Tag: Quentin L. Kopp

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

By on • ( Leave a comment )

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: Quentin L. Kopp

By on • ( 1 Comment )

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

By on • ( Leave a comment )

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

By on • ( Leave a comment )

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

By on • ( 2 Comments )

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.

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

By on • ( Leave a comment )

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.

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

By on • ( 2 Comments )

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.

Commentary: Quentin L. Kopp

By on • ( 15 Comments )

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. )