The Start of Voting This Fall

Kurt Vonnegut, the well-read writer, put it strikingly in observing: “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”

September used to be the month I returned to school after being released in the middle of June. That’s gone with the wind. San Francisco public schools opened up for business on Monday, Aug. 17, two weeks before Labor Day. My Napa grandsons, Emmett and Brooks (16 and 12) reported for academic duty in their schools on Aug. 10. Naturally, football practice began even before that.

Voting begins in early October, although Election Day is on Nov. 3. Today, many people don’t show up at their neighborhood voting place. They vote by mail so the current presidential blowhard can accuse Democratic states of cheating the other side with illegalities.

My memory of voting in Syracuse, New York while a child, is that voting officials went out of their way with ill or otherwise handicapped voters to utilize U.S. mail to enable those Americans to participate in democracy.

I respect and ask readers to honor those San Franciscans who open their garage doors to S.F.’s Department of Elections and voting neighbors and the respected civil servants at City Hall’s Department of Elections who process mailed voter envelopes. Thus far, U.S. President “Draft Dodger” Donald Trump’s minions at the U.S. Department of Justice have hurled lawsuits and charges of illegal registration and voting by non-citizens and threatened criminal actions. It’s true that some non-citizens eight years ago were illegally registered to vote, as discovered by a Department of Motor Vehicles audit of a so-called automatic voter registration system, but I have confidence in California Secretary of State Shirley Weber who has justifiably characterized such claims by Trump appointees, including Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon, who went to my alma mater, Dartmouth College. Those claims were rejected by the U.S. District Court and Dhillon has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals. I predict she’ll lose again!

Meanwhile, U.S. attorney voter fraud investigations by another Trump minion, Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney in seven Southern California Counties (including Los Angeles) with 500 attorneys and staff has secured only one conviction involving false voter registration, a 64-year old woman in Marina del Rey who pleaded guilty to paying unhoused people to register by using false addresses.

Proposition G

The local ballot measure in which I’m most interested (and concerned about) is Proposition G, which fosters a compromise that allows pedestrians and bicyclists to use the Upper Great Highway without motor vehicles from Friday at 6 p.m. until Monday at 4 a.m. I strongly urge support by voting “yes!” Ex District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio bears responsibility for abolishing that compromise with a last-minute ballot measure (financed by wealthy adherents) which narrowly passed with 54.73% voter approval in 2024.

I urge readers to vote “yes” on Prop. G. Just look at the data regarding traffic injuries between March 14, 2024, the day the Upper Great Highway was closed to vehicle traffic, to November of the same year. There are certain areas of the neighborhood where traffic injuries increased.

Traffic injuries on Sunset Boulevard increased from 7 to 14 from 2024-2025, (100%), Lake Merced Boulevard from 0 to 2, 20th Avenue from 3 to 5, 22nd Avenue from 5 to 7 (200%) and 39th Avenue from 0 to 3. The total percent increase was 23% from 75 in 2024 to 92 in 2025. That’s why we must vote “yes” on Prop. G and effectuate the pre-2024 compromise!

Sales Tax Increase

We also vote on an initiative to increase the sales tax for 14 years, a half-cent bump in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties but one whole cent in San Francisco or suffer reductions in service. I remind readers that only San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa taxpayers paid to build Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) tracks and trains which began operation in September 1972.

That operation included free tracks and a station in Daly City in 1973. San Mateo County has still not joined the BART District while enjoying additional stations in Colma, South San Francisco, San Bruno and Millbrae. BART’s elected board of directors now demands those sales tax hikes, and threatens closures of its 10 lowest ridership stations, including South San Francisco and San Bruno.

There are 50 stations and stops, including a major stop at San Francisco International Airport (SFO,) which taxi owners and airlines opposed and forced San Franciscans years ago to qualify a local ballot measure that prevailed over bus and taxi moguls’ campaign opposition. San Franciscans, 30 years later, are still being over-charged!

Statewide Updates

The California legislature and California Gov. Gavin “Hairboy” Newsom tried to do that last year with a law making Diwali a public holiday. Diwali is a festival and religious holiday for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains. The legislature passed a bill which allowed public schools and community colleges to close as a paid holiday for employees who could receive eight hours of holiday credit for Diwali. The estimated taxpayer cost of school closures and paid holidays for the day was an estimated $68 million annually for public schools and hundreds of thousands of dollars regarding administration of community colleges. The San Francisco Taxpayers Association and I sued successfully in Sacramento County Superior Court and prevailed, thanks to its attorney, Paul Scott of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. Newsom and the state legislature have appealed to the California Court of Appeals. Because the San Francisco Chronicle cares little about recognizing that taxpayers merit attention, I’ll keep readers informed.

Similarly, readers may wish to know that on July 3, Newsom disclosed our state minimum wage would be increased on Jan. 1, 2027 from $16.90 to $17.40 per hour. The national minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009. Just 1% of all employees get paid $7.25 per hour. Trump, however, presented “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act” which ended federal taxes on overtime and tips for certain qualifying individuals. That means about 6 million people who receive money from tips will henceforth obtain money from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for money paid them in 2025. Some 69 cities mandate minimum wages higher than their state law. Washington D.C. increased its minimum wage to $18.40 per hour from $17.95 per hour and Emeryville, California boosted its minimum to $20.34 per hour this July. An attempt which lost in Congress last year would’ve increased the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. It remains stuck in committee.

Voting Recommendations

I conclude with my recommendations and thoughts regarding those pesky ballot measures. There are 10 local measures from our City Hall heroes and 14 emanate from the state capitol. I take no position on Propositions 3, 5, 6, 37, 38, 39 and 44. I oppose Propositions 1, 2, 4, and 40, and support heartily Propositions 41, 42 (to save Proposition 13), 43 and 45.

Locally, I support Propositions C (contributions to the Housing Fund), and G (The Upper Great Highway compromise). I do not support Proposition J. Currently, San Francisco partially exempts transfers of real property by foreclosure or in lieu of foreclosure from the property-transfer tax, which varies from 0.5% to 6% depending on the transaction price. That tax break was created in 1984 to protect local families who struggle financially. Now, that same tax shelter is also being similarly given to financial entities and corporate lenders when they obtain office towers, large apartment complexes and industrial buildings by foreclosure. San Francisco becomes an outlier by imposing transfer taxes on “distressed lenders who are talking back collateral.” It will create a punitive environment for commercial and residential lending. It penalizes credit unions, banks and other lenders if a borrower defaults and makes lending significantly riskier and more costly than anywhere else in California.

In any event, I wish you a smooth election day, and I recommend that you remember: “A young girl came home from school with two medals after the talent show. The silver medal was for telling knock-knock jokes. The gold medal was for stopping.”

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.