Less Adversity, More Amicableness

It has been stated: “Old politicians never die – they just run once too often.” And “a New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.”

Last month brought cheer to many readers as AAA and Gas-Buddy data reported gasoline prices declined to a $2.90 per gallon nationwide average, although not in California where the best locations charge $3.95 per gallon. The aforementioned $2.90 is 17 cents lower than November and 7.3 cents lower than 2024. You naughty non-electric motor vehicle drivers can consider this your holiday present.

Not so fortunate are BART passengers and other Bay Area transportation riders who are confronted with a regressive sales tax increase when using BART and other municipal transit systems, like Muni. If passed by voters this year, that legislative proposal will bump the sales tax in San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties to over 10% to raise more than $1 billion for transit systems in those counties.

Meanwhile, Waymo now faces competition from Amazon’s Zoox, another robotaxi operator which opened such free robotaxi service in San Francisco neighborhoods if you were prescient enough to sign a waiting list last November to use such service by vehicles without a steering wheel and transporting a maximum of four passengers. Zoox vehicles are made in Foster City. It was started in 2014 and bought by Amazon in June 2020 for more than $1.2 billion. Zoox has been testing the fleet with safety drivers in S.F.’s Mission, South of Market and Design District neighborhoods. It also operates in Las Vegas. Waymo now operates at SFO and San Jose’s Mineta International Airport and provides its service to Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando.

A San Mateo Daily Journal reader (Zinovy Fichtenholz) last month revived the question of who controls demolitions and renovations of the White House and identifies those happening just from 1933 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had infantile paralysis (now called polio) after World War I, used private funds to install an indoor swimming pool at the White House so he could exercise. From 1948 until 1952 President Harry S. Truman gutted and redid the White House itself at taxpayer expense after a constituent paid for a bowling alley as a birthday present. Dwight David Eisenhower in 1955 moved the bowling alley to the White House basement. He built a putting green with private funds. John F. Kennedy used taxpayer money (in 1961) to erect the Situation Room. Richard Milhous Nixon in 1970 spent taxpayer money to change FDR’s swimming pool into the Press Room. Gerald Ford secured private donations to construct an outdoor swimming pool with private money in 1975. The “savior” (Barack Obama), the Harvard Law School flash whose presidential inauguration in 2009 was the only presidential inauguration my wife and I have attended (thanks to then-U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein), secured private money to build a basketball court (since he probably missed Harvard Law School’s Hemenway Gym where your scribe used to cavort after morning classes) and just two years Joe Biden spent $50 million of our money to remake the Situation Room. Amidst the foregoing history, “Bone Spur” Trump doesn’t look so disdainful of the “common man” and taxpayers with his East Wing demolition in favor of a ballroom in the White House.

Mr. Fichtenholz also reminds me that California’s State Capitol, where I served Californians for 12 years as a state senator, has been under renovation for two years, which wasn’t completed in 2025 (as promised) for $1.2 billion in taxpayer money, but is now supposed to be finished in 2027 after costing us taxpayers $1.63 billion! For the record, I never thought the State Capitol needed renovation. Where has our next president on the first floor of the California State Capitol (Gavin the Great) been on this renovation taxpayer hijacking?

Meanwhile, the San Francisco political beat continues. I was delighted to observe, then endorse, Supervisor Connie Chan’s run for District 11, U.S. House of Representatives to replace the Honorable Nancy Pelosi after Madame Nancy’s 39 years of service to San Francisco and the U.S. of A. ends this year. Born in Hong Kong, Connie fought with us to stop the closing of the Upper Great Highway and the “upzoning” of the Sunset, Richmond and other neighborhoods by Mayor Lurie under state law authored by her opponent Scott Wiener who has never seen a land developer he doesn’t want to please.

Meanwhile, an initiative to return zoning responsibility to local government continues to seek qualification for the June 2, statewide election with requisite registered voters. The sponsors are called “Our Neighborhood Voices.” Getting this initiative on the ballot is essential to local good government! Please register to vote if you haven’t thus far. The state and local elections occur Nov. 3.

Meanwhile, an October poll by Reuters/Ipsos found that the most significant factors in deciding how Americans will vote in this year’s elections are: cost of living (40%), protecting democracy (28%), immigration (14%) and crime (9%). Incidentally, Department of Labor statistics released in late November 2025 demonstrate that 25% of 7.6 million Americans unemployed in September 2025 possessed at best a college bachelor’s degree.

Immigration, illegal and legal, continues to absorb “Draft Dodger” Trump who fired 11 San Francisco immigration judges and one assistant chief judge last fall. One judge retired. That’s a total of 12 judges, leaving only nine judges to process cases. As I’ve stated before, I support legal immigration which benefits our nation. The denial rate last year was about 59% nationwide. One fired judge had approved nearly 91% of asylum and temporary protected status cases. All those fired had approved asylum rates of about 90%. The U.S. Department of Justice is hiring immigration judges and described them as “deportation judges.” Their salary is $159,951 to $207,500 annually plus a 25% hiring incentive.

Purging immigration judges who grant relief to immigrants seeking asylum isn’t new for a president. One president in my lifetime removed people from federal departments (especially political rivals) and appointed his own. That president was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. It resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court case protecting executive branch employees from dismissal. In 1789, Congress gave the president power to remove heads of Treasury, War and Foreign Affairs (which was later renamed the Department of State). Although I’m not a fan of San Francisco and other local governmental entities becoming “sanctuary” enclaves, I do believe in judicial independence and oppose presidential dictation of judges’ decisions, especially the U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

We have local governmental law to consider now with introduction of a proposed Charter amendment by Supervisor Bilal Mahmood which, if passed by voters, would prohibit supervisors from serving two terms (eight years) and then permits their candidacy after a four-year hiatus. As noted last month, by The San Francisco Standard, the measure appears to be a reaction to former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin by stopping him from running again in 2028. As a Charter amendment, Mahmood’s legislation needs four supervisorial sponsors. At press time, Mahmood hadn’t informed taxpayers who they were. Peskin has been the only person to serve over two terms in the 26 years since San Francisco voters approved district elections to the dismay of residents like me. Peskin is an honest, intelligent and devoted supervisor. If Mahmood wants to improve local governance, why doesn’t he introduce a Charter amendment to restore at-large election of our City Hall heroes? (He probably wouldn’t be elected!) Candidates now spend tens of thousands of dollars on elections, cost taxpayers the $150,000 salaries of four staff members to service 1/11th of our City and County, besides their own $175,000 annual gouging. I recommend a “no” vote if Mahmood’s brainstorm is on the June 2 ballot.

In 1850, Daniel Webster proclaimed: “I shall know but one country …. I was born an American; I shall die an American.” As Board of Education members try to make us all proud of San Francisco public schools, I remind readers that America’s public schools began on April 23, 1635, with establishment of Boston Latin School in Boston, Massachusetts.

May the Lord give us less adversity in 2026 and more amicableness.

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.