Action/Alerts

The Board of SPOSF met in August to make our recommendations for Mayor, District Attorney (DA), and Sheriff, along with ballot measures. For Mayor, there are 11 top- tiered candidates. We sent questionnaires to all of them; Alioto-Pier, Dufty, Hall, Lee, and Rees responded. Adachi, Avalos, Chiu, Herrera, Ting, and Yee did not. In making our endorsement recommendations we considered their responses to our questionnaire, their chances of winning, Page 2 and their previously known positions on our issues. It made no sense to endorse someone who at this point in the election does not seem to have a chance to win. Because of ranked-choice voting you can vote for your top three choices. It does not help to vote for one candidate more than once. Our Board decided not to rank the three endorsed candidates. We encourage you to go to one of the many mayoral forums to rank your selection. A list of some of the mayoral forums may be found on our website.

The three candidates that the board voted to endorse, in alphabetical order, are Michela Alioto-Pier, Bevan Dufty, and Ed Lee. Alioto-Pier was a consistent vote on our issues while on the Board of Supervisors. Dufty was a less-than-reliable vote as supervisor, but did vote for our issues a number of times and voted to sustain a mayoral veto on a number of issues of concern to us. Also, Supervisor Dufty always had an open-door policy for SPOSF. Lee has no record on our issues, but indicated that he would like to change the tone in landlord-tenant relations at City Hall. He does not seem to be an ideologue.

District Attorney and Sheriff
Fortunately, the DA's and Sheriff's offices are not ones we as small property owners have to deal with often. We endorsed George Gascon as DA and a dual unranked endorsement for Sheriff of Chris Cunnie and Paul Miyamoto. For each of these offices you can also vote for your top three candidates. There are four other candidates for DA and two others for sheriff. Gascon was a very good police chief and has done a good job as DA since being appointed by Mayor Newsom to replace Kamala Harris. This is the first real race for Sheriff in more than 30 years. Both Cunnie and Miyamoto have real- world work experience in law enforcement. Their main opponent, Supervisor Ross Mirkirami, does not.

Local ballot propositions
The Board of Directors also considered the propositions on this November's ballot. Fortunately, there aren't that many, and none that are directly related to our issues. Normally, SPOSF only makes recommendations on ballot initiatives that directly concern small property owners. However, we decided to endorse one initiative, Prop. E, because we feel that the initiative process in San Francisco needs amending. Currently, once voters approve a law, it can only be amended by going back to the voters, a cumbersome process that leads to unnecessary ballot ordinances. San Francisco is the only jurisdiction in the state that has this limitation. We are a representative democracy, so our elected representatives should be able to change laws.

Prop. E is a charter amendment sponsored by Super- visor Wiener and approved by six of the supervisors, Chu, Chiu, Cohen, Elsbernd, Farrell, and Kim. Prop. E would allow the Board of Supervisors (BoS) to amend ordinances—after a period of time—that it or the Mayor put on the ballot, and would only apply to laws passed after January 1, 2012. Amendments as a result of Prop. E would not be available for any current laws, future initiatives put on the ballot via gathered signatures, bonds, taxes, or charter amendments, which could only be amended by going back to the voters. In years three through seven, the BoS could amend or repeal ordinances with a supermajority (two-thirds vote). After seven years, the BoS could amend or repeal with a simple majority and mayoral approval. This is a modest start at cleaning up our cumbersome initiative process. Supervisor Wiener will at our September members' meeting to discuss Prop. E and his other ballot initiatives in more detail.

The November ballot also includes two bond proposals, two competing pension reform charter amendments, ordinances to change campaign-consulting filings and increase sales tax, and a declaration of policy regarding neighborhood schools. The SPOSF Board had a very lively discussion on whether we should make a recommendation on the two bond proposals. Some board members wanted to take a position on the bond proposals because it will increase our property taxes, and it is not fair that there is not a simple and quick mechanism to pass these added costs to our renters. The school bond is for $531 million and requires a 55% majority to pass. The average cost would be about $21.40 per $100,000 assessed value. Check your property tax bill to determine your assessed value and compute how much your property taxes would increase under this bond measure. The other bond is for street repaving, sidewalks, streetscapes, bicycle safety and transit signal improvement. This bond would be for $248 million and as a general obligation bond needs a two-thirds majority to pass. Only 50% of the cost of this bond may be passed through to renters.

Ultimately the Board decided not to make a recommendation on the two bond measures since they are outside our guidelines for taking positions on ballot measures. There will be a lot of information coming out on the two competing pension reform measures; Prop. C, the compromise measure from Mayor Lee and the Board of Supervisors, vs. Prop. D, the voter initiative championed by San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Read up and make your own determination which is the better measure for the city's long-term economic health. The mayor's race is the most significant to our members. Please read the candidates' positions on all the important issues—but particularly those on property rights and renter issues—go to the forums, and make your informed decision.