Rights against the states. Now, will Justice Kavanaugh be another Justice Black? I wasn’t overly persuaded by his accuser referring to events 36years previously, but if I had been a U.S. Senator, I would’ve had a difficult time voting to confirm him. Why? His display of anger indicated a non-judicial temperament. As pointed out by a Wall Street Journal reader, he was belligerent, hostile, intemperate, self-pitying, insulting, and political (recall his reference to the Clintons). I don’t care about his political background. I care about his judicial record and temperament. I was a fierce trial lawyer with a temperament to match, but as a judge, I was temperate. Some lawyers who knew me as an opponent were surprised. I can’t imagine using the phrase “what goes around comes around” as Justice Kavanaugh did during one of the public hearings. Let’s hope that he performs as a protector of the First Amendment and other constitutional provisions and accumulates the proud record of Justice Hugo Black even to the point of carrying a copy of the Constitution in his pocket.

Last fall, San Franciscan historian Ken Maley from Telegraph Hill asked me if I realized November 11, 2018 would be the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice ending World War I. An immigrant from a farm in Russia (now in Belorussia), my father immigrated legally to the U.S.A. in 1912 as a 15-year-old. By May 1917, he’d finished Brooklyn School of Pharmacy, then a two-year course, and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Shipped to France with the American Expeditionary Force, he was naturalized that fall and, after the Armistice, was one of 100 soldiers selected for the American mission to Armenia in January 1919, a 90-day investigation of the Armenian genocide in which over 1,000,000 Armenians were murdered. World War I means much to me. I’m delighted to be Co-Chairman of the World War I Armistice Centennial Commemoration at the War Memorial Veterans Building, which will culminate November 11 after the 11 AM Veterans Day parade from Fishermans Wharf to Civic Center, bell ringing at 11 AM (the time of the World War I Armistice in 1918), a memorial service at Grace Cathedral Church on Nob Hill, and a reception at the War Memorial ending at 6 PM. San Francisco was chosen by the U.S. World War I Historical Commission as one of 100 recognized commemoration cities. With retired Marine Corps Major General Mike Myatt as Co-Chairman, citizens have raised $100,000 for poster, banner, and photographic World War I displays since May in the War Memorial lobby, which will remain through 2019 to commemorate the centennial of the establishment of the American Legion. Besides General Myatt and Ken Maley, retired Lieutenant Colonel Wallace Levin, a War Memorial Board of Trustees member and director of the Veterans Day parade, the Committee consists of American Legion leaders, history professors, and World War I historians. Few San Franciscans realize that the War Memorial Veterans Building and the Opera House on the land between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, Hayes and Grove Streets resulted from World War I after transfer of such land by the University of California to the City and County of San Francisco in 1921. Thereafter, the War Memorial opened in 1931, the Opera House in 1932, with proceeds for construction from a general obligation bond approved by San Francisco voters circa 1922. San Francisco wanted to honor World War I veterans and did so in perpetuity. God Bless America.

Former Supervisor and Judge Quentin Kopp lives on the Westside.

November 2018

Dr. Charles Krauthammer, an extraordinary man, who trained as a psychiatrist, later a political commentator, and, lastly, a paraplegic, observed in May 1982: "If we insist that public life be reserved for those whose personal history is pristine, we are not going to get paragons of virtue running our affairs. We will get the very rich, who contract out the messy things in life; the very dull, who have nothing to hide and nothing to show; and the very devious, expert at covering their tracks and ambitious enough to risk their discovery." I thought of that in connection with the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court, replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy of Sacramento, who was the best protector of the First Amendment since Justice Louis Brandeis. (As I write, confirmation by the U.S. Senate is pending, but may be concluded by our publication.)

Last month, I mentioned the self-congratulatory dedication of the Transbay Terminal, another San Francisco project years behind schedule and tens of millions of dollars more expensive than represented to taxpayers for over a decade. I noted with approval Supervisor Aaron Peskin's astute observation that without Caltrain or California high-speed rail using the Terminal, it'll be the most costly bus terminal in California history. Subsequently, we learned that under the administration of an unqualified executive director, the Transbay Terminal Authority approved a contract with the builder of the sinking Millennium Tower, requiring the Transbay Terminal Authority to pay the legal fees of the wealthy Millennial Tower builder in lawsuits by condominium purchasers whose property value is adversely affected by the leaning structure – and, no, it's not in Pisa! Millions of dollars of attorneys' fees will be borne by taxpayers, not the owners of Transbay Terminal adjacent structures, such as Salesforce. Ineptitude and deceit of taxpayers emblemize this sorry saga about such real estate project which will never honor the promise to taxpayers that tracks would be extended 1.3 miles from Fourth and King Streets to the Terminal. Finally, on September 25, those transportation wastrels closed the bus terminal completely because of cracked beams.

Last month, Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. signed a dangerous bill which effectively eliminates California's bail system for accused criminals. A defendant's right to bail is guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Sections 12 and 28(e) of the California Constitution. Governor Brown has now eliminated bail in favor of relying upon pretrial assessments of an accused's propensity to threaten public safety and alleged victims and appear at all required criminal court hearings, using a flawed algorithm from a wealthy Texas foundation of a man who garnered billions from the Enron collapse. The legislation was so drastically amended that prior supporters like the American Civil Liberties Union and Public Defender Jeff Adachi opposed it, along with the Alliance of California Judges and California District Attorneys Association. The proponents typically know nothing about criminal court practices. Since I was a Board of Supervisors member in the 1970s, San Francisco's Superior Court has operated a pretrial diversion program, evaluating an accused likelihood of law-breaking and fleeing before trial for purposes of release without bail, usually subject to reporting by telephone every 24 or 48 hours to that office. The same system exists in 45 other counties. Judges conduct hearings every day, receiving sworn testimony from defendants, family members, and friends, as well as reviewing prior records of arrest and convictions, plus information about residency and employment in San Francisco or the Bay Area. Defendants' court-appointed or privately-employed attorneys and prosecutors can argue about bail amount or release without bail before trial. So-called "bail reform" advocates are mostly amateurs who don't appear in criminal court every day like lawyers and judges. Moreover, Governor Brown's action will require millions of dollars of taxpayer money to implement.

Precluded by Ethics Commission rules from furnishing opinions about city ballot measures or candidates, I express recommendations for state measures and candidates only. I'll vote "Yes" on Propositions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 12. Propositions 1 and 2 represent bonds to facilitate housing construction. Propositions 3, 4 and 8 address health, namely, a safe water supply, hospital care for children, and kidney dialysis for Californians. Proposition 5 ensures protection for grandparents and parents in transferring residences to children without incurring exorbitant property tax increases. Proposition 6 repeals the 2017 distorted 12-cents-per-gallon gas tax increase of the Legislature, which foolishly enables the money to be used for activity other than building and maintaining highways, roads, and city streets. It's not the money which motivates my Proposition 6 endorsement, it's misuse of the money we would pay as motorists. Proposition 7 authorizes maintenance of Daylight Saving Time in California. (Proposition 9 was removed from the ballot.) Proposition 10 merits defeat. It ends over 25 years of rational rules controlling rent upon tenant departure, thus permitting San Francisco landlords to charge "market" rent upon a lease's end. Propositions 11 and 12 enhance human life by assuring availability of ambulance service at all hours and guaranteeing animal protection.

Finally, I'm excited about electing Steve Poizner, Insurance Commissioner, and Marshall Tuck, Superintendent of Public Instruction. In this one-party state, all Democratic candidates from Governor to Assembly are assured of success. Like me, Steve Poizner is an Independent whom I've known for 20 years, a person of integrity and business accomplishment. Tuck is a competent Democrat, independent of the education establishment and teacher union. Another U.S. Senator, Daniel P. Moynihan, observed: "The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare" and Edwards R. Murrows' observation in 1954: "No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are his accomplices" constitute useful thoughts as you mark your election ballot.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

October 2018

Deceased one-time U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan of New York observed on March 7, 1976: "Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth, namely, a healthy skepticism of the power of government agencies to do good." On the November 6, 2018 ballot will be an initiative (Prop 6) to repeal a 12-cent 2017 gas tax increase by the Legislature and Governor. The last state gas tax increase resulted from my 1989 Senate legislation, raising the tax by 8 cents per gallon by 1993. That money was used as intended for building and maintaining highways, roads, and streets. The 2017 increase renders California's gas tax the highest in the nation and flaunts the 1922 legislative decision to finance highways, roads, and streets by a "user fee." Such user tax revenue should be deposited in the State Highway Fund, not the General Fund, not used for public transit, the DMV, or California Highway Patrol. Before 1922, highways were funded by general obligation bond issues three times, which meant borrowing money and repaying it with twice the principal in interest debt. In 1988, to avoid a gas tax increase, a Republican governor attempted another state bond issue, which voters rejected. Within the last decade, however, state politicians have used gas tax revenue for purposes other than highways, roads, and streets, including state general fund spending. Caltrans cannot be trusted with efficiency; California's highway construction costs per lane mile are 62% over the national average, engineering costs 42% more, and maintenance workers obtain a third more than the national average. The 2018-19 state budget shows motor vehicle-related taxes and fees of $30,800,000,000, of which the Legislative Analyst estimates only $8,600,000,000 for streets, roads, and highways, including $1,100,000,000 on transportation bonds, some of which were used for non-highway purposes, like a new Orwellian category named "active transportation," whatever that means. Legislators last year diverted $1,000,000,000 from gas tax revenue to the General Fund, thus stealing more than $400,000,000 annually from city streets and county roads, and transferring much of it to "cap-and-trade." Bear in mind the Legislative Analyst four years ago concluded that Caltrans is overstaffed by 3,500 full-time employees costing more than $500,000,000 per year.

The vaunted Transbay Transit Center, usable only by buses, constitutes essentially a real estate project for big names like Salesforce, with an underground "train box" that bled state taxpayers $400,000,000 from the 2008 High-Speed Rail Authority general obligation bond issue and will never be used.

Last month's homeric political event was opening the Transbay Terminal, originally represented to taxpayers as a modern facility for Caltrain and high-speed rail, plus buses. Past and present politicians celebrated with vanity a project begun over a decade ago, which far exceeded its public cost representations. The general manager of the Municipal Transportation Authority (MTA) conferred upon morning newspaper readers a polemic about our public transit systems, with the usual pap. The vaunted Transbay Transit Center, usable only by buses, constitutes essentially a real estate project for big names like Salesforce, with an underground "train box" that bled state taxpayers $400,000,000 from the 2008 High-Speed Rail Authority general obligation bond issue and will never be used. Why? Extending Caltrain tracks 1.3 miles underground from Fourth and Townsend Streets will cost over $4,000,000,000 in non-existing money, never mentioned by MTA's justifiably embattled general manager because of embarrassment. His other bloated project, the Central Subway, peddled as a $1,600,000,000 undertaking, which The Wall Street Journal five years ago dubbed the billion-dollar-a-mile subway, will cost $2,500,000,00, an unspoken truth.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin correctly notes that without high-speed rail and Caltrain, the Transbay Terminal "will go down as the most expensive bus terminal in the history of humankind." The so-called high-speed train under construction near Madera to Wasco in Kern County (not Bakersfield) isn't high speed; it's conventional diesel rail from state government, which deludes the public and media. Moreover, state law now prohibits tracks dedicated to genuine high-speed rail on the San Francisco Peninsula and in the Los Angeles Basin. State taxpayers have been deceived. The emperor has no clothes.

Many citizens have complimented me upon suing the U.S. Secret Service for refusing to comply with my February request for public records demonstrating the amount of taxpayer money spent on agents who devoted over a week to Donald Trump, Jr.'s trip to India to foster purchases of Trump properties there. As a taxpayer, I resent spending federal revenue on Trump, Jr.'s private business. Obviously, obtaining those records will enable taxpayer litigation to recover for the Federal Treasury money wasted on private business activities in India. I'm informed records of other taxpayer waste on Trump, Jr.'s business trips will expose more disgraceful misuse of tax extractions. Consider also former President Barack Obama's business deals at taxpayer expense. The Obama Presidential Center was originally publicized as funded with private money. No more. Illinois taxpayers will expend over $174,000,000 for reconfiguring roadways and public transit. Illinois politicians want $139,000,000 more in federal money. The Obama Center won't be operated by the National Archives and Records Administration. Presidential archives won't even be deposited there. The Obama Center paid the City of Chicago $1 for "rent" of 19.3 acres of city land. It's no wonder William Randolph Hearst opined: "A politician will do anything to keep his job, even become a patriot."

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

Sept 2018

A wag once opined: “Some politicians are elected because of their gift of gab, and then defeated because of their gift of grab.” I trust that won’t apply to three statewide candidates whom I recommended last month for your thoughtful consideration and were chosen under California’s unusual system of sending to the November 6, 2018 general election the highest two qualifiers, rather than by respective parties. In order of ballot appearance, retired Superior Court Judge Steve Bailey of El Dorado, a Republican, runs this fall against incumbent Democrat Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Steve Poizner, like me an Independent, runs for Insurance Commissioner, and Democrat Marshall Tuck faces Democrat Tony Thurmond, another Democrat, for Superintendent of Public Instructions, a non-partisan office. It may be early, but I reiterate my recommendations for November 6, and I’ll later analyze other state and federal campaigns.

The state system of disregarding political parties for the November run-off reminds me of San Francisco’s “ranked choice” voting for Mayor and Board of Supervisors. The latter will, I fearlessly predict, result in corruption accusations sometime in the future because human nature invites unsavory arrangements between candidates who exchange second and third place votes. San Francisco is also manifestly disserved by a practice of anointing political successors. I note last month’s announcement that the incumbent supervisor in the Sunset District indicated that she would not run for re-election in November. Within one day, an aide declared her candidacy. The aide registered to vote in San Francisco only on March 27, 2018 and was raised in Los Angeles. Such event, labeled as favoritism by some commentators, will be tested by six other eligible candidates who timely filed declarations of candidacy. Supervisors are limited to two four-year terms. The policy theory was that such system would encourage everyday citizens, not aspiring politicians, to lead San Francisco legislatively. That’s a fallacy.

Meanwhile, the annual state Budget Act was enacted last month, together with so-called “trailer” bills. Those are allegedly intended to implement spending purposes of the Budget Act. Such custom and practice is gravely abused by the Legislature, which achieved passage of non-budget-related bills with little or no public hearings. There’s a depressing example in the 2018-2019 Budget Act which contains a 17-word trailer bill that would allow local public officials to suppress disclosures to voters about how their property taxes will be affected by bond measures on the ballot between now and 2020. The best political commentator in California, Dan Walters, accurately calls it “sneakiness.” As readers know, bonds constitute loans to public entities which are repaid by property taxes, usually over 30 years, with principal and interest that generally double the bond expense.

Meanwhile, local Assemblymember David Chiu introduced last spring legislation to restore the failed Redevelopment Agency in cities and counties. Redevelopment is a pseudonym for eminent domain, taking private property allegedly for public benefit. Begun over 60 years ago in California, it allows a board of supervisors or city council to decide an area is “blighted” for purposes of buying or seizing the neighborhood properties from owners, then reselling same to developers for better-appearing 20th Century housing. It was a “do-gooder” theory which instead resulted in seizure of private property and its resale at bargain prices for such purposes as automobile row, high-rise office buildings, shopping malls, and even country clubs. Those uses produced not only property taxes, but sales taxes. Meanwhile, school districts suffered loss of property tax revenue in the process. Assembly Bill No. 3037 was approved by the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development, but stopped in the Committee on Appropriation – for now. Note that Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. accomplished three years ago legislation abolishing redevelopment agencies, but facile developers, politicians, and nonprofit housing entities continue to proclaim the wonders of a system which enabled government to seize private property and deliver it to wealthy City Hall favorites at prices as low as a dollar per parcel (yes, that occurred during redevelopment’s legal status in California).

I note Independence Day for all Americans and encourage leaders to think of forebearers who declared and fought to sustain this independent, democratic nation of legal immigrants. I’ll be speaking at a Lutheran church in Pacifica led by Reverend Tom Nibbe, a Marine Corps veteran, and praying for our future well-being in tumultuous rhetorical times, which include President Donald “Bone Spur” Trump and his perpetual mainstream media critics. (Note: Independence Day reminds me Mr. Trump obtained five draft deferments during the Vietnam War because of those pesky bone spurs!)

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

July 2018

Was it Diogenes who declared: “If a man carries his own lantern, he need not fear darkness”?

Reiteration appears inevitable in the face of the June 5 California election. Therefore, I reiterate my three most-prized recommendations: I urge readers to vote for retired Superior Court Judge Steve Bailey for Attorney General, Steve Poizner for Insurance Commissioner, and Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instruction. That gives you a Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent, thereby covering all bases. Judge Bailey was principally a criminal defense lawyer for 25 years before election to the El Dorado County Superior Court and is unmistakenly the most experienced and balanced of three other candidates. Steve Poizner, a registered Independent like me, served as Insurance Commissioner in 2007 until 2011, accepts no campaign donations from insurance carriers or brokers, and represents integrity of the highest nature. Democrat Marshall Tuck is free of obligation to the California Teachers Association or charter school proponents and is not a career politician, unlike the incumbent or his principal challenger.

Absent from last month’s recommendations was my feeling about Regional Measure 3. It constitutes unfair governmental taxation, flying in the face of logic, history, and fair treatment. It proposes toll bridge increases from $5 to $8 on six of the seven bridges crossing San Francisco Bay owned and operated by the State of California and a Bay Bridge increase to $9 during peak hours, $8 on weekends, and $4 all other times by 2025. Tolls, like gasoline taxes, constitute user fees, paid by users of the public transportation facility. In fact, motorists at the time the Bay Bridge and others were opened received governmental promises that tolls would cease once the bonds used for construction were paid. That was untrue. Regional Measure 3 now proposes to use an estimated 4.45 billion dollars to pay for 35 projects not constituting maintenance or improvements of the seven State-owned bridges. About 70% would finance mass transit projects, 25% would foster roads and highways, and 3% would benefit bicyclists, who pay no tolls or other fees, and pedestrians. A user fee, it is not.

The State Legislature and Governor already last year bastardized the gasoline tax with increases not simply for highways, roads, and streets, but for public transit and other non-user purposes. California three times in the early 20th Century used general obligation state bonds to pay for motor vehicle facilities before political leaders recognized that was unfair to those not using streets and highways. Thus, in 1922, the Legislature and Governor enacted a 2-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax upon the clear principle that those who use streets and highways, not the rest of society, should pay for their construction and upkeep. That’s the principal reason an initiative to repeal the politicized gas tax increase has been circulated for the November 2018 statewide election. Note that the Bay Area Council, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and SPUR, which falsely proclaims itself as an “urban-planning think tank,” support Regional Measure 3. They’re contributing vast amounts of money to its passage. Why? Because their membership builders, engineering firms, and designers will obtain most of the contracts for the contemplated projects. The myth that SPUR is a “think tank” conceals its membership roster of contractors, architects, and recipients of taxpayer and toll payer dollars. Stop their ripoff by rejecting Regional Measure 3.

One other election highlight warrants comment. By a small majority, San Francisco voters approved a 2016 measure which allows aliens to vote in Board of Education elections this November. Some of those aliens may be illegal residents. Under state law, it’s possible that local aliens’ names and addresses could be obtained by federal authorities like Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to detect illegality. Only aliens with children under 19 can vote in those elections. Afraid of detection of illegal aliens by federal immigration officials, the Board of Supervisors approved legislation last month, compelling the Department of Elections to warn all such aspiring alien voters that illegality of presence could be discovered. Laws sometimes boomerang on those who are supposed beneficiaries. The same Board of Education also began a process of removing public school names no longer politically acceptable, authorizing an alleged panel of experts to investigate and submit recommendations this fall. By this month, such proposal may have received approval. In 2016, Board of Education member Matt Haney tried to promulgate abolition of the name of George Washington High School. In the face of riveting opposition from the Washington High School Alumni Association and others, he turned tail. One of the targets identified last month by a colleague is Fairmount Elementary School in Glen Park, which faces identity extinction in favor of politically correct Dolores Huerta. In today’s San Francisco political climate, nothing is safe from revision to suit those who abhor history. The orthodoxy of San Francisco politics sometimes interferes with Diogenes’ observation.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

June 2018

Even though my First Amendment rights have been lost on city elections as an Ethics Commission member (and now Vice-Chairman following retired Golden Gate University School of Law dean and Chief Deputy Public Defender Peter Keane's resignation after a vote double-cross by the current Chairman), I still retain such right regarding state and federal elections. A savant once observed: "It's useless to try to hold some people to anything they say while they're madly in love, drunk, or running for office," and, don't forget: "Everybody makes mistakes. That's why we keep having political elections."

Unlike the local ballot, there's only five state ballot measures. Proposition 68 authorizes $4,000,000,000 of general obligation bonds for state and local parks, so-called climate adaptation projects, natural resources, water quality, and flood protection projects, while reallocating $100,000,000 of unused general obligation bonds for the same purposes. I'll vote against it, because only $1,300,000,000 is actually specified to improve parks in an unequal geographical manner, lacks sufficient funding for critical deferred park maintenance, and relies upon a state department which bamboozled citizens in 2012 with a threatened closure of 70 parks, for which there was sufficient money to operate. Interest costs will double the $4,000,000,000.

I will, however, vote for Proposition 69, which shouldn't be necessary, but requires expenditure of gasoline taxes for transportation projects. I don't believe in utilizing the gas tax, a user fee, for public transit or bicycle lanes (bicyclists pay nothing for roads built by motorists); my vote represents a compromise to preclude more misapplication of gasoline tax revenue.

Proposition 70 deals with the so-called "Cap-and-Trade program," constitutes an arcane procedural issue and mandates a two-third majority legislative approval for spending Cap-and-Trade revenues. It shouldn't be in the State Constitution, and it authorizes over $730,000,000 for a high-speed rail project, which isn't even electrified high speed and violates 2008's Proposition 1A. Even the League of Women Voters opposes it. So does the California League of Conservation Voters and Coalition for Clean Air. Reject it.

Proposition 71 is a procedural constitutional change respecting a later effective date for voter-approved ballot measures. I'll support it.

Proposition 72 amends the Constitution to allow the Legislature to exclude the value of a new rainwater capture system from a property's taxable value. There's no argument against it in the Voter Information Guide and no vote against submitting it to voters by the Legislature.

Now, let's get to candidates, starting with the U.S. Senate. My candidate is a Los Angeles civil rights lawyer friend, Pat Harris. Friendship is thicker than water. For Governor, I'll vote for Republican John Cox. (Maybe someone can explain why neither Newsom nor Villaraigosa nor Chiang is in the Voter Information Guide!) I'll support Libertarian Tim Ferreira for Lieutenant Governor, not the Socialist Gayle McLaughlin, Democrat Alex Padilla for reelection as Secretary of State, Democrat Betty Yee for reelection as Controller, and Democrat Vivek Viswanathan for Treasurer. I'm an early endorser of Republican Steven Bailey, a fellow retired Superior Court judge from El Dorado County for Attorney General, and fellow Independent Steve Poizner for Insurance Commissioner. Finally, I endorse taxpayer advocate Mark Burns for Board of Equalization, an entity which should have been abolished 20 years ago in favor of a California Tax Court, and Marshall Tuck of Novato for Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Staying with state issues, beware of Assemblyman David Chiu's Assembly Bill 3037. It wrong-headedly restores redevelopment agencies under the guise of solving California's housing needs. Even renowned California musician David Crosby understands redevelopment enables big government to seize private property and deliver it to wealthy, city government favorites at prices as low as a dollar per parcel. San Francisco's Recreation and Park Commission foolishly eliminated a now-deceased San Francisco redevelopment agency's chief executive's name from a downtown plaza because of what redevelopment did to the Western Addition and South of Market. During its heyday, redevelopment was used to foster golf courses, automobile rows, at least one country club, and hotels and restaurants by big shots under the rubric of replacing "blight." "Blight" was in the beholder's eyes, namely, city councils, or in our case as a city and county, the Board of Supervisors. Crosby observed last month "the little guy doesn't stand much of a chance . . ." under redevelopment. Governor Jerry Brown should be proud of his abolition of redevelopment. He mustn't allow its rebirth under AB 3037.

Finally, all four incumbent San Francisco Superior Court judges should be reelected. Their opponents from the Public Defender's office are simply trying to create false impressions about the performance of these Superior Court judges and should be rejected in such effort.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7.

QUENTIN'S RECOMMENDATIONS

General Obligation Bonds

Prop 68 NO

Transportation Expenditures

Prop 69 YES

Cap-and-Trade

Prop 70 NO

Date of Effect

Prop 71 YES

Rainwater Capture

Prop 72 No Recommendation

U.S. Senate Pat Harrris

Governor John Cox

Lt. Governor Tim Ferreira

Secretary of State Alex Padilla

Controller Betty Yee

Treasurer Vivek Viswanathan

Attorney General Steve Bailey

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner

Board of Equalization Mark Burns

School Superintendent Marshall Tuck

May 2018

An anonymous wag once declared: "While living in a democracy, you can say what you think without thinking." Another savant observed: "Freedom not to listen is just as precious as freedom of speech." I concur. If those declarations remind readers of any public figure from Donald J. Trump to the ex-mayor of Burlington, Vermont, now a United States Senator, I fully understand.

With my eldest grandchild in college, and past service on my alma mater's Alumni Council, I am increasingly saddened by the state of academic freedom in today's America, together with the diminution of history, Western civilization, and English language concentration in high schools, colleges, and universities. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) surveyed 1,100 such institutions last year and concluded that only 81% of the surveyed institutions required students to take a single course in composition, only 3% mandated an economics course, 85% required undergraduates undergo a basic science class, 58% required a college-level course in mathematics, and 12% didn't compel students to undergo a single course in any of those subjects.

Then, the problem exists of allowing unpopular speakers at college campuses. Astonishingly, student protests at Brandeis University caused cancelation of the world premiere of a play based on the life of comedian Lenny Bruce. Protesters attacked the play's portrayal of the Black Lives Matter movement. The theater professors agreed, announcing that the play "may cause discomfort, including the legacy of Lenny Bruce" and additional educational programming must accompany such play. Last November, Knox College, a liberal arts institution in Illinois, canceled a production of Bertolt Brecht's play The Good Person of Szechwan, proclaiming any performance should not result in "the emotional distress of students" agitated by perceived racial insensitivity. ACTA's President wrote in the Boston Herald that both Bruce and Brecht were once attacked by right-wingers. Bruce was prosecuted in 1961 for "obscenity"; Brecht was summoned before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947 because of the radical content of his writing. Brandeis University is named for Justice Louis Brandeis, historic guardian of the First Amendment!

The National Association of Scholars claims that hatred of America is now instilled in American schoolchildren from an early age, not as "hatred" itself, but in words such as "social justice," "multiculturalism," "resistance," or similar language suggesting aversion to people who exploit everyone else. Probably, the best and most courageous analyst of free speech on American college campuses is Professor Amy Wax at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In the Wall Street Journal last February, she reported the reaction to a column she wrote with a University of San Diego Law School professor for the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 9, 2017, entitled "Paying the Price for the Breakdown of the Country's Bourgeois Culture." Pointing out that American males' participation in the labor force "is at Depression-era lows," the authors identified widespread opioid abuse, inner city homicides, half of all American children born out of wedlock, and more than half are raised by single mothers. The column caused letters, statements, and petitions from students and professors at Penn and elsewhere attacking the column as racist, white supremacist, xenophobic, and hate speech. Five law school professors accused the authors of praising the 1950s. Later, 33 professors recommended students report any "stereotyping and bias" they might perceive from Professor Wax. She reminds us: "The American way is to conduct free and open debate in a civil manner. We should return to doing that on our college campuses and in our society at large."

Like San Francisco, California is now a "sanctuary" jurisdiction. Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. signed such legislation last year. How times change. In 1975, his first year as Governor, Brown opposed immigrants entering the U.S. as refugees, despite federal approval. South Vietnam and Cambodia were defeated by Communists in April, 1975. Hundreds of thousands of refugees sought entry. Mario Obledo, founder of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund and Brown's Secretary of Health and Welfare, tried to prevent refugees from landing at Travis Air Force Base and explored suing the Federal Government to stop such immigration. Supporting Brown were U.S. Senators Joe Biden of Delaware and the late George McGovern of South Dakota.

As always, the truth about aliens is malleable, and politicians are trimmers; they love illegal aliens as part of their politics. As the son of a legal immigrant and husband of another legal immigrant, I scratch my head in dismay.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

April 2018

An anonymous writer once observed: "Maybe we were better off when charity was a virtue instead of a deduction." Another writer observed: "Real charity doesn't care if it's deductible or not."

Friends and acquaintances have mostly ceased asking me about my experience and opinion of service on the San Francisco Ethics Commission since September 2016 as an appointee of the Board of Supervisors. I refrain no more because of failure of a necessary four-fifths majority of the five-member Commission to approve restoration of anti-corruption laws which were approved by voters in 2000, then repealed by Board of Supervisors action in 2003. Bear in mind that the Charter law over 20 years ago requires a four-fifths approval of Commissioners to submit a proposed strengthening of ethics requirements to the Board of Supervisors for submission to voters or submission to voters by the Commission itself.

Ethics Chair, Peter Keane

One of the major provisions of the high-sounding Anti-Corruption and Accountability Act propounded last year for Commission adoption barred so-called "behest" donations to a local elected or appointed official's favorite charity in return for favorable treatment to the donor on a permit, a license, or other city government benefit. That incited nonprofit entities to bombard Ethics Commission members and staff with catastrophic objections, claiming they (the nonprofit corporations) never tried to exercise undue influence and such act by the Ethics Commission would diminish donations substantially. I can recall the venerated pastor of Glide Memorial Church in the 1980s pleading with his chosen candidate for mayor to withdraw from the run-off in November, 1987, against future Mayor Art Agnos, based upon fear that Agnos' election would cause termination of taxpayer money flowing to the Glide Memorial Church.

Friends of Ethics, a volunteer city organization receiving no taxpayer money, discovered as of February 13, 2018 $798,566,250 has been paid to nonprofit entities for fiscal year 2017-18, that $191,790,256 remains to be paid by June 30, 2018, a total of almost $1,000,000,000 from taxpayers, and that the estimate of the percentage of San Franciscans working for a nonprofit entity is 17%, according to the Mayor's Workforce Office, and the number of grants annually is 2,277, with the number of recipients much lower because many receive a large number of grants.

The infestation of nonprofits is remarkable. Friends of Ethics through its President, Larry Bush, reported the most recent Internal Revenue Service filing for 2016 of the nonprofit "Friends of City Planning" included Peter Cohen from Council of Community Housing Organizations, who testified repeatedly at the Ethics Commission against a prohibition on "behest" payments, S. Osborn Erickson, major developer and behest donor, and Larry Nibbi, another major "behest" donor are just three of the nonprofits' members who regularly need permits from the Planning Commission. Cohen's organization doesn't even provide benefits in the form of housing or medical treatment or recreational activities; it's an association of nonprofit housing entities which supposedly do provide direct benefits to San Francisco residents.

The nonprofit entities succeeded in stopping the prohibition of behest payments in the proposed ordinance in favor of simply a disclosure of "behest" donations by contractors, planners, architects, and developers to designated charities. As I stated last December, how many citizens possess an interest in reading City Hall ethics forms? Not very many, in my long experience. Moreover, the same nonprofits succeeded in deleting a clause conferring the ability of a citizen to sue for such ethics and conflict of interest violations if the City Attorney or District Attorney refuses to act after 90 days of a complaint to the Ethics Commission. It's called a "private right of action." Over 10 city ordinances bestow that power upon taxpayers if city officials fail to act and allow recovery of their attorney fees and court costs. State law contains numerous such provisions, but the nonprofits were able to claim that unidentified but well-heeled entities and individuals would find ways to harass charities with frivolous lawsuits. Thus, there's no private citizen empowerment to enforce the now-insipid Anti-Corruption Act.

The culmination occurred February 16, 2018 at the Ethics Commission meeting, with two Commissioners voting against even conveying a weakened law to the Board of Supervisors, after one had told Chairman Peter Keane he would support him. That led Peter Keane to resign from the Commission immediately, a saddening event. (Mr. Keane was Chief Deputy Public Defender for 25 years, a law professor, and then Dean of the Golden Gate University School of Law, still teaching at Hastings Law School.)

Best laid plans have gone awry.

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

March 2018

Albert Camus predicted the death of Europe in 1957 in a lecture at the University of Uppsala, Sweden: "My conclusion will be simple. It will consist of saying, in the very midst of the sound and the fury of our history: 'Let us rejoice. Let us rejoice, indeed, in having witnessed the death of a lying and comfort-loving Europe and it being faced with cruel truths.'"

The California High-Speed Rail Authority exists because of legislation I sponsored as a State Senator in 1996, and then approval by 52% of California voters in November 2008 of a $9,950,000,000 state general obligation bond issue to build it. High-speed rail began operating in 1964 in Japan in time for the Olympic Games. It's an electrified system on steel rails with steel wheels. In 2008, California taxpayers were promised a genuine high-speed rail system as exists in 11 nations in Asia and Europe, with the first segment from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2 hours 40 minutes, a system which couldn't be operationally subsidized by taxpayers. That was realistic. Most high-speed rail systems in France, across the English Channel, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China operate in the black. Most were built with private investors, together with public funds. One essential is operating on track dedicated only to high-speed rail, not shared with commuter or freight service.

After a term of four years on the Authority governing board, I departed as Governor Jerry Brown returned to the State Capitol in 2011. The Authority board had decided the first segment would travel the San Francisco Peninsula, then over the San Luis Pass to Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield, and Los Angeles, using the U.S. Highway 99 trail, rather than Interstate 5, which possesses no cities with potential ridership for revenue to pay operating expenses. That meant acquisition of an additional 50 feet of right-of-way on the Peninsula to avert sharing the Caltrain right-of-way. In the aforementioned countries, to cover costs, high-speed rail must operate 10-12 trains during peak hours of 7:00-10:00 a.m. and 4:00-7:00 p.m. It's impossible with Caltrain now needing four trains per hour during those periods.

In 2011, with Brown appointees, including its chairman, the Authority changed the plan presented to taxpaying voters in 2008, deciding to build a diesel energy service from Merced to Bakersfield with approximately $3,600,000,000 from President Obama's "stimulus" legislation, and a total estimated cost of about $6,900,000,000. In 2008, the Authority board contemplated funding from the state bond, plus federal and regional funds from areas along the route which wanted high-speed rail for commercial development and consequent employment increases. The estimated cost was about $32,000,000,000. Now, the non-electrified segment actually from Chowchilla to Wasco, about 30 miles north of Bakersfield (the Authority will bus passengers to downtown Bakersfield) is over $10,100,000,000, the remaining state bond money is approximately $7,000,000,000, federal funds are expressly barred by Congressional legislation, dedicated right-of-way is barred by state legislation, no regional investment exists, and private equity firms are absent.

The estimated current cost to reach Los Angeles from San Francisco is over $69,000,000,000. Governor Brown has diverted "cap and trade" state revenue to the project and, now, it's revealed the cost of the state bond (principal and interest) is being paid from gas tax revenue in the State Highway Fund. (Because of interest, those costs reportedly are about $18,000,000,000.) Construction of the Central Valley's non-electrified segment began last year with the typical political ground-breaking ceremony to misrepresent the bastardization of high-speed rail. It began even though all the right-of-way by eminent domain from farmers and ranchers was not secured. It still isn't. Yet the Governor in his State of the State message last month rhapsodized over the project, with the fiction that it's true high-speed rail, ignoring "cruel truths." Moreover, 2017 legislation increasing the gas tax and motor vehicle registrations for roads is the subject of a proposed initiative ballot measure for repeal in either June or November, 2018. While the Governor accurately minimized litigation against high-speed rail, which occurred mostly on environmental grounds, a suit set for hearing on February 8 in Sacramento County Superior Court alleges unconstitutionality of 2017 legislation which rips, without voter authorization, $715,000,000 from the 2008 bond issue to donate to Caltrain for its $3,000,000,000 electrification project, having ripped in 2016 $400,000,000 from the 2008 state bond measure to build a $400,000,000 "train box" in the San Francisco real estate project known as the "Transbay Terminal," which will be for buses, not railroads. Oh, those cruel truths!

Retired former Supervisor, State Senator and Judge Quentin Kopp lives in District 7

February 2018