Category: Commentary

Commentary: Barry Hermanson

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There were a total of 61 candidates for California governor on your June 2 primary election ballot. In addition, there were seven write-in candidates that you may or may not have heard about. How did you vote? Did you support a candidate you really liked because of the positions he or she took on issues? Was your vote influenced by whether or not your candidate had a chance of winning? Did you make your choice based on which candidate is the most popular in opinion polls? Do you rely on political advice from friends and neighbors? Or, are you influenced by the mountain of political literature that arrives in your mailbox and advertisements that flood all types of media?

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

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Last month we learned from a reported City Hall audit that a wily operator, former Chief Assistant Treasurer Tajel Shah, ignored procurement rules to ensure that a $7 million City Hall contract for a new tax collecting system went to tech corporation Mechanical Orchard. The system handles billions of dollars in San Francisco‘s infamous business taxes. City Attorney David Chiu, City Controller Greg Wagner and the Controller’s Auditor of City Services uncovered Shah’s perfidy. Shah never revealed her friendship with the chief revenue officer of Mechanical Orchard whose subcontractor (Ratio PBC) then hired Ms. Shah’s niece. A complaint was thereafter filed by a knowledgeable citizen with the Ethics Commission in late 2024. The San Francisco Standard reported such malefeasance on Sept. 25, 2025. Mechanical Orchard pulled out of contract talk the day before Shah’s perfidy was revealed. Shah resigned on Nov. 21, 2025.

Commentary: Gordon Mar

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District 4 voters deserve to know who is trying to buy influence in our neighborhood election. Recent reporting by Mission Local shows outside spending in our supervisorial race has reached unprecedented levels. This isn’t just about campaign advertising; it’s about a high-stakes clash of interests attempting to dictate the future of our community.

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

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As we reach the pinnacle of our California primary election on June 2 – early voting by mail starts May 4 – the effect of 62 candidates of which 24 are Democrats, 12 are Republican, 19 are “no party preference” (meaning they’re Independents like me!), one Libertarian and one Peace and Freedom who present themselves as worthy of serving four years as our next governor.

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

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Then President-elect Abraham Lincoln in his farewell address in Springfield, Ill., on Feb. 11, 1861, proclaimed, “My friends … I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail.”

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

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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.

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

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It was Thomas Jefferson who declared in an Aug. 4, 1801, letter: “Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.” Oh, how we need in Washington, D.C. those “reformers of error.” Instead, we have a government of men and women (I mean you, Attorney General Pam Bondi) which creates fear among most of the governed.