Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle.

Can we attribute the recall of SF Supervisor Joel Engardio as an example of gargling, then being excreted by District 4 voters? He must now live without the $175,370 per year salary, membership in the retirement system of the City and County, one-month paid vacation and four aides to keep taxpayers away. That’s what it costs us for the 11 beauties on City Hall’s second floor.

Allow me to reminisce again: I was elected by local voters at-large in 1971 to serve San Franciscans for $9,324 per year without being eligible for the retirement system! I didn’t need to serve just 1/11th of San Francisco; I serviced all 49 square miles of citizens (and non-citizens), and that salary was increased only by the cost-of-living rise from 1966 to 1981 after I was chosen as board president following two elections which had selection restored at-large election of supervisors and deemed the highest vote-getter as board president until the next election two years hence. Moreover, we had no monthly vacation with pay and we met every Monday of the year at 2 p.m.

Engardio’s recall emanates from his disregard of his constituents who last November voted against the Upper Great Highway closure by 65%-35%. Wasn’t one of the battle cries for eliminating at-large election of supervisors in favor of 11 geographical districts that it would enable taxpayers to depend upon their supervisor to ensure their desires were met, instead of attending to citywide problems? Last year, Engardio, however, put the rest of the City’s other neighborhoods – like Pacific Heights, Sea Cliff, Telegraph Hill, North Beach and the Mission – first. Their votes for Proposition K last November ensured closure of the Upper Great Highway miles from their homes and businesses. What did they care? Once again, we must give “last rites” to district supervisorial elections!

The “build more housing” incantation continues. The proposed project at 2700 Sloat Blvd., across from the S.F. Zoo, unveiled plans to build a 24-story high rise with 682 100% “affordable” units (say the builders) and comprised of 427 studios, 196 one bedrooms, 33 two bedrooms and 26 three bedrooms. Meanwhile, Park Merced, as of Sept. 15, had 3,221 vacant units and Stonestown’s owners haven’t yet begun construction of any of the 350 units for which it’s had building permits for three years. And Mayor Daniel Lurie (who did oppose Prop. K last November) advances “upzoning” despite opposition in the Richmond and Sunset. Yet in 2022 alone more than 800,000 residents left California.

Vexation is thy name regarding illegal immigrants (or “undocumented” immigrants as the mainstream media like the “S.F. Comical” describes them) as the National Immigration Law Center reported last month that California gives almost 103,000 unlawful immigrants free (or “tuition-equity”) enrollment, followed by Texas with 73,000 and Florida’s 49,000 per the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah (surprisingly), New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York also grant illegal aliens free tuition at both private and public colleges and universities, which emanates from state income tax and sales taxation of legal residents of such states. Meanwhile the “Epoch Times” reports Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Nancy Mace, both Florida Republicans, introduced legislation called “American Students First Act” to bar federal funds from states which grant financial aid or lower tuition to illegal aliens.

President Donald Trump won’t stop desecrating our national practices or customs, announcing last month he’d award one-time New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani the highest U.S. civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Honor. He foolishly dubbed Giuliani the “greatest mayor in New York City’s history” and a “great American patriot.” What Trump omits is that Giuliani was the draft-dodger’s personal attorney in Trump’s baseless attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. Moreover, last year “America’s mayor” was disbarred by the State Bar of California from practicing law here after a New York court concluded he made false claims about such election.

My friend John Horgan, “San Mateo Daily Journal” columnist and founder of the San Mateo County Sports Hall of Fame, reminded me in an Aug. 13 column of San Mateo County’s historical relationship with the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, aka “BART.” In that column, he discussed a pending State Senate bill, number 63, introduced by Scott Wiener, the home-builder’s Sacramento waterboy, which, if enacted, would allow San Francisco to raise its sales tax by 1% from 8.625% but only if voters and taxpayers approve by a 50% plus 1 vote on Nov. 5, 2026. Meanwhile, San Mateo County’s sales tax is 9.38% (of which only 3.38% constitutes that county’s share and the remainder is taken by the state of California). SB-63 awaits gubernatorial approval or veto by Oct. 13. If the governor signs the bill (and he loves taxation), proceeds of increased sale taxation will be divided by Muni Railway, AC Transit (in Alameda County), BART in S.F., Contra Costa County, Alameda County and San Mateo County, assuming the counties’ voters approve by 66%. San Mateo taxpayers provided no money for the BART Daly City station but used it prolifically after it opened.

In the 1980s, I led the effort to extend BART into San Francisco International Airport together with the late Ed Nevin, then a San Mateo County supervisor after serving as Daly City’s mayor. The SFO executive director fought to stop us. He wanted no other entity at SFO because it was his “turf,” and he was the emperor! Other San Franciscans and I were thus compelled to qualify a ballot measure in our City to mandate “BART-to-the-airport.” Airlines and tax companies spent thousands to beat us. We won by a large margin and San Mateo County secured additional BART service to Colma, San Bruno, South S.F. and Millbrae, enroute to SFO’s International Terminal in 2003. That turned out to be BART’s most-used station after San Mateo County (and Marin County) rejected BART’s initial plan to include them in 1960. Now, Caltrain, composed of Santa Clara County, San Mateo County and San Francisco, will also receive tax goodies if voters approve the ballot measure on Nov. 6, 2026, because Newsom’s never seen a tax he’d bury and will sign SB-63 this month.

Speaking of our leader in Sacramento, our 58 cents a gallon and overall cost gasoline tax is now the highest in the U.S.A, 45% higher than the national average. In the 1970s, California possessed 43 operating refineries. As of 2024, we had but 14, a decrease of 67%; two more refineries will close in 2026. Some experts think as a result, gas prices could increase to $18 per gallon and new drilling permits for oil and natural gas are limited by state regulations already.

Incidentally, you taxpayers may be interested to know the California Taxpayers Association asked Newsom to veto SB-63, as did the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The San Francisco Taxpayers Association will consider the sales tax increase early in 2026.

Regarding politics, our Kamala Harris’s announced declination to run for governor in the Golden State next year, Harvard Magazine last month published a reader’s letter on “viewpoint diversity” revealing that a Harvard Crimson (the student daily newspaper) survey discovered only about 3% of Harvard’s faculty revealed they were politically conservative. The reader asks if students can expect “real dialogue and exchange of thought on political philosophy under those circumstances?” You, of course, cannot which creates an understandable basis for Trump’s attacks on institutions of higher learning like Columbia, Brown, UCLA, Cal and Northwestern. Diversity, inclusion and equity still reign in most academic circles. I’m glad former State Sen. Tom Campbell, then a Republican, and I, an Independent, barred “affirmative action” in the California Constitution while we served in the State Senate, with help from Californians from all “walks of life.” Subsequent ballot efforts to delete it have failed.

We can as San Franciscans, however, exalt in the University of San Francisco’s (USF) success in reporting enrollment last month of “more than 1,600 new undergraduates from 47 different U.S. states and territories, including the District of Columbia, and 59 countries!” (I recall my best friend on our Board of Supervisors from 1971 until 1977, John J. Barbagelata, complaining that USF’s admission of foreign students was preventing local students from admission to USF!) Also, 42% are first-generation college enrollees, and over 1,717 new graduate students are at “the Hilltop.” Moreover, U.S. News and World Report ranks USF No. 1 for ethnic diversity among national universities, a validation of the Dons status in academia. Congratulations!

To all Jewish San Franciscans, I wish a healthy and loving Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and remind readers of my hero Theodore Roosevelt’s April 14, 1906, pronouncement in Washington D.C.:

“The foundation stone of national life is and ever must be the individual character of the individual citizen.” And remember: “Democracy is a wonderful system. It permits you to vote for a politician and then sit on the jury that tries him.”

Quentin Kopp is a former San Francisco supervisor, state senator, SF Ethics Commission member, president of the California High Speed Rail Authority governing board and retired Superior Court judge.