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.
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.
On March 5, 1946, Winston S. Churchill spoke at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, having traveled 1,000 miles with then President Harry S. Truman from Washington D.C. to do so (Churchill also observed: “I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken over me.”)
To ensure taxpayer obliviousness, the Rail Authority claims “real progress” on the project and says almost 80 miles of “guideway” are complete in Madera, Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties, plus “171 miles under design and construction from Merced to Bakersfield.”
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.
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.”
In 2022, before “draft dodger” President Donald Trump, there were about 3.1 million federal employees and about 30,000 City and County of San Francisco employees in a then-municipality of approximately 874,000 residents. San Francisco’s population has now declined to about 827,000 and the number of its local government employees is approximately 30,000. Yet, some City Hall denizens spew propaganda that we need more housing. The mighty mayor, fresh from our recall of Supervisor Joel Engardio, demands “upzoning” of the Richmond and Sunset neighborhoods plus the Marina and North Beach, meaning high-rise apartment and condominium buildings will be vacant in large part like Park Merced and its more than 500 empty units. Stonestown Galleria still hasn’t even broke ground on the 350 units for which it secured building permits three years ago.
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.
As summer fades, I’m reminded that the ideal summer resort is where the fish bite and mosquitos don’t!
Said an old lady to the Internal Revenue Service: “I do hope you will give my money to a nice country.”
“Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage,” thus spoke President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Jan. 28, 1954, for the Republican Lincoln Day dinner across our country.
James Madison expressed it best, meaning governmental power, in a Dec. 2, 1829, speech, to wit, “The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” (Incidentally, such words are inscribed in the Madison Memorial Hall, Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building, Washington, D.C. )
The author remains anonymous, but it could’ve been President Donald Trump or his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who only a mother could love, who declared: “In my whole life I’ve only had one client – my career.”
On Jan. 9, 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy, not yet sworn in as president of the United States, addressed the Massachusetts legislature in Boston and uttered memorable words regarding the “high court of history” deciding fulfillment of responsibilities to our nation. He declared: “Courage – judgment – integrity – dedication – these are the historic qualities which, with God’s help … will characterize our government’s conduct in the four stormy years ahead.”
As our new mayor settles into Room 200 at City Hall, San Franciscans often ask me to grade his performance. He’s certainly chosen an extremely well-qualified person (Staci Slaughter) as his chief of staff, replacing Sean Elsbernd, Esq., a former Board of Supervisors member before ex-Mayor London Breed hired him. Slaughter is a long-time San Francisco Giants executive and daughter of Dan Walters of Cal Matters, who knows more about California politics and government than anyone in our state.
