‘Temporary’ Government Programs

It’s been said that: “There is nothing quite as permanent as a temporary government program.” And, as we enter income tax month, I’m reminded of someone who observed: “Patrick Henry ought to come back and see what taxation with representation is like.”

Meanwhile, a City Hall task force began to recommend elimination of dozens of boards and commissions which were established to provide wisdom on municipal subjects from public school funding to street sweeping to art, to the status of women in San Francisco to a Youth Commission. This effort began in 2024 with voter approval. A Commission Streamlining Task Force was thereupon created last year with five San Franciscans appointed by the mayor, Board of Supervisors, city administrator, city attorney and city controller.

Former City Controller Ed Harrington is the chairman of the task force which held more than 25 meetings in 2025 and evaluated the need for 152 such citizen groups. Some of them are advisory only and others can act. Last month such citizen group filed a list of the 36 easiest groups to abolish to the Board of Supervisors. The law requires eight (or more) supervisors to approve all 36 such terminations. If not, the board can prepare its own version of 36 by a simple six-vote majority. That would cover 36 commissions previously created by San Francisco voters. Our supervisors will then decide by April 1 which of those commissions they wish to present for voter action on Nov. 3.

Here’s the kicker: The 2025 task force has also recommended term limits of some commissions which can be accomplished by voters in November. The 27-member Art Commission, for example, with three-year terms, could be the subject of term limits. (Its members need to be San Francisco residents, presently.) Maybe that should be changed!

These commissioners are mostly San Franciscans of means who underwrite art events in the City just as the War Memorial Board of Trustees’ 11 members (of which I am one of two military veterans) include patrons of the opera, symphony and ballet. Some commissions haven’t met in years and/or have no members because they’re obsolete as observed by Angela Yip, the city administrator’s “flack,” who asserts “having bodies on the book that effectively do not exist, makes government more confusing and more difficult to navigate.” The Board of Supervisors has until July 24 to submit any measure for the Nov. 3 election. That includes any charter provision modification. The task force automatically goes out of business in 2027.

Incidentally for readers who deplore the size of city government, in 2005 there were 26,900 city employees. By last year, that had increased to 34,800 workers, as Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Gabe Greschler and Noah Baustin reported in the June 26, 2025, San Francisco Standard. Their salaries and other employee benefits constituted 43% of the 2025-2026 city budget, the most employees in our history while our population (supposedly) last year declined to approximately 827,000, according to the California Department of Finance. Meanwhile, Mayor Daniel Lurie and the SF Board of Supervisors confront a 2026-2027 deficit of $877 million! Over the past 20 years, the number of city employees has increased.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), pursuant to the newly amended California Constitution, mailed all SF property owners a notice of a public meeting on Tuesday, April 28, regarding increases in proposed water and sewer rates. It begins at 1:30 p.m. in Room 400, City Hall. Only written protests will be considered by the SFPUC and those must be received by the SFPUC at the hearing on April 28 at Room 400 or before at the PUC, 525 Golden Gate Ave., 13th floor. Only objections (as distinguished from “protests”) received by April 2 at 4:30 p.m. will be considered an objection.

The “fix” is probably in for a 12.6% rate increase in fiscal year 2027 and 12.5% in 2028. The SFPUC claims the average SF bill for water and sewer will still be less than the 2026 bills in L.A. and Santa Clara and “just slightly more than Oakland and San Jose.” Isn’t this wonderful? You can hand-deliver objections to the SFPUC Customer Service Bureau, 525 Golden Gate Ave. in the box labeled “2026 Water and Sewer Rates Written Objections Only.” E-mail, fax or other means won’t be accepted as an objection or protest.

Speaking of Santa Clara, the 49ers-cheerleader “SF Comical,” forgot to inform readers that 49ers owners, who are always willing to pick taxpayers’ pockets for gold, are this time forcing Santa Clara taxpayers to absorb the leasehold cost of their new business office on Great America Parkway, which will be $1.7 million annually.

This is the second year the 49ers (who once played in SF) have tried to sock it to such taxpayers. (Why not demand removal of “San Francisco” from their name?) Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor was warned by me of what would happen with the 49ers if allowed by her city council, which never approved the the 49ers moving of their business office from the stadium Santa Clara taxpayers gave them instead of gold.

Speaking of gold, our presidential draft dodger with his “bone spurs” got the U.S. Mint to approve a commemorative coin featuring the draft dodger himself. It rarely happens with a sitting president, but the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts on March 19, with Trump appointees (or “lackeys”) did so unanimously, telling the U.S. Mint to make it as sizable as possible. Previously, Trump’s waterboys had proposed a one-dollar coin to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S.A. The bipartisan Mint advisory entity, called the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, must, by statute, review such proposal, but has refused to place a Trump coin on its meeting agenda. U.S. law, however, permits the secretary of the Treasury, another Trump hack, to create a gold coin which is how “Bone Spur” is proceeding. Incidentally, the only sitting president on U.S. money was Calvin Coolidge in 1926 for our 150th anniversary as a nation.

Don’t forget “Bone Spur” is the same presidential “genius” who on March 7 claimed the war on Iran was “already won,” as the U.S.A. increased its bombing of Iran while he complains of NATO not joining him. At the same time, Trump unilaterally lifted oil sanctions on Russia and ignored the other six nations of Europe which are North American Treaty Organization allies of our nation.

Finally, society (and especially California) is faced with sexual revelations about Cesar Chavez after whom many public events, roads and buildings are named. Now, many politicians are leaping to substitute Dolores Huerta. I want Army Street restored as that thoroughfare’s moniker, not Huerta or some other non-San Franciscan. Of course, “Air Force Street” would satisfy me.

Last month, a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Joureal caught my eye, to wit: “In 100 years of public education, we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial reading in college.” It was Thomas Paine who, in 1774, was our country’s foremost pamphleteer, and in 1775 wrote: “Nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously and an open and determined declaration for independence.”

I wish you all a happy Passover of eight days commencing April 1, happy Easter on April 5 and Earth Day, which is a holiday by reason of an Act of Congress authored by the late U.S. Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin and the late incomparable Congressman Paul N. “Pete” McClosky from Stanford, and after law school, San Mateo County and the U.S. House of Representatives.

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.