Local government has a direct effect on our lives in a way that state and federal government doesn’t. It creates parks! It expands transit and maintains roads! It decides what businesses can operate and what housing can be built! It hires police for our neighborhoods and chooses which crimes to prosecute! It’s critical to give local issues the attention they deserve.
Both San Francisco’s citizens and the Board of Supervisors have the ability to put measures on the ballot. The prevalence of these throughout the state is one of the things I find most interesting about California government.
San Francisco has 15 local measures on the ballot for the November 5, 2024 election. And since the 10 lbs of “Vote Yes/No on Prop XYZ” mailers I got didn’t help me decide how to vote on them, I spent some time reading about each measure and summarized my thoughts below.
I’d love to grab a coffee and chat if you think I’m wrong about something here!
Spending on school buildings is exactly what I’d like the government to do. Better school environments lead to better student outcomes, which makes San Francisco a better place to live.
San Francisco continues to see tragic and needless pedestrian injuries and deaths. The street safety aspects of this bond in particular are sorely needed.
Seismic retrofits are also worth the price.
Additionally, the city has been essentially out of shelter space for years. Although San Francisco cannot solve homelessness, this bond will give it an additional tool to partially alleviate it.
Corruption is already investigated by law enforcement agencies. In particular, San Francisco already has an elected district attorney who can conduct investigations and bring charges when appropriate. I’m not sure what problem this would solve.
Placing a cap on the number of commissions that San Francisco can have will not do anything productive on its own. If you want fewer commissions, elect supervisors who will restructure San Francisco’s government instead of enacting an arbitrary limit.
Similar to Proposition D, I do not see why this needs to go to the voters to decide. Let the supervisors pursue reorganizing the government if they deem it appropriate, and keep charter amendments restricted to things that cannot be accomplished in any other way.
San Francisco needs to hire more police officers to meet its staffing targets. This proposition doesn’t do that. Instead, it may encourage some to continue working longer. But that doesn’t solve the long-term issue of police staffing.
The incentives seem wrong here. San Francisco needs to build more housing to change the supply/demand equilibrium. This proposition instead subsidizes rent on existing units, which doesn’t provide any long-term relief.
Additionally, the mayor and supervisors could choose to put this in the budget instead of shifting it to the voters.
I haven’t found a persuasive argument for or against this proposition. How many additional firefighters would San Francisco have to hire if this passes? How much harder does it become to recruit new firefighters if it does not pass?
Without answers to those questions, I’m not in favor of making any changes here.
Similar to Proposition I, I haven’t found a persuasive argument about how this will affect recruitment for these positions.
This appears to be another funding issue that the mayor and supervisors could choose to handle through the normal budgeting process. I do not see why it needs to go all the way to the voters.
I’m a pedestrian most of the time. Although San Francisco has some of the most beautiful car-free spaces in the world, it still needs more.
This measure doesn’t do anything besides close part of the Great Highway. I would like it to go farther and fully transform it into a park. Though, I’ve run down it when it’s closed on the weekends and it’s pretty nice even without any park facilities! But this is a step in the right direction—a giant road practically on the beach does not make San Francisco a better city, but making a walkable area next to the beach does. See the transformation that the downtown waterfront underwent after the Embarcadero Freeway was demolished.
Taxing rideshare companies to encourage riders to take public transit makes sense to me. This is what taxes are for: changing incentives. I want more people to take public transit over cars.
I’m not convinced by arguments that this will raise enough money for Muni to make any meaningful changes.
Two things seem important here:
Overall, I’m not completely confident that the rest of this will have the correct impact, but I am aware that the existing gross receipts tax has caused companies to move elsewhere. Let’s try something new.
This seems like yet another misaligned incentive. If the issue is the eye-wateringly-high amount of student debt in the United States, then we need a nationwide approach to reducing the cost of education. Having San Francisco pay off student loans will not fix it.
I could be convinced that this will help recruit first responders, but haven’t been able to find any data on how it would contribute.
Note that this proposition also does not actually provide any funding for this purpose. It only creates an empty bucket.
While the federal government and many state governments are making it harder to receive reproductive health care, I support San Francisco doubling-down on ensuring access to abortions and emergency contraception. This kind of thing is why I love living here.
Abortion is a deeply-personal and difficult choice. The government shouldn’t be part of that burden.
Those are all the local measures that qualified to be on the San Francisco ballot this year. There are also candidates for elected offices and 10 state propositions on the ballot.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 5. Don’t forget to vote!